#Sharing my own story and thoughts

[thatonebirdwrites]

This dude has been getting the word out about LongCovid. His articles are fantastic and I recommend all of them. His digging into the research is excellent.

This talk is lovely, and he tackles the impact of Covid in an amusing way.

He digs into the anger and guilt. He's done so much for the community, and this talk digs into his work. Digs into the pain and suffering so many turn a blind eye to.

Thank god for him.

I am exhausted, I am isolated, I am often forgotten by community, I cannot get out on my own anymore. I have an energy-limited disease that often leaves me bedridden.

I understand being exhausted by this, but me and tens of millions of others can't escape it. So we talk about it because we need support. We need resources. We need community, and yet society has essentially abandoned us.

I have LongCovid. It is a nightmare. It has destroyed my mobility, destroyed my immune system, and restarted up chronic conditions that had been in remission.

(Yes, Covid hurts the immune system -- see the link at the end with the database of studies, the sources are in there. T-cells in particular are damaged by Covid, and those are crucial for the immune system.)

LongCovid doesn't really go away. I've had it for over three years.

Covid's ability to restart diseases in remission (even cancer!) is not talked about enough.

One of my close friends died because Covid brought her cancer out of remission; she said to remind everyone that if she dies, it was because of LongCovid. (Again see that link to the sources for the research on how covid does this, I do not have the health to input in all the links directly.)

There are tens of millions of children and adults with LongCovid. And yes, children are impacted in harmful ways.

The denial and abandonment has made an entire generation of immuno-compromised kids, and no one knows yet how that will impact their development. What we do know is that Covid and LongCovid does negatively impact children's bodily systems.

Not masking, not vaccinating, not funding research to fight Covid and LongCovid, not crafting more reliable and accurate covid tests -- all of this is killing and disabling entire generations.

Why is this okay?

Surely people are not okay with mass death and disablement? Surely people are not that uncaring and callous?

And yet I have had people try to rip off my mask. Who gleefully tell me they do not mask and do not care to mask. That goes beyond denial. That is violence. Yes, not everyone is that horribly violent, but the alarming amount of people who are? The alarming amount of people in positions of power like that?

It's anger-inducing but also terrifying.

I get how hard it is to face difficult things. But if we do not face the hard things, we cannot move forward and we end up complacent in eugenics and mass death and disablement.

We can't ever build a better world until we care for one another.

But we cannot care for one another unless we engage in pandemic mitigations like masking, vaccination, air filtration, washing hands, and building better and more accurate tests.

Community cannot happen without these layers of protection.

So when people tell me they don't mask, this is what I hear: "I am either in denial or I do not care about those around me or about my own health."

I'd like to believe people care. I'd like to believe people struggle because of fear and denial rather than being heartless and uncaring.

And yet, people and our government doubled down on denial. Where protections were destroyed. Where funding was taken away. Biden had four years to repair and rebuild the Pandemic Mitigations and Task Forces (Obama had bolstered these so we've regressed.) Instead, Biden choose to adopt Trump's strategy of claiming we won against it, that the pandemic was over. He pushed for policies that favor profits over the health of our communities.

The claim the pandemic is over are lies from our government. The pandemic never ended. Covid still evolves and still infects and still damages multiple body systems. The more you get covid, the higher your chance of LongCovid, which is massively harmful, disabling, and sometimes deadly chronic disease.

We could have fixed this. But instead, our government, our so-called society, choose denial. Why? If you examine what the CDC and Biden's office has says over the last four years, you'll notice a callousness toward disabled people. (Ed Young ripped apart these words in many of his articles too. I dropped articles of others doing the same in my database below, which is searchable.)

We've seen this abandonment before with other diseases, especially ones that impacted communities society doesn't like. People have analyzed and compared the response to AIDS to LongCovid, and showed how the abandonment tactics are used in both.

Nowadays, we fought hard to build up resources to those suffering from AIDS. LongCovid sufferers have no resources. Not yet. We need to galvanize community to fight back against that abandonment.

There is no cure for LongCovid. There is no treatment that reliably works. Most of the so-called LongCovid clinics I've researched engage in often out-dated and proven harmful practices that force us to engage in extensive physical therapy.

Except LongCovid is an energy-limited disease. Exertion means collapse. The more we exert, the harder our body has to work to get oxygen to our cells, and studies (and lived experiences) keep showing that extensive physical therapy makes the disease worse.

So no, we have no resources. There often isn't any groups or services in town that help us.

The so-called "disability services" that exist for disabled populations are underfunded, understaffed, and not trained on layers of protection or on energy-limited diseases. So often such services exacerbate the illness rather than assist it. These services are often inaccessible, especially to us bed-ridden with an energy-limited disease. They also do not offer anything that can help manage the disease. At best they might offer help with cleaning or bathing, but that's about it.

Treatments that actually work for LongCovid does not exist, not in America, and not in most of the world. So again, no resources.

Support groups for people are mostly nonexistent or they are inaccessible. Those too ill to fight for access are left with nothing.

So many have been left to rot in isolation. Many have died alone.

If we don't care for one another, then how will any of us truly survive the horrors?

With Trump back, we cannot trust our government. I'm not convinced we ever could as me and many disabled people had watched (and Ed Young covers in his articles) the government's slow abandonment of entire communities.

I get it. The work is hard. It's very hard to make sense of all this.

I get that many of us are being gaslit by not only those in denial but even by the President of the USA. It hurts and makes it even more difficult to move forward or know what is truth.

But we do know the truth.

We can find that truth.

Love and care illuminates truth.

And love and care requires us to adjust our behaviors. We cannot care for one another unless we change our behaviors.

If we wish to survive the pandemic and fascism and mass abandonment, we must care for one another, and that means engaging in layers of protection.

Layers of protection includes vaccines, N95 (or better) masks, air filtration, improved tests to be more accurate and reliable, and hygienic practices.

This is something People's CDC builds up (a community-led group that analyzes the research and makes the information accessible to us. Who does what the US's CDC does not do anymore.)

This is the People's CDC's excellent guide to safer gatherings.

Yes, this requires work, but if you do these tasks with other people, where the community shares the burdens of these tasks to spread it out, it becomes easier.

This is what accessibility looks like. This is what care and love looks like. This is how we protect ourselves and our communities.

I simply do not have the spoons to input in the research links for my sources, so here is a link to a database I keep updated of research over the years.

I honestly don't know how to convince people to care for one another.

But that's what we desperately need as a society. To stop living in denial about the pandemic (about climate change and rise of fascism too), and to start caring for one another by getting vaccinated, wearing masks, improving air filtration, etc.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

Be safe. Care for one another. Protect one another. We only have each other.

Seriously excellent and even uplifting talk by Ed Yong. HIGHLY worth your time!

Yong is a Pulitzer-winning science journalist who's written (among other great things) some of the best, well-informed and empathetic coverage of COVID and Long COVID since 2020.

—

I can't highlight any one part; the whole thing is great. But one thought I had was that he shares this important anger that's often present in empathetic, deeply caring people — Terry Pratchett comes to mind, for example. Sagan, Miyazaki and others, in other ways. It's an anger that's difficult to carry and should not be romanticized. But I feel grateful to people like this, who are able to funnel into work that helps others and enriches all of our lives.

[crazy-ache]

I’m never going to buy the “Elain is a spoiled rotten child” interpretation that I see floating around fandom. To me, Elain is a chronic people pleaser.

She desires to please everyone around her at the expense of herself. It is why she so desperately wants to be seen. She is deeply unhappy. Symbolically, Elain is described as a trembling fawn because she is frozen like a deer in headlights in the face of what she wants vs performing what other’s expect of her.

She does this because she is suffering from self worth issues and does not believe her needs or wants are important—and that she doesn’t possess value beyond her complacency and her superficial beauty.

In fact, I believe her book is going to be about becoming selfish. I HOPE it’s about finally becoming MORE SELFISH, which she has never afforded herself to be. I hope she’s selfish and leaves the cage of limitations that has been created for her in the Night Court. I hope she’s selfish and chooses love and a mating bond because she wants it. I hope she’s selfish enough to finally put herself first in order to become the strong and brave female character she was always destined to be.

[group-dynamic]

Bartender: Hey, man, how's it going?

Me: Yeah, you know, it's good. Just thinking about how Gil Galad's kingship was haunted by Elrond. Like his first great failure after being crowned when he'd barely come of age was showing up too late to stop the destruction of Sirion. How he probably felt a deep personal responsibility to find Elwing's missing boys at least but couldn't even do that. Like, I know he probably got redirected by Cirdan toward all those refugees and stuff, but he probably really wanted a win, especially because he was kinda orphaned by then himself and knew how cruel fate was to the sons of greater destiny. Like all his family who'd been king before him died, like, horrifically? And then when Elrond returns all fine and he comes to Lindon and he's chosen the fate of the elves, Gil Galad's physically haunted by him again. See, but this time he chooses to be haunted by Elrond. Because I think he wants to fix what he sees as his first great failure by restoring a bright future for this kid which was robbed from him when Sirion fell--and it's probably like he wants better for him than what he got, too, because he got this kingship in exile thrust upon him when all he was doing was hanging out with Cirdan making ships or something with the other non-combatants and refugees like he and his mother who were fleeing war and violence and he was like fourth in line to the throne so he probably found out in one fell swoop that all his family's dead and oh, you're king and your destiny's out of your hands. So he's like, I'll make Elrond herald and give him all the experience and guidance on this leadership stuff I never got while also giving him better control of what kind of future he has. Then--get this--he never even marries or has kids and when his reign is coming to an end. . . Which, by the way, he probably foresaw his own death which is fucked-- because he gives Elrond his ring before the war of the last alliance, metaphorically making him his heir and also giving him the opportunity to shape his future. . .Yeah, yeah, cause Elrond wouldn't have been considered suitable to be a lord or a king or anything after he was raised by wolves the sons of Feanor. So when Gil made him herald it was like helping him gain political experience and any status he lost. So anyway, then Gil Galad dies, but in some ways he's spent a greater part of his life dedicated to the act of restoring Elrond to the path he should have been on in an alternate reality where he was raised as Earendil and Elwing's son and like correcting that first failure--but also changing Elrond's fate because Elrond has the ring, like, he literally has Gil Galad's legacy and power in his hands, something he wouldn't have had (or needed?) before. But he decides he won't be king. He'll use that power to guard the place that fulfills the legacies of both him and Gil Galad. He's rebuilt the home he lost, something Gil Galad was trying to give him, and then he makes it a place for all the orphans and the wounded and the refugees--like he even fosters a bunch of future orphan kings and like--

Bartender: Like the ending of Hamilton?

Me: *mumbling into my empty glass* Yeah, exactly like the ending of Hamilton.

[leapdayowo]

I am learning that writing my own story is akin to unraveling a ball of yarn. I find one end, unravel it and it’s satisfying and fun, then BOOM massive clump of knots! But no worries! I’ll just- if I can get this loop over this bit- oh for the love of- how did that happen??? And then most of the knots are out of that section (ignoring the ones I just tighten so much I cannot get them out). And then more unraveling fun! Yippee! until the mother of all tangles and knots appears from the center somehow like a writhing king rat and there’s yarn everywhere :’) some piles are meticulously folded or laid out nice and neat on the floor while other parts are a Mess. And I’m sitting there, looking at this creation/project at 2am realizing, I can’t put it back. Maybe I could have at the first hiccup, but Oh No. I have to finish this now because look at how much progress I’ve made! And made if I. Just. Keep. Chipping. Away. At. It-

nope.

I’m sleepy

so I carefully scoop everything up and place it in a basket until six months later when I have more important things to do that I really don’t want to do, I find that basket and dump its contents back out and start retracing my steps and progress I made on the yarn. I ‘tsk’ at the tight knots beyond help and resolve to take it slower. There is no rush with this particular ball of yarn to unravel it and get it ready to be used. So this end goes over here, then over here, put this piece in my mouth to create tension over here, pull this through then under- AHA!

and so it goes :)

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[uncleardyn]

(alan wake-gravity falls crossover) man i love that character. you know, the deeply paranoid author who made a pact with a dark entity that ultimately ended with him stranded in another dimension separated from his loved ones for years at a time? takes place in the pacific northwest? has twin imagery associated with him and a reoccurring specific piece of symbology related to the unfortunate situation they're in? doesn't ever explain the reasoning behind his actions and instead just kinda goes "bro trust me"? yeah he also wears an outer layer of clothing with elbow pads on it, that one.

[wowzoerz-blog]

You know it’s actually really nice being trans and true to myself as a person

Like, progress feels slow but every month I look back and think “Wow, that’s something unique I learned about myself!” And I am a much happier person because of that!

There is a girl under all of these repressed feelings that me and my friends are uncovering.

And she is just, Wonderful

[ruvviks]

Mikhail and Vitali were inseparable; when they weren’t studying or getting into fights, they would hang out at Mikhail’s place to smoke and get drunk on cheap rum and vodka, to then pass out in each other’s arms and sleep most of the next day away. They promised each other— no matter what would happen— they would never leave each other’s side. Yet after starting university and college respectively, they did not see each other for a little over six years, leaving them both heartbroken and wondering what went wrong.

by lucas expedidor // catch me if you can; eden // clementine von radics, from 'courtney love prays to oregon' // sam sax, cruising: a broken tiara // 'ceramic home' by heavensghost; quote from john murillo // 'something's changed' by laiikastears // i don't want to watch the world end with someone else; clinton kane // fortesa latifi, from 'the truth about grief' // audre lorde, the evening news // frank o'hara, biotherm (for bill berkson) // heading home; ruben // 'preface to a dream' by alessandra casini // tokyo; caroline kole // langston hughes, poem // haruki murakami, norwegian wood // julie buntin, marlena // by lute // by aleksandr popov // anyway; noah kahan // christa wolf, cassandra: a novel and four essays

[crownedwille]

.

[fanfic-gremlin-ft-trauma]

fellas what do you do when your bestest bud sends you a text saying they’re wearing your hoodie you accidentally left at their house bc “the rest of theirs are in the wash”

[squoobest]

post-hiatus catch-up vol 1: side order. save me side order.

(dates: 1/29/24-march lol)

as you can tell, 8 looks a little different. that's because i made some agent ocs! they're still in a bit of the writing phase but i've grown to like working with them ^^

also a phase of redesigns for tidepool punch, now known as tidebyte!now have been given english localization with their names being eri and dess. there's a frail attempt at a pun in there. somewhere

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow Day 8

Majora('s Mask)

*throws bouquet of roses* For the Time lovers.

Also my bias is probably coming through really strongly right now, but I'm not well rested enough to care plus I've been playing Majora's Mask a lot again this month, it's as important to me as Twilight Princess so this is kind of my love letter to it and Time and my excuse to explore the concept of Majora and the Fierce Deity and divinity in LoZ, though that's an essay for another day lol (/j)

As always can be read as romantic or platonic depending on your preferences, Reader is gender neutral and this is definitely self indulgent so it can be read in or outside of an LU context, most of the references to the LU names are for simplicity and to give a rough idea of why Reader has some stuff they do. Makes it easier to clarify lol, though as I've been hit by yet another storm the Linktober prompt will be for tomorrow, I'm basically picking a god and praying this actually posts X_X

TW(?):

Don't think there's any warnings besides MJM's typical body horror really, and very graphic descriptions and Majora in general.

Even after so, so long, so much so it feels like a lifetime ago, Termina still stuck with you and Time.

The thing about being in a timeloop that went on for who knows how long and whose failure to reset it would be total destruction to so many good different people, is that you quickly learn some habits to try and maximize as many successes as possible, how Time (Mask, then, after the living nightmare of Termina, during the War of Ages, still Link though) quickly learned the location of each enemy he could, how you learned to call out the best way to quickly assess and take down an enemy as quickly as possible, how you both learned to watch each other’s backs and to care for the people and Termina to the point Link went from just a warrior to a healer, granted the trust of holding the crystalization of the hopes and dreams of the people of Termina that, even if they couldn’t remember it, wanted the cycle to end, wanted to hunt the threat to reality itself and purge it from the world. To bite down onto it’s neck and feel the thrill and glee and cutting down such an opponent.

Most importantly, after bleeding, crying, sweating and toiling against the unrelenting flow of time and insanity all brought upon by a lonely child being left alone and manipulated to commit heinous acts as ‘pranks’. It taught you and Time the importance of contingency plans, and about always, always being prepared for any and all situations, unlikely as they could be. Of taking through note of even the smallest detail that caught your eyes at a glance.

‘To defeat an abomination, you need one of two things: A deity, or a monster.’, you think cynically to yourself, stepping over Time’s fallen form as Warriors bolted over with blizzard forged fury in his cold, calculated movements to defend him in your stead as you called Hyrule over, the young man quickly starting to heal your Hero as you glare down at the disgusting stain on reality engaging Twilight and Wild all at once, gleeful at having watched the person you adored the most fall, bringing out the ultimate contingency from your cloak, you hadn’t even told him about it, because you prayed you’d never need to resort to this, ‘… Forgive me, Link. The first option isn’t doable here.’

Time was your everything, you knew how his story ended, with so much grief until he finally met Twilight again. You tried, you really did, to not allow yourself to love him but it was impossible because he was Link, the man who longed for adventure ever since he was young, embodying the freedom of the forest of life and death that made up the whole of Faron Woods and the Lost Woods and as steady as it’s moors, voice quiet and calm like a stream in the woods and with and with a smile to rival the warm sun and so, so heartbreakingly kind. Who protected and saved and healed people while slowly healing his own soul and who attempted to soothe his descendant’s pain the second he could even from beyond the grave.

And you’d be darned if you allowed anything to take him from you or the boys before his time without a fight. You couldn’t care less if he would eventually die as he was destined to in every timeline, it didn’t matter if it was futile, because he mattered, you loved him, and you’d keep him safe and happy for as long as you could.

It didn’t matter if one day tragedy will catch up to him, it mattered that he was loved while alive.

Even if you had to step on fire to make sure of it.

“Twilight, Wild. Step away.”, the edges of the spikes of the purple and crimson mask that haunted your nightmares as much as it did Time’s, it leered at you with it’s arsenic and pus eyes, picking apart at your weaknesses as it’s spikes dug into your hand as you tightened your grip to keep if from shaking. Tone falsely confident as you called to the Hero of Twilight and Wild to retreat.

(‘To defeat an abomination, you need a deity or a monster.’

The definition is awfully interchangeable, if you look at it.

You had found it, abandoned and in a dungeon Wind’s Era, not quite awake, but not asleep either. The eldritch hunger almost chocking you with it’s voracity, the darkness assessing, stalking, prowling and starving, it prodded at you but didn’t dig yet. It knew how to play the long game in it’s quest to stop feeling empty.

Funny thing is, so did you. You were a lot harder to break than the Skull Kid, would not break.

Majora wanted to cease, like how it had ceased before the Terminan Tribe ripped it from it’s slumber, taught it hunger, taught it cruelty, taught it how to manipulate and take amusement in consuming the wishes of mortals and their very souls only to never be satisfied. Had fueled it with wrath from being ripped from a lovely, endless dream of beautiful songs and a kind soul. To be torn from it’s fantasy and then left to rot.

You offered to grant it a proper rest. And so a deal was struck. Your one contingency if the situation was truly dire, in case you couldn’t get the Fierce Deity Mask instead -because you knew how Link was, he’d burn himself out until there was naught but ash. You refused to let it ever come to that, after his excruciating screams of pain had clawed an aching, hurtful place into your very soul-, and Majora was starving and desperate, a dangerous combination for any being but something you could use.

So be it, if to protect divinity you needed to become a monstrosity, a monster was what you’d be.

You’d keep him safe. And you knew that if the Fierce Deity put him down once, he could do it again in case you slipped. Between him and Sky you weren’t afraid at all of the risk.

Even if Time never forgave you for taking it.)

You smile bitterly, tearing up in spite of yourself as you see the second Time spots you and the cursed artifact in hand, eye wide, voice ripping from his throat in desperation, “I’m quite selfish, I’m sorry.”

His haunted expression cuts you deeper than any knife, as you knew it was an image that featured in many of your nightmares and his own. But you’re insatiable for his happiness, so you take the plunge.

“NO NO NO NO DON’T-“

You put on the mask, and you scream.

It’s like stepping on fire, a twisted, desperate tune, a note of discord, a belt of harmony and fury and most importantly, the mighty need to consume the one who had tried to take the one you loved away from you.

Defy death, defy entropy, defy chaos, defy flame and voracity.

You cling to your self control with a snarl, howling in defiance. Sinking your nails into the abyss’ throat and biting, tearing, holding, tasting rot and withered flowers and the writhing of shadows and the blood of distorted gluttonousdivinity on your tongue with savagery equal to the way the demon sinks it's spikes onto you. Chew on it’s tender, rotting flesh, quaff down the lukewarm pus of it’s heart and the rust of blood as it bites off your skin, stripping your mind into chunks as it nests into your ribs like the spikes of wild, dead roses when it finds your mind tougher to break and you BURN YOU ARE LIFE YOU ARE CHAOS AND YOU ARE DROWNING AND YOU ARE FLAME-

You move, and Majora’s laugh sounds like a scream and a song as reality howls.

Your bones, sinew, muscles, nerves, veins and teeth are reformed, the being pounces, dancing, swerving, whipping, cleaving, ripping and feeding into the monsters with putrid, revolting gusto. Whenever it’s attention even tries to waver towards the Heroes you sink your hold in harder, stubborn, you’re sure there’s blood dripping from your mouth beneath the mask, your eyes, your ears, as it reaches a crescendo of glee and pain. A human body isn’t meant to hold so much divinity at once, much less as wretched and horrific as Majora’s, but you don’t care, can’t care, when you’re holding onto yourself like a vice, refusing to give it even a single inch.

It doesn’t kill Dark Link, the bastard (the one who’d hurt Time, the one who would have finished him off if not for you and Warriors). But the screech the Shadow releases as it gets ripped to shreds and the ripple of it’s retreating form is enough to make you partially agree with Majora’s vicious, amused glee that it was satisfying. Even if the feeling of you allowing it to utilize your skin temporarily felt revolting and disgusting in a way it made you wish you were actually on fire, not just in so much pain in a metaphysical level that it sure rivaled being set on fire, frost burned and lightning struck all in one go.

All is still now, all is silent.

Now comes the difficult part.

'Are you quite sure?', whispers Majora, crooning like nails on chalkboards, and it’s spikes sink into you tighter when you grip the sides of it, teeth gritted as you start prying it out of your face, amused by your defiance, but no longer as hungry. You did allow it quite the meal, you bet nothing like fellow divinity tastes better to the being, like the taste of a forbidden fruit you were going to be unfortunately acquainted given you’re sure Dark Link’s blood is on your teeth.

'Yes.' comes your faint response, as your sanity frays in fragile threads, you think someone calls your name, but you are drowning, you are burning, and you know that if you don’t focus it will break you. And you’d be fully dead before you let that happen. If you’re going to die you’re going to die as a human.

'Tou are so, so cold… So cruel.' It drawls, the demon’s voice like the gnawing of rats, like maggots under you skin, you convulse, falling to your knees with a wounded keen and pull harder, you barely noticed someone falling by your side, frantically calling your name, but the mask’s eyes dim to an outsider’s perspective, resigned as it hums dreamily, 'I suppose that’s why The Divine Hunter cares for you so, why it’s vessel’s claim is so strong.'

Good, you were banking on it being sleepy, after gorging yourself on the enemy of your boys, Hylia’s gash and Din’s assets your mouth is going to taste putrid for months isn’t it?

Majora hisses, growls, howls and screeches, a brush against your essence as it retreats. Unwinding from every single cell of your body, distorting your atoms back to their proper shape. It still hurts, buy it’s more bearable, although you quickly notice you’re chocking on a different form of Divinity, more possessive, more wild but just as old and ferocious as it snaps at the retreating heels of the twisted, chaotic thorns. Making reality remember your own shape quicker at the cost of filling every crack consumed by the demon.

You swear that thing is smiling smugly at something else, teeth bared and very entertained, taking the suffering of the people of Termina and the cold revulsion in your veins with it as it retreats with it's cacaphony of voices to the shade, 'A shame. Feasting more would be delightful, but very well. We trust that though you hurt today, tomorrow you’ll make sure we head on our way.'

You don’t have the mind or heart to say anything else to it, for it grows silent as the spikes rip from the sides of your face, you bite of a tortured yell as the spikes rip off chunks of skin and flesh, clawing at the ground with, thankfully, soothing, perfectly regular fingers and nails, albeit cracked, you feel someone take their hand in yours, and you crack open an eye, carefully aware of the blood dripping down your face from the half removal of the heart shaped mask and the thrum of thunder replacing the cold in your veins with boiling, protective warmth.

Time.

“You shouldn’t be up already.”, you rasp, looking over his wounded form, healed by Hyrule, you shakily take your left hand to keep prying at the Majora’s Mask, only for him to take it gently in yours, you taste blood, the petrichor of the Lost Woods mist and pine on the back of your mouth, chasing the rot of Majora away.

“It’s nothing, we both know I’ve had worse.” He says, firmly shaking his head. His scarred eye is open, ivory like bone, the markings more vibrant and prominent with the ferocity of a god, he looks tired, and you attempt to speak, to apologize, to voice your worry because you knew channeling the deity without a conduit was a bad idea, before coughing, shaking from the aftermath of your reckless, reckless plan.

(You unfortunately can’t say you regret it much, though, when you silently bear the combined brunt of Time and Fierce Deity’s care once you reach camp and the protective way they act towards you. Even though Majora is long gone much to your resigned exasperation, and the rest of your boys amusement, but that is for much, much later.)

Time gently hums, it rings through you like thunder as he holds you close, tapping your neck in a rhythm you could recognize in your sleep for when he was about to pull arrows, blades or shrapnel from your skin, or was ready to have it done to himself, you immediately loosen yourself as much as possible, gripping his hand tightly as he rips the rest of the Majora’s Mask off, inert and lifeless as when you’ve both woke up from a new day, he holds you close as you try to breathe, reassuring himself you’re still here, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. Please.” He pleads, begs, prays. He can't lose you too.

And you can’t help it, you smile as you cry crimson and russet tones from your eyes, holding him back as close as you dare to. He doesn’t hate you, you’re sure you’re going to soon participate in the argument of a lifetime. But Link doesn’t hate you, doesn’t see you as a monster any more than you could ever see him as anything but the kind companion you always knew.

So you let yourself nod, helpless to say no to him for anything really. And allow yourself to breathe, you’re both going to be alright.

[some-mari-thoughts]

What do you make of the idea of Blackspace kinda fusing with Hellmari after a post-good ending Omori gave her true life, therefore making her the entire realm by technicality? Omori would do that cuz he needs something to kinda fill the void that appeared when Sunny left and he's getting desperate after not finding anything in Headspace to do that...

(woooooooooo explaining my omori au lore-)

Truthfully this is so wildly different to my idea of headspace and omori and after-good ending that i cannot make anything of this! i think that's up to u to decide

[hylianane]

I was going to write this in the tags of your last post but i think it's important actually so I'm gonna send an ask

On a more serious note I'm actually kind of obsessed with psychoanalyzing Zoro specifically. Because he actually has some pretty big issues I think, mentally

He takes his self appointed job as protector of the crew very very seriously, and he's really hard on himself if he thinks he's failed in any way. I mean just look at him right after Little Garden, or how mad he is after losing his shadow on Thriller Bark.

So yeah there's nothing in that brain but swords and I fucking love that about him, he sure is sharpening them to an unhealthy degree isn't he. He's never strong enough, after all, to protect everyone.

I just,, really like combining silly ideas with serious ones, it's fun

GOD listen is 12:25 am but I just couldnt go to bed without at least STARTING to jot down my thoughts on this but like YEAH. for SURE. Zoro for all that he’s shown to be a pretty simple guy with a single-minded focus, has a LOT to chew on in terms of character depth and layers. There’s lots of fun contradictions to him too. He’s prideful and self-assured but also so often self-punishing, and he’s also someone who is fiercely independent and a free spirit, while having a habit of building his own identity around others (both his dreams are shared with others, they belong other people as much as they do to him and that’s a LOT to think about).

You may have actually caught me red handed here cause that ‘Journey to the Center of the Mind’ story concept maaaay be kind of something i’ve played around with for months now. I think I once tried to write out like a basic premise, but the only thing I really remember is is wanting Luffy to be the primary person to undergo the journey cause. if every Strawhat was present it’d feel less intimate, less personal, and I feel like Luffy would want to explore Zoro’s mind alone to preserve his privacy. Unaware that he’s the person Zoro has the most to hide from. I think the levels of Zoro’s willingness to put the Strawhat’s well being first has the potential to truly frighten him, if the visuals Zoro’s mind provides him are right.

[goldkirk]

as I'm going back over my past history and items and journals and years, I come across all sorts of things, like the pencil I saved from that so-precious memory from second grade, and a pair of flip flops I've been missing for two years, and [checks notes] the modern-high-school-AU-kidnapped-by-a-serial-killer story I wrote in late high school jdfsjdfsjkjlksfd

[galacticlamps]

I just wanted to apologize to my classic whotuals for all the dead boy detectives spamming, but it's also important to me that you guys know two things:

a) I've become aware that a lot of what appeals to me about dead boy detectives is, on a kind of conceptual/thematic level, the same stuff that I love about my favorite eras of dr who, and 6b in particular

And I tell you this not as an advertising tactic but as a genuine PSA for anyone following me because:

b) Being me & having realized this, I know I'm definitely gonna wind up posting some unnecessarily long-winded analysis/comparison, pop it in the main tags for the sake of organization on my own blog, and subsequently confuse a hell of a lot of people there who either have no idea what I'm talking about or simply don't view either piece of media in the same light as I do to begin with

So I just wanted to reassure everyone that at least you're not suffering alone, as I will soon be inflicting the reverse bait-and-switch upon others!

That's all! continue w ur scrolling <3