#all of them are straight up EXPIRED FOR NO FUCKING REASON

[p-receh]

Tumblr please don't mess up with me again....

I finished restoring 319's au missing links but couldn't find most of my boboiboy links for....reason.

HOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPEN TUMBLR?

[starlightervarda]

Favourites of the Musical Episode

Uhura starting all this by beaming Anything Goes at the zipper fold. Nyota, you fucking NERD

Spock straight up not having a good time

Number One and Kirk dancing through the hallways

La’An trying very hard not to sing and running to her room to sing her  gut-wrenching ballad in private 😭

Pike’s general ????? reaction every time the singing happens

The acapella rendition of the opening credits theme

Chapel getting a sexy club number to say ‘lol sorry this proved much more than I can handle I’m gonna go dig up proto-surgical tools byeeeee’  I mean, it’s horrible, and it’s definitely going to fuck with his head that he took this risk and gave T’Pring very good reason to kal-i-fee him now but it’s also...relatable? Girl has serious wartime PTSD and attachment issues and was fine letting this crush just expire in its own time but got too impulsive and shit got too serious because, Vulcan, and she couldn’t ghost him while they were on the same ship.

Spock’s dark, emo pop-rock realization that he should go kolinahr now

Number One’s comforting confession song to La’An and it lifting them off their feet 🥺

Uhura getting her own ballad in Engineering and that bit at the end where she belts and we get the full-view of the section with the lights was 😩👌 babygirl still needs therapy and an emotional support dog tho

The solution to the singing problem being just more singing but a big cast number that overwhelms the zipper fold into combusting like New Years fireworks

The fucking Klingons’ getting roped in at the last second to add their aggro rap-pop boyband tantrum to the cause!!!!

this episode was a 1701 out of 10 great job everyone 

[spocktheestallion]

why joel was right to save ellie bc i have a lot of opinions and by god i’m gonna share em

so since the show has premiered i’ve seen this debate flare up again and a lot of people saying joel “robbed the world of a cure” when he saved ellie but lets be real, the fireflies were never gonna make that cure.

first off in the original game the hospital and operating room were FILTHY. and yes in the remaster they retconned it to be clean but that just seems silly to me. the fireflies had so little infrastructure that they were wiped out by ONE angry old man in a single night, where are they getting hospital cleaning crews? where are they getting the supplies to properly and i mean PROPERLY sanitize a working OR? more importantly WHO were the medical staff? what were their qualifications? to pull off what they wanted they would’ve needed a team of brilliant scientists specializing in different specific fields and i doubt any of them had been to med school recently. the outbreak was over 20 years old by that point, and medicine is a continually evolving field. those licenses were EXPIRED and even if they had experience during the pandemic it likely would’ve been in field medicine, which is not the same as epidemiology or neuroscience or any of the things they would’ve needed specializing in to get a cure. also the fact that they were saying “we’re gonna make a vaccine!” was another red flag, bc fungal infections aren’t even treated w vaccines. it just goes to show they didn’t know what they were doing. they were just reckless and desperate and ellie would’ve died needlessly.

secondly killing ellie especially right off the bat would make NO sense. what if they find out later on they need a live subject or more samples or whatever? well too late your only subject is dead. why wouldn’t they do blood tests? imaging? or if the cordyceps is only in the brain you can still do a biopsy without killing the person. again, these people didn’t know what they were doing. they were grasping at straws and even if they had gone through with their original plan they probably wouldn’t have been able to synthesize a cure anyway. the sample would’ve expired or been contaminated in the dirty hospital or they would’ve fucked up their sample through ignorance. the whole rushing straight to pulling ellie’s brain out was ridiculous. they would’ve killed a kid needlessly without a second thought.

which brings me to my next point. the fireflies aren’t exactly cut and dry good guys either. i may be reaching w this and i need to rewatch the premiere episode to confirm this but they don’t seem all that picky about their targets and civilians seem to get caught up in them a little too easy. the fireflies aren’t super concerned about human life if it gets in the way of their cause, i mean they were recruiting young kids and giving them weapons just like fedra did. there’s a reason tommy left them high and dry. they’re extremists and they don’t care who they hurt or exploit so long as it serves their cause. they aren’t philanthropists and they FOR SURE would not have been giving out that cure out of the goodness of their hearts. they would’ve gatekept it to themselves and they absolutely would’ve used it as a recruiting tool or political bargaining chip.

but more importantly even in the very unlikely situation they COULD make a successful cure AND mass produce it AND move it cross country which they clearly don’t have the resources for, there’s no way fedra would’ve let them get away with it. their fascist control is all justified in the name of preventing infection, if the disease is no longer a threat that’s a massive blow to fedra’s power. they might’ve been chasing around fireflies for setting off a few car bombs or whatever but if you think fedra isn’t going full extermination mode if they find out the fireflies have a cure you’re kidding yourself. and we’ve clearly established the fireflies would be crushed if they had fedras full attention given that they were pretty much eradicated by one guy in a single night.

and if we’ve learned anything from our own covid pandemic, it’s that if you want to effectively immunize a whole population it needs to be WIDESPREAD. you can’t just treat a few people and call it a day, EVERYONE needs to take the cure or the disease is going to survive and mutate until it can come back in a treatment-resistant variant again and again and again. and after a 20 year outbreak the kind of infrastructure you need to make that happens is gone. it just doesn’t exist anymore. fedra is probably the only group with the level of organization and infrastructure anywhere CLOSE to being able to achieve that kind of feat and i doubt even they could, and even if they could they wouldn’t.

so the fireflies were NEVER gonna be able to make a cure in the first place, they were NEVER gonna be able to mass produce and distribute it, they were NEVER going to be handing it out to anyone they weren’t tight with, and even if they had been well equipped philanthropists who could make a cure and were actually giving it out freely fedra would’ve crushed them immediately.

and i’ve also seen people argue that either way it should’ve been ellie’s choice but i disagree. ellie was a traumatized CHILD with severe survivors guilt. she was not mature enough or in the right headspace to make that kind of decision. JOEL was the closest thing to a legal guardian she had, and it was HIS responsibility to protect her until she was old enough to make decisions like that for herself AND HE DID. a kid should not be allowed to make that choice even if they want to because they’re a KID. also the fireflies weren’t gonna let joel live anyway, i’m pretty sure they were planning to kill him even if he complied.

and ultimately it’s not like joel was considering all this when he made his choice, he saved ellie because he LOVED her. like i’m sure he picked up on some red flags and knew things were sketch and realized the fireflies would probably fail and she’d die for nothing but more than anything he went back bc that was HIS BABY and he wasn’t letting desperate assholes sacrifice her for their cause. “save who you can save” remember? maybe you can’t single handedly change the world or make some miracle cure but you can do what you can for the people you love and maybe that’s enough. maybe you can never make the world go back to the way it was and maybe you SHOULDN’T but you can take it as it is one step at a time and you can do it with the family you’ve made. i think that’s a much better takeaway and i don’t like how the “joel was selfish and did the objectively bad and wrong thing” narrative in tlou2 minimizes that.

[sparrow-flight]

Here Now

[3715 words, 20 minutes]

1 January 2017 Winnipeg, Canada

The father walks the long way to the house that is not his own. He could’ve told the taxi to drop him at the door. Instead, he stops it at an intersection and it drives on without him.

In the 4am winter night, the father has no reason to fear anyone seeing him. The streets of this dingy neighbourhood are empty except for wet, brown snow that collects the deep footprints of strangers. The father has no reason to fear anyone robbing him. His pockets are light. They only hold an empty wallet, an expired driver’s licence, and a dead cell phone. And yet, the absence of life leaves room for imaginary danger. The father’s blue eyes stare down pockets of darkness, his tense legs ever ready to sprint.

He avoids the straight path that leads to his destination. Instead, he circles the housing block like a frantic bird, riding his own wings of instinct governed by survival, anxiety, and death. His metronome heart sets his quick pace, and when he makes the final turn that brings his destination into view, his heart drums to the swell of fear and excitement.

His eyes now squint in the dying light of sparse streetlamps, and he whispers to himself house numbers he passes in the language of a stranger. He stops at a small house. Its front has a door, a window with blinds, and a broken bulb with frozen cobwebs. Before the door is a wooden deck with stairs. Rusted nails barely hold the planks in place.

He walks up the stairs to the door and raises a fist to knock.

Fuck. No one’s going to be awake. God, I’m a fool. Got too excited—

Movement, through the crack beneath the door. It sparks the warm memory of the padded pit-pat of small, socked feet on hardwood floor. The father trembles. He doesn’t know if it’s from cold, excitement, or fear. He knocks before he decides.

The pit-pats are real now. He can hear them: larger, heavier, but undoubtedly theirs. The window blinds fold to form a peephole. The lock clicks, the door swings open, and the father stares down at an almost mirror image of himself. The same messy black hair, the same weary eyes: his eldest child, better than him in every way.

They speak in the language of family. “Daa?”

The eldest child throws themselves at their father, nearly knocking him off the stairs. He can’t help but laugh as he picks them off the snow, warmth bubbling out of him into his tight embrace. His child is taller and stronger now — an adult by all definitions. But to him, as they bury their face into their father’s chest, they’re still so small, so light, so easy to tear away from him like before.

—

It has been a year since the siblings have lived in this house together. The eldest, Hrodwyn, left Auntie Elmira’s care at the orphanage when they turned eighteen. They had saved up enough from their two jobs, and the two jobs continued to be enough for rent. Their two siblings followed them: their sixteen-year-old brother Merethel who always kept his long, black hair swept over his right eye, and their twelve-year-old sister Hygd who always kept a smile on her face. Auntie Elmira let them leave. She knew they were inseparable, and their father was relieved that they were.

It has been ten years since their father was wrongly sent to prison. On the red-blue night of his arrest at their doorstep, Hygd was three and wailing, Merethel was seven and scared, and Hrodwyn was ten and bold. Hrodwyn heard the officers yell “Gavrill Vorobyev” over and over, watched them slam their pleading father against a car, and felt their siblings shatter in their arms. As the officers drove their father away, Hrodwyn knew it was now their responsibility to protect their family. They knew it was now their responsibility to fix all the broken pieces their father left behind, even if it meant pricking their own fingers.

In the mornings following their father Gavrill’s return, Hrodwyn made sure every piece of the siblings’ lives were meticulously organised like glass figurines on display. Nervously, they presented their father their handiwork within the cabinet of cutleries and Tupperwares, the closet of detergent and cleaning supplies, the fridge door of schedules and chores. All this order balanced on a rickety shelf Hrodwyn had built; all this order came crashing down in days to make room for Gavrill.

At first, Gavrill did not see this as a problem. He saw no problem at all — he was finally free, and his senses flared with life. He relished the touch of warm skin instead of thin paper, savoured the sound of rich voices instead of broken static. And with every chip and crack he felt between him and his children, an echo of his wife’s voice would comfort him:

—You’re here now, she would say, and that’s all that matters.

But it did not take long for reality to slip through the cracks of his ignorance. That was what he got for dancing around “How did you get out of prison?” — that was how he began stepping on his children’s broken pieces.

—

4 February 2017

“Daa, daa.”

Gavrill jolts awake on the couch. Foreign babble plays to colourful cartoon ponies running across the television screen.

“Ah, sorry daa,” Hrodwyn whispers in the language of family, Ingush — Gavrill ensured Auntie Elmira taught them when he was in prison. “Do you want lunch? I was going to heat up the stew you brought home last night.”

Gavrill rubs his eyes. Yesterday, his new job called him to an orientation in Rio de Janeiro. He bought the stew before he flew back. “Sounds good. We should finish that soon. It smelled great! I think you will all like it.”

Hrodwyn smiles politely. “I’m sure we will.”

Gavrill stands up. He sees Hygd at the foot of the couch, knees tucked to her chest as she watches the cartoon. He looks around for Merethel and doesn’t find him — he’s probably studying in Gavrill’s bedroom, the only other room with a table. Hrodwyn is already in front of the fridge: a Tetris map of new groceries, wilting vegetables, and takeout boxes. They move the stew containers from the fridge to the microwave, then drift from the kitchen to Gavrill’s bedroom. A minute later, they return with Merethel grumbling behind them.

The microwave beeps. Gavrill opens it, but Hrodwyn beats him in removing the containers, slipping past him with an “it’s okay”. They place the containers on the bar table that divides the kitchen and the living room. Merethel catches a sniff of it and speaks in English.

“Wow, this smells good,” he dips his pinky into the side to taste it. “And it’s not spoiled!”

“Of course not,” Gavrill responds in Ingush. He brings one container to Hygd and sits next to her. “I wouldn’t feed you spoiled food.”

Merethel raises an eyebrow.. He takes a spoon from the drawer and the container of stew.

“Hey,” Hrodwyn says in Ingush. They sit across Gavrill. “Don’t go back to daa's room. Eat here.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re always there,” Hygd says, also in English.

Merethel curls his lip. “And?”

“Hey, no English,” Hrodwyn reminds their siblings, who comply.

Hygd tries drinking the stew straight from the container and burns her tongue. “daa's been asking you to eat together with us, like, every day. Don’t you hear him?” 

“Well, I’m sorry, but are you studying for a scholarship?” Merethel sets his stew down with a huff and sits across her. “I thought so.”

“Hey, come on,” Gavrill says. “Be nice to your sister. Can you get a spoon for her, please?”

“She can get it herself.”

Hygd frowns. “But you’re closer! They’re on your side!”

“Come on,” Gavrill sighs.

Merethel grumbles. “Why do you want me to give her a spoon so bad—OW!”

Hygd had kicked him underneath the bar table. He retorts by trying to kick her back, but she tucks her legs out of reach. Merethel kicks her chair instead. It screeches against the floor. Hygd grins at her fuming brother. He growls and tries again.

“Hey-hey! Enough!” Gavrill yells then bites his tongue. Shit, too harsh? He lightens up. "Don’t be like that. Just pass her a spoon, please. And one for myself as well."

The two ignore him and continue scrabbling. With a sigh, Hrodwyn clears their throat and glares. Only then do their siblings stop. A second glare makes Merethel pass a spoon to his father and sister. A third isn’t needed to make Hygd smile sweetly and thank him.

Fragile silence falls on the table. Gavrill tries to tread across it carefully towards his children.

“Well, this is nice. Um,” he smiles and looks at Hrodwyn. “I’m glad you got off your shifts today. I think this is the first time we’ve had lunch together!”

“Yeah! It took, like, a month,” Hygd tilts her head to Gavrill. “And you still haven’t told us what your new job is!” 

Merethel scoffs. “Or what kind of company can hire a man out of jail.”

“Hey, I—” Gavrill opens his hands. “Those questions can wait until later. Why don’t you guys tell me about school?”

“Ugh, it’s boring stuff compared to what you’re doing! I think,” Hygd mixes her stew. “Why don’t you wanna tell us?”

“Yeah, daa,” Merethel says. “Why don’t you? You’ve had your orientation. You should know enough about your job to tell us about it now, right?”

“How was Rio? Did you see any birds?” Hygd swings her feet.

“It was very nice,” Gavrill smiles at her and folds his arms. “Very hot. But uh, the food was good! And there were little birds on the street. Oh! I forgot I got the three of you keychains—”

A loud slam and screech interrupts the conversation. Merethel had pushed his chair back. He stands up. “I’m going to my room.”

Hrodwyn tugs his sleeve. “Hey—”

“Don’t touch me,” he spits in English and yanks his arm away. “If he doesn't even want to talk about something normal like a job, what the hell else can we talk about?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll talk about it!” Gavrill shocks himself with his tone. He offsets it with a smile. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Come, sit, sit. You want to know what kind of company got me home, right?”

He gestures towards the empty chair. Merethel narrows his eyes and remains standing. The two other siblings also look at Gavrill in anticipation. His open mouth runs dry.

Helvetia Ltd. A private military contractor working for an R&D consultation firm funded by the G20. A company of hounds with global reach and infinite pay. A company that operates in the dark, hidden between the lines of conspiracy theories.

“A big company,” Gavrill finally decides. “Powerful, obviously, and they know I’m innocent, so they got me out. In exchange, I get a job right out of prison. And I get to be with all of you again!”

Merethel switches to Ingush, making sure his father understands him. “Very descriptive, daa.”

He storms off to the siblings’ shared bedroom. Hrodwyn reaches for him. Gavrill sighs and waves for them to stop. The bedroom door slams shut, and the two remaining siblings are left to contemplate their father’s response. They swallow it with lunch.

Soon, Hygd’s eyes creep to Merethel’s half-eaten stew, then to the hallway he vanished off to. She slides off her seat and picks up his stew with both hands.

“He still needs to eat.”

Her small feet shuffle down the hallway. Once she disappears around the corner, Gavrill deflates, burying his head in his hands. Hrodwyn stirs their stew.

“Are you not going to tell them anything?

Gavrill sighs as he picks himself back up. “I’m not going to tell any of you anything you don’t need to know.”

Hrodwyn leans towards him. “Daa, you can tell me. I’m an adult now. I can take it.”

He looks at his child, the bags beneath their eyes, and shakes his head. “It’s fine, really. It’s a good job with good pay. Contract-based, so I’ll be home most days. Don’t worry about it.”

Hrodwyn’s voice is quiet, fraught. “Then at least tell me you know who framed you. Were they caught?”

“No. And I don’t know who or where they are.”

“What? Then how does the company know you’re innocent? Did they reopen the case?”

“I don’t know.”

Gavrill continues eating his stew with downcast eyes. Hrodwyn stares at him. “Why aren’t you worried? That guy is still out there. What if you get framed again?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“It’s fine. Trust me.”

“Did the company tell you something?”

Gavrill closes his eyes and sighs. “Look. When I got arrested, the court said that they were going to lock me up until they found the real culprit. Ten years passed. No one figured it out. They’ve all moved on from that and I’ve moved on from that, too. I’m just glad I got out in the first place. That’s all.”

Hrodwyn is quiet for some time. “Will you tell me why you got hired? Is it because of something you did in Ingushetia?”

Gavrill stops eating. “What makes you think that?”

“I remember how you fought against Russians. I remember how mama died. It’s why we moved here, isn’t it? And now you have this strange job you don’t want to tell us about—”

A rap on the door interrupts them. Gavrill, relieved, quickly leaves the table. He peeks through the blinds, frowns, and cracks the door open. Wind cuts into his face. He looks down. A large package sits atop fresh snow. Its only identification is a tag taped onto it: “HROTHGAR”. The name his wife once gave him. The name he now gave Helvetia. Footprints trail away from the package to the road where it meets fresh tire tracks. No vehicle is in sight.

He scowls. He grabs the package, dusts snow off, slams the door shut, and locks it. Before Hrodwyn can see it, he rips off the tag and shreds it, pocketing the strips.

“Do you need help with it?” Hrodwyn tilts their head. “It looks big.”

“No, it’s fine. I think it’s from work. Do you have a cutter?” 

Hrodwyn hands him a pair of scissors. He carries the package and the scissors into his bedroom and closes the door. Large luggages and old boxes are spread across the floor. Their contents, the salvaged pieces of a happier life once lived, have yet to be organised into wardrobes, sorted into shelves, or fitted into photo frames. Gavrill has no time or energy to. They’re not his children’s — they aren’t as important.

Gavrill pushes the luggages and boxes aside with his foot. He drops the package in the space he made. He sits on the floor, raises his hand, and plunges the scissors into cardboard.

—

The package contains Gavrill’s uniform: a three-piece navy suit with a golden tie and a pair of black oxfords, and a durable coat designed for urban environments. The suit feels too expensive to bend his arms in. He tries wearing it without creasing the fabric. It takes a long time — long enough for his two children to knock on his door: Hrodwyn who stared in confusion, and Hygd who brimmed in awe.

By then, Gavrill still had not worn the entire uniform — he had forgotten how to tie a tie. He could count the number of times he has done it in his life on his hands, with all but one count being for court hearings. So Hygd gets to work. She pulls her father out into the living room and opens a YouTube tutorial. Time passes. Hrodwyn’s and Hygd’s fussing grows louder without them coming any closer to their goal. Their commotion annoys Merethel enough for him to bring out his own tie for a snarky demonstration. Soon, all three siblings end up circling their father for final touches: fitting the golden tie, tightening the vest, and smoothening the suit as Gavrill stands stiff like a Christmas tree.

When they’ve finished, Hygd steps back to look at her father like a panel judge. She watches Hrodwyn attach the final piece: Helvetia’ lapel pin bearing a cross in a shield. Hrodwyn steps back to join their sister. Gavrill remains frozen in place.

“I feel so embarrassed.”

“Why?” Hygd grins. “You look cool!”

“Do I?” he looks at his other two children with an uncertain but small smile. My daughter called me cool.

"You look… expensive. Very expensive," Hrodwyn gazes at the suit's double vents, the trousers cut to the curve of Gavrill’s legs, and the hand-stitched buttons. "How much did this cost, daa?"

"More than the suit I rented for my own wedding, that's for sure,” he grumbles. In a clearer tone, "I don't know. The company covered it. But what looks wrong?"

"You don't look comfortable in it. It shows.”

"When was the last time you combed your hair?” Merethel adds. “Or got a haircut?"

Gavrill grimaces. "I didn’t need to touch a comb or cut my hair back there. I only trimmed it now and then. Is it that bad?”

Merethel is quick. “Yes.”

Hygd punches his arm.

“It’s not that bad,” Hrodwyn taps their chin, “but if you did something to your hair, you can look more professional.”

"Oh! Wait, daa, sit, sit," Hygd drags her father to the couch and forces him to sit. She crawls behind him, kneels, and gently combs through his lightly greying hair with her fingers. A spare yellow hair tie comes off her wrist. She bunches his hair together. "Too tight?"

He shakes his head. "What are you doing?"

"Tying a bun," she does so expertly with a quick twist, then jumps off the couch to look at him. She grins at the team effort. “Daa! You look like a thousand bucks! Here, here.”

She grabs her father’s hand, which squeezes hers in return, and leads him into the siblings’ bedroom. Hrodwyn and Merethel follow behind. She turns on the lights and pulls him in front of the chipped mirror mounted on the wardrobe door. “What do you think, daa?”

Gavrill stares at his reflection. His smile dissolves. He doesn’t recognise himself. He only recognises Agent Hrothgar, Helvetia’s newly hired murderer, wrapped in a gallant lie of navy blue as he stands in the bedroom of children. 

Hygd smiles brightly. “So..?”

Hrodwyn notices his stare. “What’s wrong, daa?”

If he doesn’t recognise himself, will his children recognise him? After a job that hails bullets and shrapnels at his body and his mind, after he returns too splintered to shield them from the truth, will they recognise him as their father? He can try to convince them. He can try to be the best father he can be to erase the decade when he wasn’t. He can try to pretend that he’ll never leave them again, that he’ll always be there for them, that he’ll cut himself wrapping his splinters to hold them tight and never let them shatter into pieces again—

—Our children are smart. You can only do so much to protect them, Gav. How would you rather them find out? Her smile would sadden. With a voice full of conviction, she would say: —Don’t you have enough regrets?

Gavrill looks away from his reflection. His eyes drift to his children.

“You need to know about my job. Can we talk?”

Gavrill sits on Merethel’s bed, next to Hrodwyn’s and Hygd’s bunk bed. He pats his side. The siblings, surprised by his directness, move to sit next to him.

He twiddles his thumbs. "This job I have, it's... dangerous.  The company is even more dangerous. They have a lot of power, a lot of money,” he tugs at his three-piece suit. “They were able to pay my bail and hire me out of, well, you know, in exchange for my… skills. And I—” he hesitates, “I can’t leave unless…"

“You die,” Hrodwyn states.

Gavrill pauses, then nods. Their delivery stings. 

The room falls silent. Hygd curls into a ball. Merethel tries masking his nerves.

"Ah, well, it's like, uh, working for the military then, right? There's always a high chance of death, and it's a risk some people with families take."

Gavrill’s voice is soft, defeated. "I'm sorry."

“It’s fine. It’s… whatever,” Merethel looks away. “It’s not like you’ve never been gone before.”

Gavrill winces and opens his mouth. Hrodwyn interrupts him. “Don’t apologise. You had no choice and you did what you had to do. They were never going to reopen your case. There will never be another option for you besides this one.”

Gavrill hates how he sees himself in his child’s placid eyes.

"What should we know about the job?” Hrodwyn continues. “What do we have to do?"

"I'll be here until the company calls me. Whatever they tell me to do, no matter how dangerous, I must follow. The company also has enemies. Keep the blinds closed, don’t let strangers in, never enter the house when someone’s watching, and always tell each other where you are, hmm?" he raises his phone. "If something’s wrong, call me or Auntie. Don't let anyone in the house. You still have Auntie’s phone number, yes?"

The children nod.

“Good. And lastly,” he voice softens and he wraps his arms around his children, "don't worry about me. I will always do my best to come home to you. I may get hurt, but I will always come home. Okay? My fight is to go back home to you, no matter what."

He pulls them in closer. The cracks between them remain but in this moment, the family is whole.

"I am here now. And I swear by my last dying breath, I will never, ever, let anything take us apart again."

Hygd picks her head up from her tucked knees. “Promise?”

Gavrill hooks his pinky with all his children’s and smiles. He cuts himself with his words and hopes it never heals.

“I promise.”

---

First | Next About the Flight | List of Stories

[sketchesandnonesense]

I feel like hell so I'm having profoundly Selfish thoughts today like

"I wonder if any doll makers would want to do a make-a-wish for my pathetic cancer riddled ass and make me a doll just right to my specifications as some kinda charitable christmas miracle"

Like

A doll is a very time consuming thing to make. And expensive. Theres a reason sculptors n customizers are expensive.

It's stupid to even think about.

Like yeah I'm 2 years into dealing with cancer and things are not looking Great if I'm entirely honest but I dont have an expiration date on my forehead and given the circumstances with the people in my life I am incredibly lucky.

So like.

I feel like a bad person even thinking about it.

Yknow?

Idk. Putting a cut just bc maybe it'll make me feel like I have SOME shame about overthinking this if that makes sense.

But I can't get the thought out of my head. Like.

Maybe in some fucked up way it could be mutually beneficial if they were one of those youtuber types or even just a smaller maker.

Doing something like bringing a cancer patient's dream doll to life could turn heads. Would make one hell of a good youtube video, for sure. Lol.

Worst thing is though is just. My dream doll is BB. Theres details I could alter and concede on and things but for the most part I want her to be directly like my sketches. Cartoony and simple.

I feel like I'm like a loser telling a sob story on deviantart saying my mom's uncle's hamster died n the only thing to help is free art from a stranger. A shameless choose-y beggar with a sob story.

But if you'll let me be alil melodramatic for a minute just so I can get it out of my system.

But

I've loved dolls all my life. Not always seen myself as much of a collector, really, but I love them. And one thing I always wanted was a doll that was Mine. Made exactly how I wanted, just for me. No hangups, no skimping on things, no compromises. It was a pipe dream. I wanted to be a doll maker so badly. But I was never good with physical crafts. They never came out right (rarely even came out GOOD at that). I tried and tried everything I could. Making plushies, clay, customizing pre-existing dolls, anything. Nothing worked. I just am not cut out for doll making.

So, I accepted this was something I needed a professional to do for me. And over the years I've trusted people with my characters and while I do adore the work I've gotten. None of it's ever Done It. Because I was always having to make a dozen little sacrifices. Having to account for the artist's style. Sometimes the design had to change to be more feasible and so it didnt cost as much. Sometimes it just straight up didnt turn out.

I remember as a kid I got enough christmas money to commission an itty bitty plush of my sonic OC from an expensive plush artist. I was so excited. I thought it was finally happening.

It was awful. Quality was mediocre at best. It was maybe 3 inches tall. And the eyes were this weird stiff fabric piece that kinda jutted out from the felt and looked glued on.

V petty side tangent, i know, but just kinda the first example where I tried to fufill this dream and it just. Fell through.

Its always still stuck with me through the years, trying again and again to make a doll, but all I have to show is boxes of half-used supplies im too ashamed to even look at.

And now I'm here again. Thinking about it.

I've said it before, but my past two years have been awful. 2023 was entirely eaten up by my chemo and radiation and recovering from having my entire stomach removed. Thought I was cancer free and was starting to find normal again. Then in january scans and biopsies I was told it came back. Liver, this time. This entire year has been trying different chemo drugs and scans and things looking up only to crash back down again.

And I'm so tired.

I actually was (technically still am) trying to commission someone to make my doll. Pay an artist properly like you should. I saved up and I figured I deserved it with everything. Im 27, I'm an adult, i can make my own decisions.

She didnt disclose she'd just moved. To a rural area. And was still struggling to get internet and plumbing situated. Or that there was much of a queue infront of me. Its my fault for not looking into it more and finding the practically defunct social medias and untouched-for-months trello page. I was promised a turnaround time within a month. That was back in august.

Anytime I check in there's always something new going wrong. Broken tablet pen, power outages, family stuff. I dont think she's a scammer or trying to make excuses. She's sweet. But im exhausted of waiting.

Im sort of just accepting I'm never seeing that money back, or getting my doll. The paypal protection will still let me charge back, but I'm not about to put a woman in her situation in the red, especially when she's got a kid to feed. Maybe she'll get done eventually, but if I can be morbid and dramatic, i think by that point BB would have to be a grave decoration.

And I can't bring myself to save up again hoping that maybe I can find another artist who MIGHT be able to bring her to life in the exact right way and maybe finally. FINALLY I can have this one thing in my life.

I guess it'd help for people who dont know jack shit if I actually showed the character on partially Why she'd have to be a christmas miracle.

Its not overly complicated or a really old Beloved OC. She's honestly one of my newer babies. But I made her SPECIFICALLY with the idea of her being my dream doll. And its very. Very silly.

But. This is BB:

I tried to imagine a character thatd be in a cartoon I'd watch as a kid and be VIOLENTLY mad didnt have some sort of doll I could buy, lol. Retro anime, cute and round, robot girl.

To avoid an infodump: she's a little fighting robot. Think medabots or angelic layer. She has a human who she's best friends with and she fights other cute little robot dolls. She talks only in beeps and boops and is 11inches tall (without antannae) and she's silly and I love her.

And she's my dream.

Imagining in my head the anime that I would've adored as a kid, and a doll thats literally her plucked off the screen. Not a barbie in an outfit, not something close enough, but the simplistic cartoony lil goofball.

I know its really. Really silly. Its silly to be caught up in this kind of idea and its silly to get all bent out of shape over and its silly I'm even like.

Putting these thoughts into the world

Feeling like a kid writing a letter to Santa

But thats it. Thats my wish or my dream or whatever. Its selfish. Its so so so selfish to imagine not just putting someone through doll making but making such a weird hard-to-translate-to-3d-space design and potentially having to work with me abunch to make sure she's just right. Without like. Thousands in compensation, lol.

Like I said, im willing to work with and do some adjustments to make her more do-able (fiddle w/ proportions alil, figure out a way to do the joints in a way that still fits her style while being actually moveable, more engineering side than aesthetics obvi lol. I really would love her to be stupid posable).

But i dont think that really probably means much

Idk.

I feel silly and selfish even putting this into the world but hey. Can't hurt to wish on stars and hope for christmas miracles. Right? It's not like I'm gonna go knocking on doors asking for something this batshit, lol.

Like. I wouldnt survive the shame.

If they dont respond I'll die of anxiety n guilt. Getting turned down might hurt even worse because then I'd know for sure they'd read it and probably felt Really Fucking Uncomfortable.

If i was a kid or whatever then maybe it'd be atleast endearing to get that kinda message insteada Just Sad.

No winning. Lol.

Im tired out now and the post-chemo-day agonies are starting to rev up again so I think I'm gonna go lay down now.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Many Roads Diverge in the Woods - Part Seven

A JSE Interactive Fanfic

The Beginning | Previous

The results are in.

Your path has been altered. Strange how such a small choice can change so much. Guys, seriously, we're so close to ties all the time dhjfkaslh It's interesting how we started out with very decisive choices and now we're here.

The poll to decide what happens next is only open for one day, expiring on October 20th at 12:00pm PST. Part Eight will be up on October 22nd at the same time.

<><><><><><><><><><><>

“Bro... no way.” Chase shakes his head firmly. “We need to stick together, not separate the group. And we can’t drag Jackie down to the basement. Let’s go back to him and Marvin.”

JJ sighs. I suppose you’re right. I just... I have this feeling. Like we need to go after him.

“That’s fucking weird. I mean, there are probably reasons for it, but it’s a bad idea.” Chase puts his hand on JJ’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go back to the others.”

Alright, alright. JJ shakes his head, dismissing that feeling. Let’s go. He walks up a couple stairs, then stops again. But what do we do? Do we just close the door and leave Schneep down here?

“I-I mean... I guess?” Chase says. “We need to keep an eye on it. I don’t know if he could break it down like he did upstairs.”

Should we move our base of operations down here?

“I don’t know. Maybe we should get Marvin down here so we can talk about it. Why are we stopping to talk about this now? We’re getting out of the creepy dark basement!” Chase pushes JJ a little, making him stumble. “Go!”

They climb up the stairs, with JJ waiting for Chase at the top. One of us should go upstairs and get Marvin while the other stays here to keep an eye on—

“Where are you going?”

Chase stiffens. That voice—Schneep’s voice, but again, missing his German accent. He spins around, shining his flashlight down the stairs. The circle of light lands on Schneep, standing at the bottom with one hand behind his back. For the first time, Chase realizes how much blood covers his clothes. Is this really his friend? He looks so different. “JJ,” Chase says quietly. “Go.”

“Don’t go,” says Schneep. “Stay and play!” In one swift motion, he pulls his hand from behind his back and throws something at them.

Chase ducks instinctively, but JJ is looking the other way, preparing to run through the basement door. The thrown object hits the back of his head with a distinct THAK! sound. JJ stumbles forwards, then tries to recover and steps backwards again—

“JJ no!” Chase reaches out. But he’s too slow. JJ’s foot steps off the edge of the stair and he loses his balance. He only has time to let out a small squeak of surprise before he falls, tumbling down the staircase until he stops at the bottom, right at Schneep’s feet. “No!” Chase shouts.

Schneep grabs JJ by the arms and starts pulling him down the hall. Chase’s heart drops and he runs down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He jumps from the last one and lunges towards Schneep. But he drops JJ and dodges Chase’s grasp, running into the first door on the right—into the same room where he supposedly died. Chase runs after him, putting on a burst of speed and diving after Schneep. He collides with him. The two roll to the side, running into a pair of cardboard boxes that then tip over, spilling their contents over the floor.

Chase is dazed by the impact but Schneep recovers unnaturally fast. He grabs Chase by the throat, growling like an animal. And starts to squeeze. Chase flails. One hand pries at Schneep’s fingers while the other searches across the floor for anything that might help. Where? Where?! There! He feels something cool and heavy. Grabbing it, he swings it up towards Schneep’s head.

CLANG! The object hits Schneep in the side of the head. He falls, instantly unconscious, grip loose again. Chase pushes him off of him and sits up straight, gasping for air. He looks around the room. Light comes from his phone, which he dropped during the roll earlier. The whole room is filled with cardboard boxes. JJ is visible in the open doorway, lying on the floor but propping himself up with his arms. His eyes are wide, staring at Chase.

“I-I’m... fine,” Chase breathes. “I knocked him out. With... this.” He picks up the object from earlier: a crowbar. Then puts it back on the floor. “Wh-what about you?”

JJ shifts position, starting to stand up. Then he flinches and stops, sitting on the floor. My ankle hurts, he says. I must have twisted or broken it.

“Damn it.” Chase gets to his feet, picking up his phone. He stares down at Schneep. “What... what do we do with him?”

I’m not sure. JJ shakes his head. He’s clearly dangerous. And he won’t be out for long.

“...Hang on.” Chase crouches to the ground and pats Schneep’s pockets until he finds what he’s looking for. “Got it. The house keys. We can lock him in a room or something.”

This room? JJ asks.

“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to lock him in the room with the power box,” Chase says, grabbing his phone and putting it in his pocket with the flashlight still on. “Let’s find somewhere else down here. How about across the hall?”

JJ nods in agreement. You check it out. I don’t know if I can stand up.

“Right. Hang tight there, I’ll just...” Chase hesitates, then picks up Schneep and stands up. “I’m not gonna leave him unattended.” He walks out into the hallway, sidestepping JJ, and goes over to the first door on the left. After a moment of fumbling, he manages to unlock it. He pushes the door open. The room beyond is pitch black. “Uh, JJ, can you... provide some light?”

JJ looks around the floor and spots his own phone—luckily not too far away. He starts to stand up, winces, then decides it’s better to crawl. He reaches over and grabs it, then moves to the other side of the hall and points his flashlight beam into the new room.

Chase steps into the room—and immediately stops, shocked by what he sees. The room is completely devoid of furniture, but its walls are plastered with different papers. The one directly across from them is filled with what look like newspaper articles, while to the left are photographs and maps, and to the right are papers ripped from books and handwritten notes. Everything is old: yellowed and fragile looking. The only empty spots on the walls are where things have fallen down.

“What the fuck...?” Chase breathes.

JJ looks a bit pale. We should probably find some other room.

“Hey, you wanted to check out the basement. You don’t want to look at... whatever the fuck this is?”

I do, but we need to find some place to put Schneep first.

“I... yeah, but... what the fuck? Th-this... is probably important. You don’t want to look at it now?”

[lesbiansanemi]

You know what actually I am just gonna bitch about the roommate thing for a bit

Basically what I'm realizing is that nearly all my problems with them stem from two major issues. The first being that they have never lived with anyone who was not a parental-type figure (her father or grandmother) and the second is that she is not at all used to having actual bills to pay and not having the disposable income she had in the past which frustrates her and then becomes my problem

They do not know how to do dishes. They are pretty good about keeping up with loading or unloading the dishwasher, but the thing is... they absolutely NEVER learned how to do that properly, so then dishes are never actually cleaned, and then when they unload it they will put the STILL DIRTY DISHES????? BACK IN THE CABINETS????? I have also never seen them hand wash a single thing but considering they will not even rinse dishes and will put them straight in the dishwasher COVERED in food/leave them in the sink with FOOD STILL IN THEM????? I'm not surprised. When they put things in the dishwasher, they will leave cups and bowls right side up so they just fill with water and then sit there. They also do not utilize space well and so want to run the dishwasher several times a day because it is "full" when it absolutely is not which is a waste of water and also soap because guess who is paying for pretty much all shared household items such as dish soap...............

While on the topic of kitchens, ALL the cabinets and the fridge and freezer are so ridiculously unorganized because she will just throw shit in them with no rhyme or reason (sometimes???? leaving things open?????? when she does so????) and even if I fix it and organize everything within a day or two it will be a disaster again. She will also complain about how everything is "too full" and she feels like she doesn't have the room to buy more food while looking at me like she's expecting ME to stop taking up so much space as if she has not taken over 70-80% of the cabinets/fridge/freezer because she will CONSISTENTLY buy food and then never eat it. It only goes anywhere when I cave and completely clean everything out and throw out a bunch of shit she's let expire

She also eats a lot of the food I cook. Which I am not mad about. I offer, I like sharing food, and I usually can't eat it all myself anyways. But she does not ever cook herself (she has done so twice, and I'm being so dead ass one of the times she did the food was quite literally inedible). If I don't cook, she lives off of frozen chicken nuggets and fast food. Which I can't really say shit about.... I did that for a long time, but to then whine that I take up too much space in the kitchen when she's eating MY food consistently and never eating her own is.... a choice. Also she's admitted she knows she's never going to eat most of the food she buys (because of aforementioned frozen chicken nuggets and fast food) so I'm just like WHY????? WHY ARE YOU FUCKING BUYING IT THEN???????

I also don't mind sharing food in general. But she will sometimes look at me with a pouty expression and say shit like "I'm tired of x juice" or "I'm tired of x type of crackers, can we get something else?" as if..... it's not food I'm buying for myself...... that she happens to be eating.......... I'm buying it because I want it........ you can HAVE some but to ask me to buy other types of things because you're "tired" of things I'm getting for myself is....... kinda insane I feel like????

MOVING ON from kitchen stuff. They will take out the trash, and sometimes clean the bathroom. But they do not do ANY other type of cleaning. They have never swept, mopped, dusted, or even wiped down kitchen counters. They have then told me they wish I would clean the bathroom more often because it feels like they are the only one doing it................. Sorry considering that is the only area of the apartment you consistently clean, I'm not doing that. Especially because I DO clean the bathroom, just apparently it's not as often as they would like, and that is apparently the only thing that forces them into cleaning at all. They will complain about hair in the sink and shower, and toothpaste everywhere, except.... that's..... their hair and toothpaste mess. I definitely am not getting toothpaste everywhere every day and I mean you can literally visually tell whose hair it is everywhere........ I feel like I'm going insane

They want all kinds of unnecessary expensive things that they try getting me to "go halfsies" on. Like water filters (I say no I'm fine drinking tap, if you want it, by all means, but I'm not paying for half of it considering it's nothing I would spend money on myself) and they get kind of pouty. They want fancy cleaning appliances (that I'm convinced they wouldn't use anyways considering they barely clean) and I'm like nah. I'm fine scrubbing with a regular rag. I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on fancy scrubbers and vacuums and shit when what I have works. And it's just shit like that. Shit they want but can't afford cuz now they have bills so they try convincing me to pay for at least half of it which is getting annoying

Kind of branching off that. Pretty much everything in this apartment outside of what's in their bedroom is stuff I own (most of which I replaced just after my old roommate moved out/got kicked out and he took everything whether it was his or not). My tv is in the living room. She has a tv in her bedroom. I do not, because aforementioned tv is in the living room. They have made MANY passive aggressive comments about wanting the living room to be more of a "common space" aka meaning she wants to sit out there and use my tv instead of her own. I mean, I understand that to a degree. I wouldn't want to be in my room all the time either. But we have completely different tastes. I want to use MY tv to watch something I like or to play a game or something. Half the time you're not even home. I'm not gonna stop whatever I'm doing every time you come in because you MIGHT want to use the tv in the living room. Esp cuz she never just???? asks????? Like if there was ever a point she came up to me and was like "hey can I please use the tv out here?" so long as it wasn't like, every fucking day I'd be like yeah sure. But I'm not playing this passive aggressive guessing game because YOU want to use MY shit. I mean. I can move it into my room so I'm out of your way in the living room. Idc, but then there's no tv out there at all, and NO I'm sure as fuck not buying half of one with you

Idk, it's just a lot of issues with communicating where they won't just say directly what they mean. Recently she came home with a bunch of halloween decorations, looking around the living room and kinda sighed, and was like "idk where to put these up" and I was like, er yeah, there's not a lot of shelving here. For context, there's two (technically three if you count the tv stand) shelves in the living room. The other two are bookshelves I bought. One is small, that I keep movies on, the other is bigger and it has all my manga and some of my figures on it. There is definitely room for MORE shelves if someone wanted to buy some but..... I'm sure you can see where this is going. She kinda huffed, looked at my shelves all sad and went "okay then..........." and then put the halloween stuff in our storage locker across the hall. I realized about an hour later that was their roundabout way of wanting to know if they could take my shit off my shelves to put her shit up. If she had just come out and asked I think? I probably would have been fine with it. A little annoyed probably but like whatever, it's not worth being mean or starting a fight about, yk? But dude..... I'm not playing this guessing game and figuring out what you want from me like this constantly when you won't just come out and fucking ask and then will get passive aggressive cuz I didn't figure out your secret hidden message on the spot

But the thing that is bothering me the most rn that I'm probably gonna have to get very clear about (which I feel like I have, I've already told her most of this but it's just not clicking fucking somehow). They decided to get a cat. I want to add that the reason they wanted a cat was "because my cats weren't cuddly enough" ........ but I was like. Well. I like cats. We have cat stuff already. I'm okay with it SO LONG AS you get a female cat because one of my cats has not been spayed yet (I have been planning to do so, but she is exclusively inside, and my other cat is a spayed female, other financial things just kept getting put before it). And you'll never guess...... they fucking bring home an un-neutered male cat............... and then complained about having to keep him in her room, said that he was "too clingy and annoying" and how she "couldn't afford" to get him fixed so why couldn't I just go get Carmilla fixed? She finally got him fixed (today actually) after her grandmother paid for it but is still demanding I get my cat fixed asap because "what if being around her makes him spray" as if this all couldn't have been avoided if they just.... fucking listened to me in the first place if she just got a female cat instead of a male one. On top of that, the cat apparently had all kinds of bug problems (which they did not tell about when they brought him home) so now I have to go make sure my cats do not have mites/worms/etc now.....

On top of this, due to my chronic pain problems, I'm in the middle of trying to get restrictions at work. If my job decides what the physical therapists set as restrictions aren't things they can work with I could end up getting placed on a short term disability leave. If that happens, I only get 60% of my pay. That's fine, I can handle bills and all that on that, but I def can't be paying a bunch of unnecessary vet bills that could have been easily avoided

And I explained that to them. And they did the sighing pouty thing they do when they don't get exactly what they want or were criticized and were like "well... okay then, but do it as soon as possible."

Like I'm sorry this is only a problem because you blatantly disregarded what I told you about getting a cat, you're already tired of said cat so I'm basically the one taking care of him atp, and you have forced me into this corner where I now have to pay for this when before it wasn't a priority and I had the luxury of waiting until I took care of some other things first

And I'm just. I feel like I am living with a demanding child who wants/needs to be the center of attention and does not think anything through or how what she does and wants actually does have an effect on me and like I need to constantly pick up after them

Which is insane considering they are almost 29 years old...........

Most of these things I'm just hunkering down and dealing with cuz they're mostly just annoyances and I know this isn't long term I just have to put up with it until February but man........

Why can't I just live with someone fucking normal????????? When will I get to know that peace

[donnerpartyofone]

I don't know when this started happening, but it seems like I increasingly cannot get certain medications by just going to my pharmacy anymore. There's a whole bunch of stuff that my doctors now have to (for some reason) route through a "specialty phramacy", which is actually a startup-y online business with a cute little app I have to use, and they take care of both delivery (meaning every time I need my meds I have to add $5 to the price tag in order to tip the delivery guy, since I can't just go to a place and I refuse to not tip) and also they seem to have a lock on insurance pre-approvals, like if my insurance company needs an OK they can't or won't get it straight from my doctor anymore. In June, I didn't deal with any of these companies, just my regular old pharmacy. As of a month later, I have to deal with THREE of these "specialty pharmacies" if I want all my meds, so I have to keep track of different apps and logins for individual scripts basically. And I mean, TWO of these companies are connected to ONE of my doctors, so that's how well this whole thing is going. Here's today's adventure with the latest one of these things:

I get a text message from the actual physical pharmacy (also new to me) compounding my new medication, and the message includes a link to log into the specialty pharmacy so I can pay for the medication and schedule delivery. The specialty pharm is called Nimble. I open the link in a browser and get all the way to the part where I give them my email address "so we can send you your receipt", and I can't go any further because apparently my email address is already attached to an existing account. It wasn't clear to me that I was setting up a new account, I thought I was just completing a transaction...and also I don't remember Nimble, but I guess I must have used them a long time ago, so ok fine, I'll start over and try to log in first. Now the text message link just opens an error page. So I go to Nimble's home page and try to log in from there, and it asks for my email address so it can send me a "magic link". Every single magic link it sends me is preemptively "expired", and it also appears that I'm not actually getting a new one when I request it, it kinda looks like they're just forwarding the first email over and over again? 15 minutes later I receive a text telling me to download the Nimble app, which I REALLY don't want to do just on principle--plus apparently the app shows fucking ads, so they're getting paid to force me to do this--but like, maybe this is the only way to get my medicine? I won't even describe all the complications I had just downloading the app, we can just skip to the part where the inside of the app is exactly the same as the browser version and it is magically sending me the same expired "magic link". So I click into the help chat thing in the app, and I learn that:

Whenever the fuck I used Nimble before, it was under my maiden name. My email address is locked to my maiden name. My current script is under my married name. I am still using the same email address, but there is no technical way to merge the accounts and apparently there is no way for a customer to simply update the spelling of their own name that they use in real life, even though this might have to happen at any time for many reasons including typos. I could have given them my private email address instead of the old one that I give to scammy businesses when I'm forced to, but since WHY THE FUCK would I do that, the solution was for customer service to go into the back end and put a fake email address in my old account, and add my real email address to the new account. No online account I've ever had has been set up like this, where you can't put in your email address or phone number and update something like a password. There was also no way for me to independently enter my name first, even though that is the key unchanging piece of information the way phone/email is normally, and ultimately, there was no way for me to find out what the problem even was without like penetrating to the center of the labyrinth to have it explained to me why I wasn't allowed to get my meds.

I'm on Tumblr like 24/7 and it's obvious that I'm no luddite, but I'm really angry that the whole world has bought into the idea that as long as some system is based on new technology, then it is automatically more efficient and superior to whatever we used to do. This entire experience is NOT superior to me physically walking to my pharmacy and getting all my meds, and it is STILL NOT superior to me calling the physical pharmacy to pay over the phone and book a courier. We need to stop pretending that shit like this is making our lives better just because it feels shiny and new; now it's just like, if I wanna do something totally normal that I'm dependent on doing--like getting drugs that I might need to live as far as all these assholes know--I have to appease some 3rd party alien entity that does not contribute in any way to the success of the process or the quality of the outcome, it's just this random extra burden that takes so long to get through that they should honestly pay me to do it. Because right now I'm fucking sitting here doing this shit like it's my job, and it absolutely is not.

In this case customer service was actually helpful when I finally got to them, but basically they shouldn't have been necessary at all. Everything else about the situation was so fucked up that it reminded me of the single worst customer service experience I've ever had: I used to have a REALLY shitty Lenovo laptop (I didn't realize that "basic" and "simple" now just means "doesn't work"), and one day the Start menu got stuck open. It was fully expanded across my entire desktop, so I couldn't get to any of my shit. I had to spend about an hour talking to a service person who, it turned out, had NO IDEA what I meant by "desktop". I could not get the idea into her mind. I did a screenshare with her and she was like "Yeah I see all your applications, everything is there, what's the problem?" I could not get her to understand that it was INCORRECT for the menu to be permanently open and I couldn't get her to understand what it was blocking. I found myself typing crazy shit like "So the Desktop is like, ya know, it usually has a picture you picked out as the background, and there's little icons for programs you use or stuff you downloaded, there's always the little trashcan thing there..." and she just would not admit that she knew what I meant. It was as if she had never used a computer before. And like I don't even remember how I fixed the problem, I stopped using that machine obviously--but to this very day, there's a part of my brain exclusively devoted to running an endless background process that asks, "What's the best way to describe a computer desktop display to someone who has never seen or heard of one before?"

[trinimalfoyyy]

The Love Hypothesis- D.M. Series

Prologue

Warnings: Just language

~~~~~~~~

hy·poth·e·sis (noun)

A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Example: “The physical attractiveness of another person affects the likelihood of falling in love with them at first sight.”

Y/N still needed to learn if she was genuinely ready for this type of commitment that, if she pursued it, would follow this whole grad school thing. She understood there would be long hours, not some, and probably take up all of her social life. But would she also have to deal with extreme stress and daily crying sessions? Most defiantly, but that added to the weird charm of a Ph.D. program. 

I mean, these types of things didn’t even follow the so-called “reality” of what was portrayed in movies. I mean, they never showed the part of someone crying because their samples failed for the nth time in a row. They never showed someone crying because their favorite snack was sold out, and they actually cried over frustration and stress but took it out on an empty vending machine. 

Let’s not get her started on the mystery guy she ran into because she was just an embarrassment in life overall. The mystery guy that she never got the name of. The mystery guy she ran into because she stumbled blindly into the first bathroom she could find. The mystery guy asked her, “Is there a reason you’re crying in my bathroom?”

Y/N squeaked.  Y/N tried to open her eyes but was blocked by tears making it too blurry to see anything straight. All she could make out was someone tall, light-haired, dressed in black...

“is this not the ladies' room?” She was met with a long pause. Then, “Nope.” Oh, he had a deep voice. So deep. Practically dreamy deep. “Are you sure I’m not in the right place?” “Quite.” 

“Are you really sure?” 

“Yes, this is my lab’s bathroom, after all.” Well, fuck her, then. “I see. I’m so sorry. Do you need to...” She gestured to what she hoped was a stall.

“I just need to pour this reagent down the drain,” he said, but she didn’t need to hear anymore. She thought perhaps she was in his way or that the campus police were on the way to take her away for being too weird. “We don’t use this as a bathroom, just to dispose of waste and wash equipment.” If Y/N wasn’t already embarrassed, she was now. “Oh, sorry, I thought...” She had thought wrong again, which was something she excelled at.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He must be tall. His voice sounded like it came ten feet above her. “Sure. Why do you ask?” 

“Because you are crying. In my bathroom.” “Oh, I’m not crying. Well, I mean, it counts as crying, but it's just tears, you know?” 

“I do not.” She sighed.

“It's from my contacts. They expired quite some time ago, but they’re all I have as of right now.” 

“You put in expired contacts” He sounded almost offended. “Just a little expired.” 

“What’s a little?” “A few years? Give or take.” 

“A few years?” Oh, his voice dropped a decibel. Quite nice. Quite sexy. “It’s okay expiration dates are for the weak.” He snorted, or I believe it was one. “Expiration dates are so I don’t find you crying in the corner of my bathroom.”

Yikes, he must think he’s all that to keep saying my bathroom a million times. She waved her hand to try and dismiss the intense feeling in her eyes that didn’t stop burning. “The burning will go away in a little bit anyway.”

 “You mean you’ve done this before?” “Of course. contacts aren’t cheap.” “Neither are eyes.” Well, he did have a good point. 

“You must be trying out for a spot here, huh?”

 “What makes you say that?”

 “Only freshmen could put in expired contacts and act like they aren’t in pain.” Yikes. Double yikes. “Touché. That must mean you are not an incoming freshman.” 

“I am not.” “Have you been here long?” 

“Six years. Give or take.” Oh, he doesn’t sound that old. I hope he isn’t that old. “Does that mean you are graduating soon since you know...you’ve been here for six years?”

“I-” She was soon met with silence and instantly felt as if she had crossed a line. An imaginary line at that, but still a line. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer. The first rule of grad school-don’t ask about other grad’s dissertation timelines.” A beat. Then yet another beat. “Right.”

“I apologize again, really. Didn’t mean to channel your parents at Thanksgiving.” He laughed softly. “You could never.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “Annoying parents?”

“And even worse, Thanksgivings.” She gave another soft smile before reaching her hand out in a direction she hoped was facing the mystery guy. “I’m Y/N, by the way.” She thought she perhaps was in the wrong direction before she heard him take a step forward. The hand wrapped around hers was dry, warm, and so large it could have enveloped her entire fist. Everything about him must be so large. Height, fingers, voice. 

It was not entirely unpleasant. “Listen, if you happen to talk to anyone on the admissions committee, would you mind not telling them about my contact mishap. I find it makes me less of a stellar applicant.”

“You think so?” he deadpanned. She could have glared at him if she could. Maybe it seems like she did-or attempt to because she heard him laugh. And she really liked it. Then, he let go of her, and she realized she had gripped him. Oops. “Are you planning to enroll?” he asked. She gave a shrug. “I might not get an offer.” But she hit it off with Dr. Lovegood regarding her interview. 

She didn’t stutter or go off-topic like she usually does when nervous. A bad habit, really. Plus, her GRE score and GPA were nearly perfect. Dedicating her entire life to this program does pay off, I suppose. “Will you accept if you get n offer?” She would be insanely stupid if she didn’t. It would be a waste of the life she spent. 

Now it was her turn to be at a loss for words. “I...maybe. The between excellent career choice and critical life screwups getting a bit blurry.”

“Seems like you’re leaning towards screwup.” He sounded like he was smiling. “No, well... I try not to...”

“Try not to?”

She bit her lip. “What if I’m not good enough?” she blurted out, and god, she just wanted the Earth to rip open and swallow her whole. She was expecting the usual comments everyone says when she blurts this out. You’ll be fine! I believe in you! She knew at any moment, he would say the same thing.

Instead, he caught her off guard. “Why do you want to do it?” Wait what? Her brain shut down, and she needed to re-download. “Do what?”

“The Ph.D. program?” Her mouth went dry. She didn’t know how to answer the blurry mystery guy before her. 

“The research will answer a question of mine. And it’s essential. I need to know the answer.” There was silence yet again, and she felt like she had crossed yet another line. “Is my answer a good reason to join?” He paused and looked back at her. “It’s the best one.”

“Good luck Y/N.”

“Thanks.” She heard him leave out the door. No name was ever said from him. No clear vision was seen. She just sighed and walked out of the room minutes later afterward. 

A few weeks later, Y/N got an offer.

And she accepted it.

Without hesitation. 

~~~~~~~~

REGULAR MASTERLIST:

@orphixcc​ @willowbleedsonpaper​ @aadoreeleanorr​ @his-princess01122014​ @burnin-passion​ @superanimenatural​ @slytherinhoeperiodt @kinkyslytherinstuff​ @youreso-golden​ @dracosbaibe​ @realityblocked​ @saayanaaa​ @agalswrittingobsession​ @bamb0lina-sffv​ @justfangirlthingies​ @louweasleymalfoy​ @erenjaegerswh0r3​ @marrymetheonott​ @worksby-gabriella​ @willowmores​ @daedreamss​ @audrienfortuno​

[skullshoal]

Ok lol talking about the job I quit

So I didn't outright say it but I had to report them to OSHA because they made me clean up a biohazard with no training and no equipment. I worked in housekeeping at a condo resort and a guest broke a shower door and I was told to clean up the bloody glass. Afterwards OSHA made them right up a big letter and hold a meeting about how we are no longer allowed to clean biohazards and then ultimately nothing changed because when we asked if we could get sterile gloves and training on how to deal with biohazards because we were constantly getting them back in the laundry (which was processed on sight by us and a large part of the job despite never being mentioned on my job listing description lmao) they gave us a biohazard bin to dispose of stuff and nothing else. We got like.......blood and shit and piss and barf on sheets and towels constantly. Also I worked here during the monkeypox outbreak and had to convince my coworkers to even wear gloves when handling the dirty laundry in the first place. I strained my back from loading a washing machine and when I tried to go to the doctor I was denied after waiting an hour and a half because it was "supposed to be" workers comp and I hadn't gotten permission from my work place to be seen and it was sooooooo upsetting it sucked so bad. And then I was told to return to work on light duty even though I could hardly walk or stand straight and I told the doctor there is no sitting position at my work and he literally was just like ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯. When I returned I went back to normal work after like a day and it definitely did not help.

Also the whole place was so fucking racist oh my god. Unsurprisingly but I hated it the only poc were me and another housekeeping person and then all the contracted cleaners are Latino. And they were treated like shit they paid them the lowest in our area and had unreasonable expectations. Also one condo owner in particular was a huge racist and kept accusing her assigned cleaning company of being bad at their job and stealing stuff and when we did deep cleans during the winter she emailed out manager and said I spoke with your singular white cleaner (and not her black superior in the company she did not own) and we agreed she should do the deep clean so do it instead. I printed out the email here it is.

Oh also during deep cleans which are a week long and more than triple the price of a normal clean they started taking away units from companies who had been working in them all year long and didn't tell them to give them to another company. Our managers would not speak to them and one time one of our cleaners came in crying and the non management housekeeping had to tell her what was happening instead of LITERALLY ANYONE IN CHARGE.

Ever since the OSHA report they were like ohhhh we need to get ready cause their could be a surprise inspection anytime and came to find out MDMS sheets for the DANGEROUS CHEMICALS we used to process laundry were last updated at 2010 the latest and 2003 the earliest. 19 years out of date. Btw of course we didn't store them properly either :) here are pictures I took of the inside of house keeping. Oh yeah also we used pilot light dryers and there was no carbon monoxide alarm in this room. Also halfway through me working there we found out that one of the two fire alarms didn't even work. And no sprinklers!

Yes that is our only eyewash station and yes it did expire in 2019 😊. The Ceiling leaked and in multiple places mold grew that we had to keep spraying with bleach. All those open five gall buckets? They say to store in locked containers and keep them sealed. Yes we were breathing in evaporated hydrogen peroxide. And as you can see the walls of this room are lined with towels sheets and blankets all the way to the ceiling.

Anyway the reason I quit was the last day I worked there we were pulled into a meeting suddenly where our manager told us that everytime she was mad at us she added it to a list and now she was going to give us this list as our job guides. Because we had been saying "that's not my job too much". There are 2 dedicated maintenance departments of that property and they were sending me and my coworkers to fix a leaking shower, lift 50-90 lb packages that had been delivered to units containing freezers and chairs, change lightbulbs, and fix windows with 0 tools or training. We were in that meeting for over an hour and at the end she gave us all a write up for something that happened two weeks ago and we were never even told was a problem. My direct manager was there the whole time and said not one word in support of us despite verbally agreeing with us on all these issues. Oh and also she and my coworker had been getting into explosive fights on the reg that were giving me panic attacks. My coworker refused to work in the dangerous weather during a hurricane and my direct manager said "you aren't allowed to tell me what you are and aren't going to do." :) And by explosive I mean screaming and crying.

So yeah. There's like one billion other things but that's all for now I'm done I just started thinking about it this morning and thought I should share.

[medicinemane]

Anyway, actually publisher clearing house should kinda be hit with this stuff I'm saying too

The way they word their stuff is intentionally confusing and predatory (which it's so bizarre how scummy they act for a legit org that you don't have to pay to enter with)

Actually got super super super fucking depressed and suicidal a little bit ago while going through mail and seeing one from them that was like "We need you to mail us back confirming your number or you'll forfeit your prize!"

I knew it was bullshit, but the thought that I might have lost out on $5000 a week for life because I didn't check the mail just... it punched a fucking hole right through me

Well I was checking my email, looking at the tab that's basically just spam from them (fuck they send a lot), and it's the exact fucking same language and I finally feel totally better about that cause I realized... ah... mhh, you know what, let me literally quote a random one:

"(Your Name), your claim to the following must be made before the 6/28 11:59 PM, ET FINAL entry deadline for this email expires. Any claims received after said date will not be accepted and rights to the claim below will be permanently rendered invalid."

Cause when I review it in my head, that old mail I was looking at, it wasn't telling me that I had the winning numbers and needed to send confirmation... they said that I needed to write back to confirm I wanted those numbers which could end up being the winners

And like with that quote, they're not saying that this is your final chance to confirm your winnings... they're just on purpose heavily implying it while actually saying it's your final chance to get another entry

Anyway, I think it ought to be illegal. Once again, less worried about it than the fake checks for advertising, or even the predatory language around financial advice cause both of those you lose real money (though they had to pay out for tricking people into buying from them even though you don't have to pay to enter their sweepstakes), but it still ought to be illegal

I just think you shouldn't be allowed to use blatantly predatory and manipulative language to advertise

Sadly we clearly won't do away with being predatory in advertising... like here in the good old US of A it's clear we've agree that actually the little guy should get fucked, if advertisers want to do shit to purposefully stress you out to try and get you to buy that's their fucking right

(Don't wait, call now because this deal won't last forever!)

But like... come on, being intentionally confusing about stuff (ie intentionally trying to make it seem like someone's won rather than that this is just... a normal ass entry) or using language I know would be said to be "evocative" in the defense, but is just straight up telling you "hurry and give me your money so you can be rich, don't wait and think"... again, I think it shouldn't be allowed

Like circling back around to pch, how fucking badly would they actually be hurt if they weren't allowed to be manipulative?

I don't even think they should be forced to get rid of their "$10k to pay off your student loans" type dumb stuff... though I think they should because it's stupid and it just makes it confusing cause it's like... but you're giving me cash, right? This is actually an entry towards cash, yeah?

Fine, whatever. It's the using language to try and make it sound like you've won when you haven't that should be straight up banned

Nothing wrong with just saying "Now's you chance to enter for the opportunity to win big!", zero need to frame it like these are actually winning numbers and not what they actually are, numbers that could win. Zero reason to try and trick people into entering into your free contest

Like I can not stress this enough, for not actually being a scam (other than perhaps of time) I have no clue why publish clearly house works with all it's might to come off as much like a scam in every way as humanly possible

For a legitimate business they work as hard as they can to look like a phishing ponsi scheme that's gonna supercharge your computer with randsomeware... and I just don't get it

But yeah, that kind of language trying to sound like you've won, ought to be illegal. No reason for it, just makes people who need money stressed and upset and plays on their desperation... and you're not even making money off it in this case

[umiedibles]

Okie I'm just gonna say THE FACT THAT IF YOU QUIT A LIVE, IT DOESN'T REFUND YOUR BP??????????????? IT'S STRAIGHT UP DAYLIGHT ROBBERY????? NOT TO MENTION WITH THOSE REFRESH RATES. IMAGINE YOU FORGOT TO SET YOUR SPEED SLOWER AND YOU STRAIGHT UP FAIL THE LIVE and you lost 10BP just like that bc the game consumes energy currency upon entry instead of upon completion like please fucking fix that...

The stuff with Arashi and the SHITTY translations is a problem far too big to be labeled a pet peeve and deserves it's own post honestly...

Another is how the notification popup for store NEVER goes away until you buy the recommended packs like is that just me?? It's so damn annoying I ain't spending money on the EN server with dog shit translation either go awayyy

Another is the ABSURD and STUPID censorship in the English server?? I can say the f slur but not the word pull? Hello??? Or some basic harmless words... But I can say shit? Fuck? Okay whateverrr

Keito should be deleted from the game /j

The game doesn't let you skip the gacha animation like OHHH it glowed blue okay get it over with (aggressive tapping) even if it was gold or rainbow I should be allowed to skip pulls instantly??

The Double Face debut cards should be in the default pool idgaf??? Why do I need to get 30, 40 memorial coins so I can have the MV outfits??? Considering they disbanded this makes me even madder honestly

Another is not being allowed to auto during your first time on each tour. I'm using BP?? 3 BP, actually! LET ME AUTO I am not doing all these manually again for (30 × 4 = 120) 120 songs???? That's 360 BP MINIMUM LET ME AUTO FIRST TRY

On first time story reads, even if you auto, the story won't move on to the next episode, instead it'll stay on the reward gem screen like dude I put you on auto because I cannot be BOTHERED to tap to skip?? MOVE

Also back on tours, you have to clear the songs in order to the given chart instead of being able to select which one you want. Like wow I wanna clear PERFECTLY×IMPERFECT on auto to farm event points but I gotta listen to mother trucking Eichi first? And spend BP on him?? Eyeroll

The advanced auto button doesn't have an option for reduced voltage support or ensemble gauge increase I think we should have those.

Also those supports don't have a number or indicator? Like do they reduce/increase it by a certain percentage or multiplier? Can I actually see these numbers to decide if it's worth spending my gems on?

The fact that scout tickets expire is just so meaningless and predatory...?? Even big gachas don't make their tickets expire. Why can't I save all my scout tickets? Now I gotta spend those piss colored tickets on standard to get my 6th Shu copy as if it'll give me anything new

Event 5 stars being locked. Not necessarily whale needed, but needing to spend a sizeable amount to get just one copy?? I know the business and game model doesn't require you to get every little rare unit unlike other gachas, and maybe it's because enstars is my only rhythm gacha game, but that's just so stupid. At least lower the points needed so I can get one copy, and let the whales max uncap what they want. The punishment for missing a card is so great too. Not only do you need to wait a year for them to get added to memorial, you also need to save at most 30 coins for a first time copy and memorial coins are so damn scarce??? Considering the model, time, and the delay in schedule between JP and EN, it seems reasonable but it's still such a big penalty for what, not spending diamond resources which are already scarcely given?

Can't think of more rn uhmmmmmmm scratches head.

Just asking for everybody and u included, any Enstars pet peeves? :3

Mine is merely the fact that the flick buttons don't look different enough so whenever my colorblind ass has to flick a note it's usually too fast for me to see left or right, and the other options for a different colored flick notes are ugly set notes...

its kinda annoying that the starry live is refresh based and you have to do all of them before you can get new ones instead of being pages you can flip through cuz during events theres 3 normal songs and the event song and when you finish the normal ones sometimes youll have to do a few more normal ones to get to 100 event passes to get to the next page and it takes way longer than it should :// and it would be nice if they had a native english speaker helping with the translations cuz its pretty rough in some places especially with the lyric translations . thats pretty much it tho , the devs do a good job with it

[sugoi-and-spice]

Can I request a League of villains x Quirkless back Alley Nurse fanfic? Romance with a character of your chosing? (Sorry if it's not enough detail I'm new to the whole making request thing)

Ugh, stop this was such a fun prompt. Ideas for Toga and Twice were the first to pop into my head, might revisit this if I get ideas for the others though.

Pairing: Jin Bubaigawara/Twice x Reader, Himiko Toga x Reader

Rating: PG (Hey look, I can write SFW too! xD)

CW: gn!reader, hurt/comfort, mentions of canon-typical violence

Getting blood for transfusions wasn’t exactly straight forward for a clinic like your Father’s. It required a lot of black market sales from hospitals and dealings with brokers. It was one of the biggest logistical headaches for the business even without taking negotiations and market prices into account. In general your Dad preferred to cut out the middleman, as much as possible — to pull directly from donors.

Even unwilling ones.

So after All for One’s capture and the League was no longer able to pay for their visits (of which there were many) — your Dad worked out a little deal.

Treatment in exchange for donors. And as a little added bonus, you’d throw in a few blood bags that were no longer medically viable for their resident shapeshifter. That’s what you were pulling for now.

Down in the basement, Toga sat on a stack of crates, swinging her legs back and forth as you pulled a small box out of the walk-in freezer.

“You’re in luck,” you said, closing the door behind you with your hip, “This last month was slow, so we had more bags expire than usual.”

Toga squealed, jumping off the crate, “Lemme see, lemme see!”

You set the box down on a nearby table. Most of the bags had not only the blood type and collection date written on them — but a picture attached too. A small change you and your Dad had made to your cataloging once you started this deal.

You watched her sort through them excitedly, like a kid in a candy story. She was seriously cute when she got like this. It was one of the reasons you liked to be the one in charge of these transactions, instead of your Dad.

Well, that, and all of the sex you and Toga would have afterwards.

Was it a bad idea to get physically involved with a client? Absolutely. Was it an even worse idea for that client to be the stab-happy serial romantic of the League of Villains with a penchant for combining the two passions? Undoubtedly.

Was it a lot of fun though? Fuck yes it was.

“So what’s your type?”

You blinked, snapping out of your train of thought, “My blood type?”

“Nooo,” she laughed, holding up one of the bags and waving the picture in front of your face, “ I mean your type type!”

You cocked a brow, wondering for a moment if all that blood had finally gotten to her brain and made her forget all of your sexcpades over the last couple of months — many of which had taken place in this very basement.

“Well, considering the fact that we’ve been hooking up for, how long—”

Himiko waved you off, “No, no — besides me! Like if you could have one night with anyone, who would it be?”

“...this feels like a trap.”

“It’s noooot!” she whined.

You couldn’t help but laugh, “Why do you want to know so bad?”

“Well…” she drew the toe of her loafer around the ground, coy and sing-songy, “You know I can turn into anybody I bring in, right?”

“I am aware.” you leaned against the table, listening with amusement as to where this could go.

“Soooo, I was thinking I could bring in someone you like,” she said, mirroring your lean into the table, “That way you can play with someone new.”

Your brows furrowed, “Himiko, why do you think I want someone new?”

“Well, you’re okay with me loving so many people,” she slipped her hand across the table, lacing her fingers with yours, “It doesn’t really seem fair that you don’t get to do the same.”

“I mean, you know that’s my choice right? It’s not like I’m strictly monogamous, I’m just not interested in anyone else.”

She looked up at you with an amount of concern that quickly had you forgetting your teasing. While it was true that Toga wore her love on her sleeve, sadness and vulnerability were a rare sight. Most of the time it felt like that was because she just didn’t have any sadness to show. But as you got to know her, it was becoming more clear that she just never wanted to dwell on it. She wanted to live her life to the fullest.

And she wanted the same for you.

“Are you sure?”

You reached your freehand forward, cupping her cheek. She sighed into it, a little blush dusting across her face. For how bold she always was when declaring her feelings, she always got shy when it came to actually acting on them. It was pretty damn cute if you were being honest.

You smiled and slid your hand back behind her ear and pulled her into a kiss. She let out a little gasp against your mouth, her fingers tightening around your own. You started to rub little strokes along her jaw with your thumb, coaxing her mouth open as you deepened the kiss.

She had just started to knead against your tongue when you pulled away, just enough to rest your forehead against hers. Still too far for Toga though if her little whine was any indication.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” you breathed.

Toga let out a little giggle before pushing back and catching your bottom lip between her teeth.

“You know, this isn’t what I thought you meant when you said you needed stitches.”

You were currently sitting on the end of the medical bed hard at work suturing…

…suturing a tear in Jin’s mask.

“You made it sound like it was an emergency.”

“It is! It’s no big deal— d-damn it!”

You looked back over your shoulder. Jin was currently sitting up at the top of the bed, legs pushed up to his chest and rocking back against the wall. He had a paper bag pulled over his head. Judging by the stains and torn handle, it was one that he’d pulled from the trash.

It wasn’t often that Jin asked you for help, not for himself anyway. He was a constant in the office, present every time a League member needed treatment — be it a bullet wound, amputated arm, or tetanus shot — Jin was always the one carrying or following them in. The only other member that even came close to as frequent was Shigaraki — the direct contact and source of payment for the League. But even he usually just went straight to your Dad to work out the logistics.

But Jin always stayed right in this room, at his friends’ bedside or — at the furthest — across the room making some dumb gag with the tongue depressors to try and lift their spirits. Usually the only one he could successfully amuse was Toga.

And you.

He never came in for his own wounds, and most of the time he actively hid the injuries that he did have — minor as they typically were. Any treatment would usually stem from you catching a spreading stain on his costume or a limp in his step as he carried somebody in and would then involve you maneuvering around to treat him while he stayed locked to the bedside.

Eventually, you started implementing a strip search policy for him every time he crossed the threshold of the office — no going near the triage area until you had checked every inch of him for injury. And well, you could only get up and personal with that rugged musculature of his so many times before one thing led to another.

So given his habit for self-sacrifice in combination with the intimacy you had developed with him, when today he actually called you, hyperventilating and begging for help — it had scared you half to death. And when he had actually shown up, shoving the torn mask frantically into your hands, you had been furious at him for giving you that scare.

But now, seeing him trying to self-soothe in that corner — seriously shaken but very much alive — you were begrudgingly relieved.

You gave each side of the mask a little tug, testing to make sure the stitchwork was solid. And of course it was.

“Good as new.” you grunted, tossing it back over your shoulder.

You could hear him shuffling fast behind you. The crackle of paper, the slip of fabric, the relieved sigh of “Whole again.” You just tried to focus on putting your supplies away. To keep your breath steady, your eyes dry.

You didn’t want to give him a hard time about how bad he scared you. You knew he couldn’t help it, that this was all part of the package deal that was Jin Bubaigawara. But you just couldn’t help the shake in your fingers that had finally taken over once you didn’t have a project to steady them on, the air of panic in your chest imagining what could’ve been. 

What someday could be.

A pair of strong arms wrapped slowly around your shoulders. You tried half-heartedly to shrug them off, but they just tightened, pulling you back against Jin’s hard chest. The smell of tobacco and his body wash filled your senses, warmed your body. You could feel him press a soft, covered kiss to the back of your neck — an action that was just as much a comfort to him as it was supposed to be for you.

“I’m sorry…” he breathed, completely himself.

That did you in. You tried to sniff up the tears that were already falling before he could notice. But you could tell by the way he started burying his head into your nape that all it did was make him more aware.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So sorry.” he choked out, over and over again.

You reached up to grasp Jin’s wrists, carefully unfolding his arms so that you could turn and face him. It was amazing how truly expressive he could be through that hokey piece of fabric. It was obvious that he was barely holding it together.

You smiled sadly, reaching up to run your thumb along the line of stitches running up his forehead — just a few inches off from the actual scar on his skin.

“This suits you.” 

You could tell by the shift under his mask that his eyes had widened. He grabbed your hands tight between his own and pulled them tight to his mouth, just breathing you in. Trying to hold you together like you held him.

“Th-Thank you. That’s some shit craftsmanship!”

Like my work? Please consider contributing to my Ko-Fi!

[szmaciarz-pospolity]

Honestly I feel like Circe is underapriciated. Like I saw few times already people saying she had no personality and was just a bad love interest to Rex, and meanwhile I also think her love plot wasn't really that good (I have things that I really like about it that I'll talk about later), I honestly think that's like the least interesting thing about Circe to me??

Honestly to me Circe is an interesting image of how evo youth might end up in this world. Especially since she's litearlly so human passing, yet still the world treated her like shit. We don't know what exacly happened, but that doesn't even matter, we know she was a teen girl in a shitty place. That's how she ends up in The Pack, wich is obviously q toxic enviroment. And like she's treated badly there from the start let's face it. Yet she always was like "well it could be worse, at least I'm not alone anymore 👍". And like, that rings home you know? I mean the situation was exaggerated compared to the expirences of most teens, but it's similiar enough. The expirence I'm talking about it obviously getting a friend or a whole friend circle that's toxic and treats you bad, yet you stay with them due to fear of being alone and you excuse them time and time again. That's how I mostly look at Circe's relationship with the pack.

There's also the fact that Van Kleiss straight up usses vounarable people to his advantage wich is really fucked up. Like we obviously see that with Breach, but Circe is a really good example as well. Like she litearlly belived all his words and refused to leave him AND FOR WHAT?? Honestly that whole thing kinda reminds me of a cult leaders idk it's interesting

I honesly don't really like the way Circe left The Pack, like the shift in her views seemed a bit sudden, even tho the episode definetely gave her reasons to do that, tho I kinda wish her reality check was a bit more,, brutal and personal you know? Like VK being a bitch to her, and being ready to break all of Rex's bones made sense tho to how devoted she was to VK I just wish it was something more centric on her. But how it is, I CAN ACCEPT THAT ESPECIALLY SINCE THAT LEADS TO MY FAV MOMENT IN HER CHARACTER.

Wich is obviously her joining The Hong Kong Gang. Like in that episode she seems just so much,,, healthier and way more chill??? Like she finally found people in her life that she's fully happy with and they treat her right. I don't know It's so nice to see her actually healing and far from that bullshit she was subjected to for so long. Like I mean in that episode shit goes down anyway, but we see she was happy before and in the end after they solve the problem she seems happy again. I especially like that she didn't join providance beacuse oh my god that would suck. But nope, she's far away from that shit, and she seems so much better.

Then season 3 comes and not gonna lie, I have mixed feelings about her in that season. It's a shame her situation sucks again and she got separated from her friends and got tied up in the Abysus bullshit. But also the episode is really dramatic and fun so- And overall I like to think after the end of the series, she still lives with the Hong Kong Gang and stuff Idk I love them togheather. Also give her her purple hair dye back cmon.

Now we come to the elephant in the room- Her relationship with Rex. Most of the critism of her character usually revolves around that so um yeah. I actually don't think it's awful?? Not great eighter but it's fine and I've seen worse. There's a few aspects of their relationship wich I really adore. It's that "what the fuck you're just like me" connection thingy. I don't know, I like the idea of them being able to relate to eachother. I also really like some of their moments, especially them having fun togheather in episode 2, or that moment when they hold hands wihout even realising it, and then Bobo comes, they realise that and they just quickly pull their hands away. I don't care that was adorable. I also like their overall vibe of the protagonist x the edgy one thing. Other than that the way their relationship was handled in canon could be worse but I kinda wish that after Circe joins the Hong Kong Gang, they stop being eachothers love interests and just become friends you know?? Like I don't know their relationship seems really rocky to me. In Asault on the Abysus especially LIKE I GET THAT CIRCE IS IN SO MUCH STRESS BUT CMON THAT ROMANCR THING IS CLEARLY NOT WORKING FOR YOU. Overall I think their ship and love plot is not bad, and it has elements I like a lot, but as a whole I don't think it's the best thing ever and I wish they stayed friends

I have no idea if any of the things I described here were on purpose, for sure at least some of the things were not, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of interesting thins to think about Circe to talk about and overall she has so much potential, and her character could be explored so much WIHOUT IT EVEN INVOLVING HER RELATIONSHIP WITH REX. Overall all that I said aren't objective facts, just my thoughts on her character and how I interpret her. I don't know I like edgy teen girls that definetley need some therapy trope. Anyway bye I'm going to go watch a fnaf interview now.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi, I was reading your post about Jason punching Dick in the face when Dick revealed he fake his death was bullshit ( which it was) and it reminded me of an issue/question that has bothered me for sometime.

Why did people believe Dick was actually dead?

I’m not the most avid comic reader so maybe I missed something but it was always weird to me that everyone just accepted this especially given how Bruce was acting or should I say wasn’t acting.

This is a man when his child died another child had to come along and told him sir you are being too violent and emotional you need supervision. When his other child died he went all over the universe to bring him back to life because he knew it was possible ( which was happening at the same time), so why didn’t anyone think it was weird he wasn’t doing that for Dick. Can you imagine Dick really dying that soon after Damian it would be injustice Batman Version. You are telling me that Tim, Jason or Barbara didn’t think it was weird that Bruce didn’t also bring Dick’s corpse to the bring Damian back to life mission or mention it to themselves. Like what more likely Dick dead and Bruce is handling it well or that he fake his death to do something stupid and Dangerous after his partner/brother/ little bit my son the feelings are complicated died after he was knocked out and woke up to his corpse.

Oh man, this is like, the entire nature of my beef?

(Slight derail just to emphasize the fact real quick that Dick DID actually die, he was just revived quickly, but like, the trauma of his death was very real and its not like anyone was clued into Luthor having a resurrection backdoor built into his literal murder of Dick in the actual moment of it happening. So Dick’s death wasn’t fake, and additionally, he didn’t have anything to do with like, telling people about it, because he was literally comatose in the cave and recovering while Bruce was telling people....by the time Dick woke up in the cave, we already know that Alfred at least had already been convinced by Bruce that Dick was dead, so I have a kneejerk need to pushback against the Dick faked his death narrative by reminding people wherever possible that Dick had no agency in the spreading of that narrative. 

It happened without him being involved, and the only actual contribution he ever made to it was just not revealing he was alive before Grayson #12, after Bruce like.....emotionally, mentally and physically badgered him into accepting that doing so would be directly harmful to his family and he didn’t want to be the reason more people died when like, people had just died because he ‘let’ himself be captured and interrogated by Power Woman’s Lasso of Submission, did he?

SORRY TO BE PEDANTIC, just wanted to start this off on a clarification, even though I know the aim of your ask was very much in tune with the rest of my response. A lot of people don’t read the actual comics, so like, I’m never gonna skip over an opportunity to emphasize that the shorthand people use to refer to Dick’s death and the year he was with Spyral, is like, literally just shorthand for describing it. Its not actually an accurate description of how all that went down and who had the most hand in it).

BUT ANYWAY. BACK TO THE MEAT OF THE BEEF.

Okay so like, not only was the entire family and Bruce himself giving Dick shit for his death and Spyral, like, PAINFULLY egregious because it was literal victim blaming in every possible sense of the word....

None of it made a LICK of sense with ANY of their characterizations, and they ONLY all accepted it on face value because the Plot Demanded It, and when you're like, no, as a reader I say The Plot Demanded It is not a good enough reason for me to be like well sure, that makes sense......looking at the characters ACTUAL actions at face value pretty much just makes them all look like assholes?

Like, Tim has never gracefully accepted anyone's death. Ever. This is core characterization for him. He will go to the ends of the earth for his loved ones and to bring them back, prove they're not dead, refuse to let death be the final verdict for them. He was tempted to use the Lazarus Pit to bring his parents back to life. He refused to accept Bruce was dead long before he had any proof whatsoever of that theory. He tried to clone his BFF/future-husband Kon in his fucking basement like, dude was two whole inches away from going Full Dark Side in his quest to bring back a lost loved one no matter WHAT the cost.....and then you've got Dick unmasked onscreen, killed offscreen, and Bruce then reporting to the rest of them with zero inflection 'oh Dick's dead now. Its very sad' and Tim's just like, sure. Sounds legit.

I mean?!?!

And you're SO RIGHT ABOUT THE DAMIAN THING! Bruce LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY went BEYOND the ends of the Earth, like, he full on chartered a fucking space ship to fly his whole family out to APOKOLIPS to bring Damian back from the dead by going to EXTREME lengths.....WHILE everyone else thought Dick was dead....

And not a single person looked at Bruce and was like, okay, not that we're not down to do this for Damian because we miss Stabby Smurf something fierce ourselves, but.....what the fuck is UP with you dude? Why aren't you displaying ANY hint of this same kind of energy in regards to your eldest son that you said you watched die right in front of you?

Like....I don't know that we were actually ever told that Dick's coffin was empty or had a fake in it, but like....this family of detectives who refuse to accept death, defy death, COME BACK FROM THE DEAD....not a single one of them said like, okay, if I'm gonna like, ACCEPT accept that Dick is dead and gone for good, I need to at least just see him one last time? That's literally all it would have taken for someone to realize hey something's a little wonky here. Where's the dead body, Pops?

Since when has Jason ever missed an opportunity to prove Bruce is a) full of shit, b) acting like an emotionless robot and all his kids deserve better especially when they've just like....died, c) just factually incorrect and wrong and jumped to a conclusion before it was conclusively proved, d) lying like a liar or e) all of the above?

Nobody even ASKED if Dick's body could be put in a Lazarus Pit? Yeah, Jason wouldn't necessarily recommend it himself, given what it put him through, but actually fuck that, I take that back, because I'm NOT actually of the opinion that Jason full on hates his life and actively spends every second of every day wishing he hadn't been resurrected, even if it had come with a huge buffet of additional trauma and pain.

And that's kinda what's implied when people just take it for granted that he would never be on board with any scenario involving using a Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back, because it suggests that based even just on his own experiences and feelings, he honestly believes Dick would prefer being dead and not have ANY further opportunities to be with his loved ones, his friends, help save the damn world again at some future point.....that Jason, projecting based just off himself, legit feels Dick would rather be dead than have another shot at life even WITH the downsides of Lazarus Pit usage? Nope. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Speaking of not buying it.....you know what was missing from all those soliloquies the others monologued at Dick about how they felt and were hurt and just devastated by his death, to such a point they can't seem to muster a single shred of happiness that he's NOT dead still -

(seriously, Damian was the ONLY person in ALL THE LANDS OF EMOTION-HAVING who expressed ANY kind of positive reaction to having Dick back. We were so fucking cheated of like.....ANY opportunity to have the characters show just how much they valued him by just being fucking HAPPY he was alive, no matter what else was involved....and then most of fandom compounded that by for years being like mmmm, no, Dick didn't get yelled at enough by his family for what HE put THEM through. Needs more yelling. More punching too. Bad Dick. Bad. This is the only way you'll learn not to die and get shipped off on a mission that you don't want but at least is to protect your family after being beaten into it by your dad whilst victim blaming you for dying in the first place. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR FEELINGS FOR A CHANGE, DICK?!?)

- But like, BUT I DIGRESS aside....you know what was missing from all those monologues about how hard DICK'S death and ensuing year of basically exile from his loved ones was for EVERYONE BUT HIM?

We never got a single line of explanation as to what everyone else officially thinks even happened to him in the first place?

Like, did Bruce straight up just say oh bad news kids, your brother umm. Expired. Spontaneously. There's no one to blame, he just keeled over, its all very sad.

Is that how that went down?

You're telling me that the explanation of Dick's death didn't come with a single pointed finger at someone for this family of blame-happy vigilantes to like, BLAME for the loss of this brother they all mourned oh so much, they just couldn't help but blame him for all the hurt it caused them?

The family that in every other fic is like OBSESSED with avenging and being avenged and all things vengeful and even tangentially vengeance-y....like didn't ask for a single detail on whomst the fuck deprived us of our brother-having?

Where were the attempts on Luthor's life by Jason (who I mean, yeah I know it was in a previous continuity, but erasing that timeline doesn't erase my awareness of the time Dick killed Jason's murderer so like.....mmm, just saying, woulda been nice)....where was the rage directed at the Crime Syndicate and references to how seriously and personally the Batfam took making sure that they were PUNISHED for all this and would never be free to wreak havoc on their world or their family again? What did they tell Damian when he came back to life, and how are you going to tell me that this fraternal little ball of fury didn't aim himself like a cannonball at whomever the fuck had DARED take HIS Batman from him when Damian wasn't around to have his back?

Not only does everyone else's desire to be avenged start falling really flat the second you factor in hey maybe Dick feels "mmm what about MY avenging" sometimes, and why doesn't anyone ever care about doing that for him.....but also, y'know what REALLY sucks about the ONLY person we actually SEE being blamed for Dick's death and ensuing absence being like....Dick himself?

Not only were his family all super keen on making all of this HIS fault and HIM the bad guy because of how it made them all feeeeeeel (and meanwhile fuck his feelings, am I right Batfam hfaklshfklahfkla).....

They somehow found a way to justify prioritizing this OVER ever even getting around to blaming some villain for his death in the FIRST place, in the entire year or so they thought he was still dead!

Like, you couldn't come up with a single target in all that time, but Dick's back two seconds, and you don't even give him a chance to EXPLAIN before you're punching him, shutting him down with 'I expected better from you' and turning away with 'I don't want to hear it, why am I surprised Dick Grayson disappointed me again'?

afshklfhalfhalfhla

Make it make sense!

And like, it won't, cuz it doesn't, and it never will, and like I said at the top, the ONLY reason it all played out this way is because DC doesn't give a fuck about character development and deemed it necessary to go down this way for the sake of the plot (which was totes worth it, I mean, glad we sacrificed characters for this A+ plot which was clearly the greatest plot of all time and definitely justified every story choice made or not made around it loooool).

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT.

The problem isn't JUST that DC is stupid, even though that is an eternal mood and quite the problem.

Its that the SECOND large parts of fandom decided to play along with DC and just accept the story at face value, only add to it and play into it exactly as it happened in canon with no significant deviations, and like, heaping on the LITERAL abuse from Dick's siblings while ignoring the LITERAL abuse from his father....

THAT....is when all of this becomes relevant.

Because the second people decided TO engage with the reasoning DC gave for what Bruce did and how and what Dick did and how and just not mess with any of that and have it all play out exactly like that...

The second people are like, okay we're FINE with not just dismissing this story as OOC writing that doesn't make any sense, and actually VALIDATING it to various degrees by engaging with it as is....

That's when 'OOC writing' stops being an excuse or explanation for alllll of the above gaps in character logic and actions.

Because its like, when you had abundant chance to REJECT this story and say nope, this was bullshit from start to finish and I'm not here for it, when you were just as capable of transforming literally ANY aspect of this story you didn't like into something that made more sense to you....

And you chose not to.

That's.....accepting it as valid writing. You were like, okay, I'm game to just treat this as a thing that happened, just like they said that happened.

For the chance to give Dick shit for it, see. For the angst, see.

And that's when I'm like okay cool, so when engaging with this story as is and accepting it on face value and just delving into the characters as they were SHOWN interacting with and around these events......for the angst or whatever....

You guys just all decided en masse to just hop, skip and jump over allllllllll the opportunities for angst inherent in examining even ANY SINGLE ONE of the above lapses in judgment or hypocrisy on the parts of the characters (who don't get to be excused by OOC writing if you're not going to call the story an example of OOC writing, whoops).

And its just like, uh, what's up with that?

[concubuck]

Who wants to see pictures of the crappy apartment that Alastor lives in???

As you look at these, you’re going to think to yourself: “this is Alastor’s place? I barely see any hints of his personality at all.” And my answer to that is: “Yes. Exactly.”

After becoming a succubus, Alastor got a place as fast as he could without any care for what it was like, just because he NEEDED one; and he told himself “I will not get attached to this place as a home, because if I set down roots and get comfortable, it will take that much harder for me to put in the work to get a promotion that will let me be something other than a succubus.”

So he hasn’t done anything to make his apartment feel like a home, and he hasn’t taken care of it like it’s a place he wants to live in—and he’s made himself very, very uncomfortable.

Let’s go on a tour!

Overview

Front door (on the bottom right) leads straight into bedroom—you have to go through his bedroom to reach the bathroom or kitchen. This is by design. Bedroom is a “public” space—not private, not his. He brings home drunk partners from bars to sleep with when he’s got nowhere else to go with them. (Always uses magic to hide the route to his home, and almost always is in disguise when he’s taking someone home; so the few partners he’s taken to his apartment don’t know where it is AND don’t know that it’s the Radio Demon’s apartment.)

Bedroom

Camming & computer desk. When he’s blogging and NOT out in public, he’s right here. I haven’t shown much of his camming on the blog, but this is where he’s sitting when he took this picture, and this picture (although I hadn’t settled on a chair design yet in that pic), and it’s where he records his stupid cheap OnlyFangs audio/video/calls. This is also where he is almost any time you see him at a desk, like here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Two of the objects in the room are substitutes/stand-ins for objects Alastor actually owns. The little cat-shaped radio represents Radio, Alastor’s living radio familiar, and the doll on the desk represents the doll that Cal gave him.

“Alastor’s apartment can’t be THAT bad, it’s got those nice pretty leaves and the big hearts—” yeah the only reason they’re up there is BECAUSE Alastor thinks people will think it’s nice and pretty. He thinks the heart decals are stupid, he put them up because he thinks People Who Like Fucking might think it’s idk sexy or something??? The plant curtain is to make the place look Nice (?). The plant almost actually reflects a little bit of Alastor’s real personality—except it’s plastic.

He has pictures on his bed (before I’d designed  his room at all) here, (before I’d finalized the design) here, and (after I’d finalized the design) here.

“Why’s there a pot on the pillow?” it’s still there from when he spent all of June having morning sickness. He just stayed in bed a couple weeks. The pot was there if he got sick.

Most of the screenshots I have show the bed looking normal, but actually right now he threw away the mattress, so it looks like this.

He doesn’t have real storage furniture—just luggage. Trunks, suitcases, boxes, crates. Psychologically he’s just waiting until he can move out.

The floor is nasty.

Kitchen

A month or two ago he threw out ALL the food in his kitchen and hasn’t replaced it, so it looks a lot more barren. Except the booze and dirty dishes. The booze and dirty dishes are still there. And the grime.

He doesn’t cook or use those nice hanging herbs. He DOES use the coffee.

Tends to buy groceries and go “I’ll put them up later” and leave them in the bag until they expire.

He doesn’t actually remember the last time he ate at his kitchen table. He’s never had a guest here while sober enough to remember it.

He keeps sexy art all over his home to remind himself of what other people think “sexy” looks like so he can copy it when he shapeshifts.

Only the cardboard deer head makes him happy. It’s cardboard though. Cheap and disposable.

Living Room

He doesn’t use his ironing board for ironing; he usually just mixes drinks on it. (I meant to put a couple bottles on it.)

Curtains on all the windows; he REALLY likes exhibitionism, but he doesn’t want people to spot him through a window and learn where he lives, so he mostly restrains himself and only jerks off in the window when he’s shapeshifted.

If he’s in his apartment and he’s not sleeping, washing off his last screw, or promoting himself on OnlyFangs & voxblr, he’s sitting here and drinking. He doesn’t like being in his apartment.

He throws garbage behind his couch and goes “I’m just keeping it out of the way for now, i’ll take it out later” and then he doesn’t.

His couch can be seen here, here, here, and here. When he takes pictures on his couch he’s careful to hide how ratty it is. (It was like that when he got it. He’s not going to pick up a GOOD couch for a disposable apartment he wants to leave as fast as possible.)

Right now he’s sleeping on his couch instead of his bed.

More “this is what sexy looks like” art around his vanity.

He does makeup and shapeshifting for his photography at the vanity, and also keeps track of his paperwork. And gives himself dead-eyed soulless stares while he wonders where it all went wrong.

He writes at this desk. No proper chair. (You can’t tell from this picture but his pizza is lying on a page of notes about high-level medieval alchemy.)

Photo Studio

He’s taken over half of what would otherwise be his living room space with a space for him to take photos for OnlyFangs. He loathes this space. Photos taken in this studio seen (before I put together a consistent background) here, here, here, here, here, here, (first one) here, here, here, here; and (after I put together a background) here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

He doesn’t have a camera tripod for this studio, he just stacks it on a bunch of books and and an old box wine.

He uses this microphone when he records himself singing something for OnlyFangs. It brings him a little happiness. He doesn’t get to use it often.

Bathroom

Covered in mirrors because Narcissus here likes staring at himself and occasionally the partners he brings back will screw him in the bathroom. (Neither his bathroom nor his bedroom are his “private” spaces; they’re places where visitors might fuck him, and therefore they’re public/professional spaces.)

Two doors meet at a corner here. The left door leads back into the living room near the photo studio. The right door leads into his bedroom; you can’t see that door from his bedroom because it’s hidden by the curtain behind his desk.

He spends a lot of time showering. He got the deer on his shelf on one of his first trips to Earth.

Occasionally he takes selfies at his bathroom mirror like here and here.

“What’s that big crack in the mirror?” It’s rage and angst, that’s what.

And there’s the grand tour of the soulless dirty beige pit Alastor’s been emotionally trapped in for the last three and a half years!