#anyway it's such a weird and bizarre phenomenon

[angryjewishcockroach]

#every damn day i think about this#bitches will be named sarah#and discredit the hebrew language as a colonial one (via fuzzytheduck)

it is so so so jarring meeting a gentile named like Rachel who introduces you to her children David and Levi and her husband Noah who also like... goes to church. or just generally doesnt realize how stereotypically jewish their whole family sounds. especially when half the time they hate jews

like imagine a white christian family naming their children fatima and mohammed or something. kinda weird right? youd never see that happen, because it makes no sense for them to name their children names from a culture (arab or muslim or what have you) that they don't belong to, at the very least without facing criticism. but it happens every single day with jewish people and jewish names and jewish everything bc jews arent allowed to have anything to themselves

trying to imagine an american (or even western in general tbh) society where all remnants of stolen judaism are removed is practically impossible because everything down to baby names are jewish and people dont even know it. its just so strange to think of

[bucksboobs]

Poseygste?

I was there Gandalf… 3,000 years ago.

Basically once upon a time there was a lil show called Teen Wolf on MTV and that show had a weirdly popular crack ship called Sterek (Mieczysław “Stiles”Stilinski/Derek Hale) it dominated the fandom at the time as the One True Pairing of the fandom kinda just based on vibes at first but the show did start throwing out teases near the end of season 2. In 2013, they were the runner-up pairing just behind Destiel in the AfterElton.com (now called The Backlot) Slash Madness Tournament, beating out several canon ships at the time.

Basically the fandom culture has gotten to the point where it was kind of assumed if you were a fan of Teen Wolf you were a fan of Sterek and if you weren’t well something was wrong with you (kind of like 911 and Buddie pre-s7). So, naturally, as MTV was pretty plugged into fandom culture at the time, they would often approve Sterek related questions for interviews. This got to the point were actors that had nothing to do with the ship were being asked about this ship that had next to no canon material outside mostly violent interactions (remember this is post season 2 pre season 3 timeframe) where for example Derek, a 20 something with supernatural powers, smashed Stiles, a 16 year old with no powers, head into a steering wheel. Anyway the main character of Teen Wolf, believe it or not, is neither of these two but in fact one Scott McCall played by Tyler Garcia Posey. So one can imagine Posey’s understandable frustration with being asked multiple times about a ship that was manufactured by fandom and almost completely irrelevant to the actual show.

Cut to the pre-promotion for season 3 and one of the first and only questions an interviewer asks Posey, the star of the show, is about Sterek. Not about the season ahead, not about Scott’s character arc this season, about a fanon ship his character is not even a part of. He answers “Sterek is this weird, bizarre twisted phenomenon and I think anyone who watches the show solely for that is not watching for the right reasons.” The fandom got really really mad because 1) he shat on the most popular ship of the fandom and 2) he did so with some words that some people interpreted as homophobic (personally I disagreed at the time and disagree to this day that he meant it homophobically— in fact he would later come out as bi/pan)

This catalyzed a divide in fandom as Stereks relentlessly attack Posey and his character in ways that weren’t always justified and other people, later dubbed The Scott McCall Defense Squad defended Posey’s words as being about Sterek as a phenomenon not as a ship, in which case he was right that Sterek was kind of weird in that it sprang up as the main ship when Scott and Stiles had a pretty codependent relationship, and Danny Mahealani was canonically gay and the show had twice teased the idea of Scott and Danny as a couple by this point (funnily enough both times by their lacrosse coach). The whole situation was looked back at as “Poseygate” and was a formative moment in shaping Teen Wolf fandom.

TL;DR: Poseygate was when Tyler Posey insulted Sterek, a popular ship in his show.

[3liza]

The poster is the worst advertising for what the film actually turns out to be. You think you're getting into another screwball millennial cringefest and it's actually a deep-blue chiaroscuro of neuroses. I really thought I would not be surprised by the depths of male anxiety and weirdness going into a movie about sperm donation, because the topic itself is so trammeled at this point and so obvious that you assume you already know everything such a documentary could teach you, but I got my tits blown clean off.

No one does anything BAD, it's not that kind of film, it's simply a silent and eerie observation of people acting completely independently to either provide or acquire human semen. Necessarily, the receivers in this setup are all buying the same product for the same purpose: they want to conceive a baby and don't have access to the missing gamete for some reason and don't have the extortionate amount of money required to go the official route through a sperm bank. The providers are all doing it for completely different reasons, and all of the reasons besides "making a bit of extra cash" are in fact weird, no matter how stubbornly some of the reviewers here insist the motives of the donors are simply "to help people out :)". Sperm is just the kind of thing you really don't want to get from a stranger unless money is exchanging hands, so by this property the male subjects in the film become perfect documentary protagonists: profoundly damaged, bizarre, or obsessive in ways that stand up to steady, direct observation.

I'm not judging anyone here, by the way. I guess if you have a lot of money to throw around you probably would waste it on genetically profiling strangers in a lookbook in a nice office in order to breed your ubermensch or whatever. I'm being nasty, there are lots of good reasons to want to anonymize, institutionalize and vet sperm donors, it's just that the idea is ludicrous on its face because this is a substance people never ever stop trying to push on you for free, or pay you money to take off their hands. Epigenetics and environmental factors being what they are, I question the utility of "genetic testing" beyond a certain point anyway. No one is being exploited or misled. The people who want babies can conceive and it doesn't really matter in the big picture whether the donors are doing it for "the right reasons" or not.

There are some more esoteric ethical considerations here that aren't addressed at all, which is probably for the best in consideration for the pacing of the film, but I could have used at least one interview with a genetics expert who winced at hearing some of these donors have 100+ sperm babies because of the very real possibility of creating future half-sibling incest crises unawares, a problem that real sperm banks and actual legislation have to grapple with. You get one good-looking Norwegian brain surgeon on the books at a sperm bank and you get a line out the door of people with too much money who know what being 6' tall and blue-eyed and symmetrical is worth down to fractional shares and have already put a down payment on the local private montessouri pre-K prep program. Genetic Sexual Attraction or GSA for short is a documented (and controversial) phenomenon that causes a lot of high-profile scandals when long-lost siblings or birth parents are reunited with a child who was the subject of a closed adoption, fall in love with them, and reenact various historical and mythological tragedies. That thing where you tend to find your blood relatives sexually repulsive or at least uninteresting is a way that social animals avoid getting into failure spirals of incest and birth defects, but humans have a tendency to be attracted to people who resemble themselves physically and personality-wise, so meeting a sibling or parent you didn't grow up with can sometimes short-circuit the incest-avoidance failsafes and create instantaneous, passionate obsession. That's what people who are involved in cases of GSA report, anyway. Half-sibling pairings aren't quite as bad in terms of the mutation issues, but it is definitely not good for the health of the resulting offspring or the mental health of the related parents. These lone gunmen fathering dozens of children in the same school district are potentially creating serious problems down the line. 

The cinematography is breathtaking. It's truly a phenomenal film from any angle.

My mother is a family lawyer by the way, if you ever find yourself in this situation (for example you are someone's friend and they ask you to be a donor) you need to make sure you have an IRON CLAD contract checked by an actual lawyer and probably notarized that you are absolved of all parental rights and obligations irreversibly, or you WILL eventually find yourself in the position one donor did at the end of the film: suddenly being the sole custodian of a little girl named "Italeigh". Family law is not like any other field of law in the USA, the judges in family court care about one thing only and that's Who Is Gonna Pay for This Damn Kid. Which is correct, and I'm not saying family court is always fair or that the judges make the right decisions all the time, but a proper family court judge will walk to Hell to bring the devil in for a wage garnishment and you need to be aware of that. Legally you are someone's dad until another dad legally enters the picture and supplants you (for example a stepfather officially adopting a child) or you have irrefutable paperwork saying you're excused. By the way, legal status pre-empts biological status. The guy who is married to the person who gives birth is legally on the hook for child support and caretaking of any child produced during the union unless there's a paternity suit and a bunch of rigamarole. This may appear unfair to the casual observer but family law is designed to prioritize the survival and wellbeing of the child above the rights of the parents and potential parents. So a freelance sperm donor without REALLY good paperwork is on the hook, absolutely.

[hairtusk]

poor things becoming a huge cultural phenomenon (at least in my online circles) is so bizarre to me because I have such a weird relationship with alasdair gray, the author of the novel.

when i was 17, a random lad turned up at our sixth form with a thick accent and no social skills. he was from the outer hebrides, had somehow landed in our small english town, and had nowhere to live. he integrated quickly into our social group despite being very odd, and a very rich friend of ours with a huge house and lots of spare rooms took him in and housed him. we had lots of parties at this house because his parents were never there, and for a while, our whole friend group practically lived there.

over the course of 6 months, he: 1. woke everyone up because he was firing a bow and arrow at a mary berry cookbook in the back garden, while stark naked. 2. made a *huge* pot of oatmeal that he tried to make everyone eat a parties (and got annoyed if we said no). 3. punched a hole through a mahogany wardrobe. 4. tried so hard to look like one of our other friends that he started stealing his clothes while he showered, and then denied he was doing it.

anyway: one night, he told us he was leaving, and couldn't take any of his possessions with him. he wouldn't tell us where he was going, and tried split all of his worldly possessions between us. despite protestations, i ended up with a huge stack of his books; most of them were alasdair gray novels. over the course of accepting the books, he informed me they belonged to his mother; who, it turns out, was an underage psychiatric patient when she conceived him - and his father was her married psychiatrist. these books contain all of her annotations, that i still feel very weird about owning, all these years later.

he left that summer, and we haven't heard from him since. wherever you are in the world, you mad bastard - thanks for introducing me to alasdair gray.

[thepersonperson]

I think JJK going on break after the last chapter is a bit cruel. This is nerve-wracking. We still have 3 chapters left and so many things can happen there. 268 feels too good to be true and the title is weird.

I'm not sure what is the right translation and I don't have access to raws. Right now, it's 268 title is "Finale" or "Conclusion" but I heard from someone that it can be also be read as "Curtains".

If it can be read as "Curtains", then it could be a reference to "final curtains". The problem is JJK has its own version of "Curtains", right? Idk what to think.

Gosh I wish it was “Curtains”. The chapter title is 決着 (Kecchaku) which means settlement/conclusion/end.

For example, at the end of an extremely brutal fight in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Jolyne screams “Kechakuuuuuuu!” (決着ゥゥーーーッ!!) (It's actually a small Jojo meme in the JP fandom.) This got translated as "Game set!"

I love the localization they used for this since that entire battle was like struggling in arcade mode for a fighting game.

Anyways, in the context of JJK, especially since this has been a literal Sukuna Gauntlet and the previous chapter had the “Ringing the bell on a long fight.” editor’s comment, I don’t think there’s an ambiguous way to read Kecchaku. The Curtain/Veil kanji in JJK is 帳 (Tobari). (Though if there’s some fancy wordplay I’m missing please let me know.)

However…I would kneel before Gege if this was an elaborate trick by Sukuna—him giving Yuji delusions of a happy ending only to yank it away last second. It’s very hard to make characters feel familiar but slightly off on purpose for misdirection. That kind of tonal control is something I praise Umineko for. (Dungeon Meshi does it excellently for the shapeshifter scene.)

But that is pure copium I think. Sometimes otherwise good media just fumbles the endings. (Not an example of good media, but I was around for the Secret BBC Sherlock Season 4 Ending meltdown so I’m not too hopeful about a turnaround.) I personally blame the JP work culture/crunch since a lot of modern mangas have rushed endings due to burnout/unfair contracts.

I think the most heartbreaking examples of this phenomenon for me are The Owl House and Moral Orel. Those shows still stick the landing imo, but the creators are very open about how studio interference forced them to condense everything. You can feel that suffocation in the final episodes. Everything is just slightly off and you know it would be better if the creators were allowed their breathing room.

[localsharkcryptid]

I never watched THOD (my bad), how easy is it to match with a dragon and how do riders deal with them ? Are they "glorified pets" (can't communicate verbally with humans, of course emotionnally connected and can "understand" humans just not talk), friends (can talk to their riders), dangerous and murderous "friend" that consider riders like their own pets (dragons have their own intelligence and see humans as entertaining creatures)... ?

How does DRAU's dragon and humans relations operate ? To be clearer I loved Eragon and was wondering if it was close to that or if it was totally different kind of deal

Alrighty finally getting around to answering this!

Ironically enough despite being obsessed with dragons for most of my life I actually never got around to reading Eragon so I have a very vague idea on how it's dragons function - and don't feel bad for not watching HOTD! I understand fully that it is not for everyone, I just happened to get really invested thus it became my primary inspiration - alongside the Ice & Fire Minecraft mod which is also based on GoT at least somewhat! (I would always recommend looking up the dragon scenes from HOTD though, mainly just for the amazing CGI work and neat designs both of the dragons and their sounds!)

Anyways to answer the actual questions here!

-

How easy is it to match with a dragon and how do riders deal with them?

Alright so! Admittedly the matching system is, vague, though this is a personal writing choice in all honesty - seeing as in universe no one is entirely sure how it works, dragons are creatures with little concrete information known about them.

What is known is that it is the dragon that makes the final decision, the dragon chooses its rider (hatching an egg is the exception and it's more so, an "if the egg hatches" in that case) and additionally that the bond is sealed in blood.

If a dragon rejects a rider it will kill or at the very least maim the unfortunate individual unless they manage to get away first (dragons generally won't pursue anything once it's out of their roost)- this is a very well known fact and is half the reason why Dream doesn't have a dragon yet when the plot begins, as XD doesn't want to lose his only remaining family to something as trivial as trying to claim a dragon. Which admittedly, XD got off easy in life cause his dragon found him so there's some notable disconnect between him and Dream on this matter. Anyways.

Those who successfully claim a dragon don't get out unscathed either, there is some weird blood magic going on when it comes to dragon bonds - so to establish the bond properly a rider will always gain some sort of injury that draws blood when they claim a dragon. For instance with hatchlings, they will simply just bite whoever hatched the egg - for larger dragons it can be anything from a bite to some other injury, regardless it won't be lethal and their breath will not be involved. Additionally there won't be any pain either, it's a bizarre supernatural phenomenon but it's something all dragon riders experience as it is the establishing link for the sort-of-psychic connection that occurs between dragons and their riders.

All riders have some sort of defining scar as a consequence to this injury as well! There's also a thought that the deeper the scar, the stronger the bond between a dragon and their rider - which does have some truth behind it.

(Admittedly this got a littleeee off topic but I've really wanted to talk about dragon bonds so I hope you don't mind! ^^)

As for how riders deal with them, for the most part a dragon can be left to its own devices and be fine, they'll hunt and care for themselves unless given other options. Think of them as this weird combination of falconry birds, horses and cats. They thrive best with human care but are fine if left alone for the most part with minimal interactions.

In the case of Orboros's dragon riders, they have the dragon keep - which is an extensive cave network/building dedicated to housing their dragons, the dragons themselves are tended to there and the riders themselves spend plenty of free time with them! The only notable exception being 'The Warden' (Sam's dragon) who has a roost on an offshore island due to her sheer size.

Dragons are 'trained' in a way to respond to often quick and simple commands (I really want to have these commands in another language but I'm still not entirely sure how to execute that idea) just to make things easier since there are dragon keepers who look after the beasts a fair amount of the time. Once bonded most dragons tend to be more tolerant to humans, especially if said humans are the ones who bring them food. They are after all very intelligent.

Are the dragons 'Glorified Pets, Friends or A Dangerous/Murderous Friend that considers the humans their pets?

Okay so by this criteria they fall into the 'glorified pets' category due to the inability to speak! Again my inspirations do take from a series that goes the very intelligent magical animal route so, yeah, unfortunately no talking dragons.

How do dragon and human relationships operate?

I think I inadvertently answered some of this in my rambles above but regardless!

Wild Dragons - Generally indifferent to people, smallfolk don't care for them for obvious reasons since killing a dragon is no easy task let alone driving one from it's roost if it's set up shop just a few miles away from your village. They're just very dangerous and often problematic wild animals.

Claimed Dragons - A dragon's relationship with its rider varies between individuals, some bonds are closer than others. They become more tolerant of people yet tend to often reflect their rider's opinions (conscious or subconscious) towards certain individuals (ie becoming bristly and aggressive towards an enemy/rival, more tolerant and maybe even affectionate towards a love interest) as well as following their own instincts and intuition about new individuals. The best example I have for that last bit is a very particular scene I have in mind, namely with Nightmare being particularly protective and reactive thanks to the arrival of Schlatt & Quackity for some event being held in Orboros's main city/the castle.

All in all they're very animalistic so the relations with people often reflect that in their operation, this includes a bunch of misconceptions as well, since who can truly know the heart of a dragon?

---

Also sorry about the wait! I had some stuff come up this past week and in general wanted to make sure the questions were answered as thoroughly as possible!

[dirbenaffleck]

Hey - I love your blog and have been meaning to send you an ask for a while! Zack's been one of my favorite directors for a long time (I still need to see Rebel Moon!) and it's so bizarre, if anything else, how he's become this /one guy/ that people just love to smear and ridicule? I looked up the Rebel Moon tag on here today to see some cool shots to reblog later and I saw like ten posts shitting on the movie. Granted, I haven't seen it yet, but I almost want to like, conduct a sociology study on why people get so angry about his work and him as a guy?

He's a filmmaker! He loves movies. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Works with and casts a ton of women and people of color. Is excited about the art and science of making movies. And yet there's this huge anti-Zack Snyder wave, still. It's such a weird phenomenon. I honestly thought people were just pissed about him (unjustifiably, anyway) about Batman v Superman (a movie I still adore), but who knows. Great blog, in any case, and sorry for the quasi-rant. 😂😅

Genuinely, a baffling experience. Because like I think people who dislike him are just really loud and people who enjoy him have proven to be expansive and multicultural just from my very brief look at how diverse The Snydercut movement was at its peak. And I don't know, for me personally, I always blame it on America. Like I know that's such a simplistic statement but I do. I think its just this very bizarre experience for me because here, the Philippines, I've seen people dislike his movies but that's it. That is the extent of it. I've had my family and friends enjoy his movies and I've had discussions with people who don't enjoy it here and thats it. The online almost arrogant vitriol that comes with "hating him and his movies" is just something I've seen to be very loud from mostly americans? Like again, I can't tell how accurate this is cos its not like its something we can peer study although I would love to see people try. But yeah definitely!!! It's kind of crazy because I've loved all his movies for years and the first movie I watched of his was 300 when it came out! So it's just been a really fun ride for me to go through movie to movie having a blast. Because the thing for me with Zack is if you jump in the ride for him it's a hell of a ride! So that's mostly my experience with it. AND SERIOUSLY I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MOVIES/HIS MOVIES so this was not weird at all! Also yes I've been enjoyign your blog too and its not weird for me to say it out loud now. Hahaha.

[eastgaysian]

hi I'm a casual gomens show enjoyer and pro-sharing the kiss image which was shared on an official show promo account lmao. it's so funny for people to be like "don't share it!! Neil is mad!!! he's sooo upset people worked so hard on this show how dare you share a gay baiting promo image the promo team shared themselves!!" like even if you're Neil and mad for any valid reason about this being public now (which. there's no reason that isn't a Bad Look for him to be mad about this anyway lmao) you should just be having beef with your marketing team? like what happened to the whole once you post something on the internet it's immortal. mr gaiman learn some basic internet safety. don't post hole don't post gaybaiting kiss if you don't want it to haunt you forever. take the L and stop being weird to your fans about a still from the show that Shouldn't Be A Problem unless the context for it in the show is shitty. this whole situation is SO funny. I saw someone on twitter posting "oh I saw Neil say he's furious about this and I feel so bad for sharing it :(" like. good gd you aren't his marketing team this is in all possible ways not even your business

it's such a fascinating and funny phenomenon to me because it could only happen with good omens and amanda palmer's ex-husband. i don't know how much creative control neil gaiman has over amazon's good omens adaptation, and it's entirely probable he doesn't have input on the marketing, but getting so wildly butthurt about it to demand fans don't share or discuss the two frames posted in promotional material by an official account is embarrassing on so many levels. they used material from the show to promote it and it generated interest? oh my god what a tragedy

the fact that people are genuinely defensive about it/him is also morbidly fascinating. it's not just that people have a bizarre parasocial attachment to neil gaiman, it's that neil gaiman has intentionally cultivated this bizarre parasocial attachment by the way he uses social media and interacts with fans as if he is their friend. he is not your friend, he is an author continuing to profit off of the work you're obsessed with because he dangled Men Kissing above your head, who gives a fuck about how he feels. he's been demanding brownie points for 'groundbreaking queer representation' or whatever for years by daring to have two men sorry, non-human nonbinary creatures who are never acknowledged or meaningfully treated as such in the text, be friends sorry, queerplatonic partners or whatever the fuck, instead of filthy homosexual degenerates who fuck raw. anyway no matter what he comes out of this situation looking like a hypocrite and i think it's fucking hilarious

[crazyskirtlady]

It was after the total eclipse

Everyone around the world excited to watch, to see the spectacular cosmic beauty, a rare sight.

After the laughter and pictures and live recordings had dwindled.

After the excitement faded to work a day mundanity...

The dreams started

A few people talked about them and were dismissed.

Conspiracy nuts

New age wackiness

Just those Weird people who believed themselves to be of some super natural or psychic skills.

But then it was the people who didn't engage with any of that, just your average nobody, stressed from work and bills and hardly getting enough sleep anyway.

The dreams were all remarkably similar when described:

Flashes of a world too small to be seen with our naked eye, familiar and yet so alien, right beneath our skin. Something microscopic, chaotic and yet mechanical in its perfect functioning. Confusing at first, blurry even and then the images grew sharper and with them understanding. Sudden and unforgettable knowledge imprinted deep into the memories or maybe... dredged forth?

It seemed like every single person on earth was having the same dreams, everyone united in this simple yet bizarre phenomenon.

People who struggled with sleep issues even reported having the same perceptions, shorter perhaps and definitely less frequently than others, but the visuals were identical. The memories that echoed even upon waking were all concluded to be the same as well.

Those same tin foil and tree hugging types ranted about alien transmissions or experimental government frequencies. The average person rolled their eyes, though baffled by their shared experiences with such lunatics. No sane explanation could arise for what was happening. Just shrug it away.

Other people flew off the rails entirely, claiming the dream "instructions" cured their cancers or chronic diseases...

It was now a month after the total solar eclipse, the world kept struggling along with the same day to day toil and troubles despite what was being dubbed as some kind of quiet mass hysteria dream state? Some innocuous piece of general information reported that hospitals were seeing decreased numbers of people being admitted for all causes.

Another month passed and people were bored of the dream talk now. Yeah we all have the same dreams, yeah it's the only dreams anyone even has anymore, so what?

Death rate of all causes was falling?

Now 3 months into DreamGate

(as it was being called)

Doctors of all types and specialties talking about a massive drop in patient attendance and appointments. Psychologists and therapists report the opposite...

[rustbeltjessie]

Rust Belt Jessie’s NaPoWriMo 2023 Prompts: #1

New Seasons

I recently read an article about how the seasons are shifting due to climate change. Some seasons last longer, others are now shorter; therefore they don’t start or end when we expect them to, based on the calendar and the solstices and equinoxes. I’ve noticed this for years, and having it confirmed is both reassuring (I’m not imagining it!) and disturbing (for obvious reasons). That’s one way you could approach this prompt: what are the new, longer summers like? The winters that start later and are more erratic, but still last too far into the spring months? Get as dark and apocalyptic as you like. (Think of fire season on the west coast of the U.S. This shouldn’t exist, and is every bit as terrifying as it sounds.) Or sad, nostalgic—what do you miss about the way the seasons used to be? Or get weird and surrealistic—after all, living through these times is often weird and surreal. (I mean, it’s bizarre when it’s April and one day there’s a blizzard and the next day it’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit.) Or get hopeful, even utopic—what beautiful possibilities could arise from these new/changed seasons? Or, of course, you could combine any or all of those moods and modes.

Another way you can approach this prompt, which has less to do with climate change, is to think about micro-seasons, which exist in between—or within—other seasons; or, what seasons are like in a micro-climate as opposed to the larger climates which surround it.

Here in the Upper Midwest, where I’ve spent 43.90243902439025% of my life (I did the math), we’ve long had a micro-season people call “fool’s spring.” It’s that time in late February/early March, when it gets into the upper 40s or low 50s (I know that doesn’t sound that warm, but when you’ve spent months at freezing or below, it’s fucking warm, okay?), and we all go crazy and wear light jackets instead of down parkas and we sit out on our porches drinkin’ beers and we’re like heck yah, it’s spring! And we know it won’t last, but we always hope it will, and sure enough, our springdreams are blasted away by another blizzard and then a plummet into the teens.

Or maybe you live in a micro-climate. When I lived in the Bay Area, I remember summer being so weird in Frisco. (I know San Franciscans hate when people call it that. I’m taking a bit of poetic license and doing it anyway.) I lived in Oakland, and it would be hella hot and dry there, and then I’d take BART over into the West Bay—and it would be cold and damp as shit in Frisco. There’s actually a similar phenomenon where I live now; the tourism slogan for Racine used to be cooler on the lake. In the spring and summer, it can be anywhere from 5-20 degrees warmer inland than it is near Lake Michigan.

Or take Kurt Vonnegut’s assertion that in the northern parts of the United States, there are six seasons rather than four: Winter, Unlocking, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Locking.

Or, you know, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson: “Lousy Smarch weather.”

Whichever approach(es) you choose for this prompt, consider naming your new season(s), a la “Unlocking” or “Smarch” (but with your own twist, and in your own words, of course.)

Recommended reading:

Seasonality and Climate Change (via the EPA—or just web search “shifting seasons climate change;” there are a lot of results)

My therapist called it “climate despair” (by KB Brookins)

10 Poems About Climate Change to Read Right Now

Seasonal Poems

[engbergsinfinland]

Hello everyone and happy Saturday!

We had a really nice Saturday. It started with a too-early wake-up (for a weekend, in my opinion), at 7:00, so the kids could get to their ice skating training at 8:15. It was the "far away" rink today (which is actually two rinks, totally underground -- like, a bunker!). But, we got there with plenty of time and they only had a 1-hour session today and it went well.

On the way home, we stopped at the skating shop (also a ballet and gymnastics shop, called Pirouetti) to put in an order for one of the team's skating jackets. I found another one through the WhatsApp group for their skating club; someone was selling one that her child had grown out of.

Once we got home, we had about an hour before we needed to be at a classmate's house, actually two classmates' house: siblings. One is a classmate of Rowan's (Joakim, pronounced sort of like "Yokam") and one who is a classmate of Cece's (Hertta). The kids had been invited the kids over for a hobby-horse race. It turned out that a lot of kids in school have come down with beginning-of-the-school-year cold, so it was just our kids and these two siblings. Eric and I went too, and ended up visiting with the parents the whole time; they were so gracious and wonderful and encouraged us to stay, too. We ended up being there for 4 hours! The parents have lived in the US, in North Carolina, and in China. They returned about 2 years ago. Anyway, the kids did do some hobby-horse jumping in their backyard and then they did other playing in the house -- and candy eating. It seems to be an international phenomenon ;)

After we were at their house, we went to Ikea like to pick up a couple of things: a pan lid, and then (like at Costco, where you just can't seem to leave without many more things than you planned to get) a miscelanous assortment of other items (including a set of four metal sporks for 59 Euro cents).

For, dinner I fed the kids some homemade refried beans and rice, now that I have procured pinto beans from the Mexican grocery in Helsinki! Hallelujah! I also got dried hominy and dried red chiles. There is nary a pinto bean in all of the "Tex Mex" sections of the super-abundant grocery stores in our town or other towns! I have a lot to learn about their impression of what "Tex Mex" cuisine is.

Eric and I went on a walk while with Cece while Rowan read at home. He is trying to finish the Oz series. He's on the last book that we have here, but when Alia comes in about 11 days, she's going to bring the rest of the books, which I'm going to give him for his birthday on September 9th.

There are a few things that Eric and I wanted to be sure we mentioned in this week's post. First, last night we happened upon a television show called Naked Attraction Suomi ("Suomi" is how Finnish people say "Finland," in their language). Apparently, there are other versions in Sweden and Norway. This is the most bizarre television show I've ever seen. It is a dating show with four people standing in obscured boxes where you can see them from the hips down -- and they have no clothes on! The primary contestant and the host are standing facing them, analyzing the naked bodies that they see before them.

The first episode we watched was all in Finnish and had no English subtitles. Eric said, "this is a very weird way to learn Finnish." Haha! Anyway, the bottom line of this show is that, incrementally, the other parts of these naked contestant-bodies are revealed and the main contestant then decides on one person to go on a date with. It is such a weird way to arrange a dating show and I am just not sure whether this would be something that would be viable in the American television marketplace. I can tell you that my inherited Irish Catholic prudishness was very much scandalized by such a television show!

Another thing we wanted to note was that while I was in Helsinki and the kids and Eric were back here, the kids finally got their bikes! They have been thrilled to have them.

As I noted in my last post, I was in Helsinki without the kids and Eric from Tuesday night through Thursday night. The rest of the Fulbright orientation was as exhausting as the first few days, but it was very fulfilling and I am so lucky to have been able to glean all the information from the guest speakers and the Fulbright Finland Foundation staff. We also had many university representatives, government officials, and former Fulbrighters speak to us. The settings for these talks were universities (Hanken School of Business and Aalto University), a very fancy law office (White & Case) that made me say, "wow, we are definite not in a university conference room anymore!," and the national art gallery -- plus other spots. We also had a reception at the US Ambassador's house! It was such an honor to be there, but also exhausting. My face literally hurt after so much looking interested and half-smiling and I was emotionally/mentally taxed afterwards too.

After the orientation wrapped up at Aalto University on Thursday, I went with another Fulbrighter (another Julie! She is at Oulo University this year) to the Mexican grocery, with a few graduate students along for the adventure, and then we also popped into Hakaneimen Market Hall and I went into the Rosebud Bookstore. I have got to get back to Helsinki soon; there are so many places I was hoping to get to this last week while there, but there was absolutely no time.

I will write again on Tuesday -- the day before my teaching starts! I have so much to do before then. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

[mcbitchtits]

i'm always interested by "nightmares" for various reasons but in particular the way there seem to be communally recognized common nightmares. like is it just some lizard brain thing doing its little chemistry? is it more of a social phenomenon e.g. like when people decide they hate the word "moist"? (youretackyandihateyou.gif but i won't judge about the nightmares.)

also because i don't really get them. i think i have had dreams where i'm not wearing pants or whatever, but it didn't really matter. i have never had a late for school/test and you didn't study dream, although at least two or three times i have had "time to march a show and you don't know your dots". which is functionally the same niche i'm sure, but with a greater risk of getting run over by a large piece of metal. i have only ever once had a dream where my teeth had alarming dental damage, and they didn't fall out, it was that one like got a cavity and disintegrated. (gross!)

anyway i had a weird as fuck dream last night that probably qualifies as a nightmare but the whole time (you know. like ten seconds) i was just like "huh. weird."

cut for body horror though

i dreamed, after all the normal whatever dream with, presumably, plot, and things happening, that all my skin "lost its elastin" and then proceeded to slough downwards like a wet towel on a closet hanger. bizarre!

[ru5t]

Curiosity and the Cat

  Treading lightly, Tech followed the invisible edge of her discovered dead zone. One step to the left, her signal was free and clear to do as it did, connect her to that wide web of voice and information. A step to the right, nothing got in, nothing went out. You could try all day, and no one would ever hear you speak- or even know you were there. By far the most interesting thing was that there, where Tech was standing, it flipped between the two at irregular intervals with almost no in between. Tech planted her feet and wobbled in place. The resulting dance of her measured signal --sky high and flat nothing back and forth-- made her giggle.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“You’re a weird little line, aren’t you?” she asked aloud.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤFor what had to be the hundredth time, she scanned her surroundings and the horizon. There were a few ridges to something that could be called her right, off in the distance the way that the ridges dotted through the flats always seemed to be, but everything else was, relatively speaking, flat and empty as it should be. Nothing but hard packed earth that supposedly used to lie at the floor of an ocean. There were no buildings to speak of, no structures built into the air that could, by any stretch of the imagination, cause this kind of interference. She had passed a sign or two on her way in, but they were only the usual stuff, or dummy signs meant to ward away the weak willed. The tracks, faint as they were, had told Tech that. There was some reason someone had for passing over this line directly into the thick of the big fat nothing.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤSo why cut yourself off?

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤWell, that was the question she hadn’t answered yet. She broke from her walk along the edge of the zone to collect her reading. It told her how many steps she’d taken, when she had lost connectability, what line it followed: in short, a guide to the section of it she had spent the last few minutes weaving in and out of. That was where her map, which was spread out across the hood of Jack’s truck -which had been borrowed (legitimately!) for her exploration- came into play. She marked her line in pencil, making note of the slight turn. It was a listing, more than anything else, a listing to the right. In. After a moment of thinking and being briefly distracted by one of the locations someone else had marked on the map, Tech made a speculative leap: she pulled her line out into a rough circle.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“What if,” she asked her cat, who was acting as a wind-weight for her map as he napped on top of the truck’s hood, “it’s not natural? Hmm? Could be a generator right at the center; makes a bubble. I don’t know what good it would do, though. They draw attention and- y’know, what’s a dead zone good for except stranding somebody, anyway?” The cat had no answer, only the noncommittal flick of a tail that may not have even been related to her speaking to him. Tech stowed the pencil behind her ear and reached across the hood to pinch her cat’s toe beans. “You’re a horrible lazy thing, y'know it?” He remained unperturbed, not even bothering to escape. Tech joined him on the hood of the truck to pose her theories and questions to the unrestricted airwaves.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“So,” she kicked off, taking it for granted anyone tuning in would know her voice well enough, “If you were to drive out and find, oh yknow, a big spot where anything that sends a wireless transmission doesn’t work, what’s your go-to on that? Desert phenomenon, or somebody being stupid about hiding?” Her question had barely begun to settle when the white noise warbled, and a voice broke through.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“A what?” Midnight's typical clipped words. Clear and sharp, like he was closer than usual.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Hmm,” Tech hummed and, though he couldn't see it, flapped her hand in the general direction of the bubble of bizarre, “dead zone. I know they’re common 'round some of the old places right? old tech or somethin' that just breaks stuff up, but there’s… nothing out here. So I’m tryin' to figure out if someone camping out here turned something on and can’t figure out how to turn it off, or if the desert’s just getting weirder by the day.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Where.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ “Hm..?” Tech blinked lightly at his tone. “Oh, um. Around here.” She fussed with her transmitter a bit, and pulled the coordinates to send across. “There’s those ridges, you know, they’re off over there. Not close enough to be doing anything, I don’t think? Not at this range, anyway. .. Although it does sort of… turn in, in that direction a bit? Not really a turn but… I don’t know. It’s all sort of… wibbly. I would say ‘weird weather’ but. I mean. It’s blue as fuck out here. Hot as, too.” She twisted around, shading her eyes against the glare from the windshield to peer into the cab of the truck. “Did I.. bring that umbrella? Or was I out of room? Shade would be nice.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“.. You’re—” Midnight cut off. Tech turned back toward her radio, brow scrunching together. It hadn't dropped out, had it? But then came the ruffling shuffling of moving-around on the other end of the line. “Don’t go any further in— You should- go–”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  She huffed sharply at him. “Well obviously I’m not gon– I’m not that dumb, thank you very much.  All I’ve got is the radio, could walk into a rattlesnake den and nobody’d ever know, not with that .. thing up like that.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  “That— Tech, I mean it, you should leave.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  “I will. In a bit.I have this- okay well the short version is ‘tool’ even though that’s less fun to say, but it’s been running basically since I got here and if I calibrated it right it should be able t'tell me whether or not the line -y’know like, the point where the interference is so strong signals stop sending?- has been movin'g' at all, line in or out or anything, and if it stays absolute, or if there are any breaks, like if it’s on unstable power or.. I guess it could be natural. Somehow. …Maybe.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  He did not answer her again. Tech pouted at the silence for a long minute, then stuck her tongue out at the speaker of her transmitter. That would show him. She pushed it aside and sprawled out on the hood of the truck, letting the warmth of the metal melt her bones.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤShe spent awhile that way, kicking her feet and postulating a few more scenarios to her cat: secret societies and magnetic fields and vast alien conspiracies. They weren’t the least bit plausible, but she had fun letting the concepts run on whatever train they pleased. She was a thousand miles down one of these when the distant growl of an engine carried ahead of the vehicle it powered. Tech sat up.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤShe half expected it to be Jack, for some reason. Why he would be gunning across the desert on a chomp-chewing motorcycle was a mystery almost less believable than her runaway alien-theory train. It took her a few moments of squinting, her hand hovering over her transmitter in case she decided to call someone about this, before she put together what she was looking at.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤOh boy.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤWhat had she done to warrant actually summoning Midnight driving faster than a dirt devil? Or was he on the same curiosity train? One way to find out.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech jumped down. She stretched, long and lazy, before settling in to put another little note on her map. ‘Ask Midnight about aliens. Face = priceless’. The engine cut off sharply as Midnight pulled up.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Desert’s full’a oddities,” Tech opened. Midnight didn’t give her the chance to elaborate- he immediately began collecting everything that she’d allowed to spread out on the hood as the morning had gone on. Piece by piece, he fed it into the truck through the open window. “Hey, Midnight?!” her protest was more baffled than irritated. Nevertheless, it was a decidedly displeased exclamation. “Wait that’s- I’m not- Stop!!” She pulled one of her smaller, jury-rigged machines from his hand, immediately checking it over. That was what got him to turn around and face her, the half-folded map still in his other hand. “It’s fragile.” She informed him with the indignant defensiveness of an investigator just scraping by on their own ingenuity. He squared up to her with a tense line pulling at the corners of his mouth; he wasn’t taking this lightly.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“You need to leave. Put all this in the truck and get out of here.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech shook her head, confused. “Wha- why? I just wanted t'see what-”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“There’s nothing out here worth investigating,” he interrupted brusquely.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech’s brow dipped into a frown. Nothing worth, not just ‘nothing’. “Whaddyou mean? How do you know?”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤMidnight seemed… unsettled? Tech wasn’t sure. He stalled for an answer by folding Tech’s map the rest of the way down, into a pocket-sized square.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“I will explain everything to you if you would just,” he turned half away, aiming a gesture meant to mean her at the truck’s cab, “get in the truck. I’ll-”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech opened her mouth to take her own turn at interrupting when she was accosted by a bizarre sensation, like someone had slipped up behind her and, without even a whistle of air as indication, cracked a two-by-four across her shoulder blades, forcing the air from her lungs but somehow without the pain. Just force. Tech's little machine dropped out of her hands. She pitched forward, arms outstretched. Midnight, with a grunt of surprise, caught her by the biceps. She closed her fingers over his dusty sleeves.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Tech, what- ?”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech shook her head. I don’t know? She took a breath. Her chest felt… shaken. Buzzing. Numb? A wave of heat started in the center of her chest and rolled out from there. She blinked at the scarlet blossom forming in the sand at her boots. One petal at a time… She straightened: Midnight’s expression crumpled. The pain that followed her next breath felt something like grabbing a handful of cactus that was still spined, if said cactus were the size of a building and said spine the size of her forearm, now running straight through her chest like a sewing needle through a bead. Her vision flared red, then white. She could still feel the grit of his sleeves under her hands; she gathered handfuls of the fabric.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“-Midnight?”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Pumpkin-” His grip on her arms tightened. “Hey, look at me.” What he didn’t say, though it somehow seemed implied: don’t look down.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThe universe tilted strangely, wobbling back and forth, her sense of gravity gone, until she felt the hard ground against her spine. Flat. When her sight came back she found herself looking at the empty sky, so blue and bright it burned her eyes. A clap like thunder rolled over the sands. The thought occurred to her: “I… Someone ...shot me?”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThe question felt dumb on her tongue. She would know, wouldn’t she? If someone had shot her just now, she would know. As her heart began to beat, catching up with the few it must have missed sometime earlier the burn became obvious. Each little leap sent a ripple of it out from her chest, dwindling to sparks at the edges of her torso. She reached for the center of the tide. She closed her fingers on fabric that was soaked. Another hand —Midnight’s, some whispery part of her acknowledged, and was unalarmed— pulled her hand away. A second later, she was being lifted into a sitting position. The pain lanced sharply. Tech cried out.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤMidnight had, with something (gauze? she couldn’t tell) grasped in hand, pressed one palm to her chest and the other to the back of her shoulder and pressed. Crushed, she’d even say. Tech grabbed Midnight’s shoulder. She tried to speak but couldn’t find words beyond the wildly insufficient “..ow.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤMidnight didn’t address her complaint, focused wholly on compressing what Tech could only assume was a hole in her chest. In her heart. She began to shake.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“What- what happens?” She’d never been shot before. She’d been clipped, certainly, grazed once or twice or maybe a few times by a standard Better Living Ray Gun, beaten down with fists and feet, acquainted with the unfriendly side of a knife so often it almost didn’t strike her as so unfriendly —never shot. Maybe it was another understatement, but the way every bit of her kept alternating hot then cold then hot again made her think it would be bad. He didn’t answered. Tech adjusted her grip, vying for either his acknowledgement or at least a sense of reality. Shot? By who? For what? ㅤㅤ“That. That was a bullet yeah? A real one? ‘Cause the, the ray ones, they don’t make that noise, they’re not that loud.” The sheer concussive blast. She wondered how someone could be holding the thing that made that noise and not be deaf forever after just one shot. “Is that- does it make it worse? Does it- do something?” Do something like what? It was already being shot: would a metal bullet change the facts? “Fuck,” she whispered, “I didn’t see anything I didn’t think that there was anything out here it was just a dead zone, I thought- I thought the ridges were doing something or maybe there was a weird reflection but it’s just more desert.” She might have turned to look at said surrounding desert, but she didn’t even make her head turn halfway before something snagged her focus, there on the sand just past her feet. His duffel. “That’s like what yours is isn’t it? That case- it’s because it’s made to shoot that far? I- you can’t even see it but it might mean whoever did it is high up, right? And you can’t even see it because it’s so far away, there’s no warning I- oh god can they still see us?” Would the next shot be for him? “You shouldn’t stay, you should- I’ll- ’m already- but if they haveta reload or they just can’t shoot, you go before they can I don’t- I don’t want- nn-”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤMidnight had first interrupted with a gentle ‘Hey’ somewhere around the mention of the dead zone, but Tech didn’t hear it, not on a level that gave her a way to stop or answer. Twice more, ‘Hey. Hey.’ each more insistent. In the end, she was reached by the pressure against her chest doubling. The dull, radial pain sharpened, stabbed. She exhaled in a faint whimper. When she finally focused on Midnight’s face, her eyes overflowed with tears and hysteria.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Wide open spaces,” she quoted him, newly understanding, “wide open spaces sit funny.” If he recognized his own words, it didn’t show.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“First, I'm gonna need you to take a deep breath for me.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech nodded. It took a moment, a handful of shallow puffs in preparation, but she managed. Long, slow pull; shuddering but measured release.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“What happens now is you breathe, and you keep looking at me, and you don't fall asleep on me.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤFall asleep? She was a fork in an electric socket; everything was alight. Nevertheless, she nodded again and tried to take another breath where the air actually sank into her lungs. If he was concerned about it, it was a possibility.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“I'm going to pick you up and get you in the car, and we're gonna go back to the Haven, and we're gonna get you through this.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThe way he said it was so certain. We’re gonna get you through this. A fact, he said it like a fact. Through it? She almost asked him how but didn’t want to put him in the position to have to attempt to explain the impossible. Tech squeezed her eyes closed, trying to stop the flow of her tears if for no other reason than that they didn’t change anything. A person didn’t get through being- being— there was a word for it, she knew, for being shot somewhere vital from far away. She couldn’t find it, but knew it was a synonym for killed. This was how she got killed. Years down the road, if anyone ever asked Jack about her, he would say she had been killed.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤMidnight put arm around her back, the other under her knees. He lifted her easily. Despite the sudden wave of nausea that came with leaving the ground, Tech found the hold comforting. Despite the glimpse she caught of a cherry red stain in the sand, she was eased away from being terrified. By the time Midnight set her in the passenger seat of Jack’s truck, the tears had slowed, almost stopped. Her breathing hadn’t quite hit a pace that deserved to be called stable, but it wasn’t a struggle to speak.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Gear shift sticks unless you push it a little to the right first.” Midnight shot her a sideways look. He pulled the driver’s side door closed.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Need you to keep pressure on that. Hard as you can. Don’t let up if you don’t have to,” was his only offered return, but he took her advice as he started the truck and set its tires to turning.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech did as she was told.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤShe wondered privately whether any amount of pressure could postpone this, never mind the minimal amount she was capable of inflicting on herself. It was a unique sensation: her hand was cold, fingertips slightly numb, and yet it was also doused in warmth. Heavy warmth. Warmth that seeped out from underneath her palm. And still, cold. And it didn’t even seem like it was slowed: when her heart thumped, vying for another beat, it just pushed up between the creases of her fingers, re-dousing the whole of her hand in warmth that could not warm. Tech blinked at the sight of the ground flying past beyond the window. She was tempted, as she watched the ridges disappear, to simply… let go.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤBut Midnight was there.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤHe was staring, hard-eyed, through the windshield. His face seemed pale. He kept adjusting his grip on the steering wheel; his hands were covered in blood. Tech watched him with a growing sense of dread that did not seem to belong to her. The blood. The speed at which they were traveling. These were distant facts. She was immersed in the familiar rumble of the engine and the smooth feel of the worn leather.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤWith effort, she pushed herself away from the passenger side and invited herself instead to sit in the jump seat. She gathered her feet onto the seat with her and tucked herself, neatly, to Midnight’s side, borrowing (or perhaps lending?) calm. She rested her head against his shoulder.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤIt was a shame that they didn’t have any music. The radio only fizzled and whined quietly. “‘s stuck on one station,” she told Midnight, gesturing at the number frozen on the display, “has been… forever. He won’t let me fix it. …. Says he’ll get around to it.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤIt was a shame that they didn’t have any music. Without it, there was nothing to hear but the creak of the truck’s ancient suspension and the irregular ping and clatter of rocks against the underside of the chassis: the sounds of monotony on a journey across any piece of the desert. It was normally the kind of thing that felt like it took forever, but Tech blinked and truck was dragging to a rough stop inside the Haven’s front fence.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤAlready?

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤShe had to admit, she hadn’t thought she’d make it this far. Her shirt was stuck to her torso, hugging her ribs even when she tried to shift it loose. It stuck to the seat, too, peeling away with a wet zip when Midnight lifted her out through the driver’s side door. He swung around and stomped straight into the Haven without stopping to close the truck’s door or wait on whoever that was Tech had spotted climbing down out of the watch tower.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“The right,” Tech told him, wondering if he remembered from being hauled in there, “Tox.. 's on the right.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“MADDY?” a yell to shake the heavens.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech did her best to show Jack she was -for one more minute- okay, lifting her head to look at him over Midnight’s shoulder, raising her hand in a weak flutter of fingers. She couldn’t look at him for very long. It was difficult.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤHe followed at an unhealthy distance, pestering not with questions but with presence. He would have, Tech knew without doubt, demanded a transfer of arms if not for the fact that they had already reached their destination just inside the doors. In just a handful of seconds, Tech was set down on the long silver table that was the closest thing to actual medical equipment in the whole of the Haven. Even with a layer between her and it, the steel was achingly cold. ㅤㅤ(She never understood how that worked- even in the desert, the metal was always cold.) Someone pressed down on her shoulder again, drawing a groan out of her. She made a vague attempt to escape it, twisting in place. Jack cradled her face in his hands.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Mads?”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“…..Did some'n’ stupid.” Tech tried, for his sake, to sound teasing.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Stupid,” Jack didn’t disagree, “but you came back. You keep coming back.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech closed her eyes against the fresh wave of tears. She nodded. Kept coming back. She wanted that on any memorial anyone gave her, kept coming back. Ran but never away. Was here. “Toldja… there was somethin’ weird….. out there.” Turned out to be a weird thing that was trigger happy. Who knew? Well, everyone here did, now. Good. Better that they know and stay away, then.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤJack said something. Tech could hear him talking but couldn’t tell what the sounds were supposed to be. Her head seemed heavy; her thoughts sagged. Her eyelids fluttered, but only just, as she battled the strange urge not to open them again.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Tech? Hey, Tech, c’mon.” She didn’t know when it had happened, but the person hovering over her, holding her head, was no longer Jack. “Come on, come on back.” Tox. He propped her up slightly, the rhythmic squeeze of his fingers at the back of her neck somehow drawing her back in a seat of awareness. Tech blinked.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTox was easier to look at than Jack, and it had nothing to do with the slow response of her eyes’ focus. Looking at Jack just now, as she had been swept through the Haven, had been like looking at a car crash, a raw nerve. Everything was pain, forward and untempered. That was always the way he looked when she was in trouble, and the only time he ever looked like that. Tox was the opposite. His worry was there, concern unhidden, but whatever pain was causing it couldn’t be read like a magazine headline. It was tucked away somewhere, neatly, so that he could still offer Tech a faint smile.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Hey, there you are. I need to ask you something. You in there enough for that?” His hand felt uncommonly warm on the back of her neck. For some reason it made her feel more awake. She nodded. Tox mimicked the gesture, an echo of agreement. “I thought so.” He adjusted in place; took a breath. “Alright, listen. They missed your heart- crazy, I know, I’ll tell you about it some time, just listen for a second. The bullet missed your heart, but it damaged an artery. You’re cold and tired, your fingers might be numb? That’s why.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“…Bleedin’ too mush,” she murmured. He nodded again.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Bleeding too much. If we want to stop it for real, I have to get in there and close the tear.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤA sick chill pulsed down her arms. Tech shivered. Get in there. Tox’s mouth became a flat, pressed line. Yeah, get in there.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Listen,” Tox insisted again, “… I don’t have a good way to get you unconscious. If we do this-”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤA sudden, wordless protest. Jack was still in the door, and he surged forward.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“What do you mean ‘IF’, Tox? Just-”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTox silenced him with an uncommonly severe look.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Jack,” he barked, “I need you out of here five minutes ago.” Tech got the impression Tox would have backed his statement up physically if not for the fact that he was still carefully holding her up. “You too.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThere was a beat of resistance. Jack remained a shape in Tech’s peripheral for a handful of seconds. She could tell he was looking at her. Probably waiting for her to disagree, let him stay. For that reason, she kept her eyes glued on Tox’s profile. Jack swore though his teeth and retreated into the hall- at least one other person went with him, but Tech couldn’t see or think who it was. Tox focused back in, gently squeezing the back of her neck again to double check he still had her attention.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“If we do this,” he began again, “…we do this with you awake. You’ll probably pass out before I’m done, but it’s not a guarantee. It’s your choice. You gotta pick quick, but …your choice.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech was often someone waylaid at choices by misgivings; second thoughts; indecision.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThis was not one of those times.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThe people she loved — who loved her had the right to try to stop this.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“Do it.”

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTox smiled. “ 'Attagirl.” He planted a kiss on her forehead.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤThe next steps weren’t for Tech: Tox had to do his best to have sterile tools and hands. Lith had to make sure anything they might need would be within reach. Tech’s shirt had to be cut away. Then Tox had her tuck her left hand under her back and slide her right hand into Lith’s to hold on to. Lith was also responsible, in no uncertain terms, for keeping Tech’s shoulders pressed as flat to the table as humanly possible- as still as humanly possible.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤHe started in with minimal warning.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤIf it had been a hot poker before, it was the entire set of fireplace tools now. Tech screamed. There was no other word for it.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤ“I’ve got you,” Lith was quiet if only by comparison.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤTech had told herself she wasn’t going scream. It wasn’t something anyone was trying to draw out of her: it wasn’t Tox’s fault that there was no other way to do this. The least she thought she could do for him was make it seem less cruel. But that was an option denied to her. Overridden, the worst burning- the worst feeling she had ever known left her to scream until the world melted away completely. The last thing to go was the fire, which took a final few bites of her heart before everything was black and cold and endless as an empty night sky.

ㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎⁤  ㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎⁤ Ｉ̜͘ '̠͝ ｖ̧̥̱́ ｅ̧̙̝͘ ｇ̷̨̱̩̗̱͠͠ ｏ̴̷̴̯͈͔͎̖͜͝ ｔ̀̕͏͚̤̞͉̪̕͢ ｙ̷̕͘͘͝͠͏͔̱̜̬̘̯ͅ ｏ̵̡͟͜҉͟͏̝̜̞̹̼͚͈ ｕ̶̡̨̨̯̹̣͕͚͈͚̦́͟͢͜.̶̀͘͢͜͡҉͏̼̻̯͉̘̹̮̯

[witheringdream]

does anyone else notice how fear mongering is the way to gain clicks on everything nowadays? i was reading about this topic of the music not reflecting the times cause i saw a tiktok on it and i am a big time cite your sources so i wanted to see if there is any info about this phenomenon reflecting in any other historic period. anyways the first few titles i saw was why isnt anyone listening to music anymore which is just bizarre and untrue and how and this very weird clearly clickbait article "There is something very, very wrong with today’s music. It just may not be very good."

I wonder at what point in time did clickbait start being synonymous with fear and worry and anxiety.

[zonerobotnik]

Since you are such a big Gravity Falls fan, could I recommend you something?

Have you ever heard of "Tales from the Gas Station"?

At the edge of our town, there’s a shitty gas station that’s open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you were to go inside, you’d see row after row of off-brand chips, cookies, potted meats and ramen. Expiration dates suspiciously missing from canned goods like they were filed off years ago in some misguided attempt to control inventory turnover. A faded “wet floor” sign from way back covering a crack in the foundation by the cooler that has since turned into a pothole. The pothole, a collection point for sticky spill-off, has become a miniature tar pit collecting countless insect corpses and the occasional small rodent.

Nobody ever complains about the aesthetic. By some providence bordering on the supernatural, the health inspector has repeatedly signed off on the business, always kindly ignoring both the faint smell of some kind of mysterious chemical cocktail that is the defining characteristic of the establishment and the family of mutated raccoons that lives in the crawlspace behind the grease trap. We think they’re mutated anyway. At the very least, they must be inbred to the point of mental retardation. The alpha, a muscular three-foot-tall son of a bitch named Rocco, has been spotted multiple times chewing on people’s tires and has been run over at least twice, but keeps coming back.

That lingering smell, a sweet combination of honeysuckle, ammonia, vomit, and who knows what else, has never been positively identified, but the prevalent theory is that it’s coming from the cracks in the foundation, wafting up from underground. It’s strongest right after a rain, and pungent to the point of tear-inducing if you get too close to the storm drains where even Rocco and his clan refuse to tread.

If you were to go inside, you might also see the bathroom cowboy. He exists as a sort of urban legend. Even though he has never been officially confirmed to exist, we have several security camera recordings of a man fitting his description entering the building, heading into the bathroom, and leaving. What makes him legendary are the things people claim to see him doing in the bathroom. The stories run the gamut from “pretty weird” to “impossibly bizarre.” Like the guy last week who went to pee but changed his mind when he saw a man dressed as a cowboy handing out balloon animals. Or the next day when another customer stepped into the bathroom to see a man wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, boxers, and boots with spurs, sitting at an old-fashioned stone sharpening wheel literally grinding an ax. When he walked in the bathroom cowboy stopped what he was doing, looked up with a smile and a tip of the hat and said, “Come on, Man. Come on with it.” By the time he could find an employee to follow him back to the bathroom, the cowboy had vanished, bench-grinder and all.

The cowboy that may or may not haunt the gas station bathroom appears to follow a code of rules. He only appears when you’re alone. He never hurts anyone. And he’s always polite. The prevalent opinion about him is that, honestly, he doesn’t seem that bad. Especially when comparing him to some of the other things going on in that place.

If you go inside, you might instantly get a toothache. It’s a strangely common phenomenon that nobody really understands. It should go away on its own after a couple hours.

If you do go inside, you will almost definitely see me, sitting behind the counter, because I am the only full-time employee, and I’m almost always here. You may catch me reading a book because, for some reason, the internet doesn’t work way out here, and cell phone service is dicey on good days and nonexistent on most. If you need to make a call, you can leave and go up the hill a ways, preferably back towards town because the other way will take you into the woods and you don’t even want me to go into all the reasons that’s not a good idea. Or you can pay me twenty-five cents a minute and use the store’s land line. That arrangement was cooked up by the owners and I have to actually enforce it because they do check the phone records. I’m sorry.

While you’re here, don’t be offended if I don’t strike up a conversation because, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t always know for sure if everyone that comes through those doors is real or not and if I had to acknowledge everyone in that place that could be an actual person, I would lose my mind. And we don’t need any more of that going on around here.

I guess that the point I’m trying to make is this: weird things happen to me working at the shitty gas station at the edge of town.

I wish I could easily decide what was the weirdest thing to ever happen to me, but I can’t. There were so many. I’ve seen a total of four coffins inside the store on three different occasions. I’ve met at least a dozen people wandering back into town from the woods claiming they had escaped aliens or government conspirators or the like and that they had no money but needed to make a call and could I please just let them use our phone before “they” find them again. But rules are rules and I’m not going to lose my job just because you didn’t escape captivity with a little pocket change.

Then there was Farmer Brown (yeah, that’s his real name) who got mad at us and complained about the bulk feed we’d been ordering for him. He insisted something was wrong with the product because all of his animals suddenly had human faces. We settled with him by charging a significant discount on his next couple purchases. He stopped coming in one day and they found what was left of his body inside a bedroom at his farmhouse that had been locked from the inside. As far as I know, they still haven’t figured out what happened

Anyway, I guess I can tell you a story or two, but first I need to get ready for work.

This was a fun read, but now I'm curious about the other stories! Don't leave us hanging, man! Thanks for showing me. XD

[pochipop]

＃BNHA !! ♡ — AMAJIKI ALPHABET HEADCANONS.

#. synopsis! — an amajiki headcanon for every letter of the alphabet .

#. characters! — amajiki .

#. warnings! — none .

#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @yyolkchi (reblog/spam) .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

A: affection. | are they affectionate? how do they show affection?

Tamaki's affection comes in waves. Some days, his comfort level will be higher than others, —a natural phenomenon, and there's nothing either of you can really do to control the way it manifests. On days where he feels most secure, he shows affection through physical touch; things like resting his head against your shoulder, holding your hand, or pressing a kiss to your cheek/temple if he's feeling bold. Other days, however, when his anxiety gets the better of him and he's looking for distance without pushing you away, he expresses affection through means such as excessive thanks to you for tiny, everyday instances, or doing small things for you when he gets the chance.

B: bizarre. | something strange they do or a weird quirk they have with or without their partner?

Tamaki's more odd habits tend to involve sleeping or preparing to do so, —such as his strict persistence to always having two pillows, no more, no less, under his head at all times throughout the night. He also likes to hold something at night, and depending on him and his needs at the moment, that can be you or a pillow. It's less about warmth and more about the weight between his arms, but he does like to hold you close when he has the nerve to do so. And of course, you don't mind.

C: comfort. | are they good at comforting their partner? how do they do it?

Tamaki is surprisingly good at comforting other people, especially if he's close to them. For you, he'll hold your hand and let you cry on his shoulder while he rubs small shapes into your back and shoulders, —or he'll listen as you talk/ramble/vent and offer up any advice he thinks is suitable. While he may not have all the answers, he does what he can to make you feel safe and at peace, and he never has any ulterior motives for doing so. That's why it's so easy to let yourself rely on him, because he's just so genuine that it's almost unreal.

D: domestic. | how do they feel about settling down? do they cook/clean?

Tamaki is young and planning a future as well as a career with being a pro-hero at the top of his list. That's not to say he doesn't want to settle down someday; he's just too young to be thinking about that in his opinion, and so he doesn't. Not right now, anyway. Things as they are, largely innocent and blooming as the days go by, are more than enough for him. Tamaki is a pretty meticulous cleaner, and often tidies up to soothe himself down, so he doesn't mind if you leave the majority of the cleaning to him. As for cooking, he's unsurprising pretty handy in the kitchen on account of his quirk, and his diet can be pretty strict; but he likes to eat for pleasure sometimes and if you'd be willing to make dinner for the both of you, he'd happily eat whatever you serve (even if it sucks, because he'd praise it anyway.)

E: ending. | if they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?

Tamaki would do it in person, likely through tears and with a million apologies. He'd over explain things, put a lot of blame on himself, and would also request to still be friends at the end. If you didn't want to, or couldn't manage it, he would let you go with no protests, but he'd do whatever possible to keep you in his life because he still cares for you deeply, even if the romantic relationship has ended.

F: future. | do they think about the future? how does it look?

Tamaki does think about the future, but mostly in abstracts. He doesn't really know what to expect from things and thinking ahead too much can fill him with more dread than he cares to carry with him, —but he likes the idea of one day achieving his dreams and watching as you do the same, and he really hopes you'll stay by his side through all the ups and downs.

G: gifts. | how often do they give their partner gifts? what kind of gifts are they?

Tamaki has a handful of love languages, and one of them is gift giving. Most of what he knows about romance comes from movies and other media, and oftentimes, he sees gifts being given as a means of expressing affection and appreciation. So, he does that for you when the time feels right. He'll offer up an occasional bouquet of flowers or something personalized and small every now and again, but by far his favorite thing to give you is a stuffed animal. You have a growing collection now, —from a beige colored bunny with floppy ears to a dark brown teddy bear with a cute little bowtie.

H: honesty. | are they honest with their partner? do they keep secrets?

Tamaki is very, very honest. He really values transparency in a relationship, because everything seems easier with an established level of trust and mutual reliance. Sometimes it might take him a few days to work up the courage to say something, but he always expresses himself genuinely in the end, and you're thankful for it. You do the same in turn to show respect.

I: i love you. | how fast do they say the L word? who says it first?

Tamaki is not quick to say he loves you and is incredibly unlikely to say it first. He might even hesitate or struggle to say it back in the beginning since all of this is so wholly unfamiliar to him. However, once he gets used to it, he'll say it frequently enough to let it never slip your mind. Half of the time, it's through text, though.

J: jealousy. | do they get jealous? does it show?

Tamaki isn't a jealous person. He trusts you and knows you wouldn't do anything to hurt him. If he ever does experience jealousy in regard to you, it would be small twinges of insecurity more than anything else, and he would eventually come clean about his feelings and relish in the reassurance you provide in the wake of his confession.

K: kisses. | what kind of kisses do they like to give/receive?

Tamaki likes to be given forehead kisses. They melt his little heart into a pile of throbbing mush. If he's having a bad day, there's nothing he wants more than a forehead kiss from you. Please be sure to give him one. As for giving, —Tamaki is a bit shy about it, but he likes to kiss your hair. It's far enough away from your eyes to give him some confidence in doing it, even if he messes it up somehow, and you seem to smile pretty brightly after he does it, so that's always a big plus!

L: likes and dislikes. | favorite and least favorite things about being in the relationship?

Tamaki's favorite thing about being with you is just getting to spend time with someone who sees him for everything he is and accepts him for everything he'll never be. He knows you see him as something much more than one of the UA big three, as something more than a soon-to-be pro-hero. He loves that you accept every side of him in whatever form it comes in. Tamaki's least favorite thing about being in the relationship is the heightened sense of apprehension he feels around the idea of anything going wrong. He often has intrusive thoughts about himself and his place in the relationship, which is no fault of your own, and sometimes, they can get the better of him.

M: mornings. | how do they spend mornings with their partner?

Tamaki has only woken up next to you a few times, but in doing so, he was a perfect gentleman. He made sure to leave you be, letting you wake up naturally, and once you were awake he offered to cook you breakfast (and was delighted when you offered to help him in the kitchen.)

N: nicknames. | what do they call their partner?

Tamaki typically just uses your actual name, but on occasion, he'll refer to you as "love" or "angel."

O: out of character. | what is something people would be hard pressed to believe they do/enjoy in a relationship?

Tamaki can be a bit clingy from time to time. Sometimes, it's his way of asking for confirmation about his standing with you, and other times, it's just because he wants to be near you and wants to feel especially loved. Just let him play with your fingers and rest his head on your shoulder while you read or watch something, and he'll be more than satisfied.

P: pda. | do they like public displays of affection? if so, what types?

Tamaki is not a fan of it, but he wouldn't mind too much if you wanted to hold his hand in public. Actually, he'd quite like that, as long as there aren't loads of people around.

Q: quirk. | what is something they do that their partner finds cute or endearing?

Tamaki fiddles with his thumbs when he's trying to collect his words and find the right ones to say, and you think it's absolutely adorable.

R: rough times. | arguments? how often and in what manner?

Tamaki is incredibly passive. He doesn't yell and avoids confrontation at all costs. When there's a disagreement, he often defaults to accepting your solutions or answers, and you might have to push him a bit to get his true reaction to things. Once he's more comfortable in the relationship, he'll likely be much more open with you during times of contention. Tamaki is incredibly respectful and values your opinions.

S: sensitive. | what's a sore spot for them that their partner should steer clear of?

Tamaki doesn't like discussing his anxieties bluntly. It's better to be gentle with him about it since he's both hyper aware and ashamed of it. Letting him come to you about it is likely the best thing to do, but if you really think it's important to discuss and you don't feel it's a good idea to wait it out, then do your best to be subtle so he doesn't feel embarrassed about it.

T: thrill. | do they need surprises in a relationship, or do they prefer a routine?

Tamaki largely prefers routine. Being a student at UA and having worked alongside Fatgum for quite some time now, he's been through his fair share of wildcard events, and he can honestly say that having a grounding point to return to is very, very important to him. He likes the stability his relationship with you offers, and he likes that there's often nothing for him to question or squirm over. What he sees is what he gets, and he's thankful for it.

U: unacceptable. | what is something they cannot tolerate in a relationship? what is something they would never do?

Tamaki couldn't be in a relationship with an overly critical, nitpicky person. It would wear thin on his self-esteem and eventually lead to some rather destructive results. Just as well, Tamaki would never put immense amounts of pressure on his lover.

V: vanity. | how concerned are they about their looks? are they insecure about them?

Tamaki is insecure about his appearance but is thankful for the compliments you give him that have helped him to build his confidence over time. As things stand these days, he thinks he's okay looking. . . Maybe nothing special in his own eyes, but that's okay by him. He definitely is not vain, and likely never will be.

W: wildcard. | random headcanon?

Tamaki really likes to do small, everyday things with you. Enjoying a new movie in your room? Count him in. Taking a quick trip to a convenience store to get a small snack? He's happy to accompany you. Working on an assignment? He's there for it and will certainly offer any assistance he can!

X: xoxo. | how often do they hug/kiss their significant other?

Tamaki hugs you far more often than he kisses you. Kisses are more of an ordeal for him, but a hug is. . . Mostly just comforting and full of warmth. He doesn't tend to initiate them; however, he'd never dream of turning you down when you offer them to him. As for kisses, they're much less frequent, but he always enjoys them, especially when he's a bit sleepy or worn out.

Y: yearning. | how do they feel when their partner is away?

Tamaki will be fine on his own, of course, ―he's more than capable of taking care of himself. However, he does miss you when he can't see you, and looks forward to the next time that he can with great excitement. He loves to spend time with you doing anything and everything, whether small or large, and while being apart is not anywhere near the end of the world for him, he would rather see you often, if only for a few minutes in passing.

Z: zzz. | how do they sleep with their partner? how do they sleep alone?

Tamaki is more cautious when he sleeps with you at his side. He makes sure that you have enough blanket, offers to move to the edge so you can be sure to have enough room. . . He's anxious about it to a certain extent. He wants to be beside you like this, but it can be nerve wrecking. However, when he settles into things, he's the easiest person to sleep beside in the world. Soft breathing, a gentle sleeper who doesn't move around a lot at all. He's clingy, but not in an overbearing, suffocating way. Just let him latch onto your arm or snuggle into your side, and he's sold for the night. When he's also, Tamaki sleeps much the same way, just that he grasps for a pillow instead of you. With or without someone by his side, he has lots of pillows when he sleeps and intends on keeping it that way.