#and then I've spent hours not doing anything I meant to and mostly just feel like shit because of it and it keeps happening

[thethingything]

I'm fatigued, my back hurts, I accidentally spent like 3 hours sat downstairs in a chair that made our back feel worse because our executive dysfunction prevented me getting up and going back upstairs even though I only went down there to get one thing, and now I really need to lay down but if I accidentally fall asleep again I feel like I'll wake up, realise I fell asleep and also that I feel like I wasted a big chunk of the day, and I'll end up feeling even worse again

[wolfjackle-creates]

Hi!! I haven't been on Tumblr for a while but I used to read a fic you made out of a prompt (?) Someone else made about Danny who freaked out when he realized the Waynes are the Bats and accidentally shot Bruce(?) And if I'm not mistaken you made a part 2 of it (idr remember if it was a wip or finished) but do you have a masterlist so I can re-read it :D? So sorry if I sound weird (´⌒｀;)

It is absolutely never weird to ask an author about their works!!!! Thanks so much for sending this in.

It's been ages since I've worked on this one, but it's definitely on my short list to get back to. Especially since I'm pretty close to having it finished?

Here's chapter 1 on AO3. And the Subscription Post.

Chapter 2 is limited to Tumblr right now, only two parts currently. Part 1 can be found here.

Currently it's called Want to Hold on and Feel I Belong. However, when I do start updating on AO3 again, I plan to change the name. (I'm just waiting so people who have subscribed are more likely to remember what they're getting an email about.) Mostly I refer to it as my Bad Reveal AU. Though I get that's not a great working name as that's usually reserved for the Fenton parents reacting badly rather than Danny reacting badly.

Also, as a thanks for reminding me that it's been a while since I've posted anything about this fic (or, well, in general), have the next bit!

Here's a random 1.5k.

Previous

-----

Having a potential lead so close meant the hours until J’onn’s arrival were spent in prep mode.

Every uniform had to be checked for the slightest damage and upgrades done where possible. Supplies and go-bags were organized so they could leave the moment they had a lead. Fuel levels in every vehicle were checked and topped off where necessary.

And finally, the zeta tube activated and J’onn stepped out. “Good day to all of you. I heard my assistance was needed?”

Bruce went to greet him. “J’onn. Danny’s room is upstairs. Did Clark explain the situation?”

“Yes. He said that your newest ward has density shifting powers and left things behind in his walls and floor before running away a few days ago.”

Bruce nodded sharply. “Follow me. Clark will show you where the items are hidden so you can retrieve them.”

Dick happily zipped up what felt like the hundredth bag he’d had to pack and joined them. “Hey, J’onn. Welcome. How have you been?”

“Greetings, Dick. It has been a long time since our last meeting. I have been well. I want to wish you luck in finding your brother swiftly and easily.”

Dick nodded his thanks. “Same. We’re really hoping he left behind something to help because we haven’t had much luck so far.” Dick pulled out his phone and notified the family of J’onn’s arrival and requested they meet in Danny’s room.

On the way, Bruce and Dick filled J’onn in on the situation. At the implication of government experimentation, he face went hard and he vowed he would help them however he could.

Clark, Jason, and Alfred were already there when the group arrived and the rest weren’t far behind. With everyone present, the room felt crowded.

“Where should I start?” J’onn asked Clark.

“Behind the NASA poster. I think that’s where he keeps the weapons. One of them is an object that looks like it might be the same as, or at least similar to, the weapon that shot Bruce.”

Under Clark’s direction, J’onn removed not just two more energy guns, but also a glowing-green net, a boomerang, a tube of lipstick, what looked like a weird, high-tech thermos, and a wooden baseball bat with a sticker that said “Fenton” on it.

Dick couldn’t help but whistle at the pile. “Damn, he was packing all this?”

“Apparently,” said Damian. But Dick could tell his youngest brother was impressed and mentally reassessing his beliefs of Danny. “Perhaps he is not as helpless as I previously believed.”

“Why’s he got lipstick?” asked Steph as she picked up the tube.

“Don’t!” ordered Bruce even as she opened it and released a laser beam that left a small scorch mark on the ceiling.

She stared in shock before laughing. “Oh, damn! When he comes back, I’m so asking if he could get me one of these. That’s so cool!”

“Can I see that?” asked Barbara.

“Wait until we’re in the cave,” said Bruce with a sigh. Both women grinned at him.

Dick reached down and grabbed the net. Despite the color, it seemed normal enough, maybe a little smoother than most rope he’d handled. He pulled out a pocket knife and was able to slice through one of the ropes easily enough. Jason came over to look at it with him.

“Anything weird about it?” he asked as he reached out to touch it. “Huh, that’s odd.”

“What’s odd about it? Seems pretty normal to me.”

“It just… It feels weird. It almost hurts to touch.” When Dick looked at him sharply, Jason quickly added, “It doesn’t hurt, but it feels like it should. If that makes sense.”

“Feels normal to me.” Dick showed him the break he’d made.

Jason shrugged. “Dunno, then. I just get a weird feeling from it.”

Damian picked up the energy gun, Tim the thermos, and Duke the boomerang when Alfred cleared his throat.

“Before we get distracted, might I remind you that there is more to find? We can bring everything down to the cave to examine them with no more damage to Master Danny’s room.”

Everyone sheepishly put down the things they were holding. Dick bit back a laugh when he noticed Clark push the baseball bat away from himself with his foot.

“So, J’onn,” Clark said. “I think the next area of interest is behind this poster.” He gestured at a poster of the horsehead nebula. Dick had helped Danny find it and hang it up and the kid had talked about nebulae for over an hour as they did. The memory caused his eyes to burn.

From this stash, J’onn pulled some notebooks and two external hard drives, which Barbara took. Dick and Bruce both grabbed a notebook. Dick opened his to the first page.

Journaling is such a stupid idea. I don’t have any time for it but Jazz says I need to get my feelings out. Pointless. So what if I can’t sleep and Skulker attacked me again today during English getting me another detention. Its not my fault! Shit, haven’t done that essay for Lancer. If I miss any more assignments he’s gonna fail me for real.

Everyone knew Danny had been failing before he’d been brought to them, but he’d refused to discuss why. Once he was in school in Gotham, he’d gotten straight A’s. Even if he did ask for the occasional help in English from Jason.

But this raised so many questions. Who was Skulker and why were they attacking Dick’s little brother during English class. He flipped through the pages. Interspersed between journal entries were drawings of schematics. Dick thought he recognized some of the designs as the weapons they’d uncovered.

His eyes caught on an entry that started with a string of curses.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. My parents saw Dani today. In ghost form. They actually managed to hit her. Only her second visit and I couldn’t keep her safe. Some big brother dad cousin whatever I am. I did get her to the Far Frozen. Frostbite fixed her up. Taught me what to do if it happens again, too. And gave me the medicines and supplies to do it. I’m so glad I have friends in the Zone now. It makes it so much easier. I can’t get the image of Dani’s blood staining my hands out of my mind. Going to Tuck’s tonight. I can’t be around my parents right now.

Stomach dropping, he flipped a few more pages until he found one with a photo. It was a grinning Danny with white hair and wearing a jumpsuit standing on a curved balcony. Behind him, spire buildings rose into the air, many rounded in a way not often found on Earth.

Clockwork took me to Mars today! Holy shit it is so cool. Just, everything. We went back to when they were thriving and I had to stop an invasion. But that’s not important. Everyone here can go intangible despite being alive. Some of their buildings don’t even have doors because they’d be pointless! And the plants and animals are all so different, too. Clockwork helped me find some books on Martian history and biology and evolution. He’s also gonna show me where the Martians exist in the Zone so I can learn their language. Maybe one day I can go to Krypton or Tamaran as well?

Dick stared back at the picture. It did have that distinctive feel of wrong that extraterrestrial landscapes always had. He swallowed. “Uh, J’onn?”

“Yes, Dick?”

“Um, Danny. This is his journal. He said he went to Mars. Before… Just, before. He’s got a picture. Is this real?” He handed the photo to J’onn who hesitated a moment before taking it.

J’onn froze as he stared at the simple image. “I… Yes. This is my home. How…?”

Dick shrugged and wished he had an answer for the last of the Martians. “Someone called Clockwork brought him there apparently. To stop some sort of invasion? He didn’t discuss that much. He was too interested in the planet and people to talk about what he did. He was hoping to visit Krypton and Tamaran, too. Also said something about Martians existing somewhere he called the Zone. He wanted to meet them to learn the language.”

The look on J’onn’s face at the mention of other Martians existing somewhere was heartbreaking. Maybe Dick shouldn’t have said anything? When Danny came home, would he maybe want to talk to J’onn about Mars?

With clear reluctance, J’onn handed the picture back. “This is your brother in the photo?”

“Yeah. I mean, Danny usually has black hair and blue eyes, but that’s him. Do you recognize him?”

J’onn nodded. “Of course. He is the Omen. His coming foretells death and destruction which he will then try to avert. I know what invasion he is speaking of, it is, was, taught in our history books. He saved all of Mars that day. We thought him a god.”

Dick’s mouth fell open. His little brother? A god?

-----

Did you enjoy your little surprise update tonight? Let me know what you think!

[sameschmidtdiffname]

Lapses

Billy x Gender Neutral! Reader

Summery: In the wake of death our minds begin to wander. To better times, to little moments. Reality is so fickle in the minds of the weak. But he's coming back. Eventually.

Tags: No use of Y/N, hurt/no comfort, set mostly during the nine months Reader spent grieving before Billy returned in 'My Ghost,' disassociation, distorted reality, death, references to 'Twin Peaks' (1992).

Previous Works in Series: 'My Ghost' (original) • 'Repentance' (prequel)

Warning: You should at minimum read 'My Ghost' before reading this work in the series first. (For best reading experience, please read both previous works beforehand.)

Notes: :)

-¤°》◇《°¤-

Down comes clumps of wet snow from the grey sky, falling.

                And falling.

                         And falling.

I don't know when I wake up.

The TV has been on for hours. Flashing the same photos.

He smiled at me from across the room.

Don't think. Don't perceive. Don't focus.

"I think you look pretty with your hair like that," I told him. His cheeks are so rosy when he smiles.

Smiled.

Why is he smiling?

Where is that photo even from? Have they contacted me with any new details? Check your email.

"Is the internet working? I can't get this fucking email to go through."

He left on an errand.

"Did the auto-payment go through for the bill?"

He's coming back.

"You didn't tell me that was due, I don't have anything on the account."

He's coming back.

"You don't have anything?"

He's coming back.

"I don't have anything."

What are you supposed to do after a death?

There's no guide. There's no instruction manual. Grieve, move on. That's it. That is all we know. How am I supposed to do the second if the general public disapproves so heavily of the first?

There's a long while I don't even leave my house. I lock the doors, shut the curtains tight and nail them to the walls so he can't leave. Like he's captured in my basement, wilting in the darkness as I try to preserve his voice ringing in my ears like the sirens on the TV I eventually break when I throw the remote at it in a fit of rage and desperation.

"It's a piece of shit anyways," Billy would say when he saw it again. "I always meant to buy us a new one."

First thing I did when I found out was rip open my nightstand drawer. "William, have you ever shot a man?" I ask, bolting upright as I wipe the crust from my eyes.

"What the fuck did you do? What the fuck did you do?" I whispered under my breath. "Where the fuck is the gun?in my nightstand. And if I don't get some sleep soon, I'm going to use it. I haven't before, but I can't imagine it's hard."

I tore the house apart looking for it. He's unwell. Wasn't it just last night he was curled on my bed, so sweet and small as he stared at the wall in front of him?

He didn't feel well. He said his stomach hurts. My stomach hurts. Must have been something he ate, he mentioned a mistake. He wouldn't do this of his own free will, I know him.

He walks through the living room, pulling on a jacket to fight the cold air that seeps through the thin windows.

"Whatcha watching?"

Your report "'Twin Peaks,'" I told him.

"Oh shit, seriously? I haven't seen that since high school," he laugh'sowhodoicallabouttheremains?"

"Apparently they came out with a new season," I said. "Got us a free trial if we wanna watch."

"We gotta start from the beginning. Won't make sense if we don't," he says as he throws himself and one other dead thus far against the couch, almost landing on top of me in his excitement. It makes me scream.

Our first date was a little bit of a mess. I wasn't really expecting to meet someone when I did. But I met him. And he was sweet.

"So he didn't tell you anything about this?"

I've dated. I've seen a few guys. Not to sound easy, it was only a handful. But I'd only dated one other guy seriously. It was high school, lasted all the way through. Didn't end well.

"He was running an errand. He does it all of the time."

Billy picked me up fifteen minutes early. Claimed Google overshot the time estimate to my address, so he left early. Later he admitted it was a lie.

                                   But he's not a liar. Why won't anyone believe me?

"What does he do on the errands?"

"I don't know, get groceries or something. I never asked."

                         I never wanted to know.

Billy hasd this romantic side to him. Oh yes, Mister 'Primps and Primes in Front of The Mirror For an Hour Just To Get Drinks' had a flare for the dramatics. Who would have thought? And he showed up with this grocery store bouquet of lilies and baby's breath mixed with wildflowers from the local park.

"They price the hell out of these things for half the product. Figured I'd give you the proper amount," he said with a wink.

"Did you know he was affiliated with gang activities?"

"No!" Yes. "Of course not!" I helped him pack a bag of coke about a week ago.

Did you know that I love the color blue?

                                                                        No.

Mm hmm. Had it on everything. Even dyed my hair that color in high school.

      You with blue hair? You're full of shit.

No, I'm serious! Hated the bleaching process though. Do you know how bad it looks when you grow out dark hair from neon blue?

                          I imagine It'd look co-

Ld.

                              It's cold.

It's been a week. The police have decided I have nothing to do with this. The town has nothing to do with me.

The house is in shambles. But some things are prestine. Like his ashtray sitting on the kitchen table. I kept the surface clean for him, for when he comes back. A string of photos is on the wall from when we went to the arcade and found a photo booth. Half of them are photos of us just looking at each other. Not kissing. Not smiling. Just looking. He has such gentle eyes, you know? I tried to draw them once. They're really hard. They're just so soft, just the right angle. The skin on his eyes crease so specifically. And if you don't draw them right, it doesn't look like him at all. Told him I was gonna get it perfect eventually.

"I may have to go away for a little bit."

They won't give me anything to bury. They won't let him come home. One time Billy was trapped at a bus station during a snow storm and couldn't come home. He'd been running an errand for a friend. I think I know who that friend is now. Billy could hardly even call on the phone from how bad the storm was. He was so cold. Said he wished I was here. Said how much he misses me. Said there was a rerun of 'Twin Peaks' at the station keeping him company. So I put on the same episode and stared at the TV while I waited for him to regain service and let me know where he was. I told him to give me a call when he could.

I'm at the bottom of his closet. Our closet. I don't know why I'm here.

       When I was a child, I liked small spaces

Yeah?

"This is a hard time. It's only natural that you're grieving," says my mother on the other side of the phone.

A month ago Billy sat across from me, eyes trained on the TV as we smoked our way through season two.

"If I have a psychotic break, would you reenact history for me?" He teased around his joint.

"Why don't you go to church?"

"No one talks to me there. I've tried, momma. They hate me. They keep thinking I was in on it." I helped him pack a bag of coke.

"God won't judge you."

Scientists aren't really sure what happens to your mind when you die.

I've looked it up. Once. Read an article. Well, read is a strong word. More accurately I stared at it on my ancient computer I'd had since college while I disassociated for hours on end trying desperately to concentrate. Maybe it's morbid, but when your soon-to-be husband dies in a fire one is prone to wonder about such a thing.

Recent articles suggest DMT- a psychedelic drug that can occur naturally in plants -can actually be produced by your brain in the final moments of brain activity.

"Do you think there's anything after this?" He'd asked me one time as we layed beneath the stars, sand in our hair from the beach of the lake.

"I think we see what we need so that we'll be content as we drift away."

"Studies of animals undergoing brain death have found that the organ begins to release numerous signaling molecules and creates unusual brainwave patterns to try to resuscitate itself, even as it shuts down external signs of consciousness."

I'm sorry. I can't focus anymore. On anything. I feel like my lungs are being squeezed from bottom to top like a tube of gogurt.

We were hardly paying attention to the show anymore. So smoked out it was hilarious to us, laughing at everything as we focused on nothing except for the feeling of each others skin. My hands on his cheeks, his hands covering mine so soothingly. It was so sweet when he guided me off the floor where I lay. Julee Cruise sang on the old TV. Falling, falling. All I can feel is falling as he guides me into a gentle sway across the old shag carpet lit with the mid-July sunset, holding me like I'll fall far, far away.

"I think I've fallen in love with you," Billy whispered against my ear. His breath is warm.

"Yeah?" I'm too high for this conversation. I didn't even realize how low my tolerance had gotten since the last time I smoked. "You make me feel like I'm in high school again."

We'd danced the whole night. He didn't know hardly any of the songs, causing him to be off beat. I was too drunk to keep time, so I stepped on his leather boots enough times there was a visible scuff on the top of one by the end of the night. I always felt bad, offering to replace or help pay to fix it. He wouldn't let me.

"I could die tomorrow and I'd be happy," Billy confessed in a strained voice, finally letting all of the walls come tumbling down around us to the gentle beat of the song. "I'm so glad I got to meet you."

I was so nervous during our first date that I forgot how to eat hummus properly. It sounds so silly, doesn't it? But there was something about him. He wore this white button up shirt, basic jeans that were tight on his thighs. Not that I was looking. Much. His hair was combed neatly, gelled away from his face in a chic manner. Really, he took the whole thing so seriously he almost looked like some youth pastor they would have shuffled into a room with high schoolers to play a guitar and say 'you know, I was troubled once'  before offering his story of repentance. It was so different from how he usually looked. Was he scared?

But anyways, I was so nervous that when they brought us our tray of hummus and bread to share, I took my little triangle slices and barely dipped them so to not look greedy before shoving the whole piece in my mouth one by one. I didn't even remember I was supposed to tear them apart until a week later. I was just trying to avoid double dipping.

"I think that's the first time I fell in love with you," Billy confessed. I giggle so stupidly, so incredibly high as I float on air.

"Because I was stupid?" I ask.

"Because you were sweet," he said.

There's a long moment of silence, the music swelling and making the cheap TV vibrate from the bass it was unequiped to handle.

"Tell me you'll marry me one day," he whispered.

What do you do with a ring that no one wants you to wear? I'm sorry I couldn't help you.

"Isn't it a little early for that?" I laughed softly.I'm sorry you went out on a romantic whim and borrowed money you shouldn't have for the ring I was too ashamed to wear on the proper finger. "It's only been a year." I don't even think we're dancing anymore. I think I'm sorry you couldn't come back for me.we're just swaying softly to the music flowing around us in a blind stupor, the humidity so suffocating outside that Billy shoved an electric fan in the living room window to try and blow in the cool air earlier that afternoon.

And I'm sorry for hating you when you showed up unannounced at my door.

“It shuts the door to the outside world and takes care of internal business because the house is on fire,”  says biomedical scientist Charlotte Martial of the University of Liège, who studies near-death experiences.

He looks guilty sitting on the bed, watching me fiddle with the small container in front of me.

"You can't bring much," he tells me. There's sadness in his voice, honest and tired. His clothes smell like lavender.

"It's fine," I said.

He simply stares at me, bags heavy under his eyes. He had this spark of life before he returned to me that evening. I'm so glad he's home. Things weren't the same.

"Your hair looks so pretty like that," I said, stepping closer to cup his face in my hands. The contents of my nightstand drawer stabbing the bare skin of my feet as I walk to him. He blushes, looking away in shame.

"You can't ever come back if you leave with me," he says softly.

"I have nothing to return to. Everything is gone," I insisted. But I can see he's having second thoughts, glancing down the hallway. "You can't leave me again."

"What the fuck is that?" I screamed into the phone.

"Baby, I don't know-"

"There is a manhunt for my fucking fiánce who can hardly kill a fucking spider and all you want to say is you don't fucking know?!"

There's an article staring at me. Sent by my mother just a few minutes prior. Billy had been gone for a couple hours after leaving me with a small little keychain on the kitchen table and a soft kiss on my forehead, saying he had some plans for that evening. But he'll be back soon. He wasn't lying.

"I want you to come. But you have to be sure."

His eyes are desperate, staring up at me as I stoke his hair away from his face. His clothes smell like lavender.

They finally sent him home today. Took nine months. First they had to confirm it was his remains. Then I had to decide where I wanted him to go. It's such a hard process trying to get your loved ones back, especially when you were running out of the pills that kept you sane. Kept you wrapped in the thick fog of memories left behind to damn the living in a house that has turned more into a tomb. No sunlight, no visitors. My mother came over to see us once, but the smell was so bad she left soon after. I got a new bottle today. Might as well, after all.

He looks so tired on my bed. Curled in on himself. You could fit him in a box. So small. So tired.

It's so cold.

                  "You know, today would've been our anniversary?"

Zemmar says, because “death is sort of a mystery—we don’t really know what it is.”

I wonder who found me alone in the closet of our room.

                    We were too busy dancing to notice.

▪︎》◇《▪︎

Taglist:

@cassiecasluciluce @gh0u1ishly @joshhutchersons-slut @schmidtsbimbo @sugarevans @wompwompwomp57 . Thank you for your support pookies!!! <3

Masterlist • Article

[evilkennedy]

in another lifetime

leon kennedy x reader

warnings: angst. a lot of it. blood mention, knife mention, death, hurt/no comfort, a tiny bit of fluff if you squint, but it will mostly hurt im (not) sorry, no gender mentioned for reader or y/n, not beta read (never is)

words: 1.9k+

summary: not everyone can make it out of raccoon city unscathed... lowkey inspired by @triple-asstro. i've had this idea for a while but reading their fic really made me want to write mine, so shout out to them fr.

The scene unfolded like a nightmare, not dissimilar to what was happening to the entirety of Raccoon City, certainly. But this– It was a perfect rendition of everything that Leon had ever feared. It was cruel and tragic; Leon couldn’t hear anything over the roaring of his heartbeat in his ears, accompanied by the painful ringing of static, white noise that was anything but soothing, as he watched you fall to your knees. Time slowed as his mind raced. It wasn’t something that could actually happen, the world wouldn’t stop turning even for a moment, but Leon felt as though it had. It was interesting just how much he could think about in so little time… The way you smiled, the car ride on the way into the city just a few hours ago– If he could have recorded it; would have known that it might have been the last memory shrouded with normalcy and not tinged with melancholic guilt and so much blood– He would have done so in a heartbeat. 

~

“How does it feel knowing that I’ll technically be the one doing your training?” You smiled smugly at Leon from the passenger seat. Despite the two of you being relatively close in age, you were ahead of him. You’d always been the leader of your class and now a leader in the field. You’d only been working a year or so longer than him, but you loved to pull rank and the two of you hadn’t even gotten your coffee yet. 

The blonde had been tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, in time with the song that lulled on in the background, one that you hummed to whenever a moment of silence fell in the car, but that morning, conversation rarely quieted. He groaned, though he wasn’t actually bothered by your teasing, he never was. It was simply the way you two got on after so much time spent together. “Oh, bite me.” He huffed, eyes sparkling in the light that shone from the passing streetlights. It was still dark out with how early it had been, fog covering the streets as the humidity had risen during the night. 

“I’ll never hear the end of it, will I?” He smiled in your direction, though the sentence had been punctuated by a dramatic sigh.

“Nope.” You popped the ‘p’ as if to emphasize your point and he shook his head at your antics. He really could never get enough of this, as much as he pretended to hate the teasing relationship that the two of you had. He admired you, he always had. Your strength and diligence, the kindness that always persevered no matter what hardships you went through, and the way you looked at him. It made him feel giddy all over again… made his cheeks flush a bright shade of pink and his heart raced in time with yours because the two were entwined. He’d given up his heart to you a long time ago and while he wasn’t prepared to face the weight of that reality– The one where he could lose you because of a stupid crush. He bit his tongue when people made their assumptions, always playing it off as though it simply couldn’t happen, though he never brought you down in the process. He wondered if you knew that you were his entire world.

Leon laughed, “You’re insufferable.”

~

His entire body trembled as he fell to his knees beside you, knowing exactly what being bitten meant for you. He’d seen Marvin, he’d seen people being torn to shreds, and while he hadn’t seen anyone turn, he hadn’t expected you to be the first.

He uttered your name, voice breaking in the middle of it as he choked on the syllables, throat thick from his unshed tears. He’d have to keep it together for you, though he knew by the unadulterated terror in your eyes; you knew your fate. He placed shaking hands against the bleeding hole in your neck, desperately trying to stop the bleeding despite knowing the action would be futile in the end. He searched your face, chest heaving as he spoke, “J-Just hang on, okay? We- We can patch this up a-and find someone- someone that can help you- that can fix this.” His voice was pleading, but he wasn’t pleading with you, at least not entirely. He didn’t believe in a God, but he was willing to beg on his knees to him if it meant that you would get to stay alive… get to come home with him safely. He couldn’t even feel the tears that had begun falling freely from his eyes, not until you began wiping them away. 

“Leon…” You breathed, voice resolute despite your fear. There were moments in your life when you’d thought about this moment. You wondered what would be the thing to take you out and this was so far down on the list of possibilities that you would have laughed at your own ignorance… at the corruption that was happening right under your noses. 

You tilted your head, thumb still wiping away his tears as he leaned into your touch, still soothed by it ironically enough. He wanted to memorize the way your skin felt against his, warm and alive while he still could. The thought made his chest ache as the dread threatened to rip him apart from the inside out. Even still, he clung to each word you spoke like it was gospel.

“T-There’s nothing we can do, y-you know that.” There was a small smile on your face but it wasn’t the usual one that you wore. It wasn’t soft and cherubic, angelic in nature like Leon always assumed you’d been– rather it was clenched, tainted with the fear that permeated your mind and quickly overcame your being. Your nerves were shot, your entire body burned and ached. The worst part of it all was knowing that you’d have to leave Leon alone in this hell, not knowing if he’d survive. 

Your semi-calm demeanor didn’t last much longer as you began to crumble, your own tears escaping your eyes, “I don’t w-want to die, Lee.” Your voice was quiet, desperate, and all Leon wanted to do was to comfort you, to tell you that death wasn’t an option but that would be cruel. He couldn’t lie to you knowing that it would be the last thing he did for you.

He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw as your hand moved from wiping away his tears to placing your hand on top of the one he’d been holding against your wound, hissing at the way it stung with pain at the slight shift in pressure. He didn’t know what to say, if there was anything that he could say that would make the situation better for either of you. 

“Just- You’re with me now, j-just hang on for me? As long as you can, I-I’ll be here until the end.” And he meant it. The crushing weight of what he’d have to do lingered in the back of his mind, he knew that he’d have to be the one to kill you. He couldn’t– wouldn’t let you turn into one of those monsters, no matter how much it hurt. He knew it would haunt his psyche for as long as he lived. 

You slowly became more desperate, tears flowing as you squeezed his hand. You could almost feel the way the virus pulsed through your veins, though you weren’t sure if that was adrenaline or something you were imagining, but you wished it would stop. You wanted to be able to pretend that everything was fine in your last moments, but you knew nothing would ever be the same again, not when you were six feet under and Leon wasn’t. He’d always been the type to blame himself for things outside of his control and you were more than worried about how he’d respond to the inevitable. You almost laughed at the thought, the way you were more concerned about his well being even as the life within you had been slipping away for far too long. Even after all this time, you loved him more than you’d ever loved anyone else, but especially yourself. Maybe it had been unhealthy, at least in the sense that maybe you should have liked yourself more, but what was there to lose while on your deathbed?

“Y-You know how when we w-were kids, we always said we’d get married? B-Because we didn’t understand what that meant?” You breathed out, stuttering and hiccuping through the pain, chest aching as you puffed and heaved, breaths coming out way too hard and in way too fast. Leon nodded and despite the tears, you genuinely smiled. It knocked the breath out of Leon as his tears came even faster.

“‘Course I do.” He huffed out a humorless laugh, waiting to see where you were going with this. 

“When I g-got older I realized… m-maybe you are the one I want to marry. I-I know that now and I- Fuck I just wish I told you sooner.” You cried, digging your nails into his hand slightly, desperate to feel something that wasn’t your own body, nothing felt real anymore and you didn’t want to let go yet, not when Leon looked at you like you hung the stars in the night sky just for him. 

“Oh, sweetheart…” Before he could say anything else, you were shaking your head, “Maybe in another lifetime, right?” Your breathing was slowing, your body losing its warmth and color rapidly as your clock began to run out. Your eyes were wide as you panicked, though your lungs weren’t able to hyperventilate anymore, it was your time to go. All you wanted was to hear Leon confirm that he felt the same way, maybe it was foolish and slightly selfish, but you needed him to love you like you loved him… until the end.

Somehow, Leon managed to sob even harder, pulling away his hand from your wound, now taking your bloodied hand into his own as he looked at you, holding onto the limb like it would be enough to make you stay. “My heart is yours, in every lifetime.” 

As if that was all the confirmation you needed before letting go, you took your last breath, eyes dulling as the life left your body all at once. Your body went limp and Leon crumpled, pulling your corpse into his arms as he fully let go, near animalistic sobs escaping his lips as though there was no one else around. He was sure that any zombie within a 5 mile radius could hear his screams of utter agony, ones that made his throat raw as he buried his face into your hair. While the world never stopped turning, his had, in fact, he was holding his world as well as his heart in his blood soaked hands and he knew that he’d never be the same again, the ghost of you anchoring him to this godforsaken town no matter how far away he’d get. 

After what was probably considered to be far too long, he unsheathed his combat knife, glancing away before burying it in your skull, closing his eyes against the noise that it made. It made him absolutely sick to know what he’d just done, but he hoped it kept you from becoming reanimated. He spent a bit longer recuperating and attempting to pull himself together, numbing himself to the pain that agonized him. His only purpose now was to get out of the city, but after that? He didn’t know, nor did he care. He’d left his heart back in that room he’d left you in and as far as he was concerned, he’d died right there beside you.

author’s note: im both sorry and not sorry but I’m hugging you all !!

[xxcrystalinerose]

In celebration of me officially reaching 100 HOURS of fucking around in Hades 2, here's a couple of general gameplay tips from yours truly!

Preface

I am not the best Hades gamer out there, but I'd like to think I'm doing pretty good considering my still-standing 25+ win streak in the Underworld and 16 Fear clear on all weapon types, so this tip is meant for you guys who find Hades 2 weirdly difficult compared to the first game (I've been there!), or those who still haven't figured out good build and aspect combos. However, I will not be doing a deep dive of all the bosses except for the final bosses!

Obviously, spoilers abound under the cut, so tread with caution!!

Part 1: General Questions, Comments, Complaints, etc.

Q: Playing Melinoë is so difficult compared to Zagreus!

A: First of all, you are playing Melinoë, not Zagreus. Second of all, you are playing Lv. 1 Mel after being so used to Lv. 100 Zag (if you've spent an unreasonable amount of time playing Hades 1 like I did). These two have different playstyles! I myself am guilty of this mindset in my first 20 hours of gameplay.

Mel is all about using everything in your disposal to dispatch enemies. Additionally, the devs have designed the kit in such a way that none of your moves are an afterthought that you occasionally use every other room. The biggest example of this is Cast, which remains useful as a crowd control (CC) move even without a Boon attached to it. Use your Cast all the time!

Additionally, in case you haven't realized it, you can still move while charging your Omega Cast; however, the AoE will not follow you unless you have Local Climate (Demeter).

Don't forget that you can hold down Dash to Sprint. Lock enemies in place with Cast then sprint away if you need breathing room. However, do remember that you do not have i-frames while sprinting, only when dashing.

I have to concede that as of the current EA patch, dashing to dodge attacks still feels janky without the Swift Runner card, mostly because of the dash start-up animation being slightly but noticeably slower than Zag's dashes. However, after several runs with the Judgment card (where I can't activate Swift Runner, and that it might not activate further in the run), the rhythm of dashing with and without it is just muscle memory now. Keep practicing!

Q: Melinoë feels so squishy/slow/weak/etc.!

A: Hades 2 does feel much more Early Game Hellish™ than Hades 1, which imo is mostly because of the Arcana system's complexities.

You need various resources to unlock an Arcana, then you need sufficient Grasp to actually use the Arcana, THEN some Arcana have prerequisites for activation so you can't just use anything and everything you want. Very unlike H1, where you can just dump exactly one resource type into levelling the Mirror upgrades and the only true constraint is choosing one side of the Mirror over the other.

To mitigate the squishiness, Frinos with a fully upgraded Life Bond gives you a free 40 base HP. I prefer him over Toula because I fucking suck at bullet hells and Frinos eats up all those projectiles without flinching too much, and some enemies are really fucking annoying with their projectile attacks. Looking at you, hourglass thingies in Tartarus.

Another thing to note is that The Wayward Son card is a buffed version of Zag's health regen on room exit. At max level it heals 4 HP (8 if you're low), which also makes Chaos gate health drains trivial in Erebus and Oceanus, so go grab those Chaos boons.

If you think surviving against Chronos/Eris is difficult, try having at least 200-220 HP (adjust depending on Fear settings) before entering the fight. The Centaur and Titan cards are useful to achieve this. If you run a Hephaestus build, the Boon that adds HP based on Magick is also great!

Q: The Bosses in Hades 2 are more difficult... please help!

A: I see this observation often, but in my experience, the H2 bosses bar Chronos and Eris are actually significantly easier than the H1 bosses. Your experience gap between dealing with H1 and H2 bosses could also contribute. But anyways, here's some tips for each boss:

Hecate

The transformation Hex counts as a projectile and can be blocked by Frinos. If you haven't unlocked Frinos, simply dash back and forth into the hex (essentially abusing your dash i-frame) and it will eventually dissipate. Don't try to outrun it.

(Frinos ate the hex before I could fully demonstrate the dodging lol)

If you DO get transformed, dash and attack repeatedly to prevent Hecate's attacks from hitting you, because your attack in sheep form is a charge forward that helps add extra distance while waiting for the dash cooldown to end.

Scylla and the Sirens

They killed me an unreasonable amount of times early game because there's so damn much going on the screen, so my tip for that is kill the drummer first. The guitarist's arsenal is much less dangerous and her dash attack is heavily telegraphed. Even if the guitarist is the featured artist, I would still kill the drummer first. Additionally, the Night Bloom Hex* works in this fight. Have fun!

Infernal Beast

Mostly immobile boss that can't really turn around with heavily telegraphed attacks, so the easiest trick is to just stand behind it for free backstab damage and don't get hit. Paired with the massive hitbox, the boss becomes very vulnerable against Apollo/Zeus cast and Omega specials with Pan aspect on the Sister Blades.

Polyphemus

Sometimes he has sheep in the fight; if he eats them he gets healed. Gold sheep will block Omega moves in the radius indicated around them, while black sheep will charge at you. I find his most difficult attack is the boulder slam if he spots you. When he leaps, sprint away first for some distance, then dash into the shockwaves because they move FAST and staying near will guarantee you get hit.

Eris

All of her attacks count as projectiles, so Hestia's Soot Sprint turns the fight into a total joke. She also turns relatively slowly when firing; when she does the spread shots, stay directly behind her. The forward charge is also telegraphed by an animation where she rises a bit before charging, so dash towards Eris to avoid getting hit (because it also stuns you).

Chronos, in general

God I hate that bitch ass scythe throw attack SO MUCH. I find the most reliable way to dodge it is to dodge towards Chronos but in a counterclockwise direction because it always travels clockwise. DO NOT DODGE AWAY FROM HIM.

The thrown scythe counts as a projectile, so projectile slowing effects like Demeter's Cyclone debuff or Hard Target (Hermes) affect its move speed.

Additionally, Chronos himself is immune to any time-slowing effect, including from the Sorceress card, the Phase Shift Hex, and Hermes' legendary Boon. He can still damage you during the time stop in the Hex casting animation.

Lastly, the ring explosions that come after his slashing attacks are unblockable by any "Block" move e.g. Axe special.

Chronos, 2nd phase

He always begins the phase with a full screen attack that does 999 damage unless you stand in the highlighted safe spots... or if you have Coarse Grit (Demeter Infusion) that lets you take no more than 15 damage per hit (lol). The clock hands will also kill you this way, so stand well clear of its radius. When he does this attack he will stand in place, which if you're lucky lets you get a guaranteed Omega Cast or Total Eclipse strike, and even one or two fully charged Pan aspect specials if the "safe spot" is near him.

(* Night Bloom has an unintended interaction with the Judgment arcana that causes its effects to be triggered multiple times in the Scylla fight. I've reported this as a bug, but I guess you could abuse it until the next patch lol)

Q: What is your Arcana setup?

A: This! I find this to be the easiest setup for activating the Divinity card and also the "safest" build, with the drawback of being unable to change room rewards/Boon and Well of Charon offerings.

If I wanted more challenge, I would activate everything in the third row, and use the remaining 3 Grasp for either The Huntress or Death, depending on weapon:

When I do a Judgment arcana run, I only activate The Wayward Son, Eternity, and Excellence; the bonus with Judgment is that it also automatically activates The Queen, and keeps it active no matter how many more cards it activates later.

If you have yet to max out your Grasp and want to play it safe, the cards I recommend to prioritize are Eternity > Excellence > Origination > The Swift Runner/The Sorceress > The Titan > The Furies/The Moon/The Huntress/ > Night/The Unseen.

Extra tip: The Moon synergizes very well with pure damage Omega Casts e.g. Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon because it adds to the base damage. Naturally, this makes Apollo cast busted as hell.

Q: What are your recommended Keepsakes? How do I use them?

A: The ones from Hecate, Odysseus, Nemesis, Moros, and Narcissus. If you're good at not getting hit, Arachne's because it continuously stacks Armor per location as long as you stay above 1 Armor. Recently I've also been messing around with Chaos', which has been fun.

To elaborate:

Silver Wheel (Hecate) lets you regen Magick automatically, which was great for me in very early game until I got the hang of every Gain boon and evaluated which are the best ones. Essentially, it's a good crutch for learning how the game works. However, do note that the Keepsake regen is prioritized over any other Magick regeneration effects.

Knuckle Bones (Odysseus) is also a similarly useful early game crutch if you have difficulty against bosses or need to take a run to analyze their moves (very appropriate). It also gives you all-damage reduction against bosses. And fun fact: bring it to the Polyphemus fight multiple times for some unique interactions!

Evil Eye (Nemesis) is just a straightforward free ~30% universal damage bonus against the last enemy that killed you. Since mine was Chronos... well, let's just say I almost never spend a single DD in his fights ever since.

Engraved Pin (Moros) is functionally a better Stubborn Defiance. Triggering its effect will be prioritized over consuming a Death Defiance, and it works ONCE PER ROOM which is fucking amazing as a learning crutch and in high Fear runs. One of my favorite strategies if 1) my HP falls below the Pin's healing threshold, 2) its effect has not been triggered yet, and 3) I am 100% sure the encounter is about to end, I just die on purpose, kill everything that's left, and get a free heal.

Aromatic Phial (Narcissus) rarifies a random Common boon when you drink from a Fountain, which helps massively in no-Arcana runs or runs without Excellence/Divinity. It could also help if you grabbed Hera's Uncommon Grace but are unable to activate it because you have a Common boon. Lastly, the extra Fountain heal helps with survivability.

On the topic of Keepsakes, I encourage you to use the Olympian Keepsakes, because they now have the ability to increase the rarity of non-Infusion/Duo/Legendary Boons up to a certain rarity threshold and not just help you aim where your current build is going.

Rarification works especially well with Demeter's Rare Crop; one time Heroic Rare Crop managed to rarify my Attack, Special, and Cast somehow and I ended up blazing through Tartarus and Chronos like it was nothing.

End Notes (For Now)

I have some more tips prepared, but I'd like to know before I compile the next one:

Aand that's it for now. If I got something wrong or you know anything relevant to what I've shared above, do tell me in the replies so I can edit!

TL;DR: Don't forget to use Cast, get used to dodging with and without Swift Runner card, grab Chaos boons in early regions, be patient with grinding for upgrades, keep practicing, and have fun :)

[davidjordanphoenix]

It is SO FUCKING HARD to figure out what "working hard" looks like when you're disabled.

I want to be a hard worker. I want to learn work ethic. But I HAVE to remember it's going to look different from someone who doesn't live with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, chronic anxiety. There's a difference between laziness and real limitations.

I am in pain all the time. Everything hurts. I have headaches and migraines. My muscles are constantly sore even when I've not exercised. I have constant nerve pain in certain parts of my body that is constant 100% of my waking hours. My feet always hurt. I have a deep tissue skin condition that causes pain. I am always, always, always hurting.

I am tired 100% of the time and honestly? The fatigue is worse than the pain. I would rather have MORE PAIN if it meant I was somehow less tired. The fatigue is so bad I panic when I feel exhausted. When I feel my fatigue getting worse it causes anxiety because I have flashbacks of the days I had to sleep for 2-3 days in a row with no food and only the water I brought with me before crashing. I FEAR exhaustion. Pain is miserable but you can learn to tune it out mostly if you're focused enough on something else. You cannot tune out fatigue. No amount of distraction can pull you away from the despair of being trapped in a body that cannot move the way you need it to because you are simply too exhausted to make it move. Fatigue pulls all focus because you don't have the energy to focus on anything else. When I say I'm exhausted, I don't mean I want to take a nap. I mean that down to my bones, every muscle fiber, down to my fucking eyelids feels soupy and heavy and sapped of whatever life juice keeps them functioning. Exhaustion feels like wakeful death. And sleep doesn't fix it.

I get sick. Constantly. I always either have a fungal infection, or a sore throat, or a nauseous stomach, or a migraine, or SOMETHING. I get sick if I push too hard, even if I had fun. I just went on vacation and spent about 3 days after feeling like I had the flu. My tonsils were red and swollen, I could barely swallow, I had a wet cough, migraine for a week, could barely choke down food. Nobody else got any symptoms. I just get sick because I decided to do something.

On top of the pain, fatigue, and sickness, my brain is a nightmare of anguish. I have a "very severe case" of major depressive disorder that has been treatment resistant since I was a teenager. My head feels like there's constant screaming. I am anxious and fearful of EVERYTHING. There is always noise in my head, screaming in pain and screaming at me that I'm not doing enough, I'm not good enough, I'm an idiot I'm worthless I'm garbage I'm better off dead. I think about suicide obsessively. My brain is a place of torment I am constantly trying to escape.

And then I wonder why it's fucking hard to exist.

Here's the thing: I so, so, so badly want to learn how to work hard. I want to learn how to pour the energy I have into something beautiful. I want to learn how to work hard and take the time and effort to create things that I'm proud of, that can help people feel seen and loved and ease their suffering just a little. It's creation from others that brings me so much joy every day and makes life worth living. I want to create too!

I want to exercise to be physically strong and as able bodied as I can be. I want to be able to cook meals because I love cooking. I want to be able to go for a hike with my dog. I want to spend hours working on something beautiful that makes people feel joy. I want to live a full life. I want to be free.

I have to remember my freedom will still have its shackles. I cannot have a life without chronic pain. I cannot have a life without chronic illness. I cannot have a life without a broken mind.

But if I learn how to work hard, despite all that, maybe I can have something worth it for me.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for retroactively cheating on my partner?

Look, I know the title sounds kinda dumb, but it was kind of the best way I could sum it up. This also might get a little long. I'm just trying to give the context it needs that I feel sorta led me to the decisions I made.

I (22M) went on my first vacation with my partner (25F) last summer. Our vacation was to a relatively local spot not too far out of the city that's decently popular. We'd been dating at that point for around 18 months, though a lot of our dating had been done online cuz of the whole global pandemic thing. When the restrictions started loosening she started getting pushy about me moving in. This caused some tension between us, but it always kind of fizzled out. I still lived with my dad at that point. I'd never moved in with her, since I always wanna be really absolutely sure about these things beforehand, and I'll admit to viewing our week long vacation as sort of a trial run for maybe, one day, taking that step. All of this is just context for the fact that I was really serious about her. It was also the first real adult relationship that I'd been in.

If it was meant to be a trial for moving in, the vacation probably brought to the surface all the issues that I'd had with her. It was seriously a disaster. Our first day was great, but she spent a lot of the next two days taking calls from work and having some "alone time". I was really pissed off on the third day, waking up to ask if she wanted to go swimming, and having her tell me she was up for hours, and if I wanted to go I should've talked to her earlier. I suggested things we could do together, and we did eat lunch together and go to the pool, but she wasn't at all interested in doing anything else with me. After lunch, she sort of disappeared, so I went to the bar myself and considered texting her to join me. I got distracted talking to a guy, and soon enough we were super invested in the conversation together.

For context, I'm probably somewhere on the bi/pan end of things, but I grew up and continued living in a close minded small town. Especially last year, I was very much not out, not comfortable with people seeing me as in any way lgbtq adjacent, and still holding onto a lot more internalised stuff than I was willing to admit to.

This guy (who I'll call R) and I hit it off. We had lots in common, and he was fun to hang around with, and a good listener. I won't lie, I did find him pretty physically attractive, but naturally, it wasn't a huge issue. I've never had a problem being faithful, it's something I value over anything else in a relationship. When I spoke to my girlfriend about him later, she make some teasing remarks towards me about him being my "boyfriend". I was extremely sensitive about this, and snapped at her, to which she called me oversensitive and complained I never understand her jokes. I, being more mean than I should've been, told her she should try being funny, and she just called me misogynistic, which I resented, so I walked out, and came back later when I was sure she was asleep.

The next day, she shut me off completely, which I understood. I apologised, but I appreciated that she needed some space. I ended up meeting R at the pool again. We went for a hike, which took longer than expected, and made it home at dinner, which we got together. He insisted on paying in full, and we had a fun time, walking back to the hotel together. He told me he was leaving that evening, and I offered to help him pack. We got into his room, I helped him pack, we talked, traded socials, and, eventually, just out of the blue, I kissed him. I don't really know why, but it was nothing more than a chaste kiss, and I panicked and left.

The rest of the trip with my girlfriend was mostly us keeping to ourselves, and while we made up, there was definitely an atmosphere. The atmosphere just stayed. We broke up in October, for reasons unrelated directly to the vacation.

However, my issue is that from the vacation to when my gf and I broke up, R and I were dming each other. Objectively,it wasn't anything romantic or sexual, no nudes, nothing like that. We would just talk like we always did. We decided to try out dating in February of this year, and so far, its been great - he's genuinely a brilliant partner, we have far less conflicts, we sort things out quicker, and we generally seem to mesh much better than I did with my ex. But being with him has sort of taught me that what I valued him for when we were just talking is also what I mostly value him for now that we're dating - his good listening, his great sense of humour, the fact he just seems to get me. I could be overthinking things, but I can't shake this weird feeling that while I was with my ex I was somehow having all the trappings of another relationship whilst not indulging in the traditional markers of one. It just doesn't feel right to me. Am I the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[rivilu]

You know. Now that I've finished it I can say with some confidence that about 90% of the criticism this game faces that I have seen (not counting the anti-woke crybabies- those will die out in time. as they have with every installment of this series.) is sort of. Not missing the point, but missing the reasoning as to why some choices were made?

Heavy spoilers ahead for everything pretty much.

[And also I mean I'm going to speak as an inquisition hater here so in case this breeches my tiny bubble on this site you can stop reading if you enjoy any tiny aspect of that game at all. I am not kind.]

Yes. This game is not Origins or 2. This Thedas is very wishy washy about the core topics they tackled. Some things are straight up not mentioned at all when they REALLY SHOULD BE. Being an elf has you facing 0 negative interactions in TEVINTER for example. But. A lot of these choices were clearly made as a patchwork. Because of how much inquisition shat the bed. Yeah you can't easily bring back the chantry in a critical way when the last game spent 100+ hours bootlicking it against your will. There is a tiny nod to the mage- templar conflict being one sided and cruel in a side quest? But you can't elaborate and examine mages and how they're treated when the last game had a very clear bias and set them up as unreasonable/ pathetic/ willing to shell out to slavers etc. Similarly with elves how the fuck are you meant to move on from. Anything at all inq set up. Without wiping the board on a few to many places.

I'm looking at you, "the Dalish abandon mage kids above a specific count" NPC.

And the gods themselves. Solas himself. I still consider the most absolute dogshit, stupid, horrible, downright deplorable on a coding aspect writing decision in the series. One that I thought was impossible to create ANYTHING of value around before I got to this game. And. Let me tell you. For once the retconning is the glue that holds this thing together instead of being the thing tearing it apart. - Because it leads the game to feel like an au- in a decently good way. It's not recognizable as the Thedas we know - but it's close enough if you squint, and LEAGUES above the inquisition, which also felt like au fanfiction but in the "religious imperialist 100k essay on why minorities are suckers and the status quo rules actually" sense

Yes. We sort of elaborate on the nature of the blight here and the arch demons being?? Essentially lich phylacteries for these blighted gods. Which directly contradicts established information from awakening of the archdemons not being blighted by default. But I played through that and didn't blink because frankly none of this world feels anything like the one awakening takes place in. And the plot point works for the purpose it serves so really? It's fine. Or something like Bellara being able to do what Merrill spent 7 years attempting in a day or so. It works in a self contained way, but if you're trying to view this as a whole- it creates a dissonance.

An that's the thing. It's not a whole. Trying to view it as such is setting yourself up for failure. The devs said that this would be sort of a blank slate- a reset installment. But it isn't.. quite? Inq was. Inq was the one that decided to change the entire genre from dark to high fantasy, botched the transition, and watered everything down until it was an unrecognizable centrist pile of slop (at best). This is working with the horrible decisions made there- and trying to make something good out of them. It is a VALIANT effort. And I do think they mostly succeed. For what it is- it's good. I don't think it's fair to this game that's been in development hell for 10 years to blame it for not keeping things that its predecessor ruined just because they were handled better in origins or two or whatever. Trust me. Origins is still my favorite and always will be. But if you want origins, give bioware- which is currently half laid off- a break, and start barraging EA with interest for a faithful remaster/remake (i'll gladly join). Or do literally anything other than complaining about this not being that. It helps no one.

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve recently joined the Twitter RWBY fandom(a horrible choice, really) and a lot of them hold this regard that Ironwood being a Military Man aswell as Atlas Academy being a pipeline to the Military being foreshadowing and, I can’t really understand that? No where in the show is any of that implied as bad. I was thinking about it a little bit and came to the inclusion that despite Remnant’s worldbuilding calling for a positive outlook on the military, because this is an American anime mostly 1/2

I've thought the same for awhile now, anon. RWBY, for all its many pitfalls, is trying to be a progressive show and that includes taking a hard, critical stance against military might—an argument that, yes, is very much born of America's history. I'm not going to turn this ask into a history lesson (one I'm by no means an expert on anyway), but suffice to say there's indeed a lot to criticize and thus it's no surprise that the queer friendly, unity-focused, American show about an individual "simple soul" would want to paint militarism in a negative light.

Personally, I've got no problem with that thesis. That's actually a show that I would love to watch. Thus, the problem is not RWBY taking a hard stance against a fictional military, it's—as you say—its failure to convey why Remnant's military is worthy of criticism. The work is simply not there. I could write you a novel-length meta on all the ways RWBY dropped the ball in that regard, starting with the world building question of, "Why is a military seen as oppressive when they exist to fight souless monsters instead of other people?" through "Not a single detail in RWBY implies that people are coerced, manipulated, or left behind once they align themselves with the military," circling around, "You spent six Volumes writing Ironwood as a flawed hero, gave us a few episodes as a misguided antagonist, and then a few hours in-world as a villain," straight on through to, "The group coming upon Atlas' battleships is meant to exist as a stand-alone argument of evilness—look at what Ironwood has done in the name of safety!—which is a problem all on its own, but the same image of battleships hovering over Vacuo is meant to exist as a stand-alone argument of celebratory unity and do you see how that doesn't work?"

RWBY wanted to write an anti-military story. They did not write an anti-military story until Volume 8, by which time it was WAY too late to undermine all the positive implications and unanswered questions we'd gotten. However, many viewers—particularly American viewers—picked up on those not-so-subtle hints (hi there, cartoon Ironwood) and ran backwards with the argument, ignoring everything that didn't support it in previous Volumes, or, in a few extreme cases, outright lying about what happened in the show until portions of the fandom heard it often enough that they started misremembering things. Then they passed those simplistic, inaccurate readings on, all of which is exacerbated by many viewers' real feelings towards the military and the knee-jerk assumptions they have if others appear to be promoting it. Even if "promoting it" just means saying something like, "This fictional character in this radically different fantasy world maybe isn't pure evil because the show forgot to establish why creating the means to destroy the literal non-metaphorical monsters is a bad thing."

Which is why it's so difficult to discuss RWBY's failure in this regard because the fan at the other end of the conversation has to acknowledge the nuance of, "Yes, I personally agree with this thesis, but it's a thesis that doesn't exist in RWBY. I'm not arguing that dictators are good, actually, I'm arguing that Ironwood never was one." The moment you talk about anything related to Atlas, Ironwood, their military, etc. and by extension start discussing the ways in which the show canonically wrote those all these as positives in Volumes 1-7, or at the worst flawed necessities, many fans simply jump to, "Oh, so you're okay with Ironwood shooting minorities? Got it." Most in RWDE (that I've come across, anyway) are discussing the depiction of the military within the show—what actually wound up on screen, regardless of the writers' intentions and regardless of our own, irl politics. In contrast, most non-RWDE fans are discussing what the military is meant to represent irl, despite the fact that this representation fails on nearly every level and, as a result, doesn't really exist. That's a huge disconnect that I doubt the fandom will ever get past, especially when these subjects hit close to home for so many and, frankly, it's far easier to toss out accusations that imply a real-life failing than it is to acknowledge that a favorite show is not only badly written, but thoroughly bungled a subject you deeply care about. (Insert the same problem with RWBY's queer rep here.)

[irbcallmefynn]

So, I thought about it like. two days ago in the shower,

This is Images. My headmate. I hate it, it's quite rude to me.

I don't know all the terminology super well (I had spent an hour or so poking around pluralpedia) so if there's a better way for me to define the way I feel please feel free to point me in the right direction. I'm going to ramble about my feelings now.

The tl;dr is Images is a Bluffgenic insider brainmate who serves as a persecutor and possibly eraser, and there is a partial communication barrier between us.

Images can speak to me somewhat directly, though it doesn't have a voice of its own, instead taking the voice of other people in my life, or my own voice. I can "hear" Images and Images can "hear" me, but will never directly respond to me, simply shutting up when I tell it to. It feels like sometimes whatever I say to Images gets stretched out to fill the void its lack of response makes. (Example: "I don't need to be thinking about that Imageeeesssssssss")

Images has "conversations" with me, where it takes on the identity of someone I know/knew (though sometimes it's meant to represent nobody in particular) and makes up a fake situation to talk about. Sometimes it's someone reaching out to make up with me, or imagined outcomes of me trying to defend myself. It can also be people turning on me and deciding I've wronged them, emergencies or disasters, or fights. Sometimes they're repetitions of past events, other times they're imagined scenarios that may or may not be possible to happen. They are never helpful, and only serve to make me stressed. In the past these conversations have encouraged me to make impulsive decisions to attempt to make the "positive outcomes" a reality or prevent the "negative outcomes" from occurring.

Images is the personification of the disconnect I feel between me and my brain and/or my tendency to overthink things and/or my depression. Sometimes it cooperates and we can act mostly as normal, with me learning skills and being able to better myself. Other times I'm not able to properly recall information, take steps to improve myself, learn new things, or even do the things I already know how to do. Images does take in information from the outside world, though showing is more effective than telling.

Images isn't capable of fronting, so nobody but me will ever hear it. Though it may urge me to ask about the status of relationships or my own behavior, and I may become difficult to work with at times because of Images blocking proper access to my brain.

I've had conversations with Images for as long as I can recall. Its always acted like this. That lack of communication meant I had to give Images a name and a face myself, so I could properly address it, which is why I believe Bluffgenic is the best way to describe its origin.

Some time after particularly stressful situations, such as arguments, Images may cause me to forget most or all of what happened. If someone has decided to leave my life, I will likely forget many details of them besides their name and how they left me feeling in the end. This can lead to problems down the line, especially if the other is hurt by my actions, since anything they do in response to that feels like it came out of nowhere to me. This coupled with my unrelated memory issues leads me to forgetting large swaths of time in as little as a few hours.

Images does not Block me, and I do not Block Images. We can hear each other just fine, it's just that Images will never "verbaly" respond to me unless I'm acting in the conversation (which I am getting better at avoiding, since they just make me feel bad)

Images might be a result of my ADHD or Autism or Anxiety, or some combination of them, though since Images didn't really exist in this way until I gave it a name, I think it's Bluffgenic as opposed to ADHDgenic, Autigenic, or "Anxiegenic" (not a real term afaik)

[opalimagines]

First Date

Rick asks you out on a date. Takes place on Halloween, shortly after the end of season three.

Rick Tyler/gn!reader

Warnings: None

"Are you doing anything for Halloween?"

Rick's question broke you away from your homework, and you looked over at him where he sat beside you on the couch. The two of you were studying at your house that night, having already had dinner together a couple of hours ago.

"I was going to pass out candy," you answered, tapping your pen against your notebook. "Probably watch a few movies."

Halloween was a bit of a complicated thing in your home. Your father did not enjoy the month of October because it brought back too many bad memories of his transformation into The Shade. The Halloween spirit of Opal's citizens still didn't do much to change his mood. But even with all that, he would always let you pick a costume and take you trick-or-treating. For the last few years, he allowed you to decorate the house and pass out candy to the smaller children. And you intended to do the same that year until Rick spoke again.

"The Lost Boys is playing at the drive-in. I thought we could go. As a date...if you still want that." But it sounded like you already had things set for Halloween, which didn't surprise him since it was only a couple of days away.

"Of course I do." Your cheeks burned as if your feelings for each other weren't already well known and out in the open. You hadn't expected him to ask you out so soon, but you didn't mind because he was back to his usual self. And you were glad he was being more obvious about it than you were when you asked him out. You smiled, knowing you'd rather spend that night with him. "I'd love to go with you. It sounds like a lot of fun."

Rick let out a little breath because if he was being honest, a part of him thought you could've changed your mind. Maybe in the process of helping him detox from the hourglass, you decided you didn't actually want him. But that worry turned out to be for nothing. "Great. I'll pick you up at 6."

"I'll be ready," you said as you went back to your homework.

As if you'd even be able to focus after that.

Rick walked up the path leading to your house, the sun already beginning to set. The lights and decorations covering the place were all lit—and moving, if they could do that—and you had a huge bowl of candy sitting out on the porch for once the trick-or-treating began. He knocked, and you opened the door immediately, absolutely beaming.

"You look great," tumbled out of his mouth instead of an actual greeting. But he meant it.

While you had spent quite a while finding the perfect outfit, you didn't look much different than usual. Neither did Rick, yet you still replied, "So do you."

Rick gestured back towards his car. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah." You shut the door behind you and locked it, closing the distance between the two of you. Rick smiled nervously as you walked to his car together, and he opened the door for you to get inside, your heart swelling at how adorable he was trying to be a good date.

He closed the door once you got inside and walked around the front, and when he took his seat, he looked over at you. He really shouldn't have been so jittery about this. Because when he really thought about it, the two of you had practically been dating for months without actually calling it that. Late nights spent studying, going out to Richie's just the two of you, having family dinners at your house, hanging out in your room for hours.

Hell, you'd slept in the same bed and cuddled for several nights just a couple of weeks ago.

But this felt different. Like he could easily ruin it all now.

"Hey," you called softly, reaching to take his hand. "Don't worry. It's only me." You hadn't expected the anxiety rolling off of him. Not to say you weren't a little nervous, too, but mostly, you were just excited. "I understand if you're not ready. This doesn't have to be a date."

"I'm ready," he assured you. "I've just never done this before, and I don't want to screw it up."

"You won't. You're doing fine." You gave his hand a squeeze. "Besides, I've never done this either, so even if you do mess something up, I probably won't even notice."

He'd forgotten about the fact that you also had no real idea what you were doing. You were both inexperienced in this kind of thing. "Thanks, that...actually helps."

"Just remember that it's like any other night we've spent together, only this time we're not hiding anything."

That advice worked like a charm because by the time the movie started, all the worry melted away. The two of you were hanging out together like you'd done so many times, and there was nothing scary about that. Even knowing that you were more than friends now.

He didn't want it to end, but eventually, he was walking you back up to your front door. "Thanks for coming. I had a great time."

"Me, too." You glanced at your front door, then back to him, not wanting the night to end either. "If you want, we can take the leftover candy down to my room and watch more movies. I've got Fright Night, Friday the 13th, The Thing..."

"Yeah, I'd like that." Luckily, Rick did have a liking for campy 80's horror films, but he knew he would've said yes no matter what movies you rattled off.

Grabbing the candy bowl, you unlocked the front door and led him down to the basement. You placed the bowl on the bed and went right for the cabinet under your TV. Rick took his sneakers off and sat up on your bed, watching you rifle through your tapes.

"What's your favorite scary movie?" You asked without looking back at him. "Hopefully, I have it."

He didn't even have to think about it. "Nightmare on Elm Street."

"Good to know." You pulled said tape out of the stack and stuck it into the VCR. "Nice choice, by the way."

"What's yours?"

In a gust of wind, you were throwing all of the extra pillows in the house onto your bed. You climbed on and arranged them against the wall so you could both be more comfortable. "You'll just have to wait and see."

Rick smiled, resting back against the mountain of pillows as you sat next to him, placing the candy bowl on both of your laps.

"Oh, I almost forgot." The air shifted again, and while you were exactly as you had been, the room was suddenly pitch black aside from the light of the TV. "We can't watch scary movies with the lights on."

He'd been a bit too distracted to notice they were on, and he was even more distracted when you leaned into his side as the previews played through. Rick hesitated a moment before lifting his arm up a little and speaking quietly. "Is it okay if I...?"

You grinned over at him, taking his arm and placing it across your shoulders, lacing his fingers with yours. There hadn't been any of that at the drive-in because it wasn't something that really worked in his car. "Rick, we've slept in the same bed. You don't have to be shy about putting your arm around me."

His cheeks flushed, and thankfully, you couldn't see that too well. "Right."

Snuggling into him, you let out a content sigh and grabbed yourself a piece of candy.

As far as first dates went, watching cheesy movies together all night was pretty damn perfect.

Fun fact: Fright Night is mentioned specifically because Charley's car is also a '66 Mustang (but it's a fastback unlike Rick's) and I thought that was interesting 😎

[rival-the-rose]

I meant to make a post yesterday to say that I had such a great day and I figured out how to scrub in while sitting down and made it thru a whole TPLO! I wore an ice belt and had an ice pack down my shirt and used the tall saddle stool and it worked pretty good honestly! I think fractures will be hard, anything that I need to be actively pulling for a long time will be hard since the stool is on wheels, but for basic shit I think I'm good. I did need several applications of alcohol poured down the back of my neck to keep cool but as long as I kept up on that I was a useful scrub nurse which made me so happy. I was worried I would be trashed afterwards but I went to lunch and came back and still had plenty of energy and even spent the last half hour of the day mostly out of my wheelchair running around! I didn't feel great when I got home tho and was back to being semi conscious and wracked with chills.

This morning, I woke up with a pounding headache that got worse with every heartbeat. I chugged a coconut water but had no appetite so I only ate ~half of my oatmeal while I was at work and never finished it. I kept up on water and made it thru 1.5 surgeries, realized I was not doing well after the first one, finished rads and prep for the second one, then took lunch. After eating I had an episode and my partner and my mutual crush had to help me to the car to take me home. Which is where I am now, still barely holding onto consciousness and generally feeling shitty. I was pretty heartbroken, now I'm feeling numb/disengaged from the problem. Of course I am going to have bad days still, even if I'm doing everything right. But it still sucks. I put in so much work, I've had breakfast lunch dinner and 3-5 snacks per day prepared for every work day and I've taken all my meds and different random things to make my body work better and it's so much work and it's still not enough. I know it's not unreasonable to be tired halfway thru my third 12 but I just want to be able to do everything I'm used to doing. And I'm really scared about the prospect of never improving (even tho I've shown plenty of improvement so far, still scary).

[glacierbash]

transfem ysayle headcanons?? 👀

hi bestie hi you're absolutely fueling me today thank you so very much. okokok. so. i've been trying to compile my thoughts in a way that reads as mostly understandable but I just physically cannot, so please excuse my entirely disconnected rambles, I'm GOING to try and make a point in the end (and also i know that anything you specifically may know about ysayle is probably through Post Osmosis so if you have any questions about her ask me I will talk about her for actual HOURS) also final "disclaimer" that's actually just "haha funny story:" this headcanon first came to me in a DREAM months ago, and i couldn't remember what point I had made in my dream until like 2 days ago while talking with my partner, which is why I'm so eager to talk about it now. Literally came to me in a dream. ok with that all out of the wayyyyy

Generally, this hc comes from two different places: Symbolism in the story, and actual, factual, "wow this makes sense and I can point to pieces in the story that make me believe this." With regards to the first half, I point to Ysayle's overarching story: Desperation for change. So much of Ysayle's character motivation comes from this genuine need to see the world changed for the better, to the point of being willing to do anything that she deems necessary. She's extreme, but it comes from desperation (for you specifically, the best way I could think to describe Ysayle is Anders, if blowing up the Chantry was the wrong decision). Furthermore, all of Ysayle's ice theming--ice is something that can change, and remarkably easily, too. There is something to be said that in embodying the cold that defines her, Ysayle allows herself to live a more genuine life. She's change encompassed within a woman, for better and for worse. When she sees the white dragon from her visions as a child after everybody she knew is killed, she is almost reborn in a way--perhaps in this rebirth, she decides to live a life more authentic to herself.

and then, there's her deep connection with Shiva within the story. In FF14, Shiva is a figure from loooong ago who fell in love with the white dragon previously mentioned, Hraesvelgr, and chose to have him consume her so that their souls may never part. Big story about love, and Shiva's influence upon him is the reason Hraesvelgr remained a peaceful figure as much as he REALLY wanted to start blowing shit up. Ever since she was a child, Ysayle saw visions of Shiva and Hraesvelgr, and my idea was that she very much attached her identity to Shiva, even before she had the words to describe how she was feeling about her gender. As she grew older, she related more and more to Shiva, even as the visions scared her--this longing to be like her, even if she didn't know why. Of course, after Ysayle survives the avalanche that kills everybody she knows, what does she have if not her visions to cling to more? As Ysayle decides to rally the heretics to fight against the Holy See and try to end the war, she hails Shiva as a saint, truly claiming her as part of herself.

This connection to Shiva, this claiming of her, goes hand in hand with Ysayle fully embracing her gender identity, going so far as to conjure up a false god that is meant to be Shiva, this completely idolized being that is everything Ysayle needs to be. And then, when Hraesvelgr denies Ysayle's creation, claiming it to be a mockery of his beloved Shiva, is that not ripping apart Ysayle's identity? She has spent so long attaching to this woman from her visions, this figure she idolizes, to the point of, again, creating a false god to embody, only to be told by the one living being that knew her, you will never be her. It's beyond devastating--it is no wonder that it sends Ysayle into an absolute spiral.

Of course, what of when she shows of to stop the heretics attacking Ishgard? Saying "there is no more war. There is no more reason to keep fighting." it's almost as though Ysayle is peeling herself away from Shiva, trying to stand on her own as her own woman, being her own figure not dictated by this dream she wanted to attain. And then, come the First Flight of the Excelsior, wherein Ysayle rides upon dragon's back to save us? It is as herself. There is no Lady Iceheart, and the Shiva she conjures is not defined by her idolizing dreams--it is Ysayle, as she longs to be, desperate to save us all.

(And of course x2, this makes me even more feral for "Ysayle lived" aus, where ysayle is given not just a second but a third chance at life, and she doesn't feel like she has to earn it. Her life isn't dictated by war, or by loss, or by violence, or by dreams from her youth. She's finally given a future to decide what she wants to do. She's fought for her future and won. her old child-like self who dreamed of a better world, who wanted to know why she felt so connected to the white-haired woman from her terrifying visions, doesn't know it--but one day they'll be happy. one day, they'll be free. One day, it'll all be worth it. One day.)

[lostinfantasyworlds]

Life Update

Heyyyy it’s been a while! I never really expect anyone to notice when I fuck off for long periods of time, but in case you did and happened to be wondering why I was mostly MIA for most of 2023, here's what I've been up to.

The short version: My husband and I sold our first house over the summer and bought our “forever” home! It worked out so much better than I could have hoped, but it turns out that prepping a house to sell and moving = lots of stress and chaos...which caused me to tumble off the deep end mentally for a while afterwards and I’m only just starting to recover.

---

Before I elaborate, I feel like I have to give a disclaimer because the last thing I want is to come across like I'm complaining or ungrateful. I'm very aware of how lucky and privileged I am to be a homeowner, so I am by no means asking for sympathy or trying to act like "buying/selling a house is so stressful, woe is me!" I understand that homeownership is a pipe dream for a lot of people, especially in the current economy, and I don't take that for granted. I'm genuinely grateful that I even have the opportunity to be stressed about something like this, but I can't deny that it was stressful.

If anyone is wondering how I managed to buy a house at all, I'm happy to answer that in a separate post. The abridged version is extremely lucky timing plus countless hours of hard work put into fixing up our first house that we bought for cheap back when the market was way more balanced (2016).

When I talk about the stress of last year, it's almost entirely in regards to my own mental health which is something I've always struggled with. I get overwhelmed VERY easily by regular life, let alone when I go through a major change (no matter how positive it is). Every big transition period in my life has triggered intense anxiety disorders and/or depression for me, so that's the main reason why things felt so difficult.

If you happen to be thinking something along the lines of "shut the fuck up, no one cares you were stressed, you're so privileged to even be able to own a house," ...believe me, I've already said to myself a million times. That is part of why I end up so depressed in the first place, because I feel like I “don’t have the right” when my life is so wonderful. But thanks to therapy I understand more about my mental illnesses and I'm trying to be less hard on myself now.

Still, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea 😅.

---

Anyways! If you want to know more about our house/see some pics, the long version with all of my rambling is below the cut!

The long version:

My husband and I bought our first house in 2016, right after getting married. It was conveniently located right across the street from where we had been living with 4 of our friends (which is how we were able to save enough money to buy a house), but it was in such bad condition that it didn't even meet the FHA minimum property standards so we had to use a special type of mortgage to purchase it. We always meant for it to a long-term flip, planning to live there while renovating it so that we could sell it after a few years and use the profit to buy a house that would be more permanent.

We put so much literal blood sweat and tears into that house. In the beginning we spent every single hour of our spare time fixing up the house. We do all renovation work ourselves because my dad and husband have experience with demolition, electrical, and plumbing. And anything we don't know how to do we just figure out as we go along. The only time we hired a contractor was to replace the roof that had extensive water damage.

(This is the water damage discovered down the whole back of the house a few weeks after we bought it 🙃)

(One before-and-after out of many to avoid making this post absurdly long. The contractors finished the ceiling when they did the roof but otherwise we did all the work on that bathroom ourselves, including moving the shower wall back 6 inches so that the shower door wasn't mounted to the window trim 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Over a few years we worked on remodeling each room until we eventually we got super burnt out, and then the pandemic happened and we both fell into a deep depression. Finally, in 2022 I got myself a therapist and started clawing myself out of the dark place I was in, and at the start of April 2023 we started prepping the house to sell. I had been watching the market steadily increase to absolutely insane levels and knew it was kind of a “now or never” situation, even though I still felt very fragile mentally so I was worried how I would handle such a large undertaking.

I never could have imagined just how amazing it would turn out. We truly couldn't be happier with our new home, it’s pretty much everything we were hoping for and I still can’t believe how lucky we are to have gotten it. I was prepared to have a hard time finding an affordable house. I had heard of all kinds of horror stories and the crazy competition going on in the market was intimidating. I thought we were gearing up for the long haul, and prepared myself for a lot of disappointment. Our house was the first house we put an offer on (the third one we looked at in person) and we somehow got it! It’s insane, I'm so fucking grateful.

The only catch is that it's a lot more of a fixer upper than we had originally planned on buying. I didn’t think that we would ever buy another house that required as much renovation as our first one did, because that shit was intense and we are now in our 30s and very tired 😂. But our new house has so many features that were on our “would-love-to-have-but-probably-won't-find-in-this-economy” list like laundry upstairs and an attached garage (also a pond??!?! We have a fucking pond and I love it so so much🥹). So we knew we could turn it into a home we’d love spending our lives in if we put in the work. Plus it was actually well below our budget (probably because of the condition it was in).

We decided to offer what we were willing to pay, which was well above asking but we still didn't think we'd have a chance because the market is so competitive. I don’t know if our real estate agent just worked some magic (she was amazing), but we were genuinely stunned when she told us we got the house.

(Our beautiful pond🥹 🥰)

After that, things moved SO fast. The timing made it overlap with the prepping/listing of our first home, which was really stressful to juggle all at once on top of our full time jobs. I thought selling was going to be the easy part since the market is so skewed towards sellers right now. And it did go amazingly well once we listed (64 showings and 12 offers in one weekend, fucking nuts?!?!!), but the months leading up to listing the house were CRAZY. I knew it would be a lot of work to prep the house since we had a bunch of unfinished projects, 4 open permits with the town that we needed to get closed, and had accumulated so much shit over the years, but I definitely underestimated how intense it would be, especially with the overlap of buying our new house. I had used up all of my PTO for the year by June in order to deal with house things and felt like I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. I pushed myself way past my limits and knew I would pay for it eventually.

But we made it through the chaos and officially moved in July. Let me just say that I hope I never have to move again😵‍💫. It was 90+ degrees (F), 95% + humidity that weekend, and then POURING rain on the day of the move🙃. But other than that, everything went pretty smoothly! After a couple weeks of getting settled and sleeping in the living room, we started on the renovations in early August.

(Before and after of our living room that we are using as a hobby room for D&D, music, art, etc I love it so much!)

(Before and after of the downstairs bedroom which we use as our office)

We remodeled two whole rooms in about 6 weeks, which was wayy too much. We had been going nonstop since April and by the time we got to October, I hit a wall. Because my mental health was incredibly fragile to begin with, surprise surprise I ended up stuck in another bout of horrific burnout-fueled depression for a solid 2+ months after we finally paused to take a break. I've struggled with my mental health since I was a teenager, having periods of depression, panic disorder, and GAD on and off. Also over the past year, I’ve started to suspect that I may have undiagnosed ADHD so there's a lot going on with my brain. I've always been a very sensitive person, and my mental health is the first thing to suffer if I don't take care of myself.

I started feeling a bit better in December, but then things got crazy again with work and the holidays, so I ended up back in burnout land yet again. Now I think I'm finally starting to truly recover as I enter the slow season at work. We are easing back into renovations but I've been trying to take it as easy on myself as possible to avoid falling back into that dark place, which is why you haven't seen much of me on tumblr. It bums me out, and I often feel frustrated with my own limitations when I see everyone posting and chatting and creating and I want so badly to join in, but I sadly just haven't had it in me for a long time. But I'm still lurking and forever obsessed with InuKag and hope to be recovered enough to participate in fandom stuff more soon!

I've still been writing and drawing here and there whenever I get a bit of inspiration. I actually just finished an Inuyasha redraw that I'll be posting soon! I've also been writing a lot more recently, or at least thinking a lot about my WIPs😂. The main one I've been working on is If It Kills Me, which I am dying to share with you all. But it's a mystery/thriller/actiony type of story with plot points that still need to be figured out, so once those pieces fall into place I will hopefully be able to wrap it up. I'm going to be working on it a lot in February, so we'll see what happens.

I would love to share my other main WIP The First and Last this summer (since it's a summer-based story), but we'll see how things go. The next major renovation project is the kitchen 😵‍💫, so fandom things might have to sadly take a backseat again during that. But I'll still be lurking here and missing you all! ❤️

[landscaping-your-mind]

I thought about this episode a ton when I first listened to it, tried to do a whole little analysis thing but I'm not too good at focusing a lot of the time, especially on things that get me really excited for some reason, like I can do all this great analysis when I'm calm and really passionate about something, but when I'm excited, when I've just listened to this really cool episode of my favourite podcast I can get a little too excited. I can know things, and point them out, but it's hard to articulate my thoughts.

However, this episode really does have a lot, and I spent about an hour talking to my sister about it - and the rest of TMA I had listened to at the time - but mostly this episode.

So, introduction aside, I'm now going to be talking about this episode, how lovely!

@a-mag-a-day

Also, gosh, I'm just a little guy, I'm really trying not to say anything wrong but I'm going to get stuff wrong, and I would appreciate it if we take my potential mistakes in good faith, and try to help me if I get things wrong. I don't want to be attacked on the internet, thanks, it'll do awful things for my anxiety!

Dehuminisation of the Enemy

From the tiny slit in the metal, he can see other soldiers: baby-faced friends and the monstrous, pig-faced enemy, both falling underneath his iron coffin’s advance.

The first moment of the dehuminisation of the enemy in this statement. That's a common tactic in propaganda, to justify wars among other things.

Sometimes, in the distance, Hasanna sees them. The enemy, their skin rough, dark, and scaly; their faces twisted around cruel tusks, viciously sharpened teeth, and a pair of beady red eyes. Their lips are smeared crimson with the blood of children, and their greatest delight is to pluck the eyes of the innocent with their bayonets. To call them monsters is the simple truth. They feel no pain, no remorse, and seek nothing but carnage. Sometimes, in the distance, Hasanna can even see an enemy triage tent, almost identical in appearance to her own. She can only imagine the atrocities that must take place inside. Far in the distance, she sees Alexei look out over the battlefield, and her stomach turns at the detestable wrongness of his face. Alexei in turn looks out from deep in the trench. He catches sight of the enemy, their shrivelled rat-like heads causing the bile to rise in his throat.

I like how this makes it clear that dehuminising the enemy was meant as a commentary, rather than just leaving it unchallenged in the text. I don't doubt the intelligence of the audience, but leaving it with just the perspective of those on one side, using discriminatory and dehuminising language and phrases and things could lead to unfortunate implications best avoided.

I do quite like how it goes from Hasanna viewing Alexei as monstrous when she in turn is viewed by him as monstrous, as well as also acknowledging that both sides would shoot her down just as fast, but calls the guns on her side "the just guns of heroes" and the guns on their side "the hungry guns of the vile enemy."

War, hunh, what is it good for? (absolutely nothing!)

A trench that marks the front line of a war that has no name. It has always been raging, deep in the hearts of the powerful and those that thirst to see bodies piled high in their name.

This war - like many others - is pointless, I like how it's pointed out that it's the war of the rich and powerful, and that it seems to have no purpose, it is just continuing in perpetuity.

Ishaan remembers the recruiters. He was promised valour, and camaraderie, and the chance to be part of something meaningful. He knew that part had been a lie, but then, so was the choice. His alternative was stagnant poverty, and that was really no choice at all.

I have heard that at least the U.S. military gives scholarships to members or former members of the army, and here Ishaan says that the recruiters used his financial situation to get him to join, or he had to because of his financial situation. That's very fucked up, actually, especially considering what I know about student loans in the U.S.

He smiles, pale skin splitting beneath his bristling white moustache, and he begins to shake Alexei by the hand.

I really do like that it's specified that the man is pale.

“Good lad,” he says. “Good lad. Heroes one and all. A noble sacrifice.”

I heard about this guy a little while, Pat Tillman. He was hailed as a war hero, who was killed rescuing his fellow soldiers, when he actually died due to friendly fire, under supposedly suspicious circumstances. And yet his image was used for propaganda. This reminded me of that.

But the man with the flower reaches his hand into the soldier’s chest, and with a single, jolly motion, plucks out Alexei’s heart and places it in his wallet.

I remember this stuck out to me on my first listen, because obviously it did. Taking out Alexei's heart and putting it in his wallet, is quite clearly an analogy for war profiteering. Sacrificing the lives of people - soldiers, civilians - for profit. Their literal hearts in a wallet, you can't get a more obvious analogy than this /lh.

Good Lord, Leo, Can't You Get Away From Your Favourite Analysis For Half A Second?

Now, his body has contorted itself to fit, his fingers clutched around the firing lever; pulling it frantically is the only thing that will reduce the impossible heat even for a moment.

As the heading implies, yes this is about my "becoming an avatar is an analogy for trauma and the cycle of violence," because I will not and cannot shut up about it. I think that the having to harm others to relieve their pain is reminiscent of how anger can be used as a maladaptive coping mechanism - hurting others to feel better.

It may be common or it may be rare but a misconception, but there's that whole "bullies are actually having a bad home life," which personally... I don't have anything to contradict that, and I've met a couple people who sucked who didn't suck anymore, and came back and told me that their life was rough and they took it out on others. Not an excuse, but a reason.

(jon voice) Give Me A God Damn Rambling Section Or I Am Going To Die

ARCHIVIST (Humourless laugh) Oh, they’re real. They were normal people before the- Before me. But now they’re here, meat for the grinder. I just mean there’s no point— talking to them.

Stop it, leave me alone, I hate how his voice sounds, meaning I love it, I signed up for the horror tragedy, I did not get lured in here by the promise of gay people - I mean I knew Jon was ace - I came here for the body horror, I really liked the body horror. It's just he sounds so... not okay, and thus I am not okay.

ARCHIVIST (Shakily) I-I’m sorry, I— There’s just so much. There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I- it’s filling me up; I need to let it out! MARTIN I’m sorry, but tough. Okay, th- that’s not what I’m here for. I can’t be that for you; I, I- I just. Can’t. ARCHIVIST (Quiet) I- I know.

Genuinely, someone tell me why they think jmart is an unhealthy relationship? You know what I was thinking in season 5? I was thinking that they communicate better than a lot of other fictional relationships. Like, mate, they're in the middle of an apocalypse, things aren't going to be sunshine and rainbows.

ARCHIVIST Martin? (louder) Martin? Martin, I hate your tea, and wish you made coffee instead. Alright then.

Firstly, this line sounds more like normal Jonny than the Archivist. Secondly, I think this section is quite adorable. "I am not nor have I ever been adorable", yeah sure. (/s)

Also, recommendations for things similar or that I remembered while writing this thing: Once Upon A Time (In Space) by The Mechanisms, and Welcome To Night Vale - specifically episode 79 - Lost in the Mall.

Also, I'm trying to get my sister who studies international development to listen to at least one episode of Welcome To Night Vale, if anyone knows one that'll interest her? I think I can get her with the satirical political commentary. She also doesn't like horror, so. Please help <3

Anyway, yeah! I have a lot of thoughts on this episode! I love it so much! Please don't be mean to me, internet <3

[ahiddenpath]

Life Update

Life chat beneath the cut. I feel like this one is a bit on the whiney complainy side, but it is where I am now, so I'm keeping it for posterity, lol! But don't read if you're not down for some whine and cheese xD

So I took the last week off from work. I was frustrated, because I didn't go anywhere- it was a staycation. We opted for that mostly because I was going to lose my gd mind if I didn't get some time off. I get 3 weeks off per year, plus a week closure around Christmas "made of" federal holidays that we do not get, so I try to optimize my time off. But... I didn't have the brain space to do anything, and also, as I tried to plan things... Holy damn, everything is so much more expensive than it was even like three years ago.

But now I'm further frustrated because I spent the vast majority of the week just doing damned chores and household projects. Like, I told myself I would stop doing any chores yesterday, but I still spent until 2 PM exercising and doing "a few quick things." The same thing happened today. I'm kind of in, like, a horrible sort of awe of how long shit takes, man. For example, it took my husband and I about 2 hr to take down a broken ceiling fan that was 30 years old and not very user friendly and replace it with a new one. It took me an hour with a hair drier and a scraper to remove like 2.5 cm of hot glue from a doll's head (holding her removable eyes in place) so I could send her out to be painted. And I spent 40-90 min outside for like 8-12 days weeding and doing some basic yard work to prep for a mulch delivery.

I'm trying to be more fit recently. I am, ah. A very unfit human. I think I somehow have not mentioned this in the 12 years of this blog, but... I've had a million surgeries on my hip and spent roughly age 6 months to 2 yrs in a body cast, then until roughly age 4 in physical therapy to learn to move around. I'm clumsy and can just, like, fall over unprompted, I assume because of all that. I don't have the full range of movement in my lower body, so doing physical things can be... Really daunting. I always put exercise and mobility training off.

And of course, it's starting to bite my ass, lmao. I recently learned that humans begin losing muscle mass in their 30s, meaning that weight training is essential. I also learned that using a machine to exercise (like an elliptical) is only good for cardiovascular health. The machine takes on a lot of the... strain?? Work?? Of moving, meaning you aren't working your body in the same way as when you just... Walk. It's meant to help you work out longer, so you can develop your cardiovascular system. (Incidentally, this is why walking and hiking are great exercise).

That's why I took on a lot of the gardening/yard work. I did clear out all of the weeds! And the way my soreness decreased over the days means that I did something good for my body.

But, like. The amount of time caring for your body takes is absolutely gobsmackingly unreal. Holy shit god damn! I've always struggled to keep the balls of work, mental health, creativity, physical health, and social health in the air, not touching on chores and stuff. The physical ball is the one I always put down first.

But I only get this one body, and the American healthcare system is a nightmare. So... Yeah, the priorities need to shift here. My foot has been hurting for a few weeks, now, and it happened last year after Japan, too. It's time to actually go to the doctor for that.

I am sensing more and more that I need to give less to work, too. That's difficult for someone like me to do, because I always feel a deep need to do my best with everything. But... Working this hard just isn't sustainable, and it isn't as if I'm rewarded over someone in the same position who does less.

I haven't had much of an opportunity to rest or do anything creative this week, despite being off. And I'm just as distressed by the fact that um... Just being gone at work from 8:20 AM-5:50 PM every day makes it impossible to do the tasks that built up over the last 3-4 years of being in this home. You know, sometimes people tell me, "But what would you do if you didn't have a job? I'd go crazy!" And I'm like- DUDE. DUDE! I could exercise, walk, work on house projects, and do chores all day every day for like three years and still have stuff to do! That doesn't even touch the personal projects and hobbies I want to work on.

Hopefully, I can figure out some kind of balance that works for me and is healthy. I wish you all the best, my dears <3