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ohbo-ohno · 1 year ago

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Kinktober Day 25 - Human Furniture

Ghost x Price - 1.8k (on ao3)

summary: Price helps Ghost settle after a hard mission.

cw: person used as an ashtray

note: this is the least sexual of this month's prompts! there's actually no sexual acts in this at all, it's more of a sort of study of a priceghost dynamic i enjoy :) definitely inspired by this comic

“Settle,” Price rumbles quietly, watching the way Simon shudders and forces himself still, muscles trembling.

He’s not quite used to the sight of Simon so submissive beneath him, such a large powerhouse of a man gone soft between his feet. You’d never think it, looking at them, but uncertainty still hovers in the back of John’s head every time he has Simon like this.

It’s taken them a while to reach this tentative understanding, for Simon to be even slightly open about what he needs. Price isn’t sure either of them could really put it into words, this odd sort of dynamic they’ve developed, but it works.

As best he can describe, it’s like this - Ghost needs a handler, someone he can trust blindly to always point his aggression in the right direction. But Simon struggles to trust, to give up any bit of control he doesn’t have to.

So Price takes it from him.

It’s an odd sort of dynamic, he’s well aware, and it only works because on some deep level Simon wants it to work. That’s the thrill for John - the knowledge that at any moment Simon could hurt him, could probably kill him, but he won’t because he knows that nobody else can help him control himself like Price

It’s a responsibility he doesn’t take lightly. Ghost is probably the most dangerous soldier he’s ever met - ever will meet, if he’s lucky - and he’d slit his fellow soldiers; throat without question if John gave him a reason to. That kind of power isn’t given for long if the receiver is a fool, and while Price is a lot of things - ornery, strict, bull-headed - no one could call him a fool.

Price knows that Simon accepts their dynamic, but he plays at disliking it sometimes, almost like a test. Trying to see if Price will put his foot down when Ghost needs it, see if he can stretch the boundaries he’s been given.

He can’t. Price has no problem reestablishing which one is freshly Captain and which one is still Sergeant when it’s needed. And after a few weeks, the little tests phase out. Price can’t help but feel like he’s passed a test once he realizes.

Ghost is volatile still, even months into their shifted dynamic, but he rarely lashes out against John anymore. The mask had helped, being under Price’s hand helped more, but there are still moments when he slips, where he needs more help than he realizes.

Which is what led to their current situation.

Simon had come back from a mission relatively uninjured - a few bruises, a few scrapes, but nothing he had even needed a medic for. But the Lieutenant he’d been lent out to had done a number on him mentally.

Part of the source of Simon’s inner turmoil is his own constant war between the desire to be a good soldier and his inability to trust. It leaves him short-tempered and aggressive around unsure COs. He’s a bit like a dog being retrained - he knows when his superiors are weak, and he knows they have no right pretending to be above him.

It’s hard to lead successful missions when the Sergeant spends the entire deployment glaring and intimidating the Lieutenant. It’s even harder when the intimidation works, and the power structure crumbles.

Simon always comes back unsure after missions like that. He comes to Price, snarling and biting, looking for reassurance in the power structure. Looking for affirmation that Price is still his superior, that he’s still his leader.

It’s what he’d come home needing today.

The mission had been rough - a Lieutenant just promoted never knew how to handle Ghost, and this one had been no different - and John could see it in every line of Simon’s body as soon as he’d come knocking.

Neither of them had said a word as Price opened his office door enough to let Simon in, then closed and locked it behind him. He lights a cigar as he watches Ghost move, taking a long puff from it.

Simon stands at parade between the two guest chairs he’s forced to have in the office, and after a few moments Price moves back to his desk, settling back into his seat and folding his hands on the table.

He watches Simon for a few long moments, takes a puff of his cigar. The soldier’s not quite still, his shoulders trembling from pent up energy and his knees locked. His jaw is clenched so tightly, Price wouldn’t be shocked if he’s managed to crack a tooth.

“Debrief, Sergeant,” he finally commands, voice hard and leaving no room for debate. Simon’s shoulder’s stop twitching as he starts to speak, relaxing into a less straining position.

There’s nothing of note to be reported, really. Ghost isn’t the type of man to stand and rave about what’s really bothering him, he wouldn’t make anything that easy. He tells the story as it happened and leaves Price to pick up the hints he drops.

They’re easy to spot this time - unnecessary civilian casualty, a close call with a fellow Sergeant, a flustered Lieutenant and their absolute refusal to listen to any of Ghost’s suggestions. It’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. But that doesn’t matter - for whatever reason, this mission and this CO on this night has dragged Ghost to the very brink of shattering.

And Price won’t let that happen. Not when Simon has placed so much faith in him, not when he needs to prove to himself that he can take care of his men.

Simon’s nearly panting when he finishes his debrief, the stress working him up all over again. John knows he has to work quickly, or things will spiral.

“Good, Sergeant,” he praises, leaning back in his chair and planting his feet wide. “Now strip.”

The relief is palpable. It’s taken them a long time for Ghost to reach such a comfortable point, and Price can’t help the surge of pride at the way Simon almost eagerly takes his clothes off. He’s a good boy, even remembers to fold his uniform when he sets it on the coffee table.

Price taps his right foot twice and pushes his chair back from the desk a bit, the boot loud against his hardwood floor, and takes a long drag. Simon is on his knees between John’s feet in the next heartbeat.

He hums a pleased note, nodding down at Simon. Even just that tiny bit of praise coaxes a bit more tension out of his frame, leaving him angled towards Price instead of kneeling straight. He debates within himself for a moment, then decides to drop a heavy hand onto Simon’s head, stroking slowly over the fabric.

He’s still got the mask on, but Price doesn’t make any move to take it off. He knows the fabric isn’t a barrier between the two of them, more a safety net holding all of his pieces together.

John would collect those pieces if Simon dropped them, but he would never take them from him. He’s the one who gave Ghost the mask, he’d never take it away.

He considers his plan of action for a few long moments. With each breath, each pull, each slow stroke over his head, Simon relaxes a bit more. It’s soothing for John too, this physical evidence that he knows how to take care of what’s his. Calming in a way little else is in their line of work.

“You’re a good soldier, Simon,” Price finally says. “Sometimes too good, I think. Makes it difficult to stop sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Simon pants, nodding and leaning further into Price’s hand. “Yes, sir.”

“Hmm, I know. You’re alright, boy, deep breaths now.”

He listens, and a few moments later relaxes further. Simon’s body slumps to the side a bit, leaning his weight onto Price’s leg. It’s difficult to not jerk away, but John plants his foot and tenses his muscle so he doesn’t send Simon sprawling. If the Sergeant notices how hard his thigh is, it doesn’t seem to bother him.

“I think you need to stop being a soldier for a bit, yeah?” Price asks, shifting his hand to lift Simon up by the chin. He moves slowly, tugging the mask up until it rests on the bridge of his nose. Ghost flinches a bit at the air against his skin, and John hushes him, stroking over his jaw.

If they were different people - or even just further into their dynamic - Price might slip his cock down Ghost’s throat. Push him down until his lips meet John’s stomach, hold him there for a few hours while he gets some work done. He thinks it would be good for Simon, to have a mindless task he can succeed in.

But they haven’t reached that point. Price isn’t sure if they ever will, if they ever should, so he contents himself with an alternative.

“Tongue out for me, Simon,” he says, putting a bit of a command into his voice. It’s not necessary - Simon’s mouth opens, pink tongue coming out to rest on his lip immediately. “Good boy,” Price praises, stroking a thumb down the muscle.

“Stay still for me, now.”

He takes the cigar from the corner of his lips, presses the glowing bud to the center of Simon’s wet tongue. He doesn’t react much past a grunt and some tension returning to his muscles.

“You’re alright,” John dismisses, tightening his grip on the soldier’s jaw and pushing the cigar a bit further in, twisting it. He knows Simon, knows he needs to feel this pain, needs to feel it from John.

Simon whimpers when he finally takes the cigar away, pushing his tongue a little further out.

“I know, you’re alright. Good boy, Simon. Relax for me, now,” he comforts, stroking a thumb over his chin while he leans forward to set the now useless stick on his desk. “You make a good ashtray, boy. Just stay down there and relax for me, you’re alright. I’ll let you go in a bit.

He shifts back into his seat, staring down at Ghost for a few moments.

His tongue still rests on his chin, a little drop of spit dripping down the center, right down the ring of soot left behind. His eyes are clear but his pupils are blown, like he’s still here but his emotions are trying to drag him away.

Simon shifts on his knees, tongue twitching like he wants to take it back into his mouth.

“Settle,” Price rumbles. Simon exhales loudly and obeys, shifting back to his knees. “Tongue out, come on. Might need to use it again.”

He smiles when Simon obeys without question, gives him a comforting pet to the head and an approving hum.

Price shifts closer to the desk, locking Simon more securely beneath him, and lights a cigar. He’s got a few hours of paperwork to catch up on, and he knows Simon can last far longer than that using an ashtray.

He takes a deep breath, settles himself, and gets to work. The cigar smoke fills his lungs, and Simon breaths deeply beneath him. Price feels centered, steady, as he picks up his pen and starts reading.

#kinktober 25 #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #simon ghost riley x john price #call of duty fanfic #cod fanfic #ghostprice #priceghost #ghost x price #ghost x john price #simon riley x john price #bo writes

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ihaveatheoryonthat · 9 months ago

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I've been struggling to write this up, because I keep going too far into detail whenever I try, but I really wanted to get the beginning/basics down for the Distortion Chimera AU.

This takes place well after PLA's main story, after the PC has returned home and released all but the Pokemon they were closest with.

They challenged the Path of Solitude a few times, and at least once using Giratina, so Ingo was familiar with it being one of their Pokemon.

After it's released, it can't get back to the Distortion World, so it heads to Turnback Cave. Eventually, its presence there becomes noticeable, and-- as the most experienced Pokemon handler in the Clan-- Ingo is asked to look into it.

He recognizes Giratina re: the PC, and it's able to communicate that it just wants to go home. Its connection to the rest of the Sinnoan pantheon encourages both clans to help it as a sign of cooperation.

They're able to get a hold of a way to open the Distortion World and escort Giratina to the Temple of Sinnoh to go home. (The 'party' at the temple itself is Irida, Adaman and Ingo, as the only people who are okay getting that close)

Giratina turns on them when it has this chance; it begins to drag Ingo into the Distortion World and, fearing that it will do the same to the clan leaders, he has Alakazam teleport them away.

They try to get back to the temple as quickly as possible, but it's empty when they get there. After some preparation, they (and probably another Warden from either clan) enter the Distortion World, themselves.

It's... also empty. Mostly. After some searching, they find Ingo, who's completely unresponsive. He's missing his his coat and Pokemon, but that's not important when he doesn't seem to be breathing.

They manage to get him out. Nothing changes in the 'real' world, but he's still warm, and his heart is still (slowly) beating, impossible though it sounds. They try different ways to try to wake him, but nothing ever works. By the same stroke, though, he never gets any worse.

The Pearl Clan looks after him until the clans merge, and the resulting clan carries on with Irida's wishes even after she passes. It's half tradition, and half mythology at this point.

He's only moved once the settlement has to relocate, generations later. In an effort to keep him somewhere he might recognize, if he ever woke up, he's taken to the Snowpoint Temple, and stays there until modern day.

I think the area he's in is accidentally closed off, then rediscovered around (probably after) DPPT, and someone connects the dots some time after he disappears in the current day. I want to say a few months.

Obviously Emmet comes to investigate, and then tries to figure out what can be done to wake Ingo up.

He tries a number of different legendaries. Many can't be tracked down or refuse to meet him. Of particular note: Jirachi is asleep for X00 more years, Xerneas won't respond, Zekrom answers, but can't help, and Celebi can't be found. He eventually approaches Ho-oh, who will at least see what can be done.

It meets him in Sinnoh, on the roof where they've set up, and decides that it can, in fact, help. This affliction borders close enough to being death that revival is an option.

We would get some pretty standard reunion stuff in here; it's important to note that Ingo doesn't remember any more than he had prior, right now, and is completely lost re: losing consciousness in one century and waking up centuries later.

They don't stay in Sinnoh for long; before the week is up in Unova, though, another incident occurs.

(The exact nature of this incident may be subject to change; this is just the mental image I had as of writing this)

In the middle of the night, it seems that a rift into the Distortion World tears open, and tries to drag Ingo back in. Between the two of them, they're able to keep him out/pull him back, but... things have changed.

Emmet's help gets him out up to the first set of very inhuman legs, and he's able to drag himself the rest of the way. Black feathers spread upward from the wings over the course of the night.

And this is where I'm going to stop for now: Ingo is very amnesiac, no longer human, and-- given that legends of Ho-oh's powers include the transformation from Eeveelution to Raikou, Entei and Suicune-- Emmet feels incredibly responsible.

#ihaveatheoryonthat pkmn #submas #story outline #ish

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living-d3ad-gh0ul · 4 months ago

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Monday 7th October 2024, 2:17am

Hey E..

I know it’s been a while since I last wrote to you.. and for that I am so sorry. I’ve just… well I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve been going through a really hard time mentally. A lot has happened in a short period of time. I’ve just been really struggling to talk to anyone. Hence why I haven’t wrote to you in a while. I really hope you’re doing okay and you can forgive me for it being so long since I last wrote to you. I really am so sorry.

I want to start this off by talking about you though. I re-read your last post (and the other ones you’ve wrote me) quite a few times. I’m so glad that your specialist has given you the all clear. You’ve no idea how happy I was to read that. I really hope that you’ve been doing well with all that and continuing to recover, even if it’s been slow, it’s still progress. And you are doing amazingly, you always have done through any tough battles you’ve had. I really hope you’ve been getting the physio that you need to help the stiffness/pain you’ve been having, I hope that’s been going well too. I also hope you’ve managed to kinda fix your sleep too. I know you’d been struggling with that.

I also hope you got a nice new coat. I really wish I could see it. I actually got a new coat too recently. It’s long and black and has like a faux fur trim around the collar and cuffs, it’s cool and will keep me warm in the winter but also still goth enough. I hope the new keyboard is treating you well too. I should probably look at getting a new keyboard myself, but any ones I see are so expensive. I’m really particular about the keys and how it looks lmao. It has to be a mechanical keyboard too, I just love the sound of them.

London was good. I had a great time. My surprise was that my best friends got me VIP tickets for the Stranger Things play in the West End. It was.. honestly amazing. The visual effects and everything were mind blowing. The cast were phenomenal too, I honestly couldn’t have picked better people to play all the characters. They also bought me a really cool Hellfire Club loungefly bag too, which I adore. They’d known I wanted it as soon as I saw it, it had only just come out as well. But they all bought me it and I was really happy. After the show on the Saturday, we also went out for a night out. We had a blast and I actually met a guy from Perth at the club we were at! He’d come out on a night out himself, so we were all like “well just join us if you like!” Because we didn’t want him to be hanging around himself haha. So we all made a new friend for the night, he was pretty cool. He’d told us he was just here on a spontaneous trip and he’d be going back to Australia the week or two after, he wasn’t sure yet. All my mates kept telling me he fancied me and I was just like lol no he doesn’t, he’s just being friendly because he kept chatting to me and bought me a couple drinks. Turns out, they were right lmfao. He apparently only asked me for my number at the end of the night and didn’t ask anyone else. He’s text me a couple times since then but uh.. the last time he did he was a little too.. forward shall we say, that’s what confirmed to me that my friends were right. I also just told him what my friends were saying and he was like “oh yeah no I definitely liked you”.. but then he was trying to like.. idk how to word it, just being very sexual with me suddenly? It ended up getting a tad creepy and made me uncomfortable and I basically told him I wasn’t interested. We haven’t spoke since lol. So… that was weird. I was just happy to make a new friend lmao I didn’t want any of that. But in general, London was cool, I really enjoyed it and had a good time. I’ll put some pictures of everything on this post so you can see it.

Since then though.. shits just.. kinda fallen apart. My best friend and I aren’t really talking anymore unfortunately. She just.. got a little jealous of me and reacted in a way I had never seen her before. It really upset me and she said some really hurtful things to me. We ended up having to take a few days space from each other, because of what she said to me. And even then, she wouldn’t give me that space. She kept messaging me things that were really guilt trippy and emotionally manipulative and I really didn’t like it. It was a side of her I hadn’t seen before at all. She started being really mean and horrible to me for absolutely no reason at all. Eventually, she did give me the space I needed. We’ve started talking again now but.. I don’t think it’s going to ever be the same. It can’t be after what she said and did. She knows she’s going to have to rebuild my trust and stuff again. And I’ve set clear boundaries now. Because the friendship was getting really unhealthy and co-dependent and I really couldn’t cope with it any more. It’s still quite upsetting, considering everything that happened and why it happened.

Some other stuff has been going on too, but I really don’t want to go into detail about it, because I just really don’t want to talk to anyone about it. It’s too hard and it’s too upsetting. All I’ll say is that someone else really hurt me too at the same time this was all going on with my best friend. They’ve started reminding me of someone from my past who caused me a lot of trauma. And I really don’t know how to handle it. It’s tough and it’s been triggering me to hell, in all honesty. It’s been bringing back a lot of panic attacks and PTSD and such for me. I’m just really mentally fragile right now from everything that’s been going on.

There’s no updates on Gran really. Other than her chemo is done and her tumour marker levels were at 5000, when they were supposed to be at 30.. so.. that’s REALLY bad. But they couldn’t find anything new on her scans and stuff when they last had an appointment with her. They did tell her she wouldn’t be getting any more chemo however, because “it would only give her a couple more months”.. which I think was a really shitty way of them telling us her prognosis in all honesty. We’re still just hoping and waiting though, that something can be done and we can move forward with some more treatment or something. At the moment, we’re just kinda in limbo. She has to have another appointment with her specialist I think at the end of this month? And another scan and some blood tests before that. So… we’re back to just.. waiting.

I was also sick this past 2 weeks. I’ve had a really bad chest infection and I was off work for the last week too. I felt like absolute shit, in all honesty. But the cough is finally lifting and I’m hoping to be back at work on Wednesday. I’m off tomorrow (Monday, I’m writing this at like 2am so.. it’s still Sunday to me lol) and Tuesday. The day is because.. well it’s my dad’s birthday. 8th October. He’d have been 62. It’s going to be a tough day. I was supposed to have plans with a friend to try and distract me and take my mind off things but.. unfortunately they have let me down. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time, I think. It sucks when you really care for someone and then they go and do something like that to you and make you feel like you’re absolutely nothing to them. Like you don’t matter at all and like everyone else is more important than you.

I’ve been struggling a lot with that recently. Feeling insignificant and unimportant and like I’m not good enough. I just don’t get it. Why does everyone I care about or love leave me? Why are they always snatched away from me or walk out the door, sometimes without so much as a goodbye? It hurts so bad. I really honestly feel so alone right now. I don’t feel like I have many people who care about me or want to make me a priority or who want to even listen. I’m really not sure how much more loss and heartache I can take, in all honesty. I just.. really feel like sometimes no one would miss me if I weren’t around. And that is a hard thought to process in itself.

I’m so sorry that most of this has been negative and heavy. I’m just.. not having a great time at all right now. I’m trying my best to stay positive and hope for better days soon and hope that things will resolve themselves and I can pick myself up and move on again. But I’m just.. still trying to process everything. Still just going through all the emotions that are coming to me and dealing with them. It’s hard when things are triggering past things too. Because it makes me feel like I’m back there. Like I’m reliving it all again. And I wish I wasn’t.

I really hope you’re doing much better than I am. I really am so sorry it’s taken me so long to write back to you and I really do apologise that I don’t have much good news for you here. I’m mentally trying to prepare myself as best as I can for dad’s birthday tomorrow. I just know it’s going to be tough. I’m just hoping I can cope.

I really hope to hear from you soon. I’ve missed your “letters”. I’ve missed writing them to you too. I hope Chonky is doing well too, please give her pets from me and tell her I said that she’s a good girl.

Speak soon, E. I really hope you’re doing well. I really hope to have some good news for you soon.

N x

“I’m falling apart over a memory.. and the weight in my heart is getting too heavy”

P.S all the pics are from my London trip, apart from the last one.. I just wanted to show you my new hair I got done a few weeks ago. It’s red AND black now. Something different, but I think it’s cool as fuck. I think I might keep it like this for a bit.

#him

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takerfoxx · 1 year ago

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Well, I just got some interesting news that I can't really discuss my real feelings with in real life, so I guess it's time for some really bitter trauma dumping.

So, um, I don't know how many of you remember, but there was a little incident a few years back where, after living with my cousin and his girlfriend for about three years, they asked me to move out so they could have more "privacy as a couple," which basically meant tht they were having issues again and thought that having me leave might help make things easier on them, despite them being the ones who had reached to me to ask me to move in with them. Due to a number of other factors, not the least being that this was the third time my roommates had done something similar and the second time of it being due to a couple doing what they felt was best for them and leaving me holding the bag, this caused me to have something of a mental health collapse, and I've been struggling with anxiety and, as I just figured out, depression ever since! And yeah, there were a lot of other things happening that contributed to that,

But here's the thing: the first couple to do that, who were my best friends, ended up divorcing a couple years later. And apparently, it got ugly.

And as I recently found out, my cousin and his girlfriend ended up breaking up just the other week, and from all accounts, it was volatile.

So you can imagine that I have a lot to process. Like, what the hell am I even supposed to feel? On the one hand, I feel awful for my cousin, since I know he cared a lot about her. On the other, I've been mad at him for two years now because of everything that's happened (basically, a few weeks before he asked me to leave, I had talked to him about them having treated me like more of a guest than a resident for a while now, and he reassured me that it wasn't the case, that he did want me to feel like that was my home, and that it wasn't, and I quote, me versus the couple, only for him to drop this on me a very short time after), so there's that. And it also means that I went through that whole hellish experience, had to throw away seven years of my life, and have it all be for nothing. But at the same time, it also weirdly feels like there's this weight taken off my shoulders? Like, something inside me that got turned off when everything went down has suddenly turned back on again? Which sounds awful, but it is something that I've noticed.

I don't know. It's a mess. But mainly what I've come away with from all of this is that my whole life seems to have been spent getting caught up in other people's relationships, from my parents to my siblings to my friends to other members of my family, getting stuck in their drama, sometimes literally getting sacrificed by the couple in hopes of salvaging things, only for it all to end badly anyway. And every time I've been expected to just take it.

You know, these last few months I've been reconsidering how I feel about being aromantic, as the downside is that I've spent so much time being the third wheel and always ended up as the one left behind, but in light of all this? Fuck it. I'm so glad I'm aromantic. This shit isn't worth it.

Anyway, sorry about the angry venting. I just needed to get it out of my system.

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knight-a3 · 2 years ago

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I can't say I expected Tech development in this week's episode of Bad Batch because he usually gets ignored, but I'm happy to see it. He's been the most interesting to me because of how reserved and detached he tends to be.

I don't really have anywhere I'm going with this, I just wanted to spit out some thoughts I've been having about Tech and what this episode has confirmed for me.

I've seen a lot of autistic headcanons for Tech. I don't necessarily disagree with all of them, but when it comes to character analysis, I don’t find it helpful to look at it from a lens of nuerodivergency or mental illness. Instead of increasing understanding of a character, it can lead to people inserting their own preconceived notions about said conditions (either due to stereotypes or personal experiences) and forgetting about the actual character. Or even being disappointed when he doesn't match that expectation of what autism "should" be. People are so eager to be represented that they treat the character as a stand-in for themselves, or a stand-in for the group they think he represents, when that does a disservice to the character and the narrative role that is played.

Whether or not Tech has autism is up to interpretation. Regardless, Tech does not represent autism; that's a broad range of characteristics, and it's not fair to expect him to represent all of that. He is simply himself and he has a few quirks. Autism-coded and autism representation are different things, and that's okay. Besides, I'm not sure how effective it is to imply that he got autism due to prenatal genetic manipulation specifically designed to give him advanced cognitive capabilities...

Some of the headcanons I've seen include Tech struggling to adapt to change, which is a common autistic trait. But it was something he has shown no indication of. If anything, everything he's done has shown the opposite. He's analytical and practical. He prioritizes the situation at hand and remains calm(life support is not affected, we're fine. He says as chaos surrounds them). He takes everything at face value and considers them with the resources at hand, so when complications arise, he's very quick to adapt to a change in plans. He takes in the new information and immediately recalibrates his worldview to accommodate. Facts are facts and reality is reality. He's like a Star Wars Vulcan, in a way. Very logical and practical.

Another headcanon I've seen is an aversion to touch, which Tech has never actually seemed particularly sensitive to. Not any more than the others, at least. He doesn't seem to struggle with any sensory overstimulation issues. If his ability to walk on a broken femur(something that should be completely debilitating) is any indication, I'd say he is unnaturally capable of ignoring sensory input.

Where he struggles is understanding emotions in decision making. Why they let pesky sentimentality get in the way of practicality. He can understand it in a theoretical sense, but it's not something he can really wrap his head around the same way he can with facts and numbers and information and probabilities. Emotions are nebulous and unreliable, so relying on them to make critical decisions is counterintuitive to him. He didn't riot race to save Cid because of any feelings of loyalty to her; he did it because Omega got them wrapped up in her debt problem too. If he didn't race, they would owe money they did not have and suffer the consequences as well. Practical problems.

He has feelings, yes, he just doesn't know how to factor them into solutions or articulate them. And, being the type to use the longest and most technical way to describe things, that's probably deeply frustrating to him. In 2.02, when asked if he was okay, his response was to list his physical condition rather than just say yes or no. (My left femur has been fractured by approximately 150 kilograms of pressure. So... no.) He needed to articulate his reasoning for saying no. He had to process it more like taking stock of his condition before determining whether he qualified as okay. He doesn't trust emotions to determine what is factually true.

He can't understand why Omega is upset about missing Echo, when how he shows he cares is by respecting that choice(understanding you doesn't mean I agree). Because wanting something different than what Echo chose seems counterintuitive to the goal of caring about Echo, in Tech's eyes. Particularly when Echo had logical desires and reasoning that Tech can comprehend.

Tech is focused on the practical problems. The squad is down some manpower, but they can manage. They lost their ship, but they can get another. By stating as much, he may have thought he was being reassuring. Why mourn a brother who isn't lost? What is a home beyond a place you reside? He doesn't understand what he said that was wrong, because factually he is right.

I'm not sure what conclusion I am trying to come to. I'm just feeling validated in my assessment of his character thanks to this episode. He takes change in stride, doesn't know how to articulate feelings, and focuses on solving practical problems.

#star wars #the bad batch #sw tbb #tbb #tbb tech #character analysis #not art #a3 speaks

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biganimal92 · 1 year ago

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update for the 4 of you reading this that care (this isn't meant to be pessimistic I just mean that very few of my friends follow me on here lol)

I feel like my art has been stagnating for a long time and it's mostly because I limit myself to fandoms and the attention I get for my fanart messes with the way I value my self-worth so a few months back I decided I wanted to start doing a lot more with my art to gain more personal fulfillment and to give myself a direction i actually wanted to take it in so that i felt like i was making progress and going somewhere with it. I was making plans to create a proper portfolio of things that weren't star wars yaoi or the dudes from fall out boy fucking, and I was planning on launching a YouTube channel where I posted speedpaints and stuff and I actually made some decent progress

I drew something I was really proud of and I knew the content in it would be pretty popular despite still technically being fanart, and I had a time-lapse recorded for it and everything, I was even halfway through the script. I also had a number of original drawings I'd done that I never posted anywhere and I felt like by this time I should have been able to properly launch this stuff and start taking appropriate steps to have my art reach a wider audience.

butttttt then my laptop died suddenly and randomly (i was literally using it just fine, i lifted it up from my lap and it shut off and wouldnt turn back on) and it's been in the repair shop for a week and they still don't know what's wrong with it. they think it's a motherboard issue and if it ends up being at least $600 to repair it I'm just getting a new laptop. I think they can transfer the data on the hard drive to an external that I have and if so that'd be wonderful because that laptop contains all the work I've been doing these last few months for this thing I wanna do with my art.

thankfully since then my roommate is letting me have one of his backup gaming pcs (he works in tech so he has plenty) and I've been able to get set up there in case I need to start my progress over, but the issue is that it's a Linux and clip studio literally doesn't work with Linux because the desktop version of the program apparently relies on either edge being installed if it's windows, or safari being installed if it's Mac. so I can't sign in or download the full version, I'm stuck with the super limited trial version, and because of this I've been trying to get comfortable with Krita. which thankfully can record time-lapses.

my mental health has only been improving since moving to Seattle despite some pretty low lows so thankfully, even though this is uh a pretty big deal all things considered, I'm handling it really well. I had one horrible encounter with a psychiatrist when trying to get treatment for my anxiety and adhd, but since my insurance here sucks since I'm poor and nothing has worked for my other issues I've been fortunate to be able to see doctors about, I've officially become a crystal mommy and I've resorted to ~alternative medicines~ and as a result I've had a considerable amount of improvement in a very short amount of time with the things I've struggled with getting help with from a professional psychiatrist. so yeah, I'm only getting better

biggest issue that still impacts me is that my attempts at befriending people irl have not borne much fruit, granted I haven't been trying super hard but with a huge covid spike coming up soon, said weak attempts are going to have to be put on hold for the time being. especially since the main thing I was literally going to do as soon as Christmas was over was join this drawing group that meets up every other Sunday, but now I don't have my laptop so it'll just have to wait regardless of what the state of things are looking like otherwise

uhhh what else. oh yeah I got into Chinese yaoi and Indian cinema and I got out of my head enough to start playing genshin impact again so basically I'm a huge faggot ama

OH SHIT I forgot to mention I got another horrible job and I'm kind of trapped into keeping it for at least a year unless something catastrophic happens because it's giving me really important experience in the field I'm trying to go into, but when I say it sucks I mean it's probably the most disorganized place I've ever worked at that wasn't a locally owned franchise. I work at an open-access low income healthcare organization that's all over Seattle so when I say it's terrible and disorganized I think you get the picture

anyway I don't know how often I'll be on here but I'm bored and lonely and scrolling through tumblr seems like a better use of my time than spending an entire shift looking at r/shittyfoodporn

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nilikhangdiwa · 1 year ago

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2023 Fic Wrap Up!

following last year's post, i'm going to go through all of my fics for the year and talk about them a bit! again, um, mostly a3, but yeah!

unbearable warmth

tasuhoma, master loves a mystery

this one was a comm for my lovely friend asra who really loves tasuhoma, so i wrote her a little thingy! there's nothing too much to say about it i think, but i struggled writing it because mlam isn't really my usual playverse. i think it turned out okay though!

- - -

if the sky stops dancing

washisora, kuyuki, +3ghosts, first crush baseball, akiyama twins, canon-compliant (mostly), canon character death

this one was a comm for my friend mic, aka the ceo of washisora and my co-ceo of misuomi! i think i ruined a few lives with this one, not gonna lie. it's a little thing of hikaru and sora getting closer, and they're sooo cute. i've never done anything wrong in my life.

the comments in this are so funny if you check them out! and this fic was the reason for one of the next fics in this list.

- - -

FUCK YEAH, THEY/THEM!

transfem banri, transfem nonbinary taichi, established relationship, fluff, silly

i took a break from destroying lives to write this silly fic. actually, i was in a pretty bad writer's block in the earlier part of the year, so this is one of the first fics after, like... rarepair week 2022 that isn't either a gift or a comm. i wrote this in the school library when i was supposed to be writing a paper, lmao.

it's a sequel to YOU GO, SHE/HER! which i wrote in 2021 and consider to be my magnum opus bantai fic. it's basically the same tags as this one.

- - -

i hope this little light reaches

washisora, kuyuki, +3ghosts, first crush baseball, akiyama twins, canon character death

after the first kuyuki fic, mic came to me like. an hour later with more terrible ideas. so, of course, i helped them make it happen! mic had the idea for the plot, so i just wrote it out into the world, and then this! and then i got sniped by my friends who came for my neck for both of the fics.

- - -

modern talking, modern walking

bantai, transfem taichi, internet friends to irls to eventual lovers

okay, no more angst. only sillies. this fic was for a little server exchange for my friend max! we both love bantai and transfem taichi, so like. this was the natural progression of things, i think! there's not much to say, just that it's very silly and i like it very much.

- - -

i wanted to be your tomorrow

homachika, non-explicit sex

please note the one and a half month gap between the last fic and this one because my god i was so tired from life. but then this roleplay thing happened, and i was playing homare, and my friend was playing chikage, and then... and then i brainrotted so hard. it was so bad. chikahoma was all i could think about for weeks.

there's so much backstory for the chikahoma that inspired this, but it does end in character death, so i'll warn for that real quick. homare confessed to chikage via poem (i am not good at poetry but i tried lol) and they got together and they just... they were so in love with each other and just wanted to protect each other. but it ended up that homare was dying, and as he's about to die, chikage promises that he'll continue writing poems in his stead. and i. and i shatter every time i think about that.

brb crying. anyway.

- - -

elogium

hex & willis, patholosite

SNRK. NUMBER 7. okay. so patholosite is the oc universe of my friend, jas! and i'm very mentally unwell about it. patholosite ruined my life. 10/10 would recommend. it's basically about this doctor, hex, who has, like. seven million issues, the most pressing of which being his inferiority issues. and he's basically currently working under willis, who is a genius and is not helping hex's inferiority complex at all.

stuff happens. please ask please ask please ask. i need to inflict the world with patholosite.

- - -

Lost and Found

samlil, devil's gambit

okay, so this one is a gift for my lovely girlfriend, quill! umm. she did not ask for it. she just randomly sent me money so i sent her this in retaliation.

for context again, me and some friends made a little fake theater troupe like a3, and we're all split into little subtroupes. so devil's gambit is the lead play of my oc/sona (lance, playing sammy) for the troupe, and quill's character (quill, playing lilith) is the colead!

so. um. yes. gay. also this is from before we got together so like. yeah. finger guns. sometimes the gay precedes the gay.

- - -

Why do you, as a man, call another man your partner? Because you're gay?

misukazu & tsuzuru, queerplatonic relationships, established relationship, aromanticism

this one was for the pride month exchange on twt for my friend, link! she asked for a couple things, so i settled on this. it was really fun to write, since i, like kazunari in the fic, am aro, so i was like. hahaha, projection go brr.

(note. i did not have a girlfriend yet at this time. but i do now and i'm still aro. so like. um. the projection projected back at me.)

i was actually supposed to also write a second fic, since i managed to finish this one pretty early. a 5+1 fic about kazunari again, but then i didn't manage to finish it. maybe one day!

- - -

10.

we can be dyed in any color we want

sakuya & kazunari, mentioned bansaku, smoking, just bros hanging out!

this actually wasn't supposed to be the next fic. this fic takes place in the same universe as this, like. kazuchika/bansaku universe i have fluttering around my brain? kazuchika is not mentioned in this fic, but bansaku is. it's not necessarily an au, it's just... a thing.

anyway, so the next fic was supposed to be the main kazuchika fic. but then the main kazuchika fic was turning out too long and i wanted to post this fic. so i decided, hey, instead of posting the main one first and then this side fic, i'll just drop the side fic. i mean, it still makes sense!

so, yeah. this. hopefully, i'll be able to finish the main kazuchika fic this year. maybe.

- - -

11.

someday, i'll be falling without caution

chikatsumu

okay, this one is one i wrote for chikatsumu week, so i'll go through each of the entries. it's chikatsumu week, but the actual thing went on for about a month with 7 prompts. i didn't get to finish all of them, but it was slay!

day 1, first meeting. chikage meets tsumugi in act 5. i don't think there's too much to say about it, since it's pretty self explanatory, but i think they're silly. they should stare at each other and try to peel each other.

day 2, letter. a letter that tsumugi writes to chikage following some unspecified incident where chikage disappears. i wrote this with the intention of it being the same universe as this au i have where april becomes the next organization head, lua.

day 3, domestic. it's just chikage picking up tsumugi after rehearsal and they hold hands and talk and walk. i can write so much about people just doing the most mundane shit, i swear. i love writing mundane shit.

day 4, angel/demon. playverse fic, morimiche (moriarty and michael). this one was inspired by a roleplay me and my friend did a billion years ago. basically, moriarty wants to corrupt the angel and drag him to hell with him. which, like. i mean. i fuck with that. go moriarty go. moriarty is a meanie.

day 5 fic, i ended up putting it in a separate fic (next fic in this list) because it touches on some more sensitive topics.

- - -

12.

silver sulfadiazine

chikatsumu, attempted suicide

day 5, scars. so this one is an unofficial sequel to a fic i wrote on my alt, where basically chikage. y'know. this is the aftermath, and it's from chikage's pov, and he's kind of hazy in-and-out and doesn't quite know what's going on. it's unofficial because the actual fic didn't have any intentions of chikatsumu, but i figured it'd be a nice little what-if.

the original fic was titled freezerburn, and had a lot of themes of like warmth and coldness and such, so i carried that over here. so this one is titled silver sulfadiazine, which is used to treat burns.

i actually wrote this whole thing on a flight to visit my aunt, and then i posted it when i touched down at the airport. very fun.

- - -

13.

a collage of cicadas

tsumuguy, tasuguy

this one was for fuyu ship week, though regrettably i only finished two, because i was preoccupied with rarepair week that started days later. i was also really busy at the time, since i was fortunately able to take my latest term abroad, but that also meant i was packing my shit and running documents for weeks.

day 1, garden + growth. nothing too crazy, just cute tsumuguys! i love tsumuguy. i love guy ships, though there aren't very many, which makes me sad.

day 2, debut. no-mankai au where guy still has journey, and tasuku is still at godza. this is based off a tweet i saw once about this concept, so i just wrote a little something.

i actually had plans for the rest of the week! very briefly:

day 3, beach. tasuhiso. tasuku picks hisoka up from the beach at 3 in the morning.

day 4, passion. tsumuhoma. it was going to be just ages of homare waxing poetic about how much he loves tsumugi's passion for theater and gardening and life.

day 5, snow. azutsumu. they're drinking hot chocolate in the lounge in winter and azuma laments how the flowers tsumugi was tending to are dying because of the cold. tsumugi tells him that there are flowers, too, that bloom in the snow. like you, azuma-san!

day 6, home. azuguy. my note for this just says "guy: tadaima; azuma: okaeri". and like. that's all you need to know, really.

- - -

14.

i just want to hold you tight (i don't want to go back to that lonely life)

lantaru, past tonoita, self-shipping, knights of round iv, internalized homophobia, kind of a character study

HEY. YOU. DO YOU WANT TO HEAR THE LANTARU AGENDA. "what the fuck is lantaru?" you may ask. LANCELOT AND ITARU. listen. hear me out. okay. i just think that, as a child and a teen and even into adulthood, itaru yumes with lancelot. that's his lanchan. that's why his hair is bleached at the tips, so they matchy. that's his 2D anime british twink boyfriend.

the fic itself is a little bit of a love letter to self-shipping in general, and how it can help people get through some tough times. it kind of just explores itaru's relationship with lancelot as a character, and his relationship with the people around him, and just. idk. i like them. because, hey, listen. sometimes i can make out with hisoka in my head as a treat and it fixes me a bit. insert that post about being a little mentally unwell to get better.

i like lantaru a normal amount please hear me out on this.

- - -

15.

fool's errand

chikatsuzu, chikamerl, knights of round iv

rarepair week 2! um. listen. i blame my friends wholeheartedly for this. like several other fics, this was inspired by a roleplay between me and some of my friends. and like. god. i'm so mentally unwell. tl;dr is that merlin spent the entire time antagonizing everyone, but then he's becoming human and shedding his magicky dragon-y nature, and chikage, for some fucking reason, decides to be kind to him.

and my brain has never let go of it.

my god i hate them.

i love them please make out.

but yeah. i really like how this one turned out, actually! i like how merlin talks all fancy and old timey and chikage's like uhh ok lol. merlin refers to chikage solely as "chikage utsuki" in this fic, rather than "utsuki chikage" which is how i usually write it. this is because merlin is white. thank you.

- - -

16.

my universe is filled with you (more and more)

sakyoita, future, marriage, established relationship, moving

itaru and sakyo move into their house together! there's not much to say about this, i just really wanted to write an itasakyo fic for rarepair week. they're just really cute and shaped. this one was a little late i think, so all my rpw fics were a little late, but hey! that's fine.

- - -

17.

meet me where our scars collide

tasuchika, introspection, intimacy

i am obsessed with chikage and his scars. like. i swear. i just think about them randomly. it also goes a little into chikage's default flight response of just running away from the problem. i just think. i don't know, man. just... chikage's got so many issues, i think kissing men could fix him.

it's actually really funny because i posted this fic in august, and then like i got a dm in december from one of my friends just SHAKING ME. and i was like WHAT DID I DO. and she was like MEET ME WHERE OUR SCARS COLLIDE. THAT'S WHAT YOU DID. and i was like I POSTED THAT FOUR MONTHS AGO???

anyway, i really like how it turned out!

- - -

18.

despedida

citokazu, act 8, canon compliant

before rpw, someone in a server was like, hey, someone give me a rarepair for day 5 of rpw? i'm thinking citokazu, but idk... and i was like, YO CITOKAZU DAY 5 THAT'S LITERALLY MY PLAN TOO THAT'S CRAZY !! DO IT.

this fic is actually really timely beecause actually between the previous fic and this one was my flight to japan. so i literally had a despedida like when i was writing this. i really like citokazu, though i haven't talked about them a lot recently, so i wanted to write something for them for rpw!

- - -

19.

Venus

tsumuhiso, uriluci, urimiche, sympathy for the angel, stray devil blues, non-linear narrative

okay. so if you haven't seen me during the a3 play ship poll, i made this propaganda for uriluci/urimiche. the au that i mention there is the same one that this fic is inspired by. and i am so unwell about uriluci it's unreal. i adore them, they make each other worse.

the title is venus, because it's the morning star! morning star, morgenstern, is also associated with lucifer. so, yes. also in the end note of the fic, the numbers indicate which order the different fic sections actually go in chronologically.

- - -

20.

Ichor

augju (kind of), gekka, blood and violence, canon character death

this one was my fic for the gekka zine! (which, hey, if you haven't checked it out, you can find it on tumblr @/gekkazine!) it's just, you know, the usual augju bullshit.

july is a really interesting character to me, and more often than not i end up writing him? to the point that some people think of me as july oomf. which is. um. i don't know if that's a compliment, but sure, i'll take it! he's just really. somethimg. he sure is something.

- - -

21.

you are gold, you are home

chikaita, domestic fluff

a comm for cg! most of my chikaita are stuff for cg, tbh, and i'm not complaining! this one's just a short and sweet one about chikage waking up with itaru in his arms, and something about the vulnerability and gentleness of domestic life that he never thought he'd have for himself... yeah.

- - -

22.

bunnies and red pandas

chikaita

this one was for chikaita week! i had a lot of fun writing for these, and i had previously committed to being chill and low stakes about it, so i didn't have a lot of trouble or stress about it. the title references, of course, their a7 (??? i think ???) animals.

day 1, late nights. chikage hasn't come home and itaru's so worried he throws his matches. chikage's his lucky charm! or actually he's just so worried that he can't focus. either way, they're cute.

day 2, playverse. gawafuta! gawain (kniroun) and futami (uraomote). i think... this is the first fic for them i've posted, though i know there are more on ao3. my and my friend ended up making this ship after (another) roleplay thing, and then just... i just think they're neat, i don't know. i have a lot of gawafuta thoughts. i think that futami's one of the best people to help gawain adjust to getting, like, reverse isekai'd, because of his job. like, yeah, the info gathering stuff, but moreso being a teacher. like, modern jp lit takes a lot of inspiration and cues from earlier parts of jp history and lit, so futami presumably knows quite a bit about history and society as well, and just. i think they're neat.

day 3, office life. this was kind of inspired by when i met my friend and he was telling me about how when he went to shinjuku there were just a bunch of salaryman sitting around on the sidewalks and shit drinking and smoking and i was like... yeah. and then this was born. there's a lot of things about itaru's reputation that he has to keep an eye on, i think... but chikage will help, don't worry! also chikage is super pining and in love in this.

fun fact, there's a deleted line in this where chikage says something like not entirely accurate because he wasn't born in japan and only started living here a few years ago, and itaru calls him a gaijin lmao. i took it out because i don't think itaru would do that but like it's funny to me.

day 4, domestic. "nuh uh" "fym nuh uh" is the reason i wrote this entire thing. i had this exchange with someone on twitter about how itaru just says silly things and i was like. you know what? yes. so i just make itaru say silly things in this one.

day 5, plushies. after writing this, the world plushie didn't even look like a word anymore. and i'm just really obsessed with the mental image of itaru turning all of his plushies away so they don't see him and chikage doing the nasty. there's also references to the extended kniroun lore there (runa) which i am happy to talk about at great length always anytime.

- - -

23.

Oversized

samlil, devil's gambit

same deal as lost and found. although, okay, we were actually already together at this point. she, like... randomly sent me money again. i think because i didn't have enough in my paypal to resubscribe to dropout, so i was like haha is anyone willing to commission me real quick. and then she just sent me money. so i wrote this because i wasn't going to take no for an answer. also i had major samlil brainrot, since i had a manga studio art class where we had to make our own manga, and i was like. okay! great! (makes devil's gambit manga) (does not sleep for three weeks)

- - -

24.

Hunter's Mark

azusakyo, nocturnality extended universe

this one was a gift for soda for a little server exchange! they didn't ask for much, so i was like... hm... what's the last thing you said about azusakyo... and then saw vampires and went, PERFECT. I ALREADY HAVE A SAKYO VARIANT FOR NOCT. although he ended up a little different from how i'd originally made him, but i think this works!

the faust backstory is that he's a vampire who's also the head of vampire hunters. why is he hunting other vampires? who knows. he and franz have a history. also, despite being a vampire, he can interact with holy objects and things. he literally trained himself to do that and not to react when it burns. he's crazy, lol. that part i think was inspired by raphael from the mortal instruments. i'm a little unnormal about raphael santiago, but don't worry about it.

the summary of the fic is an excerpt from goethe's dr. faust, who faust is, y'know, name for. he did this bargain with a vampire a long time ago for something. haven't decided what exactly, but something along those lines.

also, fun fact! in my current noct universe, faust's heir is akito, played by azami.

- - -

25.

Shaped Like Halloween

kazunari & chikage, halloween, liberal use of the word "slutty"

this one was for a halloween exchange in a server! for. um. my girlfriend. IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY FUNNY. the previous fic, the azusakyo fic, it's for a different friend. but initially, the giftee i had received was also my girlfriend. so i asked if it was okay to switch with someone else since i figured she might like to receive fics from people who are, you know, not just me. AND THEN I FUCKING LEARNED THAT BOTH THE GIFT EXCHANGES IN DIFFERENT SERVERS JUST RANDOMIZED THE GIFTEES. SO I RANDOMLY RECEIVED QUILL'S NAME TWICE BECAUSE THE POWER OF GAY OR SOME SHIT??? IDK.

anyway, it's sillies! kazu and chikage. i'm pretty sure that when we'd filled out the forms to join the exchange, we hadn't gotten together yet? and she had something written down like, kazu and chikage, i've been thinking about them recently. and like. i kin kazu, she kins chikage. i know what you are (gay).

- - -

26.

Starburst Tea

bansaku, first meeting, no mankai

for being my favorite a3 ship, you'd think that i'd have more bansaku fics. but, hey, at least i have this one! i also posted this around the time of the bansaku cg, so i was literally losing my mind.

this is based off an actual place i went to while wandering around. me and some irls found this cool little tea shop the city. it was really cozy, and there was an actual wall of tea with different blends. i got carnival! it was good tea. the owner asked my friend if he would be willing to help paint a mural on the side of his tea shop with some other japanese people, so that was slay and fun. there was a fire, we made smores! the owner also has a little wood soldering set, and he let my irl draw his face on the wooden counter. it's really nice. anyway, in universe, my irl is kazu, he just does shit for banri.

- - -

27.

(if) we are meant to be

mukuyuki, soulmate au

last fic of the year! this one was for the secret santa on twt for my friend, aud! admittedly, i don't have a lot of practice writing youngestgumi, but i think it turned out well! i wrote this on the plane ride back home, actually, so it feels like a really nice close for the year.

i'm super normal about soulmate aus, by the way. i have a billion fluttering around my mind at any given point in time.

- - -

thanks for sticking with me this year! hope to write a bajillion more fics again next year~ i actually have one coming up soon for a server secret santa, so look out for that one! >wa)b

#a3 #lanchan talks #fic writing wrapped

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moondrunkmoth · 27 days ago

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A commitment to self development

I want to make a commitment to myself.

Back in 2021 when I was deep in burnout I made a commitment to recovery. That was a hard decision I resisted initially because it would be isolating, and depressing, and intense. I knew it would mean carving away huge chunks of a life I imagined to do some extreme hermitting before I could take baby steps back into the world. Once I figured out this wasn't your regular garden variety depression, it was Autistic burnout, I accepted the answer was a regenerative hibernation. I spent many hours self reflecting, journaling, sleeping (or not sleeping), going to therapy; I had a support human that helped me with accountability getting day to day tasks done from life admin to - have you showered this week?

I knew I needed to stop trying to live a full life and just convalesce if I was to ever get back to living a full life.

As I recovered I made a commitment to my overall health. I spent the pandemic being very physically sedentary (starting a company & living with a feeder, struggling with binge eating & no exercise) to dropping a lot of weight once I was single again due to mental health, becoming low functioning, & medication. It was good for my body to shed some of the weight but the number on the scales hadn't read that low since I was 17 and before all of that I was strong and training regularly, happily heavy with muscle. I discovered I was hypermobile & suddenly a lot of my body aches and pains made sense, why I struggled with some aspects of exercise. So my next commitment was to a healthy lifestyle.

I was lucky to find a flat where I could live alone, something I really needed. I started small, joined a gym with the promise to never shame myself if I never used it. That monthly fee was money that no longer existed but the gym was there. Bit by bit I started going more. I started back at pole class regularly. By the end of 2023 I had a PT for a while & went full on gym bro. Tracking my food & steps & super fit. I calmed down a little in 2024 & shifted to more dance focused & body movement & mobility. But It was a habit that stuck & became a part of me.

I also made a commitment to art, painting specifically. I took a couple of courses & started exploring my own creativity. I had notions of actually BEING a real artist. - FYI I am a real artist & always have been - I jest - what I mean is artist who is recognised & makes some money. I have since reassessed this having got a flavour for the contemporary art world & I don't think it's feasible to take these steps for myself at the moment. That industry is a whole beast & I wont go into detail about it - but it's not introvert compatible and I I have accepted I don't have the capacity to tame that beast right now.

Which leads me to today. The start of 2025. I know I have the skill to make it as an artist in a professional sense. I need to hone & grind a few things but I have the fundamentals down I have just been resistant to doing the grind. My ADHD brain wants fun, easy wins. And post burnout the last year has been more for living frivolously, something I've not been able to do for 5 years for various reasons.

I have dreams of being the kind of artist that sells pieces in a gallery & paints for pleasure in some art studio where there are not humans near. And I have a cat. Or 4. But I have decided to un-prioritise that because I have come to realise that this is a long term goal that will never go away. Right now I need something more practical & achievable than the nebulous idea of selling paintings for thousands in a gallery to rich people. I have the self belief I can achieve this - but I am ok with not doing it soon.

I need to start thinking about a sustainable life in this capitalistic hellscape. I definitely can't go back to the old life I had, it burned me out & corporate hell is soul sucking & not ND compatible. I played the game well into my 30s. I did the full time job. I even started a company. I have literally nothing to show for it. My generation was sold a myth - but that's a complaint for another time. The point is, I don't have the privilege of family wealth, owning a home, spouse support whether financial or emotional, at any point I might end up nomadic/homeless again, I am relying on UK benefits - even though this is a privilege in itself it does not feel secure. But gives me the opportunity to focus on my self development full time as much as my capacity as a disabled human allows.

Burn out was a wake up call to change my approach. Give myself permission to rest & uncouple my self worth from productivity. But I need to make real life changes to secure my future, I have to go back to participating in the system that burnt me out. This time with open eyes & no delusions!

The other avenue I have been considering for a while is Visual Development. Something in that field. I am a massive gaming nerd, so that would be the dream. But Vis Dev design principals have overlap in film & animation so I am not fussy at this stage. The next step is self exploration & some skill grinding.

The goal is to make a portfolio that someone might WILL hire me for.

I think this is an ideal route for me. As someone that's never really had a distinctive style & highly adaptable, can draw virtually anything with a bit of study now I have a lifetime of experience, I think this is a good fit.

I also have a wealth of skill in development & design pipelines from my previous roles - turns out - mindset wise this is super compatible. I am a problem solver, but Vis Dev is problems I can solve it with art! This excites me :D

So this is my commitment to myself.

I will forsake all other things but this.

Like burnout recovery. Like the lifestyle changes I made. It means saying no to anything that doesn't align with the ONE THING.

That doesn't mean there wont be balance. I still need to move my body & stay healthy. I still need to not burn out & look after my mental health. This is building on the work I have done so far.

I was reminded recently how I have already build habits & lifestyle changes once with my physical health - I CAN do it again.

My next step is to make a plan. Set myself up so I have the best possible start to this process & can maintain it. Start small. This is another massive lifestyle shift. This time I have decided to document it in the hopes that this little step will help me stay on track. I can review what is or isn't working.

Next... I am going to go through the things I plan on changing almost immediately to start this momentum.

#artists on tumblr #journal

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mental-health-advice · 2 years ago

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I‘m on a new discord server since one week (not too many members, about 30) and I‘m really passionate about the fandom there. I‘m socially struggling to make profound friendships irl and the fandom is rather rare so I try my luck with internet friendships. I was super excited to get an invite, however, after one week, I can‘t get rid of the feeling that I‘m not accepting there and that people are actually hating me. It‘s maybe just my anxiety speaking but my mental health is getting worse by the day and I‘m devastated to see that people won‘t react to my messages and only communicate in their cliques. There is a certain use of costum emojis/stickers and all my messages don‘t get a single reaction/emoji. If I try to join a conversation, everybody is leaving. If I try to post a funny meme, nobody is reacting. I don’t get tagged, questions are ignored and I feel terribly left out. I don‘t know how to integrate myself any better and I‘m actually starting to feel so anxious because I fear anything I‘ll be saying is just making it worse. I just want to be accepted and be part of it because after all I really adore the fandom and the people on the server seem to be so nice and supportive (but only to each other, though).

Hey there,

Sometimes upon joining a new discord server, it can take time to establish friendships or get to the point where you are noticed and are included like others are. Being a member for only a week so far isn’t too long and so it’s quite possible that everyone else knows each other quite well, have their own cliques or groups and so when they log on they just go straight to replying or writing to people they already know.

I know 30 people may not seem like a big number but online and especially if a large number are online and posting all at once, it can be extremely easy for your post to go unseen or unanswered, this is in no way a reflection of you as a person but rather that people are just prone to doing what they usually do and talking to the usual people. This is something that I have found personally myself anyway, and it sounds like it may be something similar to what you are experiencing.

My best advice, is to keep trying though, and try not to let your anxiety take over. And if you feel as though your anxiety is completely taking over then perhaps logging off and doing something that helps you to self-soothe or some self-care activity. Try not to take the actions of others personally and if after a few weeks, things haven’t improved then consider leaving the discord and trying to make friends in other ways and places.

I know that finding and making friends is never easy but you are trying and this is a really good step!

Other ways in which you could try making friends may be by joining a group who has similar interests to yourself? This can be done both in real life and online, so maybe if you have a hobby then search for groups who have the same or similar hobbies to yourself, someone who you have something in common with. This can be extremely helpful and especially as it can be an easy conversation topic to begin with when you first begin to chat with others.

I really hope that this has helped a bit and please do let us know if we can help to support you in any other way!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going well!

Take care,

Lauren

#mha-lauren #advice #advice blog #mental health advice #anonymous #new discord server #making friends #feeling ignored

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reveraine · 1 year ago

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Speaking as a NT, I have no idea. I think people delude themselves rather than actually changing their personalities, but I also know I am really confident in myself and my wants and desires, and that weirds other people out sometimes.

Like I knew I wanted kids and because that's 'normal' no one questioned it. But the people I know who love dogs have a really hard time understanding that I really just don't want one.

I love dogs. Other people's dogs. I could even dogsit for a few weeks if necessary. I know people who say they are less work than kids, and I am sure that is true for them, but it is certainly not for me 😅.

I think the thing that gets to people is that I want some things that are arguably more work than dogs. If I had the space and means I would have a horse or two in a heartbeat. But I like taking care of horses. I like my horses better than other people's horses.

I also think there is some benefit to trying things you're not sure you will like because you might end up liking them. But like that mentality is super dangerous when talking about anything that requires a commitment longer than about a season. Trying a sport and then sticking with it even when you don't like it (until the end of that season, never longer), I think is good for stretching your willpower muscle. And I want to be clear that not liking is not the same as it being bad for you (like the team is toxic or you are in pain etc).

I do also think that (at least in the subject of kids) that a lot of women experience the instinct(or urge, of you prefer) to reproduce later in life, even if they don't like kids. But that is fleeting. It is not worth it to satisfy an instinct that will make you happy in the moment to get something you never actually wanted and wouldn't want if you didn't have hormones telling you you wanted it.

I have a cousin who seems really unhappy with the number of children she has, but she also made the decision to have as many as she did, and so I think it's easier for her to say she is happy and hope that it will become true than to be miserable in front of her little ones, especially because kids pick up on things like being unwanted (or even just being a small burden) super quickly. And then they internalize it, and often struggle with it for the rest of their life.

So many people don't seem to understand that trying to convince someone who doesn't want kids that they will be happy with kids is bad for the kids. Like so bad. Better for them not to have been than to live with a parent who resents them. Better to have a small well-adjusted population than a large population who all need therapy because their parents were pressured into having them. And I think it all stems from projecting their own bad decisions.

The same cousin with all the kids informed me that it was best to stop with one. "One kid is perfect", were her words, I think. I have a lot of people tell me "Two is perfect, a boy and a girl." Because they thought their lives were or would have been perfect with that number (spoiler, they weren't, and wouldn't have been). I love the chaos of big families, and so I ignore them and mostly just take pity on these people that I love who are unknowingly projecting the decisions they either wish they had made or the feelings they with they felt into me.

It might be that we have one more and decide we are done, but it's not going to be because anyone other than my spouse or I said so. (The two enthusiastic yes's vs one no rule applies perfectly here).

Sorry, that got really long and ramble-y, but I think my point was that people think of the mistakes they make and the feelings they feel and project them or project their own wish to have them onto others, and then don't understand why you are happy making the same decisions they did when those decisions didn't make them happy. When it's really as simple as you both ordered chocolate cake, but they don't actually like chocolate and so complain to you about how you should both order vanilla next time because they can't imagine someone being different.

I wonder if neurotypicals change their minds about core aspects of their personalities more often than autistic people do?

I was told I would change my mind about wanting children. I did not. (Note that I didn’t start from a point of ambivalence or hesitation, I was always certain. But boy oh boy did people not believe my certainty.)

I was told that I would grow to love driving a car when it would be “my” car. I did not. (I see the usefulness of having one and am now more at ease doing it but I still don’t enjoy driving it.)

I was told that I would eventually start to like coffee, wine, beer… I still think they all taste like shit. (I have found ways to make them not taste like shit but that’s a different thing).

I was told my relationship with my husband would change after the wedding… I was told I would regret a haircut I was dead set on… I was told I would eventually get bored of my field of work…

And every time, I’m told these things with such perfect confidence! As if it is the inevitable way of the world!! Proven truths!!!

Which leads me to ask: do people really misjudge their inner self this badly??? Or does “you’ll change your mind / grow to like…” means something completely different to other people, such as “you’ll bow down to external pressure about it / you’ll get used to it and will confuse acceptance for enjoyment”????

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echo-of-sounds · 3 years ago

Text

chronic illness/physical disability

How Aizawa, Toshinori, and Fatgum would help and support their partner who's physically disabled/has a chronic illness.

I really wanted to write these because I see so few posts for readers with physical issues. It's always about mental issues. And like with my other headcanons, I can mostly only speak to my experiences. It'd be impossible for me to try to encompass every illness and physical disability as there are just way too many.

Warnings: a bunch of medical stuff and a little about past not-so-great relationships, but it's all rather vague

Aizawa Shouta

At the beginning of your relationship or before you started dating, Shouta didn’t think much about your physical and/or chronic illnesses. They’re a part of you, and like with all other parts of your life, he accepts it when he decides he wants to be in a relationship with you. He’ll also educate himself on whatever you’re dealing with, so he isn’t an ignorant boyfriend.

He knows you don't need him to survive. You survived your life without him until this point. You don't need someone pestering you about meds. If you thought a heating pad would help, you'd get it or ask him to. He's there to help you when you need it, not be overly motherly. The times you do need help to get breakfast or to grab your afternoon meds, of course, he'll help, bringing you a light snack and ginger ale as well to get something in your stomach. (If he's home. He's busy and sadly isn't home most of the week.)

He doesn't judge or demonize the number of medications you need. It doesn't mean you’re drug-seeking or make you some sort of nightmare to deal with. If anything, they help by limiting your pain, discomfort, anxiety, and other symptoms. He’s rather indifferent to those that vilify the use of meds, no matter the amount. Some people need them to survive. It’s a fact.

One part he hates the most is how you think and talk about yourself. No, you're not useless. No, you're not a burden or shameful or disgusting, or unlovable. Simply existing with a mobility aid isn't taking up space. Needing help to fold the sheets isn't belittling. Asking for help isn't weak. Wearing pajamas for four days doesn't make you gross. You're struggling. You're sick. It doesn't matter what you get done in a day because you still have value by just being here. Yes, even the times you can't do things because of your disability. Caring, thought-out words do not come easy to him, but he certainly tries his hardest for you.

Chronic illnesses and physical disabilities leave you with a rather complicated relationship with your body. You feel okayish on Monday, fine for the most part on Wednesday, then completely hate how it's unable to function on Friday. You glare at all the injection and laparoscopic scars. And cuddling doesn't help when you feel physically gross, body cramping, sweating, making sounds you don't want to hear, let alone your goddamn partner. It's just embarrassing.

But Shouta isn't needlessly judgemental. Some things are simply out of your control. Surgery scars, implanted ports, ostomies, and splints are all things that have improved your health or saved your life. None of them are bad or ugly, and he hates feeling you curl away from him during one of those bad days. He resists pulling you back and asks if you want to talk. He may not be the best at reciprocating the delicate conversation, but the warm hand holding your side lets you know he’s there to listen to all the fears and anxieties.

While Sho’s spent some time in hospitals/at doctor’s appointments, they aren’t things he’s dealt with for prolonged periods for ongoing issues. Dealing with shitty doctors is a new experience for him. And it’s worse because it isn’t him dealing with it, it’s you. Getting a call from you at two on a Wednesday, crying your eyes out because of how little this ‘specialist’ cared about your problems and pain, ticks him off. He can’t just leave his work, but he tries to hurry home after, worried about how the third appointment like this’ll affect your mental health, possibly spiraling your depression further.

A horrible side effect of dealing with chronic physical problems is how it causes and worsens mental health. You have to spend literally years listening to people claim the disabled are just collateral damage, not worth saving. Chronic exhaustion, like the name implies, is fucking exhausting to deal with. People don't understand it. They think it’s ‘just being tired’ when it’s neverending joint and muscle pain, bodily weakness, brain fog, confusion, and you physically cannot get out of bed for fear of collapsing in the hall. They throw out lame 'advice' of "Try working out!" or compare it to depression when they’re two completely separate issues. It wears you down after years and years, leaving you hopeless and suicidal on the worst days.

Shouta can relate to this a bit. While his tiredness comes from a mental health angle from the combo of two jobs, stress, and general insomnia, and while it isn't the same as chronic fatigue, he does understand the struggles. It's hard to function when everything inside you is just too fucking exhausted. And all the annoying, unsolicited advice about 'taking melatonin' or 'trying coffee' only makes you want to throw something at their face because 'no, a fucking massage won't help and your essential oils are more than useless.'

He quickly becomes an angry partner. Not towards you or in an abusive/negative way. It’s towards other people, possibly snapping at the nosy woman who asked why you need a wheelchair if you can technically walk or at the doctor who brushed off you fainting for the third day in a row as a period issue. It surprises him a little just how angry he can be at others over you.

Before you do anything sexual together, Sho's gonna need to talk with you. He's naturally rather rough, and he doesn't want to risk hurting you with a position that'll subluxate your knee or make him penetrate too harshly. It’ll definitely take some exploring to find what’s best and pleasurable for both of you.

Though, that conversation can open up a can of worms he wasn't exactly expecting. Certain people just don’t understand how physical issues impact sex. Having one of those people as a past partner leaves lasting impressions. They made you feel bad when you couldn’t have sex for over a month, say it's unfair like you're punishing them, and act like their sexual satisfaction is more important than your physical and mental health. And when you are ready, it hurts, so you have to stop, making them mad all over again because "you should be able to push through the pain." Sho comforts you through the sensitive reminiscing, promising he’ll never be like that and that your comfort is always his priority.

Sex can also be embarrassing. You have to stop because of sudden lower GI issues. Or he'll pull out to see thick, black discharge on him despite not being on your period. He tells you to stop with the apologies. They're unnecessary. Your body works differently, maybe wrong, but you don't need to apologize for needing to stop. Your health is more important. Besides, if he really needs to get off, he can just do it himself. It's not a big deal to him.

Yagi Toshinori

Toshinori’s disabled, missing organs, and deals with the same chronic pain and vomiting. He understands the struggles of physical health issues and how different and agonizing they are compared to mental health problems. And when his flared up, he had no one. He pushed through it no matter how badly his stomach hurt, no matter how nauseous or lightheaded or disgusting he felt, and no matter how much he dry-heaved in an alley till his ribs strained.

It's difficult to know how much to share about your symptoms, particularly at the beginning of the relationship. Share too much, you might scare them off by appearing like you're too much trouble to deal with. Share too little, you risk overexerting yourself by hiding symptoms, especially the 'uglier' ones. Thankfully, Toshi makes it pretty easy to talk to him about anything. He's kind, patient, and with his injuries, has his fair share of symptoms. Depending on yours and how open you're comfortable being, he'll understand if you slowly talk about it, symptom by symptom, as the relationship grows, or if you just want to flat-out say your diagnosis(es) to get it over with.

Since he has to pay attention to his diet so, it's natural for him to also pay attention to his partner’s. It's not a judgmental thing. It's him making sure you've eaten recently and had enough water. When he cooks, he'll always place some aside for later for you. It can become nearly impossible to cook or prepare food during flair-ups, so if having casserole leftovers or finger sandwiches in the fridge helps get something nutritional into you, then he'll gladly do it.

One of his go-to ways to help is to offer to go for a walk. Who knows? After a long day of laying on the couch, some cool evening air might help. But he also knows not to push you too far. If you truly can't, then that's okay. If you can only make it to the end of the block or ten minutes, that's okay too. You tried. If you get outside and realize that it does help, he'll walk for another forty minutes if it's what you decide.

He's great with doctor appointments! He's suffered through enough of them, and he's more than willing to accompany you to one. The only thing that'll throw a wrench in his experience is how some doctors ignore your problems, even if it causes you significant distress. It'd take a reminder that he's a Hero, and used to be the top Hero of the country. Of course, doctors took his issues seriously. For others, it can take numerous appointments to find one doctor to listen to you. And it's always worse if you weren't born a man, overweight by the slightest amount, and/or have mental health issues as doctors like brushing things off as anxiety or weight problems, or flat-out ignoring you if it's related to your uterus, not bothering to mark anything down or refer you for any tests.

Toshi isn't above seeking out a highly-regarded doctor for you. He's seen his fair share of specialists and will ask around, maybe even pulling the "Yes, I'm All Might. Yes, they're my partner" to get you in faster. It's not about making you feel incapable, but more so about making sure you can get the proper care you need from someone willing to give it. He loves you and hates watching you suffer in any way. He won't stand for anyone ignoring or dismissing you.

After sitting in the damn MRI machine for longer than you prepared for and dealing with all the anxiety while you wait for the follow-up, you're left looking at a picture of your brain littered with so many white matter abnormalities it looks like a fucking dalmatian, mirroring stroke patients brains. Then they tell you how infarct-like lesions increase your chances of a stroke and that migraines may cause structural changes in the brain, and you just shut down for the rest of the day, dissociating away from the scary words — they too many horrible possibilities in your future that you don't want to think about.

Then it gets worse because your illness(es) gets worse, or you're diagnosed with another thing that affects all your other things. You feel stuck in your own damn body, barely able to function even with handfuls of medications, becoming bedridden if you accidentally miss a dose or the pharmacy or insurance company messes up.

Toshi's dealt with those low odds, those shitty feelings, and the self-hatred. You feel like it's somehow your fault — like you're a moral failure. Maybe if you did something different, ate different foods, lived someplace else, took different vitamins, life would just be different. But you can't know the answer to that. You're here, and you have to deal with the problems. And he'll always do his best to support you. He can't take the pain away or fix whatever's wrong in your GI system, but he will always support you, pulling from his own experiences to help.

Occasionally, it feels impossible to feel good in any way. If you're struggling for a long while, Toshi offers sex as a means to help. It isn't a straightforward question. He’s a shade too timid for that. It’s him helping you wash up in the shower after spending three days stuck in bed. You can relax as he softly runs the soap over your body, carefully massaging your sides, your breasts, your clit among the suds. You're always able to say no, no reason necessary. He knows physical health impacts libido. But sometimes, getting those endorphins running is what’s needed to stop the pain. If you want to continue, he lays in bed with you, between your legs, softly sucking your clit till you find a calming release. Sometimes, it leads to more. Sometimes, it doesn't. He doesn't care much either way. He only hopes you'll get a bit of relief.

Penetrative sex can be uncomfortable, if not nearly impossible. You worry you're never going to experience painless sex and be able to enjoy the intimacy you want with the man you love. If you go to pelvic floor therapy or have exercises, he'd be happy and very willing to get involved. Yeah, it might be embarrassing the first few times, but his want to make sure sex is enjoyable for you overrides all that. He may even surprise you with a higher quality dilater set (something he'd easily drop three-hundred dollars for) or treat you to a loving and newly-learned pelvic floor massage, nearly making you cry because for once in your life, sex is fun and painless.

Toyomitsu Taishiro

While Taishiro wouldn't call any of his physical issues an illness or disability per se (rather negative side effects from his quirk), he understands chronic pain and how badly one's body can just suck. His pain flares the most after expelling his stored energy, which leaves him weak, swollen, and exhausted. He also gets joint pain quite a bit, particularly in his hips and knees. His quirk allows his body to work in different ways, but that doesn't mean it's immune to the cracks, bone grinding, and bodily wear and tear.

However, most don't know about that part of his life and quirk. He isn't open to the general public about that. As you get closer, he begins to share his struggles. It can come as a bit of relief knowing that the man you’re interested in also deals with physical issues, allowing for a deeper understanding and connection of each other’s problems and feelings.

Tai also understands how shitty offhanded comments and generalizations people make are, especially if you're visibly disabled in the slightest of ways. If you’re breathing too hard, too pale, too slow, or too “fussy,” people feel the need to draw attention to it like it’s somehow inconveniencing or insulting them on a personal level. He received more than his fair share about his weight growing up. Though, for him, they've mostly stopped now that he's a fairly well-known Hero.

But again, that just shows how people won't complain about, mock, or chastise you/your disability if you're deemed useful and never complain about your symptoms. If you're not, then you're weak or not trying hard enough or lazy or a hindrance, or a moocher. They'd rather you be invisible than accommodate you in any way.

It's hard to internalize others' love when you know what you used to be: top-of-the-class honor student, taking four classes, able to juggle all the homework and essays while working a job on the side. But now? Now, you're stuck in bed. On a good day, you can take a shower, throw the clothes in the washer, and maybe get the dishes done before you collapse onto the bed again, timing when you get up for a snack and go to the bathroom with when your meds are due to make one trip.

Like Toshi, Tai does his best to support you. He can’t fathom the exact pain and disappointment you feel with everything going on, but he stays beside you the entire time. And he never judges the "gross" symptoms skin or GI issues cause or makes you hide your suffering for his comfort. If you're in pain, tell him. Just like you always do your best to help him after a fight or nightmare, he gets a warm bath going or heats your rice pack. Whatever your pain management is, he does it, laying down beside you for some cuddling.

Since his professional life is far less busy than the other two, he has more off time, meaning he has much more time to spend with you. It’s perfect if doctor visits are difficult or intimidating. New doctors are always the worst. You worry if they'll take anything seriously. The horrible ones leave you hopeless, scared life will be uncomfortable, painful, and debilitating. The truly terrible ones can leave you suicidal, preferring to not even be here if the rest of your life is going to be this shitty. He may not be the most experienced in handling those low moments, but he tries. His priorities are making sure you're comfortable, preferably beside him or bundled in his lap, and seeing that you're safe as you ride out the upheaving, distressful feelings.

On the other hand, he's great support for any surgeries and procedures you need. Those thirty-one Botox shots to your head are scary? He's in the neurologist’s office with you, reminding you to breathe and relax your muscles. Need a colonoscopy/endoscopy to explore nearly your entire GI tract? Well, he won't be able to fast with you, but he can make you some delicious chicken broth to drink. Need yet another pelvic exam, or worse, an endometrial or cervical biopsy, and just hearing them describe the procedure is nearly enough to make you faint? Yeah, he's in the room with you, rubbing your arm, letting you squeeze his hand as hard as you need through the long needles, punching and pinching, and way-too-heavy pressure.

A CT scan, two-hour-long MRI/MRA scans that make your head feel oddly, uncomfortably warm, transvaginal ultrasounds that hurt but you have to sit through, transesophageal echocardiogram, biopsies, spinal taps, the procedures go on. They’re difficult to deal with one by one, especially if your relationship with doctors is not the healthiest, but to deal with them all within a few months of each other is grueling, if not debilitating, to your mental health, let alone your physical.

Tai knows he can't go in with you during every procedure. Some have radiation exposure. Others need a sterile environment. But he will be right beside you when you wake up or come out, maybe surprising you with a cute, new stuffed bunny, and he'll treat you to some pancakes to help you regain yourself after. If it was a particularly taxing test, he's a little extra snuggly once home, which is exactly why he likes to take the day off in case you need extra loving after.

He loves adventurous dates: amusement parks, festivals, concerts, and fairs. It might take one or two for it to sink in how much they affect you, whether it be how hard it is for you to walk, needing places to rest, or how inaccessible they are, only having stairs and tight walkways to get around. He learns quickly. Whenever it's his turn to pick the place or if he wants to surprise you, he checks their reviews or scopes the place out to see if it's actually accessible. You deserve to have the same fun and experiences as others do.

If your ability to have painless and/or enjoyable sex is compromised, penetrative sex simply may never be an option. He's big, and if using your fingers is borderline painful, then he won't risk penetration. He isn't upset. He's more so at a loss for making sure you both feel good together. It'll take some working out and trial and error. Oral, mutual masturbation, and you laying on your back while he slides in between your thighs, letting you stroke yourself as he does, are the easiest ways to enjoy each other. If you're having some pain-free days, he may try fingering you and maybe, maybe PIV penetration if you're really wanting it and confident in trying. He's slower and gentler than ever as he massages you, stretches you, licks you till he slides in.

#aizawa shouta #aizawa x reader #all might #all might x reader #yagi toshinori #toshinori x reader #fatgum #fatgum x reader #taishiro toyomitsu #taishiro toyomitsu x reader #aizawa headcanons #all might headcanons #fatgum headcanons #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha headcanons

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leporellian · 3 years ago

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thoughts on “modern” opera productions!

this has been sitting in my inbox forever and i thought 'yeah i'll answer that sometime' and then i went and fucked off to pittsburgh for like a week but now... i am here. i have fire in my veins. and i can't go to work at the moment so i'm going a little insane. perfect timing to write about "modern" setting opera productions and why i have it Fucking Out for them most of the time

so i know the big joke is that i have it out for modern setting opera productions but there's a caveat here, and the caveat depends on three things:

a) if it works with what's in the source material and/or provides something additionally meaningful instead of messing up the existent dynamics, b) if it understands that audience sympathy and modernization do not go hand in hand, or c) if it pisses off opera boomers (funny). the lucia di lammermoor at the met right now that everyone's panicking over i think works because, third point aside, it works with what's already there. the whole idea of mental health struggles both affecting and being taken out on women, as well as the concept of women having to carry the public image of their families, works both in Ye Olde Scotland and modern southern America. plus, the new setting adds an additional sort of patheticness (in that perfect sort of pitiable way) to the whole 'you must keep up our DISTINGUISHED family NAME' when said distinguished family name is a corrupt car dealership, and i think that's really genuinely interesting; it doesn't take away from or act in defiance of the original but adds a new layer on top. and again, it makes people mad, and that's funny.

so if there's some modern productions i'm okay with, why do i hate so many of them? and the answer comes down to a few key features.

number one. directors want to do an ironic take on something and in the process sort of ruin it. lucia, as previously stated, works with its irony because it's still very genuine in spite of it. but there's a lot of operas where the director thinks they can provide commentary on parts that haven't aged well (or that they just plain disagree with) by making the characters act like blatant assholes and having any sense of peace or good will be absolutely obliterated. now this isn't an issue specific to modern setting productions but it tends to be really common with them. now this isn't to say directors can never put characters or situations in different lights, but it Is to say that making something too mean spirited can spoil it. this is especially annoying when the opera is actually rather idealistic in nature and the director's just trying to be like "OH BUT TRUE LOVE DOESN'T EXIST" like... maybe go watch a cinemasins video or whatever it is edgy 14 year olds do these days and take a break from directing opera until you feel better.

number two. certain dynamics tend to get lost in translation when done in modern settings. you especially see this in operas revolving around class dynamics, although others are to be included as well. take don giovanni, for example, a show i have never really liked any modern setting productions of (despite it ofc being my favorite opera). leporello's entire character hinges on the dynamics of 17th century class servitude, along with other power imbalances of the time. in a more 'modern' setting, where leporello is just the don's assistant or a close friend, it doesn't make sense why he has little to no agency over the don's actions because there isn't the 'servants of the 17th century had to follow their masters' orders or McFucking Die' notion in the mix- and this directly leads to the modern idea of making leporello into a slimy, unlikable enabler instead of the more benign and sympathetic figure he's meant to be seen as. there's many more examples here but that one comes to mind and that's a major failing of modern setting productions, even if the vague general concepts are timeless.

number three. directors think that the audience can only empathize with modern characters. this is the biggest issue and, i think, the worst one. there was a tweet a going around a while ago like 'oh i cant relate to finding nemo because i'm not a fish' and that's really a TLDR of this situation. directors have this need to make everything easier to the audience to relate to, and while this strategy might work with the shallow, it kind of... removes one of the main points of theatre and fiction as a whole... which is TO WORK TO UNDERSTAND AND EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE THAT ARE DIFFERENT THAN YOU. opera's themes are universal; rigoletto is about ableism and misogyny and how societal power structures are built on their backs; the marriage of figaro is about class not determining the merit of a person (and misogyny and power Again), tosca is about the plurality of god and how religion and politics are inseparably linked. all of these themes are things we aren't unused to. you COULD of course make the argument that a modern setting shows the audience that these struggles have always been there, but in my mind that's spelling it out for them and i like letting them make the connection for themselves. it's much more profound to connect to something that'c obviously set in a different time than it is to connect to something that happened in a story taking place just last week with characters roughly Your age. you have to let the audience do some work to understand the piece. part of the joy of opera is that it feels like you're not alone in your struggles, and having a modern setting kind of removes that feeling. that and there's this idea in fiction that a character has to be just like you for you to understand them, which... i evidently thoroughly dislike. i am making a story here, not a #relatable buzzfeed quiz. empathy isn't created by putting the characters in modern slacks and handing them an iphone. it's created by damn good writing and portrayals, which opera has in spades but just needs to.... actually realize it has in spades. modern settings are thoroughly superficial in this way.

number four. directors think that old timey costumes and situations are ridiculous. this sorta goes hand in hand with the last one. listen here's the big secret: all genuine expression of human emotion? it's going to be inevitably, wonderfully ridiculous! you cannot have something that is incredibly profound without it looking at least slightly silly to someone somewhere out there. because that's human nature. we are all just a bunch of apes on a big rock in space trying to do our best, and we have to embrace the inherent silliness of profundity if we want to express it. once again this is an issue boiling down to 'director wants all of the vulnerability without none of the actual vulnerability' and shooting themselves in the foot over it.

TLDR for this one: you are going to look at the guy onstage in a 14th century jester costume and you are going to understand him and have a Moment over it, and then you will understand how connected we all really are and how art is a repeated journey of telling the world that there was someone there, and it mattered. Oh and if you stage The Rakes Progress in a modern setting GO TO JAIL NOW. i yield my time

#opera tag #rambles

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in-tua-deep · 4 years ago

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idk if you still do au ideas but what if delores was a real person in the apocalypse? how it woul dbe done i have no idea but i love all your aus and thought it would be cool

okay okay I don't tend to go for real!Dolores aus admittedly because I find her much more compelling as what she is: a reflection of five himself and a symptom of his crushing loneliness

but i started thinking about it and you know what?? i think five deserves a little socialization, as a treat

so say like, 0.5% of the population is resistant to abilities. Allison would really struggle to rumor them, Five wouldn't be able to jump with them, and, most importantly, whatever the fuck Vanya's ability does has like, reduced damage or something

and the og apocalypse isn't the moon apocalypse, so let's say that it was pure waves of Vanya's powers that fucked over the earth

so 0.5% of the population survives the apocalypse. though, let's be honestly, the real number is a lot smaller than that. People who might have survived Vanya's initial power wave (miraculously) did not survive buildings crushing them or survive the car/plane/bus/train/other transportation crashes or survive being left alone when they are too young to reliably look after themselves, or the variety of other problems that come with 99.5% of the population dying at once

So, Five arrives in the apocalypse and is met with ruin and fire and a whole lot of dead people. He finds his siblings, but it doesn't matter. They're dead. He doesn't even recognize them at first, these strange grown-ups who he identifies not by their faces but by the umbrellas on their wrists that match his own

As he realizes the full impact of his situation, he hears a voice that says, very succinctly, "holy shit!"

It's a girl a few years older than Five himself, maybe 15 or 16, and she is very excited to see another survivor.

And here's where I u-turn this au around bc i'm not all that interested in real!Dolores, but I would be down to talk about Five meeting survivors in the apocalypse, because if Dolores is real I don't buy no one else survived.

So Dolores shows up and see a Literal Child crying over the corpses of his family and assumes that Five is a fellow survivor, and she immediately grabs him up. Five is incoherent with grief at this point anyway, so he doesn't even protest when she basically hauls him away from the bodies. She's babbling at him, but he doesn't really hear anything she's saying

And then she takes him to her dad

(Why not, let's have the 1% potentially be a heritable thing)

and her dad, let's call him just some dad name. like Rick. it has been a fucking WEEK for him, okay. he had his daughter with him, his ex-wife is on the other coast for her work, and by some miracle he survived the apocalypse and so did his child, and he's been wracking his brains trying to figure out what the fuck to do next

and then his daughter shows up with a traumatized thirteen-year-old in tow

now rick is a good dude. he's a dad. they get out of five that his name is five ("what the fuck" dolores mouths to him over five's shoulder and rick can't help but agree) and the bodies he found were his siblings ("Dad and Ben and Vanya weren't there though," this child cries desperately and rick feels his own heart clench in response, "They might still be alive!")

"We can look for them." Rick assures his new adopted child, because he is an adult in a fresh apocalypse and this kid has presumably lost everything he's ever known (more than rick even knows at the time)

and they do. They each get wagons and they go out and find supplies and look for other survivors. Five is... surprisingly helpful and also surprisingly docile as he is able to rely on Someone Else to give orders while he attempts to (dissociate) process what the fuck has happened

and here's the thing: Five prides himself on being independent, sort of. He's independent for a child soldier, but he's used to taking orders from a male authority figure and Rick happens to be just that

The first time that Five does something dangerous and Rick yells is a revelation

(Rick isn't sure if he hopes that Five's dad is alive or not, because if they find that man alive then Rick might just kill the jackass himself. Also like, Five is bizarrely knowledgeable out survival skills, like way too knowledgeable about it, which is helpful for them but also very concerning)

they find a newspaper and Five finds the article that mentions his father's recent death ("Huh. Heart attack." Five says, and there is no emotion in his voice)

(Years later, years later, Five and Rick talk. "I don't think I wanted to find him, either." Five admits, softly because Dolores is asleep, "I think I was more scared of finding him alive than I was of finding his body. He would've been so mad at me, I think.")

this newspaper is how Rick and Dolores find out about Five being Number Five, Umbrella Academy Missing Person

"Dude, what the fuck." Dolores says, wide eyes, "You're like, thirty?"

"I'm thirteen." Five says, and then checks the date on the newspaper again, "Also I think I would technically be 29 if I lived through all of it, 'cause it's April and my birthday is in October."

"You... time travelled?" Rick asks, which is honestly the more relevant question, "Can you go back?"

And Five just,,, crumples on himself. Because he tried, he tried really hard. It didn't work. "I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna go back, I'm going to save them."

That, Rick thinks, is a lot of weight to put on one person's shoulders, but especially the shoulders of a child.

"Alright." Rick says, because what else can he say after finding out his new child has superpowers and is from like, 2004? "What do you need?"

("Oh my god I have so many memes to teach you." Dolores says later, reverently. Five blinks in confusion and Rick mentally prepares himself for the recitation of so many vines)

And it's easier, somehow. Five sometimes feels like it's a betrayal, but he settles into apocalypse life with an ease that surprises him.

He lets Rick fuss over him and help tie his scarf securely around his head every morning before he sets off on supply runs with Dolores. And they're kids! Five has never had a friend before, and Dolores is funny and smart and she's struggling just as much as he is.

"I don't know if my mom's alive." She says to him, in solidarity when he checks the face of every corpse to see if they're Vanya.

Five is practical in the way only a child soldier can be. He's economical with the room in their wagons, carefully examining what might and what might not be useful.

Dolores, on the other hand, constantly takes up space with what Five sees as useless shit.

"Excuse you," Dolores says, shoving a game of monopoly, the entire discworld series, and a pack of glitter gel pens into her wagon, "These are absolutely vital apocalypse supplies."

She challenges him, plays with him in a way no one ever has. "I bet you I can find more batteries today than you can," She grins at him, "Winner gets to pick dinner first?"

"You're on." Five says, directly before Dolores pulls two packs of 24 AA batteries from behind her back, like a cheat.

Dolores makes him take a ten minute break when they find a playground that has been mostly not-destroyed. They rummage around kids backpacks and mother's handbags for some good loot, too numb to corpses to even be bothered all that badly about the corpses they belong to.

"I'm getting on the swings." Dolores says when Five starts making noises about moving on, "I haven't been on a swingset in ages."

"What's the point?" Five grumps.

"Don't be sour because you can't swing as high as I can!" Dolores laughs, getting higher and higher as the swings creak ominously.

Five grumpily gets into the other swing and grudgingly kicks himself back and forth until Dolores takes pity on him and teaches him how to properly move his legs and body to get higher and higher.

Dolores jumps from the swing seat and lands with a flourish and smile. Five jumps out of his seat and then jumps, warping right in front of Dolores and making her yell and hit at him in outrage. Five smiles the widest he has all week.

This is how Five grows up in the apocalypse, with Dolores teasing him into taking breaks and leaning over his shoulder to look at his math and scandalizing him by stating that she'd only just started on matrices in her own high school math class.

Every night they huddle around Rick while he picks up whatever book Dolores picked out that day because it is a travesty that Five has never read hunger games or whatever, and then they read together because it would be a genuine blood bath if they all took turns. The first time Five accidentally mentioned a spoiler and Dolores genuinely considered murder was the birthday of this tradition

Some days the air is too smoky or there are dust storms or it's just plain too dangerous to go out, and they all stay in. Dolores regales Five with stories about public school, and Five tells them about his siblings.

Then they all cry

"I shouldn't be crying." Five sobs.

"Shut the fuck up," Dolores sobs back, "You literally watched me lose my shit over remembering my shitty eighth grade dance and listened to me sob-sing toxic for like four hours."

"In fairness I also wished you would shut up then."

"Let me hug you or I will start singing songs that I only remember the chorus for again you absolute fucker."

"I could always sing some -"

"No, Rick/Dad."

And Five grows up. Rick shows him how to shave very carefully in front of cracked mirrors. Dolores teases him every time his voice cracks. Rick tells Five in no uncertain terms that he loves and cares for him, and that Reginald was a little bitch. There are a lot of heartfelt conversations around that, honestly. Rick telling Five that he and the siblings deserved better, that they were children and deserved to have a childhood.

And that he has faith in Five. Rick and Dolores both do, they bring him back paper and pens and pencils and chalk and anything Five can use to write equations. They poke around any libraries for books on theoretical mathematics and quantum physics. Rick and Dolores go out scouting for food while Five stays home and can work longer.

They also make him take breaks, make sure that he's looking after himself.

They're a little better off than OG!Five when it comes to food, because some animals survive. Enough that Rick figures out how to hunt. Five is the first one to each bugs, and even though Dolores makes faces they all start eating bugs as well.

"Pretty sure there's loads of cultures that eat bugs." Rick says grudgingly, wondering if he should try stirfry the cockroaches and if that would improve the taste. "There's even, uh, cricket flour or whatever, right?"

"Plus you eat like, five spiders a year when you're asleep." Dolores says cheerfully, just to watch her dad's face scrunch up in displeasure.

"That doesn't sound true, but I don't know enough about spiders to dispute it." Five mutters, and Dolores gives him such a proud look that it makes him roll his eyes.

They're in their thirties when Rick dies. He's out foraging and hunting, and the rubble he's standing on gives way and he ends up with a gash in his leg. He manages to stop the bleeding, but the world is filthy and they don't have any antibiotics.

He gets an infection.

"It's okay." He tells both of his kids, "It's okay. I'm just so glad that you guys have each other, y'hear? I'm so glad."

"It's not okay." Five says, voice thick and choked, "It's not."

"Yeah, well, you're going to figure out how to go back, right? Go back in time and save everyone. Then I'll have never died, right?" Rick smiles, "And even if you don't, I'll be waiting for you on the other side and we'll see each other again anyway."

"I'm going to fix it."

"I know. I have faith in you, Five." Ricks says honestly, and that's more than Reginald ever said.

They sit quietly together while Dolores is out scavenging. They've been taking turns sitting with Rick.

"I won't remember you, in the past, will I?" Rick says rhetorically, but Five answers anyway.

"I don't think so."

Rick hums, "Well, doesn't matter. If you need help in the past, you come to me, y'hear?"

"You won't remember me."

"Doesn't matter. You come find me, and you tell me your crazy story until I believe you, and then I'll help you." Rick says firmly, "You're family. You're my son. Timelines? Don't matter. If you need help, with anything, even if it's just with - with filling out a bowling team or something -"

"I have never been bowling in my life and you know it." Five interrupts, but it makes him laugh just a little bit which was clearly Rick's intention.

"Well who knows what you'll get up to in the past! You'll be able to go bowling, you know. Get to wear those uncomfortable shoes. Hey, you go far enough back maybe you can go to Dolores's tenth birthday party and put me out of my misery."

"Was she bad at bowling?"

"Oh, she was wiping the floor with me. No contest."

"Honestly, that sounds absolutely accurate."

"Shut up, bowling just wasn't my sport. Regardless, the point was that I'm giving you a free pass to come and get me. Because I know you, I know how you think." Rick brings up his hand to tap his finger against Five's forehead, "You get it into your head that you need to go it alone, take it all on your shoulders. I'm telling you that if you do that I'll somehow manifest my memories and come smack you over the head for being stupid, you hear?"

"I'm not dragging you into anything." Five says firmly, "I'll have my siblings."

"Who were also children." Rick points out. "And dragging? Dragging is such a strong word for a volunteer."

"A volunteer who won't remember volunteering." Five shoots back.

Rick just shrugs, and then winces when the movement jolts his bad leg. "Five, I'm going to be honest with you here. And sappy. Can you handle a bit of sappiness for a minute?"

"No."

"Well too bad. Can't leave a dying man, you'd feel too bad. So you're stuck with me. But you listen good, okay? Because you aren't dragging me into anything. Whatever life you have, I want to have a part of that. Because you're my son. Wherever you are, whatever you do, I want to help because you're family. What you'd be doing by leaving me out of it is depriving me of someone I love, depriving me of knowing one of the best kids I've ever known."

"Shut up." Five says, choked.

"Nope, it's sappy time." Rick states, "Maybe asking you to come find me is selfish, but I don't care. No matter what version of me exists, I want to be in your life."

"My life is a walking joke, why would you want any part of that?"

"It has been my privilege to watch you grow up. To help you. To be here for you. Of course I'd want to be there to watch you grow up the rest of the way."

"But -"

"Shut up, just let me tell you that I am so proud of you. You never give up, and your heart is so big. You love so much and so loudly, and it's been the highest honor of my life to be included in your family."

Five pauses for a moment to collect himself before simply saying - "You're the best dad I've ever had."

Rick snorts, "Considering my competition, I'd sure hope so. That bar was so low old Reggie was practically limbo dancing with the devil. Now get over here and give an old man a hug."

They don't bury Rick, when he dies. They don't have time and the ground is too hard and they don't have the heart to move him. Instead the pack everything up and seal him in the shelter they'd lived in.

Dolores pulls out a bottle of ancient nail polish and painstakingly writes Rick's name on the wall with his birth year and an approximate current year. They aren't 100% sure though, since time blends together out in the apocalypse, but it's something.

They continue by themselves. They get older.

Dolores jokingly calls him her husband because the way his face scrunches up makes her cackle. They see other people very occasionally, usually passing through. Usually groups. Dolores and Five get to flex their hosting skills, though more than one group declines their cockroach stirfry.

("It's a family recipe." Five says with amusement in his eyes that usually manages to drown out old grief.)

"Jeeze, that kid couldn't have been older'n twenty-three." Dolores complains, "Makes me feels positively ancient."

"They wouldn't have known any world 'cept for the apocalypse." Five muses, pouring some boiled water into wine glasses because they might be living in the apocalypse but they can be fancy.

"Do you ever think about that?" Dolores asks, turning to him with no judgement, just curiosity. "When you go back, you'll be like, erasing them from existence."

Five shrugs, "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this place will just split off into an alternate timeline."

"Maybe none of this is real." Dolores says, amusement coloring her voice. "Maybe you aren't talking to a real person at all. Maybe this is just a symbol of your insanity and cracked mind."

"Dolores, I literally have a scar where you stabbed me. Did I somehow manage to stab myself in the back?"

"Scraped you, I scraped you. By accident."

"So you maintain." Five says haughtily, swirling his water in his wine glass like a pretentious prick.

"I could totally be fake. You don't know my life."

"I know way too much about you, Dolores. Like, way way too much." Five scoffs, because Dolores and him have literally no secrets from one another at this point. Five even knows the truth behind what happened at Janet Scranton's thirteenth birthday party. Like, he said, way too much.

"Maybe you made it up. Maybe that's why you know so much."

"Dolores, I'm going to be honest with you right now." Five presses the tips of his fingers to his chin, "If you were a figment of my imagination, you would be so much better at math."

"Hey!" Dolores squawks indignantly, "I didn't even get to finish high school you pretentious prick!"

"Neither did I!"

"You didn't even go to high school, you brat."

"I'm fifty-two I think I've outgrown 'brat.'"

"Tell that to your attitude." Dolores says haughtily, "You're still younger than me."

"Won't be when I go back in time." Five says cheerfully, completely ignoring Dolores's venomous look.

"That's cheating."

"Sucks to suck." Five says loftily, taking another sip of his water.

Sometimes they talk about The Plan, with capital letters. What Five is going to do when he goes back in time, depending on when he pops out. Is he going to adopt his siblings? What about Reginald?

"You don't think I could kill Reginald?" Five says, holding a hand to his chest in mock offense.

"I think you should let me do it. I'll even give you control of tonight's music if you do."

"What are you doing to do? Bite his ankles? What if you're like, seven or something?"

"All the better to get away with it since I'll be too young to convict or whatever."

"Pretty sure that's not how the law works."

"How would you know? Just for that I'm playing Istanbul on repeat again."

"I don't know why you think that's a threat. That song slaps."

It takes a few more years before Five is close enough that the Commission comes to interfere. Because that's what I think happened - Five was getting too close and they stepped in because they might as well distract the man as much as they can with missions, right?

So the Handler shows up. And she offers Five a job, telling him that they have the ability to travel through time. And Five - hesitates.

"Give me some time?" Five asks, and the Handler graciously gives him 24 hours.

And he and Dolores talk it over, because now that his goal is more in sight than it has ever been and Five is scared.

"What are you waiting for? You have the chance to see your siblings again." Dolores says patiently.

"Yeah," Five says, and what he doesn't say is clear. But I won't see you.

"Five." Dolores says, and she cradles his face between her palms like he is something precious, "I have had so much time with you already. More than I would have ever. We have been so lucky, to have this time. How can I demand more than what we have already been given?"

"When have you ever not demanded the world, Dolores?" Five asks, his own hand coming up to cover Dolores's own.

"We've had decades together, Five. We're getting old. I was always going to lose you, one way or another. Nothing lasts forever."

"I don't want to lose you."

"I know. But if I had to choose a way, if I could decide where our story ends, this would be it. Letting you go, because this way you get to live. You get to see your family again. You get to save the world. I could ask for nothing more than for you to get your happy ending."

Five removes Dolores's hand from his cheek so that he can cradle it between them, "I'm happy here with you. I've never been happier. Isn't that silly? That I was happier in the apocalypse?"

"I bet killing Reggie would make you happy." Dolores laughs rustily.

"One day you're going to see the mysterious disappearance of a famous billionaire in the paper and feel a twinge of satisfaction and now have a clue why." Five laughs as well, shaking his head.

Dolores pats Five's hands, "Five, look at me. We've had our time. And you're going to give me even more of it. More time with my father. More time with my mother. I'll never know it, but you'll have saved me."

"What if this is - what if this is an alternate reality? What if I leave you here alone?"

"Then you'll be saving a 15-year-old girl from the same fate as me. Because as much as I love you, as much as I have loved this time we have had together, this is still an apocalypse. This should never have happened, and if you have a chance to go back and prevent it, then I want you to take that chance with both hands."

"Even if it means leaving you alone?"

Dolores smiles at him, "I'm not going to be alone. Far too many creepy crawlies in the apocalypse for that."

"Shut up, I'm being serious."

"Hmm." Dolores hums consideringly, "Maybe I'll head North, to that new settlement that last group said they'd heard word of. Sure they'd find some use for an old woman who's survived this long in the wilderness."

"You can have my half of the record collection." Five says, pulling her against him into a hug that she easily returns.

"As if I wouldn't have stolen them as soon as you left." She scoffs, but it's a little wet, and Five pretends his own eyes aren't leaking tears.

When The Handler comes back, Dolores gives him another hug. She also slips something into his pocket - some photos. They'd taken it a year into the apocalypse, when Dolores had found an ancient looking polaroid camera and towed it home despite Five's protests about practicality. The photos are worn and faded at the edges, but the smiles on Five's little apocalypse family's faces are undeniable.

"You'll have to see if they magically fade when you change the timeline." Dolores whispers to him with a grin, "Like in the movies."

"Okay." Five whispers back.

"You have the list of movies to watch, right?" Dolores says. Five rolls his eyes and nods because he wrote the list last night into his Vanya-book while Dolores hovered over his shoulder and critiqued his handwriting.

"And you promise to try a proper non-expired twinkie at some point?"

"That I do not promise. I think even looking at one would make me lose my lunch. I have twinkie-trauma."

"Shut up and get going." Dolores says, because the Handler is starting to tap her foot impatiently.

And off Five goes to become an assassin. Though - he's much more gentle this time. He's careful, he doesn't kill children and he usually takes jobs that don't require killing at all. He distracts and manipulates events as much as he can without killing.

He's actually much more well socialized, thanks to Rick and Dolores. Less feral child and more determined man on a mission.

Which is why he's so frustrated when he finally, finally manages to get the equations to work and falls through and falls - directly back into his stupid thirteen-year-old body.

"Shit." Five says, loudly, and revels in the surprised look on his siblings faces.

He strides into the kitchen, and they all follow him like ducklings. They look exactly the way they did when they died.

"Wow this is actually way harder than I thought it would be." Five muses, looking at their dead faces. But as Dolores would say, life is hard but you have to keep on trucking sometimes. "Whatever, what's the date?"

"Five, where have you been?" Diego demands, looking irritated. It makes Five snort in amusement.

"The future. The past. If you want like, an exact list of dates you'll have to hold your horses. I spent like, two weeks in Peru once. No souvenirs though, unfortunately."

They look taken aback, like they didn't expect Five to have quite this much sass. Oops. That is definitely Dolores's influence. Or maybe he was always a little asshole. In fairness, what teenagers aren't tiny assholes? He has an excuse.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Diego's eyebrows are furrowed in anger. It kind of takes Five aback for a second, because he remembers a Diego who stutters when he argued.

"When did you learn the fuck-word?" Five asks, raising an eyebrow before her can help it, "Grace ought to wash your mouth out with soap."

Diego immediately goes red, "Shut up!"

"Wow you're so easy to rile up. Aren't you like, twenty-something? Actually, I could figure out for myself how old you are if you gave me the date."

"I'm twenty-nine." Diego growls, like that was the point.

"Haunting!" Five says cheerfully, because that means there is way less time than he would like, narrowing his time down to a six month window.

It's extremely funny how his cheer makes all of them make faces.

It's Klaus who leans forward, "Why do you need to know?"

Klaus's face is open and curious and - (looks exactly like he did when Five found him all those years ago) - and Five can't help but answer him. "The world end on April 1st, 2019. No it isn't an April Fools joke, yes I have heard that joke like a million different times. I just want to know how close I landed so I can, you know, start working on how to fix that."

"Woah woah woah, roll it back." Allison says, holding a hand up, "What?"

"The apocalypse occurs on April 1st, 2019." Five says, slowly. "I have traveled from afar to prevent this from happening, because like, everyone dies."

"Everyone?" Vanya says weakly from the side.

She's clearly expecting to be ignored, so Five turns his head to address her directly by wiggling his hand back and forth a little. "Sort of. Like, not too many people survive at all. A handful of the human population, you know."

"But you survived?" Diego recovers admirably, if bitingly.

"Well, no." Five says rolling his eyes, "Wouldn't you just know it, Klaus here has managed to figure out a new ability!"

Everyone turns to look at Klaus, who immediately holds up his hands like he's being arrested or something, "I did not!"

"Wonderful! Now that we've established that I'm alive -"

"Why should we trust a word you say?" Luther says for the first time, looking pensive.

Five blinks, genuinely taken aback. "Because... I'm your brother? Because I can clearly and obviously time travel? Like, yeah, it would have been more convenient if I'd arrived in like, my old-body for proof-purposes, but like. I mean. Thirteen is still a pretty convincing age to be to prove time travel considering if I hadn't, I would be like, almost thirty."

"Roll it back again." Allison says firmly, "What do you mean by 'old body'?"

"Great question!" Five says pointing at Allison and smiling. Everyone looks at him weird again, and Five takes a moment to wonder if they've ever experienced positive reinforcement. Knowing Reginald, probably not. "Wait! Is Reggie alive? Wait, no, answer that in a second. Uh. When I time traveled I fucked up my body I guess, I was like, old. White hair and wrinkles-type old from spending decades in the apocalypse. But I fucked up the calculations and got booted back to my thirteen-year-old body, I guess. How, I have no idea."

"What?" Vanya says, still equally weakly.

"You have no idea how fucked up time travel is." Five whispers conspiratorially to Vanya, loud enough for the whole table to hear, "There are so many ways to die. Or permanently tear a hold in space time. But like, with life as we know if ending soon-ish, I figured I couldn't possibly fuck it up worse than it already was, y'know? Speaking of, anyone have the date again?"

"Wait, what was that about dad?" Luther asks, very focused.

"Oh, you still call him dad? Big oof." Five says automatically, because apparently his verbal filter is shot to hell after living with Dolores. It does make Klaus bark out a too-loud laugh.

"What does that mean?" Luther asks aggressively.

"It means Reginald sucks and doesn't deserve the title of 'dad,' what did you think I meant?" Five asks, and now both Diego and Vanya and both cracking smiles, though Vanya is covering hers with a hand.

"Have some respect for the dead." Luther growls, standing up and looking very large and threatening.

Five sways back, craning his head up, "Woah there big buy, sit down before I injure my poor growing spine looking up at you. Jeeze, did Reggie force feed you steroids or something? I wouldn't put it past him but like, I just want to know he at least went over the side effects of the drug with you. Also like, thanks for narrowing it down. Also terrifying! Seriously though, exact date please because if I have less than 24 hours I am going to break down crying and that is a threat."

"I love this Five." Klaus says reverently.

"March 21st." Vanya offers, finally.

"Wow! Terrifying!" Five says, clapping his hands together, "Hate that. Ten days, huh? Well, who wants to get on board the save-the-world express?"

Klaus immediately flings his hand in the air, Five points at his brother appreciatively. "Yes, excellent! I'll take the volunteer in the lovely skirt as my first team member. Any other volunteers?"

"Danke!" Klaus simpers, grinning widely like this is the vest entertainment he's had in weeks.

"I'm not just going to stand here and listen to you badmouth dad and boss us around." Luther slams his hands on the table.

"Well not with that attitude." Five snarks.

Diego raises his hand, "I would like to join team fuck dad as well."

"We can certainly debate team names later." Five says, nodding wisely as Luther gives some sort of scandalized gasp.

"Honestly, I just want to see where this is going." Klaus confesses.

Five shrugs, because he doesn't really care about the reason. "Don't you want to prove me wrong them? Prove what a well-adjusted young man Reginald Hargreeves raised?"

"Shut up." Luther grinds out, looking a moment away from throwing a punch.

"If this is all true, I have to get home." Allison cuts in, looking concerned, "I have - I have a daughter."

"I mean, if you want to give Claire a world to live in then I'd stick around, but that's just me." Five shrugs.

"You know her name?" Allison asks, obviously taken aback.

Five is almost offended, "Uh, yeah. I have her photo as well. Y'all get on like, a bizarre number of gossip magazine covers did you know that?"

Allison manages to outdo herself in terms of being taken aback once more.

There's a beat of silence, and then Five turns, "Vanya? You in?"

"Me?" Vanya blinks, looking shocked. "What can I do?"

"Yeah, what can she do?" Diego asks, crossing his arms and suddenly looking grumpy.

It baffles Five, who scrunches his nose, "Uh, like, a lot? I assume? I mean. I'm going to be honest here, just looking at y'all right now is a lot. In more ways than one! Hashtag trauma and all that, but like, name a single one of you that wouldn't be the most obvious person in the room as soon as you walked into it. Except Vanya, who somehow manages to look like a well adjusted adult, by some miracle."

"Did you just verbally say the word hashtag?" Allison asks, looking so deeply confused.

"More concerned about the trauma he tacked onto there, but y'know, to each their own." Klaus immediately cuts in.

"You think I'm well-adjusted?" Vanya asks, looking oddly touched.

"I would like to direct your attention to Diego's leather pants-scowl combo and Luther's general aura of daddy-issues." Five says pointedly, "I can practically smell the tragic comic book backstory in this room. If I'd jumped back a decade earlier this would have been Batman's wet dream of orphan selection."

"Alright! Game plan!" Five says, waving Diego's knife in his hand.

Diego's hands immediately go to his weird harness looking thing, "Hey!"

"Give me just one moment to get the tracker out." Five rolls his eyes, "Then I'll give it back, I promise. Also if someone could ask Grace for like, some antibiotics that would be good."

"What?" Allison asks, directly before Five stabs himself and there is suddenly panic at the table.

"Relax!" Five says, allowing Diego to remove the knife from his hands. He doesn't need it anyway and his hand immediately drops down to root in the wound.

"Five what the fuck!" Diego yells, but Five just pulls up bloody fingers and waves the tracker into Diego's stupefied face.

"What the fuck is that, Five?" Allison demands, looking very shaken.

"I literally just said it was a tracker." Five points out, "Now, I think our first team activity should be voting on whether we destroy it or take it out to bumfuck nowhere and ditch it to confuse the Commission."

"What the fuck is the Commission?" Diego barks.

"Man. Maybe I should just hit up Rick." Five muses, "This is going to take so much explaining."

"Who is Rick."

"So much explaining."

#survivors au #well adjusted five au #five actually has some social skills!#and an idea of what an actual parent looks like as well #klaus absolutely adores this version of five #who quotes vines and uses gen z slang with the best of them #five has been reliably informed that public education is worse than the apocalypse #but he's also pretty sure working with his family is worse as well #five: i have so much trauma lol #klaus: oh big same #vanya: mood #five is somehow the most well adjusted hargreeves #and the most responsible #he doesn't legally exist and he doesn't pay taxes but somehow he has his shit together #five showing up at rick's house: you don't know me but i know you in the future #rick: what the fuck #five: don't make me bring up bethany midler from highschool because you gave me so many embarrassing stories to convince yourself with #rick: okay okay i believe you and you are???#five: your son from the future lol what's up dad want to help save the world #five arriving back at the manor like: WHAT'S UP LOSERS RICK IS NOW YOUR DAD TOO BC GOD KNOWS Y'ALL NEED AN ACTUAL FATHER FIGURE #klaus calls rick a dilf and five kidney punches him hard enough that klaus can't even properly introduce himself #it's better for everyone that way #delores: 15 and ready to fuck someone up #delores: i'm not staying with this weirdo (diego) while you go off with my dad #five threateningly: don't make me bring up what really happened to dad's good suit in 2012 #delores: i will stay right here #rick: wait WHAT happened to my good suit #five: unimportant don't you want to save the world #long post #far tua long

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autisticandroids · 3 years ago

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Okay so this was a while back but im preety sure you had mentioned an au of yours where dean is a serial killer and cas successfully stalks him but i don't think you talked about it more than that and i just really want to hear a bit more bc that idea sounds so tastefully fucked up

okay so. weeks later i finally end up answering this ask. it inspired this post btw. anyway spn is a show that's like. all about justifications, as i said in the post inspired by this ask. it's about having no choice and doing what you have to do. and like there is the phantasy embedded in it, a phantasy that is both indulged and punished. but most importantly it's justified. the monsters are super strong to show how brave our heroes are for fighting them, the main characters let out great wails of grief every time their lady loves are violently ripped from them (even though now they are free to do whatever they want), the narrative twists to show our heroes as correct whatever they do. the fantasy (of being allowed to enact violence, of being free from feminine "control," of being right) comes first. the material construction of the universe of supernatural comes afterward. whatever the fantasy is, the universe of supernatural will provide material conditions to justify its acting-out.

and what this means is that our protagonists, dean in particular, are constantly doing just horrific things, which in any other circumstance would be unconscionable. but the universe of supernatural provides justification for these acts. the point of my serial killer au which i think about so so so much is to ask the question: what if these justifications melted out from under their feet? what if dean was left holding nothing but a lie and the weight of everything he's done?

therefore, the premise of my au is such (under the cut because this baby is long):

john and mary winchester, in the mid seventies, joined a doomsday cult known as the men of letters. the men of letters were rather unusual for a doomsday cult, in that they believed that the apocalypse could be prevented by human behavior. this started as correct living, correct worship, yadda yadda, the kind of behavior and thought control that cults are known for, but with the justification of: if you don't do this, the world will end. eventually, this escalated to human sacrifice. the men of letters managed to untraceably kill two homeless people in the late seventies. but they eventually fell apart. however, a month after john and mary left the men of letters (mostly john's choice, mary still believed), mary died in a house fire. john took it as a sign from god that actually, the men of letters were right, and the world would end unless john himself did something about it. so he took some of the (intensely numerological) theology of the men of letters. and he worked out his own formula. and he applied it to the yellow pages. and started ritualistically killed people to prevent the apocalypse, with his two sons in the back of the car.

now, obviously, this is some kind of grief induced temporary madness on john's part, shaped by the mental abuse he suffered in the men of letters. but the thing is, once you've killed a couple of people to prevent the apocalypse. well. there's this thing called the sunk costs fallacy. john wasn't gonna question his own beliefs after that.

and he raised his boys to believe it, too, or at least he raised dean to. they didn't tell sam what they did until he was twelve, and sam didn't buy it, tried to call the cops on them several times but in the end, they always prevented him. eventually sam ran off to stanford, where he now lives under a cloud of guilt that he's too loyal to his family to rat them out.

john died a few years back of a heart attack, but dean is convinced it's because he messed up a ritual two weeks before it happened, so it pushed him further into this belief system.

dean's killings (and john's before him) are ritualistic and distinctive, obviously the same killer each time. but they happen anywhere in the united states, seemingly at random, there are inconsistent amounts of time between each one (sometimes as short as days, sometimes as long as years), and there is no particular victim profile. obviously, since our killers are following an arcane mathematical formula to make their choices for them, but the police don't know that.

castiel novak is an unemployed shut-in with a small inheritance which he's living off of, a cryptography degree, and an obsession with all things morbid. he spends most of his time on the reddit true crime forums, playing amateur sleuth. by complete chance, he happens to recognize one of the symbols frequently used in corpse displays by the so-called sioux falls satanic slaughterer (so named because the first time three of his victims were in the same part of the country, it so happened that they were all in sioux falls, south dakota. this was in the late eighties.) as being mostly only used by a little known cult group called the men of letters, which dissolved in the mid eighties.

he only notices this because, as a teen, he had a special interest in cults and fringe religious groups. the men of letters weren't a particularly notable or well known phenomenon; they were small, and a lot like every other cult that formed during the seventies cult boom. (no outsider ever heard about the human sacrifice; there were rumors, of course, but they were garbled, sensationalized, and mixed up with satanic panic fodder.)

(the men of letters' two sacrifices were nothing particularly romantic or fantastical. they first lured panhandler josie sands back to their compound with promises of food and a warm bed when she admitted she couldn't get a bed at a shelter, and was thinking of getting caught shoplifting just so she could be under a roof in the county jail. the men of letters' leader, a man who took on the name alistair, forced his inner circle to dress in the ceremonial black robes he had given them when he initiated them into his nearest and dearest, and which his wife had sewn out of old bed sheets and dyed black with home made oak gall dye. these robes still left black smudges on the wearer's skin occasionally if they sweated too much. josie was laid, bound, on the altar, a slapdash thing constructed over the course of two days from scrap plywood and a couple of milk crates. a rich red tablecloth purchased at macy's for $3.99 hid its ugliness and gave it grandeur. alistair attempted to kill the struggling miss sands by bringing a sharpened kitchen knife down on her bosom and piercing her heart, but, having never killed a human or even slaughtered an animal before, was unaware of the problem presented by the human ribcage. after rather ineffectually poking at the area beneath sands' bosom with his knife while she shrieked in pain and terror for about ninety seconds, alistair tried a different tack, and slit her throat, which worked just fine, and she bled out quite nicely. the second and final victim of the men of letters was a local vagrant named larry ganem, an older gentleman who walked with a limp. he was lured back to the compound in approximately the same manner as sands, but instead of being bound, he was fed stew laced with sleeping pills. even if alistair hadn't slit his throat, he wouldn't have woken up. it's actually arguable whether he was still alive at time of sacrifice; mary winchester (eight months into her first pregnancy), who, as a member of the inner circle, was in attendance, actually tried to take ganem's pulse as he lay on the altar (now covered by a different tablecloth; the red one had turned stiff with sands' blood and been subsequently burned) and found nothing, so it is entirely possibly only sands' death can be directly laid at alistair's feet, and ganem's is the fault of mrs. ellen harvelle, who prepared the laced stew. regardless, these two deaths are lessons in the nature of human evil: it is very rarely skilled, suave, or smooth. it's often slapdash, half-hearted, and just plain incompetent. but that makes it no less grisly. alistair may have begun to drink his own kool-aid, as it were, and escalated this far out of genuine belief that the apocalypse was coming and it was up to him to stop it, but it is far more likely that he sensed the imminent collapse of his little empire, and wanted to bind his subjects to him through the horrors of shared guilt, considering two lives a small price to pay for the continued loyalty of his inner circle. and the tactic worked: the men of letters didn't start to collapse in earnest until almost four years later. perhaps if alistair had continued the killings, the men of letters could have lasted for far longer, maybe even up until the present day. but it seems that alistair, a psychiatrist by training and unused to violence, simply didn't have the stomach for it. unlike, say, john winchester, who before his time with the men of letters had done a two year tour in vietnam, during which he had killed three living, thinking human beings with the american government's go-ahead.)

anyway. castiel is the first person, ever, to make the connection between the men of letters and the sioux falls satanic slaughterer. and once that connection is made, castiel begins to research the men of letters far more in-depth. and he notices something: the theology of the men of letters was intensely numerological, filled with patterns, significant numbers, and even spiritual equations.

castiel thinks of the seemingly random selection of the slaughterer's victims, and has an epiphany.

he cracks all his fingers, and gets coding.

six months. it takes castiel six months to discover an equation that could fit the slaughterer's pattern. it's complex, but also clearly based on several of the men of letters' holy numbers, and accounts for every single one of the killings. it also suggests that there should have been two or three more deaths scattered across the years, but more than likely those did happen, it's just that they weren't reported as part of the slaughterer's portfolio.

but much more importantly, castiel's model can also make predictions. there will be two killings, fifteen days apart, in a city seven hours' drive away, six weeks from now.

so castiel waits. and he books a hotel room. and two months later, he's waiting outside 217 oak street when a shadowy figure climbs up a tree and lets itself into the upstairs window.

dean winchester is feeling particularly all alone in the world when he breaks into maisey banks' home (217 oak street). his father has been dead for half a decade, and he hasn't spoken to his baby brother for twice that. it's not like this whole grizzly saving the world business makes him a lot of friends. so once he's done killing maisey (which is easy, she was ninety three and dying of cancer anyway. she doesn't even wake up when he slits her throat) and arranging her corpse in the appropriate manner, with prayers and sigils, he turns around. and sees a man standing behind him.

smiling slightly.

as he watches dean gut this old woman.

dean freezes.

the man takes a step forward.

"you're very attractive for a serial killer who's been operating since the eighties."

dean is silent.

"family business, is it?"

silence continues.

"i'm not here to report you to police. i'm just here to see if my algorithm worked right."

and dean finally breaks his silence: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

what's fun here is that dean knows (or rather "knows") that he isn't a serial killer. so he finds what cas is doing, this amoral serial killer stormchasing, morally repugnant. because cas has no way of knowing he isn't a regular serial killer.

there's also the fact that that cas proceeds to flirt with him. aggressively. and follows him back to his motel.

but the thing is that dean is all alone in the world. and as cas continues trailing him around, he starts getting, well, flattered. and feeling a little bit less alone.

it doesn't take very long before they fall into bed. even if cas is an amoral stalker with a fetish for what dean considers a distasteful yet necessary vocation.

so. they fall into bed. they fall in love. they make a little life together, in dean's big sexy car. dean tries to explain to cas that he's saving the world. that these people's lives are a necessary price to pay. and cas seems to listen.

of course, castiel doesn't believe a word of it. but he's found that he likes dean. really likes him. and he realizes that the collapse of dean's belief system would destroy him.

so he sets about becoming as complicit in it as possible.

even to the extent where, when dean is hit by a car and ends up into the hospital a day before one killing is meant to take place, castiel agrees to take on the job. (he doesn't actually kill anyone, obviously. but he does use his extensive skill with computers to create three fake newspaper articles which make it look like he has.)

but five years later, something goes wrong. really, really wrong. dean miscalculates the formula. and by the time he checks his work, the actual date of the next kill, as demanded by the formula, has passed. in fact, so have three others. and the world didn't end.

dean collapses. he hyperventilates. all those people. all those people. for no reason. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people.

cas seems totally unfazed. dean stares at him in shock. but cas just takes dean in his arms, and whispers in his ear: "oh, dean, i never believed in the equation. i love you no matter what you've done."

and dean buries his face in cas' chest.

#spn #asks #anonymous #abuse tw #violence tw

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