#I'm sorry lol I just got hit with the feelings

[foodtruckery]

I left a comment on Combat Baby because that fic is so awesome, but I’m here because I’m thinking about Stan in short short again. Ford would go insane, especially if Stan was wearing them *in public* where everyone can see what’s *his*. I think it’s even funnier if they’re both aware of their feelings but think the other isn’t into them/aware, so Ford is gripping his hands trying to act like normal brother and like he doesn’t want to rail Stan 10 ways to Sunday so everyone knows he’s taken. Meanwhile Stan is like “God I’m such a freak for wanting Ford to think I’m hot-“

I REMEMBER YOU GUEST ANON! and omg thank you so much for the kind words again, truly!! and this is. lol. maybe not exactly what you asked for, and i'm sorry for that, but i HAVE been thinking about the damn short shorts since you first commented and this is what we ended up with hahaha! i wrote this with either 30's stan & ford in mind or 30's stan and 60's ford, but hey, y'all read whatever you wanna read!

"Oh, hey, I couldn't find the exact coffee you mentioned on the list, but I grabbed something that seemed close? Got a small bag, so if it's shitty, we won't have too much of it to get through, but I figured somethin' was better than nothin' on the coffee front."

Ford was certain that in any other circumstances, he would be annoyed by that. There were complaints swimming up in the back of his mind - Did you even look? Did you bother to ask an associate? - but they slid away before he'd even tried to form any words. That was probably for the best. His tongue felt leaden and too thick in his mouth, and he wasn't sure he would be able to make it cooperate enough to speak if he'd tried. Even getting a short sound of acknowledgement out was more difficult than it should have been. 

When Ford didn't throw a fit over the coffee, Stan continued on, describing some additional adjustments he'd made to the shopping list and what he was planning to cook for dinner. Ford didn't really hear any of it. Hell, he couldn't even remember why he'd come upstairs in the first place. A question, probably, considering the sound of Stan coming back to the cabin and putting away groceries had drawn him to the kitchen in the first place. 

But he'd walked in, caught sight of his brother stashing jars and cans in an overhead cabinet, and his brain had started slowly filling with static. 

The crop top was bad enough. He'd seen it several times at this point –  enough times that he should be well used to the damn thing by now. But it was hard not to be distracted by the soft, exposed stretch of Stan's midsection or the way the hair on his stomach tapered down into the band of his pants. 

Jeans usually. It was usually jeans. Stan  had a tendency to spend the evenings around the cabin in his boxers, but Ford had only ever seen him pair the too-short t-shirt with jeans. 

He was not wearing jeans today. He was wearing a pair of shorts. 

A pair of shorts that pinched around his full waist and made his stomach spill over the elastic. 

A pair of shorts that stopped alarmingly high on Stan's thighs, exposing nearly every inch of hair and skin on his legs. 

A pair of shorts that fit just a shade too tight around Stan's ass, and were borderline indecent when he bent over to put something in the fridge. 

A pair of shorts that belonged to Ford. 

The realization hit him with all the subtlety of a taser, burning across his skin and threatening the stability of his knees. 

"Do you already have a place where you're keepin' shit like–"

"Where did you find those?" 

Ford wasn't sure if it was the fact that he hadn't spoken at all since he'd come into the kitchen, or if it was the raggedness of his voice, but Stan jerked his head up from the bag he'd been pulling non-perishables from. 

"What?" 

"Your–" Ford's voice stuck on the back of his tongue, and he worked his throat until he managed to swallow, curling his fingers over the back of the nearest chair to make sure he stayed upright. "Those shorts. Are those mine?" 

Stan frowned at him, confused, before glancing down at himself. "Oh! Yeah, I think so? I mean, I found 'em in the back of a drawer upstairs. It's like a hundred goddamn degrees out there, and all I got on me is denim right now."

Ford felt like someone was holding a livewire to his hypothalamus. 

"You– You wore those, my shorts, out? In public?" 

Stan squinted at him. "Yeah. Isn't that what I said?" and then, when Ford didn't respond right away, Stan shifted uncomfortably. "Uhh....shit. I'm sorry? I hadn't seen you wearing 'em or anything, so I didn't think you'd care if I borrowed them."

Ford could feel where his nails were digging impressions into the chair's finish, but he couldn't pull his eyes away from the shadow of Stan's bulge, entirely too apparent in those little green shorts. He'd been outside in those. In town, even. He'd gone grocery shopping in half of a shirt and shorts that had been snug on Ford before he'd even gotten his second PhD. 

Who had he run into? Even if the store had been completely empty otherwise, there would at least have been a cashier to see his brother parading around like an exhibitionist. And the odds were entirely too high that other patrons would have been present. 

Since Stan had arrived in Gravity Falls, he had better inundated himself with the townsfolk over several weeks than Ford had ever managed (or tried to manage) over several years. It made sense, Stan had always been the "people person" between them. But Ford also noticed the way Susan Wentworth always found a reason to nudge Stan's arm or pat his shoulder when they stopped by the diner. He saw the way Greg Valentino stole too many lingering glances when he thought he wasn't being observed in turn. 

Had either of them been there? Would Greg have seen him crouching down to puruse a lower shelf? If so, it would be impossible not to see the full shape of Stan's ass and the impression of his sack squeezed into so little material. Had Susan been shopping at the same time? Would she have devised a reason to put her hand against the exposed skin on Stan's waist to shuffle past him?

"Jesus Christ, are you havin' a stroke over there or what, Sixer?" 

Stan's voice snapped Ford out of the lurid green hypotheticals, and he cleared his throat. "I'm fine."

"Fine? You sure about that?" Stan said, sounding unconvinced and unimpressed. "Look, I said I was sorry about wearing your dumb shorts. Can I at least finish putting the damn groceries away, or are you gonna stand there scowling until I change?"

"No!" Ford said, entirely too quickly if the single eyebrow creeping up Stan's forehead was anything to go by. "I mean, you don't have to change. I was just...surprised."

"Yeah, I'll say," Stan snorted, turning back to the last bag of groceries. "Dinner plans all right at least?"

Ford ran his tongue out over his lips when Stan turned to the cupboard. He watched the green material shift with his stretching, the white piped hem hiking up just a hair too close to the curve of his ass. 

"Yes, sure." 

"And ya don't care about the coffee?" Stan asked, and Ford swallowed down hard on whatever noise tried to crawl up his throat when Stan adjusted the waistband of the shorts, pulling the material briefly higher and tighter.

"Hmm? No, I don't believe so..."

Ford very nearly had to reach down and adjust himself in the confines of his own pants when Stan leaned over and reached for something on the kitchen counter, giving Ford almost enough room to peek under the hem of those god forsaken shorts. It was a miracle he hadn't pulled up curls of varnish with his nails already. 

"You gettin' a good look back there?" Stan asked, shifting his weight between his feet in a way that made the shorts creep up between his thighs. 

"Yes, of course I– Stan!" Ford choked when the question caught up to him, and he could feel heat burning up his throat and across his face. 

Stan was smirking at him from over his shoulder now, giving his ass a much more deliberate wiggle. "Christ, Sixer, you are not subtle at all." 

Ford stammered, trying to think beyond the curl of Stan's lips and the crease at the top of his thighs that he could just make out. 

"...Jesus, you're also thick," Stan muttered to himself before reaching back and plucking pointedly at the waistband of the shorts. "You gonna come over here and see what's under them, or what?" 

"Oh..oh!" Ford realized, clearing his throat, though it did little to help how rough his voice felt when he finally rounded the chair. "God, yes." 

[theriverbeyond]

#SPOILERS

ok so I watched arcane s2 act 1 and my immediate reaction is mostly mixed -- I think there was gorgeous art and strong individual emotional beats but I think it all got watered down by everything else -- I did LIKE it, I guess (?) and am reserving full judgement for the whole season until the next 2 acts release, but yeah.

warning for SPOILERS and also critiques below:

the deluge of new characters I have no reason to care about, and whom i am given no specific reason to care about (besides the itty bitty one, and that's just bc they are a child) does not hit. I dojt get it. why are these people special or chosen for the strike squad. they're just randos, and fangirls and one of them is a random dude you all seem to have grabbed off the street (?) also who tf is amara. was she even in season 1 at all?

the integrated music videos felt significantly LESS integrated this season than the last. last season it felt like the "music video" segments were just like.... really well done and stylized parts of the show, here they feel more like clipshows or standalone music videos during which the actual show takes a pause. some of them do advance the plot and all are gorgeously done but like, I dunno. feels a bit much, honestly, especially in a show that NEEDS to be incredibly economical with its time

relating to that, it feels as if nothing really happened at all besides setup, and I guess that was perhaps narratively necessary, but using THREE episodes of a 9 episode season to set up the plot feels..... REALLY wasteful, especially when i feel like those 3 episodes didnt have a tight plot OR tight character focus. everything feels very loose. the timeskip between s1 and s2 is like.... idk! why did we skip that. why didnt we just skip farther. how is Vi suddenly beloved by topside those bitches hate her!!! anyway. there is a lot happening and a lot being set up and, as i said before, a LOT of new characters being introduced and I'm not very emotionally invested in most of them. The differences between act 1 s1 and act 1 s2 are feeling incredibly stark right now.

To me, Arcane has always been a character driven work, so I can forgive it of plot issues if the emotional focus and character arcs are strong. I.... didn't feel that here! and even the big character moments didn't quite hit. for me. like ok CaitVi kissed. but like. they've known each other for a week? Why are they acting married? The most resonant and emotionally intense part of the CaitVi arc in act 1 was when Caitlyn HIT HER with HER GUN, in a way that felt deeply reminiscent of how encorcers probably hit Vi when she was in prison. And that was like at the very end. sorry but the kiss just did not hit for me. sorry. so sorry. you can kill me with Hammers if yuo want to

A lot of characters seem to be making plot centric decisions that simply do not feel within their character. Vi becoming an enforcer -- I literally do not care about the game, it is emotionally inconceivable for show!Vi to do be super down with gassing the undercity. Jinx and Sevika suddenly being buddy buddy is weird, even thought i LIKE it, it just feels.... fast. Jinx's arc, emotionally, feels the best and most consistant, and I feel like there's so much setup happening it isn't given the space it needs to breathe. Caitlyn becoming a facist is like.... fine, I guess. I really like the emotional conflict this inserts to the story but again it just feels inconsistant with her lifelong characterization as someone who is out of place on the force. also didn't she actually get fired lol. why is there a Kiramann supercomputer.

a lot of stuff just feels emotionally really off. Cait going wild with anger in her grief is fine, but then it feels.... bad that the redhead bitch who's CHILD Jace KILLED last season is a villian for wanting revenge also? maybe this is just an inherent weakness of the genre. or the source material. or whatever. i mean season 1 was pretty enforcer-critical at least in the first 2 acts. sorry for wanting a story made by people with money to be consistant in its negative framing of cops :/

l am deeply confused about the Noxian angle here -- I think it serves a meta narrative function of giving Topside and Bottom (aka, all the characters we care about, who hate each other rn) a common enemy to rally against, but there is just. a lot going on, honestly. too much? only time will tell. this all makes me deeply concerned/curious about the governmental system of Piltover though. why is Caitlyn like the town King now. why are they not electing new councilors.

don't even get me started on viktor being undercity jesus

Anyway. things I liked: the opening, especially its contrast to season 1. Jinx & Vi's fistfight was incredible I just wish Vi felt more emotionally consistant BEFORE it happened. I really LIKE jinx being given essentially a second chance in the form of saving and caring for a child in a situation that puts HER in a reversed position from her youth. like OK it definitely feels way out of left field but like, that's fine I guess. I like what they're doing with the kid. the art is gorgeous as always. I love how the enforcer squad is represented like hunting hounds, coming out of the gas. unfortunately i think their gas masks are wildly erotic. anyway. what was i saying?

that's my immediate thoughts. I'm definitely open for comments/explaining, but i really don't like the "it makes sense if you play the game/pay attention to LoL meta" kind of explanations I see thrown around -- it's a narrative weakness to be relying on viewers to know LoL lore, especially on the heels of season 1, which didn't need viewers to know anything.

[brainfilehasstoppedworking]

I hate it when I'm happy one second and then the next I get hit with the most awful feeling of self-hatred. I hate it. I just wanna be happy. But I can't let myself be happy, never, because I hate myself too much to care about my own happiness. Even when I do try, I just can't.

I wanna just have a moment of pure happiness and joy, no other negative emotion. Just...happiness. Because I just wanna be happy. I wanna be happy and I hate pretending I am to those I care about because I don't want them to worry and I don't wanna bother them. Even if I let it slip while joking around, I still just have fun joking around despite wishing I had someone to help me. Even if I can't be happy long enough without hating myself again.

Ah, well. I hope to find happiness one day, maybe in someone who I'll call my partner or maybe in a job I like.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

when I want to write something self indulgent to give me all the angsty and cuddly hurt/comfort feels but I can't because I end up feeling guilty because I'm seeking after feels that I feel in an inappropriate place because my mom told me one time when I was 15 that I shouldn't search that out or it's probably sexual sin but it confuses me because ALL the feels happen that way for me even if it's entirely platonic and nonsexual and so I don't know if it's okay to want to write to that because apparently all pleasure of any sort, even over platonic stories, is sexual or comes with a possibly probably sexual feeling and I also am having a hard time figuring out what's genuine conviction from God and what's just my anxiety/OCD/perfectionism/fear of failure

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[telesodalite]

Sort of a ramble, sort of me just writing my thoughts out while I'm stuck with writer's block, but I keep thinking about how Fulcrum was in stasis for roughly 3 million years??

Like, that's a long time, even for Cybertronians. Not a really long time, not an entire lifespan. But still, it's a large chunk of a normal lifespan just gone. Poof.

One second you're crawling across the pockmarked terrain of an alien planet, surrounded by the sound of gunfire, and the shouting and screaming before and after each earth shuddering impact of another k-con hitting the ground. And then it's quiet. You're not there anymore. You're drifting somewhere between not alive and just asleep. Preserved somewhere in the background of a doomed body, ignored by time and space, still here, but also not.

And then there's sound. Not gunfire. Not shouting or screaming. Not the sounds that'll haunt you till your dying days, your own death sentence pounding in your head. No. Just voices, talking, standing out against a silent, dead world. Wondering. Joking. Bickering. Familiar. Just, not familiar to you. And you're awake. Pulled back from the nothingness you've been frozen in, consciousness tugged forwards with the yank of a fuel pump and the nearness of life.

These two moments are roughly 3 million years apart, but only minutes, maybe even seconds, to him. From a hectic harrowing battlefield, to an old silent graveyard in one blink.

How long did it take to really sink in? I mean, he seems to just roll with it. He doesn't seem particularly bothered. But like, what happened outside of what we see? How did he really feel?

Also, his body aged without him. While his mind preserved itself, freezing him as he was right then, his body was left to weather Clemency for all those years. No wonder it crumbled to dust when he jumped off the world sweeper. It's probably a miracle of some kind that it didn't just fall apart each time someone leaned on him.

And even after they rebuild him, give him a better, newer body. His spark, it's casing, all the irreplaceable core bits that make up their inner bodies, it aged in the time without him. Does he feel it? Does it make his body even more foreign to him?

Then he's also a technician with information that's 3 million years out of date. Lucky him that the scavengers probably weren't working with top of the line material. But still it's gotta be weird when faced with anything brand new, because a lot can change and progress in 3 million years, and now some of the knowledge he once prided himself in is obsolete.

Besides those things, his view of the galaxy, of the war, of their kind, of other kinds, is one of the few things actually pointed out when it comes to him being stuck in the past. So, how often were his old views challenged? Facts of life he held close proved to no longer true? There's 3 million years worth of new science, new beliefs, new words, new terms, new views.

And sure, some of it can be familiar, because they're an ever evolving kind, and they have patterns, core beliefs, repeating behaviors, but a lot of it's gonna be unfamiliar at the same time, because it's 3 million years worth of catch up, it's not like missing last week's trend.

In a way, it makes him a living relic of a bygone era for Decepticons. It would've been really interesting to have had that explored a little more.

[dandyshucks]

i Love pkmn but i love it as a worldbuild. when i play the game its just bc i like exploring the world and the critters. and i feel like everyone else who likes pkmn are all ppl who Love the games and competitive parts of it. so i feel a little embarrassed about not being a game-lover and competition-lover... i simply enjoy the world and the silly creatures 😭😭

[jichanxo]

hiii jichan, long time no senseific asks from me... am kinda interested why you’ve thought the first kiss scene you wrote several says ago will have such, uh, destructive impact to the other plot points. i mean, it suddenly felt natural for them to kiss earlier than you planned them to, or 👀 (sry i’m awkward, can’t think of another way to convey that i. really appreciate your work)

(context for everyone else. my complaining was in the tags)

hi againnnnn :D well the short answer is that i'm probably being over-dramatic, but since a kiss is a big deal i gotta look over the stuff after that scene with new eyes and make sure all of it checks out with the new context

(more under the cut + general senseific updates for the curious)

it's their second kiss (so far), and i threw it in around the middle after shuffling around some plot points (the plot point shuffling is definitely going to be more, uh, destructive than the kiss is anyway, so i am just being over-dramatic), but uhhh... well it's an early release of tension and expression of yagami's frustration towards kitakata than i originally intended so... that's gonna change how their dynamic is going to feel afterwards until the tension is resolved completely (i.e. they sort their shit out)

i'd just placed those plot points in their new spots and saw a gap in the middle of my fic and was Struck By An Urge so now this kiss scene exists with only a vague idea of what the context behind it will be. ...well, i'll write it when i get to it, i suppose. but it was a lot of fun writing something exciting and new for senseific!

but now i gotta get back to the stuff i actually have to do 😔 which is mostly dance club stuff right now. i am thankfully actually making progress on that front. and later i also gotta check some stuff with the robotics club for a short part in chp 1 and 2. and just give everything a general look for cohesiveness.

chp 1 is, by my judgement, very close to its finished form (i just need to do that short robotics club part and general tweaking)

chp 2 still has quite a ways to go, but i've got big chunks of dance club where i want them now, alongside the existing kuwagami stuff (which is the other focus of that chapter). i also need robotics club stuff here but it's pretty minimal rn

chp 3 is.... well the front half has a direction (resolving the dance club), and then it gets a bit lost. (on a related note, those re-homed plot points start to get placed around here). my focus right now is to get the dance club stuff done and leave this problem to be solved later. when i move onto the robotics club, i'm hoping to see what comes up naturally. for now, i gotta focus on the immediate tasks and all that.

[tenuous separation between chapters 3/4 depending on where 3 ends naturally when i finish writing it]

chp 4 is where the new kiss scene is. and a bit of old writing of where i am generally expecting kuwagami stuff to go. around this point is where things get even further away from a readable state, so i won't go on. ....if their second kiss is in this chapter, feel free to take a guess at when their first will be. hehe.

senseific currently has a working title. chapters 1-3 have titles that i think are not gonna get changed, cause i'm attached to em (but you never know, right?)

general senseific update aside, since that kiss is around (what is currently) chp 4, i am eventually going to have to go over the older writing around that point and make sure it all matches the vibe

[beesorcery]

google how do i tell my dad that the reason i keep bringing up elon musk's transphobia isn't that i've got gen z political tunnel vision that makes me blind to his "innovation" in electric cars but because i am desperately crying out for you as the father of a trans child to feel just as outraged and angry as i am that that man has so much power

[phantastragoria]

do you have a favourite portrayal of a character in the gotg game!! who is it and why <3

Oh I think they're all great honestly!!! Part of why I love the game so much is that genuinely, the whole team + supporting characters are written with such obvious love of the source material and equal attention between them all. When I see comments of people saying who their favorite character was from the game and the answer always being different from each person I'm like!! That's how it SHOULD be!!! They're the Guardians of the Galaxy (plural) the focus shouldn't all fall on a singular character like most other GotG media usually ends up as 😭

The two (sorry I can't pick just one) whom I think benefit the most from the game though are Drax and Gamora because they're almost always sidelined both in-and-out of universe by most of the various writers (especially as of late) and in turn the viewers/readers. I've been told plenty of times that they're the most boring members of the "main" team, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! The amount of love the game versions get (by the few who've played it at least) proves that 🥺

I've never really liked 616 Drax shifting to being a complete clown during the 90s and such (and even less so when the MCU followed along 💀) So I appreciate the game taking a bit of his seriousness from the DnA run and just making him struggle with nuance and context clues in a less exaggerated way (autistic Drax I still believe in u) and I feel the focus put on him and how losing his original family + the aftermath deeply affected him hits pretty hard here because it's treated very seriously and shown in depth, especially with how his family (wife) gets actual focus. I cannot tell you anything about Yvette in comparison to Hovat, who actually seemed to have had a personality lol (AND she was on their village's council like omg imagine having more to you than just being The Housewife) Though I will say I flip and flop on my thoughts about Heather being disconnected from Drax's life in this universe... The TLDR is that I think his arc here specifically works stronger when he has to come to terms with losing his entire family and accepting the life he currently has with the Guardians. BUT!!! I very much appreciate that Heather is still confirmed to exist within this universe, even if that means her dad issues would have to be dealt with in a different context if we ever get to see her.

Also? Shoutout to the writers actually bringing up the intense paranoia that always kneecapped 616 Drax but having that be a turning point in his backstory here, with that conversation he has with Peter where he talks about how he was becoming so paranoid of everyone being a chitauri/Thanos conspirator to the point of literally turning into an obsessed maniac like Thanos, and realizing that he desperately needed to turn his life around, it's so ough.

Out of the already many great conversations throughout the game, I think the ones with him are the most poignant. My favorite scene in the whole game is Drax and Pete's little moment on Knowhere... makes me go wahhh

(l also love that out of everyone on the team, it's his headspace that we quite literally get to go into. You KNOW that if this was any other media it'd be going into Rocket or Groot's head and likely treated as a joke.)

And oh my god, Gamora...

I find it so extremely refreshing that her role in the plot doesn't revolve purely around the men in her life, and instead, it's nearly exclusively her connection with other women. Or in the most direct obstacle she has to deal with, being how she starts projecting to the millionth degree on Nikki's situation for reminding her of what happened to her and Nebula. I find that infinitely more fascinating as a reading of her character rather than just dating drama or her arc getting completely overtaken by a man's instead.

And especially in her friendship with Mantis, who, despite having all these futures she's constantly seeing and having to navigate, still makes time to do her best to help her 🥺 From saving her life and being the one who put her on the path to healing on Lamentis, to getting her to join the Guardians and still checking in on her when she's able 😭 Friendship between women can be so powerful... u love to see it (🏳️‍🌈)

I also find it nice that there's this emphasis on her recovering mentally, and the comparison between Thanos essentially teaching her to just Deal with the shit in her life through very simplistic meditation versus the priests of Pama actually teaching her something to help soothe the mind :^( and that she still has moments of relapsing essentially. I find that to be a realistic take on recovery because that's just part of the journey since healing is not linear... and I think it's very sweet that she finds comfort in collecting something ---girly--- like dolls. Love to see a person reclaim a part of their childhood that they weren't allowed to experience. And how she's allowed to make BAD JOKES?? Imagine a woman being written to have multiple dimensions, crazy and absolutely unthinkable, I know.

There's this extremely specific theme in relation to Gamora across media that's been rattling around in my brain since first playing the game. When near the end during the revisit to Knowhere, she's about to completely lose it when Peter tries talking -for- her on what she's so upset about before immediately shooting him down, and she explains what happened between her and Nebula and she starts crying. It really struck me right then that she's never given a moment to cry elsewhere (or in the 616's case, the quite literal inability to.) aside from her shedding a Single Manly Tear (Original Sin) or a single moment out of legit fear (MCU 💀) because she's a hashtag Strong Independant Woman who can't be vulnerable etc etc. But for her to cry in front of the people she's come to care about, It gives her a moment of true vulnerability that I don't think she's allowed ever in most other media.

That and all of the above hits hard and is what makes me genuinely believe that the writers cared about her in the narrative and tried to do right by her when every other bit of media really hasn't nor cared to the majority of the time since the 90s :'^/ Brings a tear to my eye that she's allowed to just... exist in the narrative on her own merits and not on what she can provide to someone else's story.

[anonyanonymouse]

🙈

[giantkillerjack]

Ya know. I spent most of my life with horrible painful soul-crushing social anxiety.

And after about 25 years of continuous hard work, suddenly, people started pointing out - to my utter bafflement - that I had, in fact, achieved my lifelong dream of being charismatic. I'm 29 now; I feel comfortable in most social situations, and it is a very rare person whom I cannot make laugh.

I am, undoubtedly, finally, charismatic.

But do you know what I found?

I found that now that I have an understanding of which social rules serve which functions -- Now that I have an understanding of just how much damage my awkwardness was doing to people, well,

I found that, actually, my awkwardness never really hurt anyone at all. People were just judgmental dicks to me about it.

Now that I have the skill-level to (most of the time) creatively vocalize what is in my head as soon as I think it and without fear, I can confirm once and for all what I had always suspected:

I was worth talking to when I was quiet.

I was worth talking to when I was awkward, and when the words in my head took time and patience to hear, and when most of my jokes didn't land. I was worth talking to the whole time.

So I just... I hope that if you've ever wondered whether you are worth communicating with, the answer is yes. Absolutely yes. Each of us has a soul worth sharing - and if you and I were talking, I would happily wait for you to speak (or communicate in other ways) without condescending, and I would never shame you for that harmless awkwardness that so many people feel the need to violently stomp out.

You are worth talking to. You just are. And you deserve people who will speak to you with kindness, with patience, and with the basic immutable respect owed to all people.

(I talk about this with some frequency, both on tumblr and in real life. At some point, maybe I'll gather all my thoughts on the matter into one post. At some point, I wrote about my personal experience trying to build my social skill. But I felt the need to say at least a little bit tonight after seeing this other lovely post, and I'm glad I did. It will happen again.)

[stromer]

who else up pondering how the hell quinn went to college?????

[stellacadente]

i guess i need to have a "god i'm so awful and selfish and wrong and shameful for having attempted suicide" moment at least once a day for the foreseeable future

[keeps-ache]

was up til 4 writing last night woohooooo :3

[mad-hunts]

after hearing what jervis had to say, although it was an impulse he didn't want to give into, all jack could do was turn his face downwards. the act of relating to someone saying something like that about themselves and being able to empathize with them — it made his throat sting, as jack had drawn up the proper dosage for someone of jervis's size of both meds. the pain-reliever was injected into the IV first before he had to stop.

jack still wasn't looking at the other while he spoke to him, ❝ that's not true. i may not know you personally, but your life is valuable. if you spend enough time around people who treat you as if you're just a bother to them, though? you start to believe stuff like that in my personal experience. ❞ it was only when he was finished with having the cyclizine (the anti-vertigo medicine) join the other meds in his IV that he finally looked up. and directly at jervis, too, while squeezing the bag of it. why would he be asking for ketamine?

jack might not be so good at remembering all of the pharmaceuticals his dad just hoped he would memorize, but he knew that ketamine was pretty notorious for causing hallucinations. shaking his head was an almost instantaneous reaction once he recalled something and tried to keep his tone light-hearted. ❝ no, i'm afraid we don't have any of that here. what you really need is food anyways; your body seems to be running off of just hopes and dreams right now, after all. no offense, ❞ jack smiled a bit sheepishly at that before turning his back to jervis.

deciding to just get it over with, he then disposed of the needles in the sharps container in the room once his feet had successfully carried him there. this allowed jack a moment to drop the smile he'd put on and stare at the wall in confusion. because even though it wasn't really his business to ask jervis about the ketamine, in his opinion, it was still perplexing. this was of course after jack had given the man the washcloth he'd carried with him. he supposed now that he'd learned a bit too much about nico, that jervis was now the person he was wondering about.

and i say this because he seemed different. not in a bad way, but from an emotional standpoint. the rest of jack's family always seemed so reserved at the best of times. then unfeeling, at the worst. but here jervis was seemingly intentionally trying to connect with jack. it made him feel less like an outsider than he usually did, which he was thankful for. jack only blinked at the idea of lewis carroll also being a mathematician. he honestly never would've guessed he had both an analytical and creative mind. that was just further evidence that it was easy for people to get swept up in seeing only one facet of a person, jack supposed.

whoever jervis's wife might've been, she must've been smart. a small smile tugged at his lips as the other talked about her liking for puzzles and wanting to pursue different intellectual challenges. jack decided to only ask him a short question, then, ❝ it sounds like you knew her like the back of your hand. how long were you two together? ❞ the smile that was on his face soon dissipated just like that, however, when the topic of miscarriages was brought up. oh... that was devastating. jack didn't even know what to say to that.

he turned his attention to his tarot deck due to being at a complete loss as to what he should say. jack's breath caught in his throat at the apology, nodding as a way of saying 'thanks.' ❝ yeah. i'm sorry too, honestly. ❞ that felt like the best way to convey his feelings about it at that point. it wasn't that he was bitter about it, but saying 'it's okay' never felt right to him. jack lifted up the table and chair one by one to move them directly next to jervis's bedside. and then, it felt as if his heart was being squeezed. ❝ we were. julien was always looking out for me and although i was three years younger than him, i always tried to look out for him. ❞

jack spread out all of the cards in a fan-like pattern with one hand upon the table. he cleared his throat to try to maintain his composure as he said, ❝ i try to, ahh, talk to him sometimes even though he's not here. which does strangely help. and allowing myself to feel all the things that come with grief, then letting them go has been like... going from being swallowed by the waves in a shipwreck to surviving one. ❞ jack blinked up at jervis, smiling briefly before running his hand along the cards.

❝ while we've got time to spare, do you want me to read your past, present, and future? it could be therapeutic. ❞

“Both. Please. Although, you needn’t worry about me fainting; I’m not worth the trouble or the concern.”

Jervis folded his arm across his eyes; counted the seconds as he tried to focus on his breathing. The five senses technique wouldn’t do him much good with his present state, as erratic as his thought process currently was; as battered and muggy as his body felt.

“Maybe even a dash of ketamine, if it’s possible? Though I understand if that’s something you don’t have on hand.” A joke at his own expense; pitch-black, crashing and burning.

White walls, white ceiling, white floor. Everywhere, the gleam of white. The scent of antiseptic choking like mothballs. Good old Vitamin K, thin and watery. Enough pills forced down his throat to incapacitate a warhorse. Which will it be today, Tetch, IV or up your nose?

Not entirely a joke, either, if we were being completely honest here. But the boy didn’t need to know that. Pathetic. As though you weren’t wretched enough… get over yourself. Are you that much of a coward?

He didn’t want to look at Jack’s face, couldn’t fathom how the boy would possibly react. Didn’t want to consider it.

Instead, he accepted the washcloth with a faint, grateful hum and carefully dabbed at his mouth, blotting away every bit of blood he could taste. It almost reminded him of how Alice would use sponges to wipe away errant streaks of paint on her canvases—

Jervis cut the thought off before it could finish maturing. It was a wonder those mental shears hadn’t blunted, with how much he’d been using them of late… He shifted his focus on the comments the other made about the Carroll quote. A very faint grin quirked the side of his face; blink and you’d miss it.

“Correct… though I suppose it’s just a matter of perspective, really. Carroll was also a mathematician, but not many people outside academia tend to think about or focus on that particular facet of his legacy. Quite brilliant… geometry, linear and matrix algebra…” He moved his arm, gazed at a hairline crack in the ceiling.

“My wife would frequently read and re-read his essays, after I introduced them to her.” Pale, scarred fingers swept his sweaty hair off his brow. “She was mad for Sudoku and logic puzzles, always looking for ways to challenge herself intellectually…”

Jervis straightened the chain from where it tangled around his neck, carefully tucked it back beneath his shirt; out of sight but not out of mind. “… she’d had two miscarriages, before our daughter was born; I guess the equations and the rules were her way of channeling it; all the pain and sadness and self-blame…”

His voice trailed off again, and he shrugged. There was no point to any of this; he hoped Jack had enough sense to just dismiss it as delusion or fatigue-induced rambling, and ignore it all. He couldn’t rightly say why his thoughts turned in that direction, and he certainly wasn’t looking for any sympathy or pity. He could barely keep his own eyes open, as it was. But there seemed to be an air of warmth and easiness around Jack; in sharp contrast to his sister and father.

In any case, Jervis’ attention diverted as Jack’s shell bracelet rattled softly around his wrist. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmured; nothing in his tone facetious or contrived. Merely a sense of pure, genuine empathy embroidered those four words; infusing them like a cloud of purple mist.

He let out a soft breath and shook his head slightly. “Did you have a close bond?” Thoughts of his uncle Stephen and father, Simon, danced in his mind; their uncomfortable silences and lengthy, strained strolls. Memories flickered like shadows, each one a reminder of the distance that had grown between them over the years.

More often than not, the air between them was thick with the lingering scent of pipe and cigarette smoke, enveloping them like a veil. Each moment felt like a thread in a tapestry woven with both love and resentment.

Two sides of the same coin… but then again, when was family ever perfect?