#and so like this might sound weird

[thedreadvampy]

Losing my shit about this article in which a transphobic Tory was so busy panicking about existing in the vicinity of a Trans that she almost certainly misheard "jeans" as "penis" and decided that not only was this a problem with the other woman, but also that the world must be informed of this pressing danger.

"a trans woman! I had to stand directly behind her....I thought, 'this is going well', I'm handling The Situation fine'..."

translated: I saw a tall woman with broad shoulders. How would I get out of this alive? I thought. she has a PENIS. PENIS PENIS PENIS. through some force of PENIS I mean will I managed to PENIS behave normally towards her. My hands were PENIS PENIS PENIS shaking as I tried to dry them. summoning up all my PENIS courage I said 'dryer's crap innit'. she turned to me and said " yeah I'm just goiPENIS PENIS PENIS"

It's been a week and I'm still shaking. This proves trans women are the problem and I'm not weird. I'm fine. It's fine. If you think about it I'm the hero hePENIS!!!!!

very this

[rawbin-hsr]

OMGGG Your latest smut fic is so amazing!!! The smut is absolutely delicious! but....the angst is breaking my heart so...could you please write a continuation or part two where the reader confronts Aventurine's dark internal thoughts and comforts them? A fic where they actually get him to believe that they love him for real, where they tell him that he's not a monster and that he wasn't ruining them.

You've got it ! (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Aventurine x Reader

You treat Aventurine with more respect than he deserves. (Part 2)

Read part 1 here !

CW: dehumanisation (internal, thoughts Aventurine has of himself, referring to himself as a “monster”), lots of mentions of death, passively suicidal Aventurine, violent imagery (through metaphors, nobody is actually physically harmed), intrusive thoughts, Aventurine thinks kind of vicious things about you (refers to you as "stupid", "brainless", "naive" etc), cursing.

Lmk if there’s anything else I should warn about !!

Small note: Spoiler alert sorry, but you will not completely fix Aventurine in this fic. Making any real progress would take YEARS. The trauma he's gone through and his beliefs about his own humanity are EXTREMELY deep-seated, just one conversation would not be enough to make him truly believe he was loved. Super sorry since I'm sure that's not what you wanted (you specifically requested they "truly get him to believe that they love him for real", but this does still end on a hopeful note so I hope you won't be too disappointed (•ᴗ•,, ) )

Sometimes Aventurine gains enough clarity to remember where he stands. More importantly, he gains enough clarity to remember where you should stand. That is to say, as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately, you are never keen on doing that. 

In these moments of clarity, he distances himself. If you won’t do it, he has to. He needs to. He needs to even when he can feel the little pieces of him that you’ve managed to haphazardly glue together splinter into tiny shards again, even when it feels like every step away is a step walked on shattered glass. He can hardly be called a ‘person’ anyways, what does his suffering matter? He has already lost so many good things, why not add another loss to the tally?

He reads your texts, but he doesn’t respond. He hangs up on you the moment you call. By doing this, he makes sure you know he is alive. Both because he knows it would devastate you if you thought he died, but even more so to make sure you know he is intentionally ignoring you. He hopes at least some part of you hates him. He thinks part of him hates you.

But he can never stay away for long. Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. Thoughts of you always cloud his mind too much to do what is right. He reminds himself he will destroy you. He comes back anyways. He is too selfish not to. 

And you welcome him with open arms every time. Sure, sometimes you yell. Sometimes you berate him. Sometimes you cry. But he never does something beyond the bounds of what you’ll forgive, even though he tries to. You’re patient to a fault. Though he feels bad, he never takes it fully seriously, because you always hold him with so much sweetness, even when your words are filled with righteous anger and justified hurt. You always end it by reminding him that you love him. Something clenches in his chest; something that is not his heart, because he has none. He claims he is sorry, but you both know he will do this again. He always does. You know he will hurt you over and over, even if you don’t know the extent. You know he will test you, that he will ignore you, that he will cling to you and that he will taunt you. You don’t know he will drag his claws through you and tear you to ribbons; you don’t know he will sink his teeth into your neck and drink all your blood; you don’t know he will lure you to sea and drown you. You are never aware of the true danger you are in. 

Maybe that’s why you one day feel comfortable enough to corner the creature that has taken on the appearance of a lover. You sit down next to him in bed one evening after one of his many attempts to push you away, your expression grim. You look straight ahead, right into his dead eyes, unaware that a monster is towering over you. 

“We can’t go on like this,” you say. For one moment, the crushing relief and devastation threatens to consume him, and he’s not sure which of the feelings is stronger. For one moment he can’t breathe. 

He hacks our a laugh, his skin straining. Something is shifting beneath his flesh, something ugly and dangerous. He needs to leave and he needs to do it quickly. 

“You’re right, we can’t,” he agrees, his voice a lot more steady than he feels. He feels the urge to grab you and shake you until you pass out. He feels the urge to suck out your life force until your body is an empty husk. He feels the urge to slam your head into the bathroom sink in the next room over. He feels the urge to shoot himself in the head, because he does not want to do any of that. 

“I love you,” you say, unexpectedly. Or maybe it’s not unexpected. You always say such stupid, brainless things. (You say it with sweetness. The only sweetness he can offer in return is the sweetness of bacteria digesting rotting meat. Is the flesh his, or will it be yours?) He laughs again. 

“I thought we were breaking up,” he says. Smirking, as if it’s funny. (It isn’t.)

“No, we’re really not,” you say firmly. He snorts. 

“Maybe we should.”

You don’t answer. Instead, you come closer. 

Get away, he thinks. Run, you fucking idiot. 

You don’t have many flaws, but the ones you do have are insurmountably big. You are too forgiving, you are too kind, you are too selfless, you are too naive. You will kill yourself doing this one day. You will let him kill you.

Your arms wrap around him. He can’t help but relax. The thing lurking under his human disguise grows more restless. 

“I don’t hate you,” you say, unexpectedly. And this one really is unexpected, because what made you say that? Your arms squeeze around him tighter. “I thought I was being obvious enough about that, but you’re so bad at understanding it.”

The feeling he has is the same as the feeling he gets when he realises a deal is going awry. You are the highest risk stakes he has ever made a bet on: will he ruin you, or will you ruin him? What you could do to him is so much more serious than death. He knows that he is holding a losing hand. He doesn’t even know what he stands to win.

You kiss his neck. He shudders. 

“Why are you so scared of me?” you ask. 

Scared? He is not scared. What an outright laughable concept. Neither of you are scared, but if one of you was, it should be you, but you aren’t, for some reason.

“What gives you that idea?” he chuckles, but his voice is not as steady this time, and he can feel his smile slipping. (What is wrong with him? He doesn’t want to think about it. The answer is always ‘everything’.)

“Your hand is shaking.”

It is, but that is not because he is afraid. Fear is a human response, borne from the desire to live. It is instinctual. It means kicking and screaming, it means clawing your way out of hell for the chance to see another day, it means fighting for the life you don’t want to end. He cannot die, you see. Death cannot occur twice. Just because his body reacts, that does not necessarily mean he can truly fear any longer.

(Then again, maybe his reaction does not come from the thought of his death.)

“I’m not scared,” he says, and his voice sounds a lot weaker than he had expected. You pull him closer, cradling his head against the crook of your neck. His blood is pulsing too quickly.

“It would be okay if you were,” you murmur. “I know you don’t know how to be loved. That’s okay. I’ll teach you. You just have to let me.”

Squash. Slice. Tear.

Maybe you are the monster. He can feel your claws prying his chest open; he can feel your teeth dig into his flesh; he can feel something that is not air fill his lungs. The biggest difference between you and him is that he devours, while you give. You painfully shove something back into the cavity meant to contain his soul, you pump blood back into his system, and you fill whatever gaps are left in him with something that is first cold but quickly warms. 

(He realises, belatedly, that something is pumping inside his chest again. But it can’t be a heart, can it? He lost that so long ago.)

“I’ll kill you,” he manages through gritted teeth, claws digging into your shirt. It is not a threat. It is not a warning. It is just the truth.

“You think too much,” you admonish him. Your tone is as gentle as your words are cutting. “I wish you would trust me more. You’re so determined to ruin your own life, and I don’t like it.”

“That’s just how I am. Deal with it or leave.”

“I’ll deal with it, then.”

Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. He will destroy you. But you accept it. 

He has tried time and time again to push you away, but he is weak. So incorrigibly weak, and though your flaws are insurmountable, his are all-consuming. He is a monster in all the ways that matter. But you stubbornly will not leave despite that. 

(Maybe that makes him a little more willing to try to change his nature. Just a little. Just for you. If you will not leave anyways, maybe he could try to make his presence a little less torturous.)

“Just… please stop ignoring me,” you sigh, nuzzling into his hair. Tenderly, tenderly, tenderly, so tenderly it makes his skin crawl. Your claws are softly piercing into him and he is helpless, unable (unwilling) to fight back. “I can deal with everything else. I just hate it when you do that. I can’t keep going weeks without speaking to you. I know you have some kind of… weird ideas that I’d be better off without you, but that’s not true. I love you, and I love being around you. I can’t help you when you cut me off at every corner.”

Cut, slice, slash.

Something in him breaks. Something he knows cannot be salvaged. Something he knows you would not want to salvage. Something he is not sure if he wants to salvage either, now that it is broken anyways.

He breathes a shaky breath, his fingers — his fingers, not claws, not this time — digging into your back. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, and he does not feel the urge to bite down. Though his eyes feel wet, it would not be enough water to drown you. 

He knows your line of logic is wrong. He knows the fact remains unchanged: he is a monster of a man. He will ruin you. But maybe your presence sparks enough electricity to keep his heart pumping, just for a little while, and maybe he can wait until things actually start going downhill before he lets you go. Maybe he can remember how to be a human for a bit, maybe he can pretend he is. 

“I just… don’t want to do something I can’t take back,” he whispers. “Not with you. You’re the… the only good thing I have left. I don’t know what I’d do if I…”

“That’s sweet, but I’m not as weak as you think I am,” you reply. “I’ve held out this long, haven’t I? Put more faith in me.”

He smiles.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

---------------------------------------------------------

My inbox is open, feel free to send in asks or requests, I'd love to ramble about things <3 Also reblogs are EXTREMELY appreciated the final push I needed to finish this was from a very kind individual who reposted and analysed my writing I've been riding that high ever since they did that ily bro

[scoriarose]

She came up with a new activity

[8bitgarden-sys]

Ah maybe that means i should try bed again 😅 4am here. I tried a few hrs ago but it was rough. But the day is over. I could just sleep and try again tmrw :/

Hey ur bio made me cry lol /pos i hope ur feeling ok and mood stabilization is blessed to us all

I appreciate you so much! Please don’t cry 🫶🏻 I’m managing, same as the rest of us! Sending you love!

Pro tip: take it all one day at a time.

[nabaath-areng]

I have way too many alts that I keep to myself (which is why I generally refrain from posting them), but I'm going to ignore that habit for a moment just because I'm feeling particularly insane about this guy.

[willyhoos]

Q: WHAT TOPS THE FOOD CHAIN? A: HUMANS

[starii-void]

currently thinking about the mortality of the lmk gang

Wukong is immortal, he'll eventually outlive all his friends, again. even if they reincarnate, it won't be the same. the world keeps moving, but he's the one constant. is this what he wanted when he sought out immortality?

Macaque has a long lifespan. he might end up gaining immortality with Wukong too, but that just means he'll outlive the others too. he's died once and is scared of it. but he has to watch his friends fall to it one by one.

MK doesn't know what'll happen to him. is he immortal like the other monkeys? is he more mortal? does he even age? at what rate? does he even want to be immortal?

Pigsy, Sandy and Mei might have a longer lifespan, what with the dragon/monster heritage, but they're still mortal. they still age. Pigsy and Sandy are older than the others. sandy's accepted it. pigsy doesn't want to leave his son behind. mei doesn't want to leave her brother behind.

Tang is fully human. he may have inherited the great monk's powers, but he is still fully human, flesh and bone. he's older than MK and Mei, too. he's the only one that has a confirmed lifespan. they all know it'll happen eventually.

[oaksapling]

Ransom Greyson,

6'8 dhampir tattoo artist with daddy issues. recently lost his mother and decided to move to new york san myshuno from new orleans willow creek to find his deadbeat vampire father. goes back and forth on whether or not this was a good decision but well. he's pretty much broke now, so it is what it is.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Ok Wild Angsters, you wanted a continuation, so here you go :)

Four already knew what he would be walking into. His phone had been blowing up for hours. He’d come in to work early. Whether he was assigned to take care of Wild or not was another matter - Vaati loved to try and take all the admissions, convinced he was the best nurse on the unit. If Four could just keep Vaati out of Wild’s room, he’d consider it a success.

When the charge nurse told him he would be admitting the trauma alert, he knew who he was getting.

Pre-admission jitters always made Four anxious, but this was an entirely other level of fear. He almost wanted to request a different assignment, but it was too late now. What if he couldn’t take caer of him because he was his friend? What if that impair his decision making? What if he just wasn’t skilled enough to handle it? He knew Ezlo wouldn’t give him an assignment he couldn’t handle, wouldn’t be there to support him, but still…

Four went over the supplies in his room once more. Safety checks were fine—they had suction, they had a bag valve mask, the code card was nearby—and he had all the supplies he needed. It was just a waiting game.

Four paced the unit at least three times before he looked at the OR status board again. Wild was still in surgery. He poked in his chart, glancing at injuries, looking at vital signs and anesthesia notes. The last update he saw was that Wild had gotten another unit of blood. Estimated blood loss so far was around 2200mL.

2200mL. That… wasn’t too terrible, Four supposed. He’d… seen worse.

Please don’t get worse.

Four knew for certain that Wild had been mass transfused in the ED. Warriors, his primary nurse when he was there, had told him as much. Between that and the multiple blood products he’d gotten in surgery, as well all the crystalloids he was likely getting as well…

Four took a breath. Then another. He grabbed his phone, texting Warriors. You doing ok?

Wars didn’t reply.

Four wasn’t entirely sure where everyone was at this point. Hyrule had stayed at the hospital, lingering in the emergency department and then the operating room waiting area, but Four hadn’t seen him since he’d clocked in. Warriors and Legend should be getting off shift now, but whether they were going to stay up was another matter. Time was obviously in the OR (Wild’s wreck had been around 10pm, he’d arrived in the ED around 10:45, and he’d been stabilized for surgery and gone to the OR by around midnight - it was 7am now… he wasn’t sure how long this was going to take, but it couldn’t be much longer). Malon should be getting on shift now as well - she had come in last night when everything had gone down, alongside Twilight. Wind had been cautiously left out of the loop until Wild had gone to surgery, simply because nobody had really had much information at the time, so no one wanted to worry the kid until they could figure things out. Everyone had their hands full as it was. But by now, Four knew Wind was either in the OR waiting room, harassing every respiratory therapist he knew, or in the hospital library pacing anxiously. As for Sky, the last Four heard he was bouncing between different people, checking in on everyone.

He clicked through more anesthesia notes, looked at flow sheets for blood products. There wasn’t much to go on, as charting was sparse. What Four did know was that Wild had been obtunded, got mass transfused, had gotten a chest tube, had been intubated, blood was evident in his abdomen, and he had an open femur fracture. He’s been taken to Time’s OR for a ex-lap. Head CT had shown a bleed, and they were monitoring it. That was all the information Legend had told the group when he’d had a moment to spare.

Four’s vocera activated, telling him he had a call from the charge nurse. When he answered, he was told Malon had called and said they’d be finishing up in about thirty minutes and were likely to come up open.

Why was he coming up with his abdomen open? When had they gone from exploratory laparotomy to a full on open abdomen?

Ten minutes later, Malon called back to give report. When Four answered, the first thing he asked was, “How’s he doing? Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Malon said, even though she sounded exhausted. “And he’s… hanging in there. I’ve seen worse, I’ll say that. I’ll give you the full rundown, okay?”

Four listened as Malon gave report, feeling his heart settled into his stomach, which was tying itself in knots. Multiple spots of bleeding, possible compartment syndrome in his abdomen, a likely kidney injury due to compression from the bleeding on some major vessels, a small hematoma in his brain… they’d had to call neurosurgery to do an emergency craniotomy out of overt concern of swelling, given that Wild had apparently had previous head trauma, based on what they saw in the OR.

Open abdomen, craniotomy, ICP monitoring, bleeding, one chest tube… this was a disaster. Four swallowed as he wrote, feeling his hand shake a little as his heart raced. He was not qualified enough to be admitting this. He was not.

But the turnaround on his unit was pretty insane, and he was the most experienced nurse on the unit today. At least Ezlo was charge; he knew he’d be well supported.

This was a nightmare. But Four had dealt with nightmares, and he would deal with this. He wasn’t going to screw up taking care of any patient, but especially his friend.

Sighing, he hung up the phone after thanking Malon, pushing worries for her and Time aside, trying to focus on what he would need, who he should grab to help him, and how he should prep his room.

It was time to get to work.

When everyone arrived from the OR, Four made brief eye contact with Time. He couldn’t read much from the man, who was stone faced, aside from the exhaustion evident in the dark circles under his eyes. Four got to work quickly, assessing Wild from head to toe as he looked to see what IV medications he was on. A coworker wrote the note while Ezlo helped detangle his lines (the OR always brought up a mess, after all). Time gave an overview of the surgery, and Four listened along as he checked pupils, as he zeroed the arterial line and the ICP monitor, as he listened to lung and heart sounds, as he checked the chest tube and stripped it with his fingers to ensure patency, as he checked peripheral pulses, as he looked at the abdominal dressing to get a baseline in case there was swelling from bleeding later. One of the techs connected the chest tube to wall suction, and Four looked over his drips. Only having levophed at 2 wasn’t terrible, and he was getting a unit of red blood cells, which was in a transfusion set that was y’d to some lactated ringers fluid. He was on propofol for sedation. Another nurse grabbed a blood gas from his arterial line and sent off labs. His foley he had was temp sensing, and Four quickly ascertained that Wild was cold, so he set up the blanket warmer and covered his friend up.

His friend. His friend.

Four shook his head. He had to focus.

As Time left the room, he put a hand on Four’s shoulder, making him freeze. The surgeon didn’t speak, just locking eyes with him. Four wasn’t entirely sure if it was for his own benefit or not. But he had no more time to let his emotions make any decisions for him. He nodded to the doctor, who nodded in return, and then the two went their separate ways.

This was going to be a long day.

[quibbs126]

So something that came to my brain

We’ve gotten Optimus and Megatron iterations where Megatron is older than Optimus, and in more modern interpretations, where they’re around the same age

So why not have an iteration where Optimus is the older one of the two?

The idea that immediately pops into my head is that before the war (assuming we keep the story of the two knowing each other prior), Optimus could have been a mentor to Megatron, only for Megatron to eventually change for whatever reason and turn his back on Optimus, creating the Decepticons and waging war

It doesn’t need to be that, it’s just what came to my head first. But the idea of their dynamic being where Optimus is the older and Megatron the younger is maybe something to explore in future iterations. We now have a version where Starscream is notably older than Megatron, why not do the same with him and Optimus?

[canisalbus]

Your art tastes like aged paper, sugar, and chocolate to me, with a hint of salt every so often

Machete looks like white chocolate, and Vasco's like buttery caramel

.

[yellowocaballero]

Continuing the JJK posting: Gojo is such a mystifying character.

Action show where swinging out the gate you introduce a character who is so incredibly powerful you then have to, before every fight, establish why Gojo can't just show up and fix the problem in seconds. His existence weakens the stakes of everything. The rest of the show you are backflipping ridding yourself of him. He jobs two major bad guys off the gate and every subsequent extensive fight with them feels like cleaning up his leftovers. Put him in a box, he's ruining the game balance. So absolutely broken. As a writer it makes your job so difficult, but it's also the entire point of him. "Hey I want to write the single most badass character of all time who can do the most insane shit but I will also engage with that", rock on king.

I think he's most interesting when understood as somebody who is fundamentally alien and removed from ordinary human thought processes. In his world there is absolutely nothing he cannot do, and the thought 'maybe I can't do something' just doesn't occur to him. He is capable of doing whatever he wants and of killing anybody who tries to stop him from doing what he wants. If he is not doing something, it is because he does not want to do it. If he wants to do something (kill all of his superiors) and he's not doing it, it's because he doesn't think it's the most effective route towards what he has decided to do. I think this informs the majority of his actions (and, importantly, what he doesn't do)(murder). I think he's reasoned out that you should have a general reason to do things, and it feels like sheer luck that he places value and meaning in human life, and as such you shouldn't kill them without a strong reason. Watching the flashback arc, if I hadn't seen a) JJK and b) Naruto and you asked me which shitty teen became a law abiding school teacher and which became a mass murderer I would have guessed the wrong ones.

Anyway, the way I like to think of him, he's a raging narcissist with a god complex to match. Horrifically, he's actually a good teacher, but he is also a teacher as an ego/'raising my child army' thing. He would be the kind of mother who is a good mother but lowkey had kids also as an ego/unconditional love/lots of attention/'surely my child will worship me' thing. Gets randomly into new hobbies, obsesses over them, gorges himself on the novelty factor, before dropping them in a week once he gets too good at them. Rinse and repeat. The only hobby that does not eventually grow boring is annoying people, so it's his only hobby. Geto told him age 15 that he'll never have any friends if he keeps on casually reminding people that they live on his sufferance, so he developed another back-up hobby more conducive for friendship of helping people forget that they live on his sufferance. This has convinced him that he's a god of subterfuge, intrigue, and trickery. Does eat women out, but is convinced that this makes him God's gift to women, and is actually pretty terrible in bed because his partner's desires never even occur to him. Is convinced he's as good at sex as he is everything else. Sex is actually the one thing he's bad at, but he's not ready to hear that.

In S1 he overall left me with the general impression that his entire idea of how high school worked was sourced from anime, and as such decided that being a teacher involved nothing but field trips, sports games, beach episodes, sports festivals, etc. Did not know how the classroom component worked so he skips it. Jossed, but also left me convinced that it would be very funny if he was an immortal 150-whatever years old and had founded the high school himself out of, you guessed it, an ego thing, and never once properly learned how high schools worked and just arbitrarily made his own aging students the new principals so he could continue engaging in training the kids who are too Misfit (TM) to get apprenticeships and living his fun slice of life anime life and raising a child army of kids who will worship him any day now. Annnyyyy day now. Any day now.

[arttsuka]

How does one know about their sexuality? How do you figure it out?

[your-unfriendlyghost]

BRO I WENT TO GO WATCH “ class of 1983 “ CUZ IT LOOKED COOL AND I ACCIDENTALLY TYPED “ class of 1984 “ AND LET ME TELL YOU i actually really liked it BUT HOLY IT WAS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING DUE TO THE TWO PICTURES THAT YOU SHOWED

Huh what’re ya talkin about these are definitely the same film

[humanmorph]

(transcript by @violentandmagnificent)

It’s quiet here, living in your head. It’s quiet here, and when I talk, you listen, at least when you can hear me, which isn’t always. It isn’t always, but it’s better than never. It’s quiet here, living on this ship. It’s quiet here, and I remember when it was loud, I remember different voices bouncing in these halls, I remember old arguments, I remember myself. I wonder how much I can tell you; because  I can tell you; I have much to say. But you never saw me astride the Prophet’s Path, beside the Resin Heart, imparting wrath and play. So who am I? You only know what they’ve told you. So who am I? You only know what’s written down. So who am I? You only know what’s on recordings, and according to the world, I’m a hypocrite, or drowned. I doubt you can hear me, but I know that she can. So pardon my frustration, I’m just tired of her plan. I lost my life long before I understood, before metaphor became real, before I felt the wheel’s wood. I wonder what she’ll tell you. I wonder what she’ll share.  I wonder what she’ll ask of you, what task of sweat and prayer.  I long to sweat and pray, a body in the day. The color of the sun. The touch, the ocean's spray.  The last thing that I felt in life. (The first thing that I felt in life.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I hope she tells the truth to you. (I hope she tells the worst to you.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I loved her like she told me to. (I left her like she told me to.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  We’re running out of time, you know? (She’s running out of time, you know?) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I fear we might be mirrored, two echoes of a call shouted between two queens, two queens who want it all. I fear we might be symmetry, I fear we might be one. Make her tell the truth to you before we come undone.

PALISADE 37: Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 1

[fizzlewizard404]

I genuinely cannot wait to see these two respectively have horrible mental/emotional meltdowns somehow