#but I've said that multiple times before and it got worse and eventually was just a lie.

[the-cinnamon-snail]

.

[tinydefector]

Rut Cycle- Jazz

Jazz x human

Word count: 2k

Masterlist

Rut cycle masterlist

Jazz masterlist

Warnings: Smut, Size difference, Alpha/Omega hinted, Heat/Ruts, creampie, Oral

Other info: I've got a vote going for who you guys want next but this is a full on Gen 1 ones hot series I'm making.

__________________

The whole autobot base is on high alert due to everyone's rut cycle hitting. The multiple meeting between the Autobots and Decepticons over a ceasefire truce for Rut cycles. Jazz's Engine lets out a churn of noises as he leans back against his berth, he had decided it was for the best he retire after the meetings, it meant he was less likely to have problems with the scent of the human allies that also roamed the Ark, most of the humans had been asked to go home for the next week and a bit but a few still hung around. 

The soft sound of knocking breaks Jazz out of his thoughts as he moves towards the door to see who it is. Jazz’s visor flickers as he sees his favourite little human standing at his doorstep with a cube of energon on a cart for him. They smile as they look up at him. “Boss bot said you'd be back here, thought I'd drop you off a cube and come hang out if you're up for it” they state while pushing it into his room. 

 Primus they weren't helping the situation despite how much they tried to assist the bots, how close they came To nearly being snatched up by starscream in their meeting early, he knew it was just the rut and how sweet their scent was to the bots but even he was getting close to his limits with how much he could handle before he eventually succumb to the old coding. 

He cycled a deep ventilation, savouring the sweet crystal high grade smell wafting from their form. It makes his sensors ache and his engine whine in need. “ thanks Lil’ Bit. Yer always lookin’ out fer us bots.” He hums as he leans down to grab the Energon Cube. Primus, they stirred circuitry like nothing ever had. 

“Reckon ya better skedaddle now, ‘fore things get outta hand round here. We’ll be right as rain once this wave passes... but it ain’t no place fer a little sweet thing like yerself,  while tension are High with the Cons.” Most of the Bots hadn't Told the humans the reason as to why they had been asked to leave, many believed it was because of the Decepticons, and the Autobots not wanting any harm to come to them, in truth that was only part of the reason, the other part was how their scent made the cybertronians Rut worse and many of them weren't willing to risk hurting any of their allies Due to it. Didn’t stop Jazz from wishing, though, just for a taste, but he knew it wouldn't stop at just a taste.

Slight worry crosses their face as they look up at Jazz.  "Robo flu?, you didn't get that static bug again, or that little critter the Cons made which caused so much issue in the base last time" They teasingly inquire as they press a hand to his plating as if to check him for a fever out of habit. 

a ragged vent of air leaves him at their touch, joints locking to steel against surging charge and wanting to grab them. Plating heated beneath their hand. His visor lit with barely-restrained longing as azure optics peered down at their concerned face. "Ain't no bug, cher," he lamented softly. "Jus' a bit of a... condition we bots get sometimes. Nuthin' t' worry yer pretty headplate 'bout." 

Gentle digits itched to trace the curve of their cheek, taste their skin against glossa sensors gone mad with need. But he'd offlined his hardsuit protocols, locking down his traitorous system until after they left the room. His frame grew hotter with each passing breem. 

"Ya best skedaddle now, sweetspark." His field pulsed bittersweet promise of a raincheck, "And leave you by your lonesome while Prowl's even more foul?, could keep you company and get you energon when you need it, plus don't need you having a short circuit while i'm gone, cant have my favourite DJ sick can i?" The sweet scent on their skin has Jazz nearly drooling as they offer to stay with him and keep him company. 

Jazz cycled a shuddering vent engine whining loudly in need, grip creaking upon his half-empty cube as lithe form crossed their arms as they moved to make themself comfortable on his berth that was now piled with Blankets, tarps, polish clothes. 

His systems flashing warning as the magnetic field begged surrender to baser instincts, he desperately wanted to interface or at least let off some steam before he lost his mind and control. "Gonna hafta refuse that favour, li'l sweet. Y'got no idea ... th' things ya do t'me right now." His digits flexed, aching to caress them, claim. He walks to the other side of the room as if an injured animal that's cornered.  

Optics linger over their temptin' outline, memorising every curve as if famine-struck. "Please, lil' spark. F'r both our sakes." His Field pulsed apologetically for cutting their visit short, but he couldn't risk them. They stand up on the berth as he walks around in circles. 

Worry lingers on their face as they try to calm him down. “Jazzie talk to me, you're walking around like a cornered animal and you're worrying me” they state as he stops in front of them, his frame stiff as he holds off one last attempt to let them leave before he does something he would regret. Jazz nearly purrs as they cup his face looking up at his visor. Their hands feel divine against his faceplate. 

 The last shred of Jazz's ironclad control sheared away as they ran their fingers across his faceplate holding his face as they stared into his optics as sparked couples would. Tender servo curls around their waist as he uses a digit to lift their chin as a rumble resonated from his cracked spark.  "So sweet t'care... but ya jus' don' understand, li'l sweetspark." Trembling digits traced the fragile line of their face, unable to withstand their pull any longer. 

A deep, subsonic field pulsed from his frame. “I think I've got enough of an idea” they state while pressing their lips to his. A thundering roar leaves his engine as he grabs hold of them pulling them up against his frame as his lips desperately move against theirs. Tasting the sweet yet sinful flavour that is their skin. 

 He cycled his systems,warnings flashing critical. but Primus, how he ached to finally seize what haunted his every fantasised line of code...They whined loudly against his lips, his name muttered between breaths.

All of Jazz's fraying restraint snapped like cheap cabling. A strangled keen tore from his vocalizer as delicate grip yanked them flush against Plating as he eagerly pressed them down against the berth. 

He seized their jaw in a trembling servo, glossa delving past yielding lips with a starved groan. They taste like ecstasy and Rust sticks. Another rumble left deep from his frame. 

His other servo scoured down their back in rapture, digits aching to rip through their clothing and discard it across the floor. "Cher..." he gasped against their mouth. Name spilled like prayer as his interface panel snapped open his spike snaking out, straining against their covered form. 

Whimpered moans leave them as his servos grip thier clothing, dragging it off their body as he throws it across the room, glossa tracing down their form as he eagerly laps against their skin. 

At their little nosies Jazz’s Optics flared, visor blazing, Trembling servos gentled spead their thighs, pressing gentle kisses along them before he bites down and sucks a mark into the skin. “H-hold on t’ me, li’l one,” he rasped out as his glossa traces along their sex “Jus’ hang on tight. Lemme take care’a ya...” 

Slowly, with far more grace than rationality warranted, Jazz began to rock his Glossa against their pulsing warmth with aching care. A loud groan and engine roar leaves him at the taste of them. His optics drank in every flicker of pleasure stealing across their face as the arch and rock against him.

 His spike aches and leaks against the bedding as he slowly works his little human open with his glossa, preping and readying them.  

Jazz burrowed his faceplate between their quivering legs, purrs interlacing pleasured moans dragging from his vocals. His servo curled beneath their legs, hitching them higher. "Primus, babydoll.. so perfect..." He gasped prayers and profanities, they arch and grip his helm as his glossa continues to drive into them. Their gasping cries, have his engine roaring louder.

He pulls away for a moment as he flips them lifting their hips up as he grinds his needy spike against their back, a guttural moan leaves him before he snarls, gripping their waist firmly. Jazz shuddered out a keening groan as he slowly presses his spike into them, stretching them to accommodate his size. 

so tight - so hot and sweet he feared offlining upon first plunge into their sweet little form, their scent driving him wild as his field lets out pulse of energy.  

He curled his servos around their fragile hips, grinding slowly into them, helm tilted back as he clenchs his denta from how tight of a fit it is. "Frag, yes!" he bellowed, slowly picking up pace as he drives into them. Their hands grip onto the blankets as needy moans and cries fall from their lips each time Jazz thrust back into them, grinding his spike into their Smaller form. 

" So beautiful, so perfect...mmm, my Lil mate..." He gasped brokenly, intake clenching.

His thrusts turned feral, spike swelling. He dragged their joined frames up. Holding them to his frame as he goes into frenzy, slamming brutally home again and again.

"Mine," Jazz snarled ferally. "Gonna overload ya so fraggin' good, li'l cher..."

Another savage buck of his hips sent them keening, body pulsing and bucking as they cry out from pleasure. “Jazz oh God!, Jazz!” They claw at his plating desperately trying to grab hold of his arm as he drives into them as feral snarls leave him. A guttural groan echoed from Jazz's intake as their clamp and fluttered wildly around his spike, 

"Frag, li'l bit-, that it, mmm so good" he moans, His spike throbbed mercilessly within their small channel, Another ragged groan was wrenched from depths of his frame as their orgasm hits, his name falling from their lips as if it were a prayer.

He tenses, another guttural moan leaves him and he presses them back down onto the berth, frantically griding into thier tight body. spike pulsing frantically. With a static-laced keen, Jazz finally tumbled over the edge, filling their much smaller body to the brim with bright pink transfluid. Jazz threw back his head with a roar as their tiny frame rolled back to meet each piston in desperation as he pumps more and more into their needy hole. "Frag, yes sweetspark - take it, take m'transfluid, take it all!" 

He rolled deftly within, overload ripped through wiring in a cascade. Transfluid spurted from them as it rolls down their  thighs onto the berth as Jazz holds them close, smaller whines leavign his intake as he grinds into their shuttering body.  

With one finally thust he settles, fan systems on full blast as his frame desperately tries to cool down as he rolls to his side, cradling their body against his, holding them close, his other servo piles the blankets around their exhausted body as he keeps them plugged with his spike. Little whimpered whines leave them as he leans his helm down to press a gentle kiss to their forhead. His systems are slow to reboot, but one thing was for certain,  he wasn't finished with them and he would be damned to the pits if he let them leave his berth until after everyone's rut had subsided. “don't move Babydoll, ain't done with ya yet” he mumbles voice still static laced as his optics shutter behind his visor. 

___________

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[kurithedweeb]

Does anyone else remember how Travis is implied to be a shapeshifter in canon? He has his human form, his demon form, but he's also said to have several other forms that we don't see in canon. I've seen redesigns where he has a third form somewhere between the full human and the full demon that's his real form, usually including horns and cool markings, but what if he also has less humanoid forms?

He lives in complete isolation for years, surviving in the wild and protecting the local village as best he can like his mother did before him. Everything he does is to protect and survive. Being able to shift is a tool: turning into a bear saved him from freezing to death when he got caught out in a blizzard, being a wolf or a snow leopard helps him track and hunt in ways he can't when human, becoming a fox or something else small lets him slip out of dangerous spots like that one time the snow gave out beneath him and he fell in a hidden ravine. All of these forms have pure white hair/fur too, which is amazing camouflage when you live on an island covered completely in snow and ice. These forms are useful, they come to him so naturally that they're a part of him, and he accepts these parts so much more readily than he does the warlock part of him.

Here's the thing about shapeshifting, though: it hurts. It hurts a lot. When Travis shifts, he's rearranging everything inside of him and shedding his skin to condense himself into another's. He doesn't like to do it in front of other people because even though he's used to it, it's still a very uncomfortable and an incredibly vulnerable moment for him because he can't exactly stop halfway through. But what's worse is not shifting at all.

If he goes too long without changing forms, a sort of itch will build up inside him. At first it's not so bad, it's comparable to a bug bite, but if he ignores it for too long it festers into something unbearable. It hurts so bad it makes him want to peel himself out of this skin by hand. He has scars from scratching at his arms and legs, trying to pacify the itching for long enough that he can find somewhere safe to shift. Sometimes he spends a week scratching and bleeding and tearing off the scabs, rinse and repeat, and then he has to wait for the scratches to heal enough that he won't hurt himself shifting. He learned the hard way that shifting while injured just means tearing out his stitches and worsening his wounds. But he has to shift eventually or he'll drive himself insane.

This leads to some interesting interactions with Laurance. As far as Travis knows, everyone with multiple forms is like him. Everyone seems to know already that Laurance has another form (his Shadow Knight form) but Travis has never seen him in any form besides his human one. How is he not going crazy? Doesn't it hurt? Isn't he in pain all the time?

And maybe they're not in the same kind of pain, but there's an odd sort of understanding there.

[genderlessghoul]

Episode 19482938 of me having Feelings™ and making Phantom pay for it. I do be projecting on that ghoul way to much.

Anyways this one is called "Phantom is a dumbass that doesn't want to use proper binder etiquette and Dew had to scold him for it. There's trans angst in it."

~1.2k

“When's the last time you took your binder off?”

Phantom flinches at the question, tries not to look like he's about to be caught in a lie. He doesn't take his eyes off the tv screen, this is a very serious game of Mario Kart. Dew is unimpressed by his attempt at ignoring the question and walks up to him, hits the button on the controller he knows will pause the game.

“Look me in the eyes, Phantom.”

His tone is commanding, there's no escape possible. The quintessence ghoul sets the controller by his side on the couch and looks up at the fire ghoul. 

“When’s the last time you took your binder off?”

He repeats, annoyance evident in his tone.

“Last night. I don't sleep in it, like you told me to.”

Phantom knows that's not entirely what he meant but he'll be damned (well… more than he already is) if he doesn't try to deflect.

“You know full well that's not what I meant. When's the last time you took a day off from it? And don't even think about lying, I'm the one who does your laundry.”

Phantom shifts in his seat, already done with the conversation. He's not fond of Dew babying him like this all the time.

“Why do you ask, if you already know?”

“Becauuuuse” the fire ghoul starts, crossing his arms over his chest “I want you to be the one to tell me what you're doing to your body. You might not like it but it's the only one you got.”

The younger ghoul slumps back against the couch and rolls his eyes. “I dunno, a week maybe?”

“Try two weeks.”

“Can't have been that long…”

“It has.” Dew's tone gets more firm as he steps fully in front of the other ghoul. Satanas, they can be stupid when they're so fresh. “You need to take days off from it, you can't just wear it for weeks like that.”

“Why not? I'm not sleeping in it, like you said. I'm not wearing it for longer than eight hours, like you said. I'm not doing physical labor in it, like you said. Feels like everything should be fine!”

“Are you trying to fuck up your ribs forever? Because it feels like you're trying to fuck up your ribs forever.”

“I'm trying not to want to jump off the abbey's roof. I thought you understood that well enough.”

Dew takes a deep breath and leans forward to rest his hands on Phantom's shoulder. His eyes focus on the quintessence ghoul's, who refuses to meet his gaze. He tries to soften his voice before he speaks again.

“I do understand, baby boy. But I can't let you be reckless with your own health like that. You gotta take it off now.”

Phantom lets out a sigh before bringing his eyes up to Dew. “I don't like the way it feels when I don't have it on. Especially now, it just… it's just been worse recently.”

“I know, baby. I know. Come, let me show you a thing or two that might help.”

He takes Phantom's hand in his own and gently coaxes him up, pulling him to the fire ghoul's room. He orders him to sit on the bed and take off his shirt and binder while Dew rummages through the drawers in his dresser for something. The quintessence ghoul is slow to obey but he eventually does, taking his t-shirt to hide himself once his top half is bare. 

Dewdrop makes a triumphant noise when he finally finds what he's looking for and turns back to the younger ghoul sitting uncomfortably on the edge of his bed. He raises an eyebrow at him.

“You do know I've seen you naked before, right? Like… multiple times.”

“Like I said… it's been worse.”

Dew's eyes soften on him, he remembers all too well what it was like to get those periods where even acknowledging the two mounds (more like knobs, really, in his own case) of flesh on his chest was too much to bear. “It's okay. You know we're working hard to get a date scheduled. In the meantime, you have to make sure you take care of your stupid lungs.”

He walks back to the bed, piece of fabric in hand and presents it to Phantom. “It's a sports bra. It doesn't do the same job as a binder at all but it'll help on days where you can't wear it. Rain wears one almost all the time now, just 'cuz it's more comfortable.”

Phantom takes it from Dewdrop and takes a moment to examine the piece. It's black and stretchy, but a firm stretch. The straps are thinner than he's used to, he thinks it might become a sensory issue but he wills himself to pull it over his head.

Dew's right, it doesn't do the same job as a binder, but it does help make his chest appear smaller. And it's a lot more comfortable. He tries taking a deep breath and finds no resistance or discomfort at all. He thinks he might get used to it. Dewdrop throws a loose shirt his way.

“Try it with this.”

Phantom obeys and walks over to the mirror mounted on the wall. The swell of his breasts is still noticeable but it's barely there. Enough to last a couple days, he thinks. Enough to give himself a break.

“If you really need to” Dew steps closer to him and settles in his back, watching both their reflection “we can try tape again too. I know it didn't exactly go smoothly last time but it'd be better if you let me help, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Phantom almost chokes on the word. 

Binder, sports bra, loose clothes, tape, so many things with so many rules just to make others see him the way he wants to be seen, just to make him feel better about his own body. His own body. He's seen the way his packmates drip with confidence, the love they have for the way they look. He knows some of them worked harder than others for it but they all have it. All he has is disgust and shame, no amount of hiding will change that. Why was he not summoned properly? Why is his body nothing but wrong?

He gets pulled back to reality by a warm hand turning him around and finding itself resting on his cheek. A thumb wipes away a tear he didn't realize had fallen from his eye.

“Hey, I know how it feels right now. More than most, trust me. I can see right through that look in your eyes, I used to wear the same. I still do sometimes. We do what we can with what we have but sometimes it feels like it's never good enough, like we will never be good enough for us. We are. Never let anyone tell you otherwise, even yourself. You deserve to love yourself, Ant.”

Phantom takes a deep shaky breath to steady himself and nods. “I know. Sometimes theory is just harder than practice.”

Dew smiles at him “We'll work on it then. Now… I believe you had a game of Mario Kart to finish?”

[eiko-chatter]

(CW death, suicide) 6 months ago today, I lost a close friend.

Mari was - someone who loved unabashedly and shared it with the world, despite having been horribly wronged by it. She made a point of complimenting strangers because she knew she was unthreatening and wanted people to know the things about them she appreciated. She tried hard to reach out to people she thought seemed neat, even though it took her time to build up the courage - that's how we met in the first place, at skating night. (she told me later she'd been building up the courage to talk to me the first 3 times we'd been at skating together). In my short time with her, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her people - her entire soul lit up when she talked about them. She told me so many stories about people I didn't know very well and more about people I'd never met - will probably never meet, now - and even though she's gone, a little piece of her love for them remains.

She brought that energy to her hobbies - she wrote and shared really detailed strategy guides for the games she played, made and published free translations of foreign gay comics on request - and her friendships. I met Mari only a few weeks before my roommate's cat died. She came to visit us a day or two later, brought us flowers, and kept us company while we grieved. She checked in on us every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and did what she could to help. She was meticulous about keeping track of people's preferences and triggers, and thanked me whenever i told her about one so that she could use it to be more effectively kind.

I didn't really learn the details of what Mari was going through until a week before she died, but it was - genuinely harrowing. She was really hesitant to talk about it at all, but it eventually got bad enough that she was willing to, and when I heard the details I invited her to come to stay with us to get a break and have some company. She stayed with us for 3 days, during which she was more scared and frightened than I'd ever seen her. By the time I took her back home, things had gotten worse - she said she just wanted to be alone, that she thought that would help, so I hugged her and left. (it was the last time I'd see her. she was smiling at me and making a little heart gesture with her hands as I drove away). But being alone ended up being worse for her - she asked me if she should find someone to babysit her, but I - didn't know anyone in her area (it was a pretty long drive), and she was having a lot of trouble with her local social group, so we planned on having me go down to look after her that Saturday, and I spent the time until then checking in on her as often as I could. Friday afternoon she told me she was really grateful that I was doing that for her. It was the last thing she ever said to me.

When I got there Saturday, she was gone. She'd left out a bunch of things that she wanted to gift or return to people. She wrote a note, apologizing to everyone in her life for not being strong enough to ask for help, telling them how much she loved them and how good they were, and a warning on the door, saying not to come in and to instead call 911. (i didn't listen. i wish i had. even then, she was trying so hard to make sure whoever found her wouldn't be hurt more than they had to).

i loved Mari from the moment i knew her well enough to see her for who she was. i've tried, in the last 6 months, to bring a little bit of her kind and thoughtful spirit into my interactions with people, and to do small things to look after the people i know she loved and cared about.

i wish things could have been different. she deserved so much better than this. so often i see things or meet people and think about - how much she would have loved them, how much i wish i could have shared them with her. i miss her so much, still. losing her was the most painful thing i've ever gone through, by far. my friends and family have been - incredibly kind and patient and loving and generous with me. i know i would be doing so much worse without them and am deeply indebted to them. i'm trying really hard to - continue being the kind of person i want to be, to have the traits that she loved in me. it's - often really hard, though it's been getting easier, bit by bit.

goodbye, Mari. i'll always love you. the world is forever diminished by your absence.

[ananke-xiii]

I've written somewhere that Team Free Will is actually Team Dean's Will but it wasn't, like, a criticism or something like that, it was what I personally got once the show was over (and I still have very legit concerns about Dean's choice during the last episode).

I don't think Chuck won in the end because he, as a character, wouldn't have wanted for Dean to die. As far as polysemy goes, Chuck does represent many things but, to be really honest, I don't really think he represents John Winchester on a cosmic level. Like, yeah, OF COURSE, we can definitely put them together in the "Shitty Fathers" box but when Chuck tells Dean that he's not like his father I think he's not that wrong after all. Chuck is much worse and not because he's a John Winchester on a gigantic scale, it's not about quantity. He's worse because he just is.

Leaving aside the many problematic aspects of their relationship, Mary and John can be totally seen as Amara and Chuck (the show does go there and I think it's interesting for many reasons) but it's also true that the one who lied in the couple was Mary, not John. Even if we know why she had to lie and it can be understandable, it's also true that both Sam and Mary are willing to omit a Very Important Thing about themselves that, eventually, gets their partners killed. But, unlike Chuck who's to blame for his omissions, lies and manipulations, both Sam and Mary are two characters that, even more than Amara, are ALWAYS stripped of any choice. So it's almost like no matter what they do, they can only fight for their free will but never fully live it (SPN final thesis: you can never get what you want).

So yeah, if we consider John as a person and, more specifically, as a partner (therefore not in his paternal role), Chuck's not like him at all. Chuck's in control of his narrative, John couldn't even choose his own car at the dealership (btw, in my fantasy John has a love/hate relationship with the whole album "Boys for Pele" by Tori Amos that he keeps hidden like Bobby's passion for Tori Spelling). John is very much mainly narrated by other characters, in this respect he's just like Mary, to be honest. We don't 100% know who he is because he's a character described by absence. So much so that Sam and Dean didn't even know he had a fucking SECRET family!!!

Chuck is portrayed to be less enigmatic. We know he lies because we are shown that multiple times even before "Moriah". He's a character without much depth and that bothers him So. Much. He's a God who wants to be like Keith Richards. LOL!

However, even if Chuck, to me, objectively doesn't win (I also have my own "Billie won theory"), he neverthless does represent the Dictorial Power of Shitty Fathers that some might call The Patriarchy (not me. I would NEVER!). In this way, yes, he sort of wins because, as I've said, the natural order wins in the end and, in SPN, the natural order is Absent, Shitty Fathers. The sugarcoated version of the bygone days, the bittersweet nostalgia for a golden past that inevitably leads to death.

And who, the show tells us, represents all of the above? The absence of John Winchester via the presence of his journal. A man who's become so powerful he's been morphed into a myth. Maybe he is the real tulpa of this story, after all.

What does this have to do with Team Dean's Will? I find that saying that what Dean did in the end is a "choice" is very troublesome. To me personally. But the show does imply that, not strongly enough because it leaves some room for doubt but it ultimately does that. So okay, I'll bite and will consider it to be a Real Choice out of Dean's Free Will. Fine. What about Sam, though?

S15 starts with Sam and Rowena and ends with Sam and Dean. Rowena and Dean both commit suicide that's not 100% framed as suicide. Among other things, it is framed as a sacrifice. And Sam's there with them and he doesn't want that. He says so. He tells Rowena to "screw the books" and he tells Dean that he doesn't want what Dean is asking for.

Rowena's act is framed as being done out of her own agency because she believes in prophecy and magic. To which I say bullshit, not to Rowena but to the show because this is a cop-out. Since S13 Rowena couldn't do what she wanted to do because it wasn't possible. Fine. But how come that prophecy seems to be working only for her? How come the "rules are rules" mindset only applies to her? Why do other characters' books change and hers alone doesn't? How come her sacrifice is both destined and out of her own free will? It means that it can happen then! That destiny and free will can coincide! This change in thinking about the question is so packed with possibilities that they could've done another 15 seasons about it. Unfortunately, destiny and free will seem to meet in Definite Death which meh. Story over.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

With Dean things are a bit different because we do know that Chuck is obsessed with him. Once Chuck is out of the picture, we could imply, Dean's finally "free" to choose what he wants. Which is such a naive thought because if it were only the absence and/or presence of things/persons to determine our lives we, perhaps, wouldn't need therapy.

But, as I've said, I'll be good and keep my promise: let's say Dean chooses out of his own free will. It should be cool for us, right? This is what Dean wants. The Big Big Bad is not dead but he's not the man behind the curtains anymore so hurrah! Free/Dean's Will wins. We should feel like we must respect that. And yet, it doesn't feel right.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

It doesn't feel very "Free Willy" if the people just let the orca free. It's not very Free Will for Sam if the show tells us that it's Dean literally getting out of the picture that will "free" Sam. Brrrrrrr.

So what does this tell me? That the "destiny vs free will" discourse seems to be working only when there's a villain on the horizon, a commanding power that wants to tell you what to do, someone actually stronger than you whose actions can alter your life's story.

If you take that power out, what's left? Only people with their choices. And your absent, dead father's journal radiating The Real Power (the idea of power inside your mind that controls you). Is free will still in the room with us? Cause it starts to look like somebody's supposedly "free" will might be somebody's else constraint. As far as Sam is concerned, it seems to say: it doesn't matter whether there's a God, Death or that prophecy is real or not. What matters is that you can only stand there, participating and not participating. You don't want that? Too bad, 'cause that's what you got.

Maybe the finale really took the worst from my "Billie won theory" and the worst from the "Chuck won theory", i.e. an idea of natural order that upholds patriarchy. Or, since I can and will go there, that the natural order is the patriarchy.

So what about Free Will, is it an illusion? If it applies to only a few it certainly doesn't seem like something worth fighting for. And the natural order is indeed restored in the end. I don't think the show gives a real answer to that, by the end of S15 there are so many things that simultaneously mean 100 other things that everybody can take what they want from the show.

If you ask me, I think it was a moot question, to be honest. It made sense in S4-5 but once SPN goes full meta in S15 it becomes very superficial. Of course I know they're fictional characters and literally don't have free will, the premises were interesting because I wanted to see how these characters would react to stuff happening in the story. Once the story is revelead to be a bluff, though, what am I left with? Characters spiralling into crisis after crisis. This could be interesting in a novel but in a 15-seasons-long series you have to give me something ELSE as well, the "all die more or less happily" last-minute finale (knowing Heaven is a scam, by the way) is just... not having to deal with the consequences of the narrative choices that were made.

Or, perhaps, Supernatural is a show where one of its themes is "destiny vs free will" that ultimately tells you that there's no destiny but there's also no free will, there's only John's journal aka the Power of the Dominant Narrative. Which is the power of the people who write that narrative for us to believe in it. Perhaps, not even the people making the show were free to do what they would've liked to do. They were also there, like Sam, participating and not participating. Finding ways to cope.

[writers-requiem]

Lonely Woes & Fatherly Love

Pairing: Hank McCoy x teen!Reader

Genere: Angst, Depression Comfort

Warnings: mentions of past trauma, suicide attempts, abandonment, drug use, violence and abuse

A/N: Hank isn't actually the reader's dad, just a fatherly figure

Your life was a shit show. There was no getting around it.

One disaster after another with almost no room for a reprieve from it all. Constant feelings of anxiety and depression from failed relationships with family and 'friends'. It was a nightmare without an end. Your parents were part of a drug cartel that you wanted no relation with, your first love had a marijuana addiction and died a year later, all your friends were reckless jerks since primary, and your recent ex made your life even more miserable by constantly comparing you to other people and saying they would be better partners but that he had to be stuck with you.

But that wasn't the worst of it, because not once, not twice, but on five different occasions, you were a ransom hostage and were starved, beaten, and harassed in more ways than you cared to count. Eventually it all culminated with you attempting suicide multiple times but each time being saved by a hero or a some stranger. Making matters worse is that you were only between the ages of 4 and 13 during all that time. And now you're 16

Which leads us to today. You sat alone on a park bench, down on your luck. No food, no house or apartment, not even a penny to get those, and the only solace you have is that you had a jacket to keep yourself away from the cold rain which was pouring buckets.

"Just like every other day..." You said in a solemn, bitter tone.

Your stomach rumbled incessantly, desperate for food and water to sate your hunger and thirst. But all you could get were scraps, and not even that could sate you.

"You seem hungry" a kind male voice said, "I know a dry spot to eat at. Follow me."

The man, dressed in a trench coat and fedora, gently helped you to your feet and gently guided you to the place he spoke of.

Once you had arrived at the location, he took off his fedora revealing his blue furry face. You recognized him as Dr. Hank McCoy or Beast. He had saved you a couple of times before. Once from a hostage situation, and the second from one of your suicide attempts.

"Why did you bring me here?" you asked, your voice tired and strained from days without rest or nourishment.

"Well, I've been keeping an eye on you for a little while now and saw what's been happening with you" he stated in a matter of fact tone accented with worry, "And it seems that fate hasn't been kind to you."

"Never has been..." you said, voice clearly fading from exhaustion and dehydration.

Hank gently wrapped an arm around you and helped you to sit down in the car which you only now noticed since he had opened the door and got you settled in.

Once in the car, he fastened your seatbelt and took his position on the driver's seat and drove off. To where, you couldn't tell since you fell asleep, finally succumbing to the pull of rest.

When you woke up, you found yourself in a comfy bed in an ornate but not too fancy looking room. You also saw that you were covered in bandages and had a cast and sling for your arm. You also weren't wearing your old rags of clothes and were in a white T-shirt and black shorts. Then the door to the room opened, and there walked in a familiar face.

"Oh thank heaven above, you're awake" Hank said with a relieved smile on his face.

"Where am I?" you asked, understandably confused.

"Welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" he said, "A place that many like you or I would describe as a new home."

This made your ears perk up. "Home?" you asked with a glimmer of hope and longing in your eyes.

"Yes" he said. He then placed the tray of food to the side and gently held your hand and looked at you like a father would with his son after a traumatic event, "And it's your new home too."

He then picked up the spoon and grabbed some soup with it. It was clear what he was trying to do, so you let him slowly spoon-feed you since your free arm was numb and limp. Strangely, it felt like you were with someone you just wanted to call, 'dad'.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I put a sign near my home?

I'm honestly not sure how to title this, but this is what makes the most sense.

Let's start with some background. Me, my husband, and my roommate (all of us are late 20s M) have been stalked by someone online and in person for over a year now, let's call him Xavier. It all started when he was in a pretty nasty breakup, and we hung out with him for about a month and a half to give him support and help him out when needed it. However, he kept asking us to stalk his ex, triggered my husband on multiple occasions after asking him to stop, kept making fun of my roommates appearance, was really mean to my animals, among many other things that I don't really want to get into. I kept justifying his behavior to myself thinking that he was just going through a rough time and needed help, I even talked to him in person on numerous occasions about how he needed to cut it out, but eventually enough was enough.

After about a month of him coming over on weekends, we reached out to Xavier's ex to talk to him, see what was going on and get his side of the story ya know? We told him of all the things we collectively said about him, and apologized for everything since we only had Xavier's info to rely on, and we've been hanging out with his ex ever since because he's a fun guy to be around. We cut Xavier off before we started hanging with his ex, and now we hang out with him at least every two weeks bc again, he's really fun to be around. But Xavier refuses to leave all of us alone. I've warned my friends about him since they've seen Xavier around occasionally, warning them casually in like a "here's what happened to me, just keep an eye out for him, but I'm not gonna stop you if you want to be friends" kind of way.

It just kept getting worse with Xavier, he even shared the small town we live in online when his ex posted a photo of us hanging out, and it feels like he's waiting for any reason to doxx our home. We've even spotted his car around the town we live in, and driving by our house on a few occasions.

Now, Xavier has a fairly large online following, like some thousands of followers, and loves detailing every little aspect of his life online. I was on and off friends with him before he gained a following, but then noticed he got super egotistical and acted as an authority figure on any matter that doesn't involve him. He often talks about me and my husband's life, if we have friends over, or parties, or whatever we might have going on. We have not hung out with him in over a YEAR as well, and he continues to post things about our lives. Reporting his accounts have done nothing (except for getting one account getting taken down on a brand new social media), and I'm unable to involve authorities at this point (and would like to avoid them altogether if possible) because of a lack of proof and not being in "immediate danger".

So here's my question! WIBTA if I put a sign near my house that says " Xavier Sucks "?

My reasoning is, since he posts everything online, he'd definitely take a picture of it and post it, basically telling on himself. There's absolutely no way he wouldn't, he loves being enraged online nowadays. It provides enough proof that he is actively stalking our home, and hopefully loses his accounts so I can finally be free of this. I feel like an asshole especially because of how angry I've been, and since this would give me the confidence to "call him out". I'm also being really bitter and want no trace of his accounts anywhere, and I believe him to be too much of a coward to do anything directly to me or my family in person. I'm just so tired of this and want to be left alone, and really don't know what to do otherwise. So, I'm coming to random strangers on the internet to tell me if I'm an asshole!

What are these acronyms?

[phoenixastramurdercore]

(Personal Stuff) Survived Yet again! Had a Mini Stroke, Worried bc Stroke Survivor!

Hey, I wanted to get back into art so bad I might need to go a bit slow. I had a major stroke 7 years ago and recovered pretty well over the years despite having multiple physical disabilities, lots of my memories recovered, my mobility recovered(besides pain issues and some other disabilities that spike if I move around TOO much)

And chronic fatigue isn't as bad/fluctuates. But I have to get more excercise even if it hurts me so that also leaves less time to draw and I have to take it easy/not think too hard about anything right now. I was really excited to get back into art and like do a whole bunch of stuff! But for some reason my overexcitement to do all the things game me a ton of symptoms over the past week of when I had a stroke like right before I had one, besides the face droop mostly I had a mini stroke yesterday and It was fairly short. I feel better today, I'm okay, But I wanted to let you guys know I've been gone for a while because my healths been really, really bad hahaha. I keep trying to improve it and do what I can, my physical body is so so sensitive to just mental overthinking and silly stuff to the point where I was overexerting my...brain? it's really hard to explain. Anyways! I'm fine, I'm okay, but I gotta go real slow at everything rn because that leaves me very prone to having an actual stroke again, and I don't want to know what another one would do if I survived it. Just MAN ya'll this just a note like take care of yourself, not trying to make anyone *panic* but stress is so so real and is so dangerous, legitimately. A lot of drs neglected my severe anxiety/panic attacks for yeaaaaarss like I was having panic attacks so often they eventually became seizures, and then I got more and mor health issues wrong with me. Stress can destroy you from the inside out. My dad also thinks I had a stroke or something like a stroke when I was 19/20 or something like that and he didn't know it was one at the time! and I didn't even know it happened. So if you aren't aware please know what the signs are. I had eye twitching and bad dizziness/vertigo for days and I could barely comprehend/what was being said to me, kept misunderstanding stuff and was reading/hearing things wrong and could not process stuff correctly. i kept forgetting what I was doing, or where I was or if some stuff existed. Now it's hard because some of my anxiety stuff can do things like that too. But the migraines and headaches I've been getting have been so bad, but then the numbness on one side came, and it was worse on the left side of my face(which is where I got face droop years ago) and my words werent totally slurred but weren't coming out right. WHEW. Following up with my dr soon and specialists..but they are booked far out so I hope she can see me sooner. But seriously guys take care of your mental health. You NEVER know what will happen fr. Life is so unpredictable! Stay strong <3 And prioritize your health no matter what happens.

[222beer]

I can see in the mirror that I'm losing weight which is exactly what I wanted since olanzapine made me gain 50lbs. But I'm not starving myself but I'm also not being like one of those annoying health nuts who are like YOU NEED TO EAT 1500 CALORIES OR YOUR ORGANS WILL FAIL. Like no lol. I'm doing what works for me and will give me results at a timely pace without me having to "build muscle" bc I don't care nor do I have time for that. It's actually just as toxic sometimes I think to be super super anal about eating enough, not limiting yourself, etc etc as it is to be obsessed with dieting. Like I can honestly say the whole "eat what you want!" fucked me up a lot more than anorexia ever did and eventually led to bulimia.

My best friend had severe anorexia and my life revolved around making sure she was ok, that she was never triggered, that I always ate in a way that made her comfortable but it often made me not because I also struggled with food. When my ED eventually got worse she accused me of being toxic when she had been doing the same types of things, telling me about the same types of behaviours, even telling me about lolcows and shit which made me super insecure bc how could I trust her then to not think my ED was fake and stupid? And the validity of my ED was something I really struggled with too.

When I'd open up to her about it she'd be like "omg this is all my fault" and I have empathy for her for that but also no like. I get she was trying to express remorse for triggering me but at the same time I struggled with an ED for years and it seemed so self centered to me for her to say that and it felt like she was spitting in my face.

Anyway after everything I tried to do for her, all the late nights and work days I spent consoling her, all she says to me anymore is "I hope you get the help you need". I was there for you at your absolute lowest. I get that I went insane. I was shoplifting, I was BPing like multiple times a day, I was binge drinking to the point where I couldn't hold down a job I would drink before work. But the people I supported just never showed up for me, they said I was toxic and like I do take accountability but I've apologized and it's been years. I don't think it's fair to pin all this blame on me when I was having a really really hard time too.

[thegeminisage]

sigh ok star trek update time. wednesday we watched tng's "force of nature" and last night we watched ds9's "second sight" and tng's "inheritance."

force of nature (tng):

this one is so infamous i knew about it way before we watched it...as predicted, it made me mad

i've heard something about a lower decks episode retconning this? which just goes to show how little human beings want to like. work on a problem

like, the episode is about fossil fuels and climate change. we rely on fossil fuels but theyre damaging our environment to the point these people are willing to completely isolate themselves in space bc they have no other choice

and like, the point of the episode is that this lady has to essentially self-immolate to get any attention and everyone gets the runaround from the people in charge because no one wants to believe it will get that bad and no one wants to change...

...and then they just. didn't change. like nobody stopped using warp. nobody brought this up ever again. in fact, it got RETCONNED? so why write it at all in a series where you KNOW everything has to go back to the status quo...tng is even worse than merlin in this regard, why would they do this!!!

aside from that, i feel like they gave us a b plot or multiple b plots in the first half of the ep (training data's cat, geordi's rivalry with that other engineer) and then completely dropped and forgot about them?? the whole ting feels just so poorly thought out...

second sight (ds9):

MIXED FEELINGS. under one hand i've been absolutely DYING for more sisko content under the other girl what the fucj was that

the lady was sooo mysterious i was CERTAIN she was either evil or a ghost...what she actually was turned out to be closer to ghost ig but it was so out of the left field the ending didn't leave me feeling very satisfied. also, what a shit deal for fenna to be dying either way when all she wants to do is hang out and make out with sisko

sisko and jake scenes <3

i did like the bits with dax being like oh i get it you cant tell me about girls anymore because i AM one. does the time we fucked twins together mean nothing to you

the ending was really good also. i mean, i think the plot of this episode was kind of ???, but the guy playing sisko is a GREAT actor and his struggle over this ridiculous situation was so palpable you felt for him in spite of it.

the guy she was actually married to was SO ANNOYING but i thought him killing himself was stupid and i was also a little more annoyed everyone seemed so chill about letting him do it - like, there was quite literally no way they could have stopped him, but sisko seeing him off with a sad smile instead of getting angry wasn't really what i expected

THAT SAID, reigniting a star and going out with the words "let there be light!" is pretty fucking metal. like i don't even like him, but you HAVE to hand it to him. that was really REALLY good, especially considering it came from a character i would have happily murdered myself right up until the instant he said it

inheritance (tng):

mixed feelings...2!

first off, i can't help but feel mister terraformer who reignites stars from that ds9 ep would have been able to help here. he killed himself out of fucking vanity and now he's totally useless to people who need him. jesus.

secondly, what the FUCK

i love data episodes, but the last few data episodes have been rough ones. i like him being skeptical of his "mom" and them eventually getting to know one another better, and i DEFINITELY like the subplot of her secretly being a little racist towards androids

like, there's so much complexity in that. what if you were data and you were alone in the universe but you found out you had a mom but she fucking sucked? like, lore traumatized her so bad she wanted a metaphorical abortion and when her husband refused she wanted to leave that baby outside the fire station, if the fire station had a big crystalline entity trying to eat all the firefighters.

i think that would have been a FINE episode on its own. like, her learning about data's loneliness, his failed attempt at having children, his success as not only a starfleet officer but a person, in SPITE of her fears and his rough beginning, his difficulties in not knowing who he was and his accidental reactivation of lore born from that loneliness and separation from his parents which is HER FAULT...all of this is fine drama

why did they have to make her also secretly an android, is my problem. it's a STUPID plot twist, and one tos did to MUCH better effect. like, is that android chapel's long-dead fiance just because he thinks he is? does having a person's memories and personality make you them, or is the copy always going to be different no matter what? tos seemed to decide the answer was that you can't implant a human consciousness into an android and be left with no changes whatsoever. you can't ever truly cheat death - even spock didn't get out of it entirely.

and what REALLY grinds my gears is that now they know this woman is an android WITH A KILL TIMER SET IN HER BRAIN so she can "die of old age" instead of like, working on changing the timer and letting her be friends with data or even telling her and asking HER if she wants the knowledge of what she is wiped from her brain, they're like, well she would be happier being human! WHICH IS STILL RACIST AGAINST ANDROIDS. and data's like yeah damn i guess she would be it would be selfish of me not to let her keep believing she is one. guess we'll lie then. it's not like there's any danger of her finding out from a stranger someday or anything

absolutely nuts by the way that deanna voted lie and picard voted truth. normally picard is the one with the rancid takes but this time it really was deanna :/

there's also logistic concerns. why doesn't she glow like data in geordi's visor? how does she digest food? if she was that advanced why did dr soong not make more androids or at least go retrieve data? why did he let her divorce him without telling her what she really was? like, let's make an android but a WOMAN, which means she gets no agency whatsoever. nevermind her HUSBAND - like, if they fuck, i do feel like he has the right to know he's fucking an android? it sounds bad when i say it like that bc if she wanted to keep it a secret then its none of his business but it just feels so weird that he's married to a copy of a person and neither of them know it and he's only gonna find out after she dies and someone tries to do an autopsy on hr. like what the HELL

also lmao the aside about data aging. threw that in there just for fun did we

anyway, that was an episode with huge potential that missed the mark so fucking completely because they prioritized a dumb shitty plot twist over actual interpersonal shit and character development. SIGH.

TONIGHT: ds9's "sanctuary" and tng's "parallels."

[gachagon]

Hey I finished Babel by RF Kuang and I wanna talk about it so don't click if you haven't read the book at all

anyways, well that was a wild ride. I'm emotionally drained. I feel a different level of hopelessness and depression than I have felt ever before after reading a sad book. Yeah the books sad as shit, but like it's a different, deeper kind of sad because I, the reader, knows that nothing will get better for anyone in that book at all.

Like they'll just continue to suffer for years and years until eventually things get somewhat tolerable. I'm glad Victoire didn't die in the end, but knowing how american slavery is abominable and how just looking black was grounds enough to being owned and treated worse than dogs, I don't feel hopeful as she's on a ship headed to a place arguably worse than where she's leaving.

I'm not gonna be one of those annoying ppl and complain about tropes or whatever, I think it was sad Ramy and Robin both died as well, and tbh idc if it really falls under that "bury your gays" trope I really don't think that mattered in the end because that's just how hopeless everything is.

You know, after I finished the book I tried asking myself "What if THIS character made it to the end? What if they had some help from THIS character?" and no matter how many strange and silly solutions I came up with, I still couldn't figure out a way the ending couldn't have been avoided.

I knew SOMEONE had to die, and I knew it'd probably be either Ramy or Robin, but even though everything was predictable it still hurt to read (in a good way). I don't hate sad books I know this seems pretty negative but trust, it was a good book and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

My only real criticisms of the book is just that I personally don't think it said anything too revolutionary in terms of race. Robin and Co are figuring things out about white people and society that I had to learn by the age of 12, so every time they make some grand revelation I'm just like "yeah...glad you're getting up to speed now."

And while this might be shocking I think letty is the best character in the book (not that she is a good person or that I like her I actually hate her guts and I would not want to even be in a room with her, I sometimes paused my reading every time she spoke and wondered how tf Victoire managed being beside her) But she's like the Ultimate White Woman, you know? The author somehow managed to meld every annoying racist white woman any POC has had the misfortune of talking to, and melded her into Letty. And I think that's pretty impressive considering white people manage to be annoying in multiple ways and not just one.

Now every time I see something racist on the internet I think to myself "Would Letty type this?" and most of the time I am correct she would

I also wish we had more time to flesh out Ramy and Victoire and the others (Idc about Letty's sad "boohoo my brother died" story tbh) I feel like Ramy especially was just kind of there as a prop for Robin to gaze at longingly and for him to get into stupid, petty arguments with Letty. The author definitely should've given us more than that little interlude before he kicked the bucket. And I think I'd have liked the book more if it weren't always centered on Robin's pov. Like if we got a few chapters dedicated to anyone else's POV besides those short interludes, that'd have probably fixed the issue a bit.

All in all, the book was great. It was amazing, and I really feel like I need to get myself a physical copy now and not just an ebook.

I also now have the strange urge to go back and fish up my old duolingo log in. I've missed some streaks since highschool.

[alizardbro]

I trust medical science, I believe in treating disease and that vaccines work, but I do not trust doctors. When I was 15 I started experiencing chronic pain in my left foot, shortly after I had a plantar wart removed from that foot. I went to my pediatrician and he said that it was normal to have a little pain after surgery, and he dismissed me when I told him it was more than "a little pain".

Months went by and the pain only kept getting worse, and now it had spread to my right foot. I went back to my pediatrician and told him that it felt like my feet were on fire and that I was having pins and needles almost all the time. He told me that it was plantar fasciitis, and that if I do some stretching it will get better.

More months went by and now I was 16, the pain had spread up both my legs and was only getting worse. Again I went to my pediatrician and begged him to help me, but he told me that I was just overweight, and that if I lost 20 lbs I'd feel a lot better.

Another 6 months went by, the pain had spread to my hips and lower back. It was a burning agonizing pain that was constant, I could barely walk most days and never without a cane. I asked my parents to go to the doctor again, but they pointed out that the doctor said that I just needed to lose weight. I told them that the pain was unbearable, that I needed more than weight loss, but they said that I had a tendency to be over dramatic about illness.

More time passed and now I was 17. The pain was so bad that I couldn't sleep through the night anymore, even with my psych meds I was on to help me sleep. I as passing out and throwing up from the pain now, and it had spread to just below my chest. It was horrifying to feel the pain slowly crawl up my body. I finally convinced my parents to take me to the doctor again, and the doctor told me that he would have me tested for a few autoimmune disorders. I went in for bloodwork, and a week later it all came back normal. My parents and pediatrician were very confused when I got upset at this news, because this meant that I was healthy and that their suspicions of me being dramatic were confirmed.

3 months went by before I told my parents that I couldn't take it anymore, and demanded to see my doctor again. My pediatrician was about to write me off again as just fat, but I told him that I needed a referral or else I would take action. Magically I had a referral to a rheumatologist.

I went and saw the pediatric rheumatologist a few weeks later. He looked me over and did some mobility tests, and diagnosed me with AMPS or Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome. I was told to do physical therapy and that if I stick to a routine of physical therapy and desensitization therapy, I should recover completely or almost completely. My dad was very pleased to hear this, a cure for my condition was all my parents wanted, my pain had been inconveniencing and embarrassing them for long enough. 

I went to physical therapy multiple times a week, I did the desensitization therapy multiple times daily, no matter how agonizing it was. Eventually I was "done" with physical therapy, my balance had improved a lot, but my pain hadn't. My pain had only continued to get worse. I told my parents this, but it was clearly only because I wasn't working hard enough. "Are you doing your home physical therapy?" "Are you doing your stretching in the morning?" "You just need to push through it" 

After I turned 18 I started doing research on my condition, and apart from the pain, none of my symptoms matched AMPS. I told my parents this and pediatrician this, ut again they were very dismissive. After doing a lot of research I've come to the conclusion that I have CRPS or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. I will never get better, I will never not be in pain, and I knew that, I always knew that.

A lot of pediatric doctors put their head in the sand when I young person (especially a female presenting young person) tells them they're in pain. They tell the parents what they want to hear and don't actually try to help you. As soon as I'm able to, I'm going to find someone who will help me. Hopefully once I get an official diagnosis things will finally get better.

[running-in-the-dark]

I've got an appointment with my psychiatrist/neurologist tomorrow and I think I'm going to mention all my weird sleep issues. I've had multiple people tell me it kind of sounds like narcolepsy, and then a few days ago I listened to a podcast episode where someone talked about their sleep issues - they sounded exactly like mine, and the story ended with them being diagnosed with narcolepsy 😬😬

I'm really nervous about bringing it up (because how could I have something relatively rare, I just can't sleep, that's perfectly normal right 😬😬) but I'll try (I won't say 'hi I think I have narcolepsy', I'll just explain the symptoms I have).

Just to sum it up for myself, here's a list of my sleep issues:

without the antidepressant I'm currently on that makes me sleepy, I wasn't able to fall asleep. it's always been hard but for about 6 months before the meds, it took me 1-4 hours to fall asleep every night (sometimes I just couldn't fall asleep at night at all)

... and I'd also wake up at least three times a night

I'm always tired/exhausted - I need at least 9-10 hours of sleep to feel slightly rested, but I could basically sleep all day and still feel tired (I do regularly sleep 12-14 hours, and usually sleep through any alarms I set too)

I have very vivid/real-feeling nightmares that often wake me up (that's much worse now with my meds)

I get sleep paralysis somewhat regularly (also worse with the meds), and now usually feel like my whole body is shaking when it happens too.

when I'm half asleep I often can't tell if something really happened or if it was a dream. I wouldn't call it a hallucination, I think? though sometimes when I fully wake up later I'll ask my husband if he came into the room and said a specific thing earlier and he usually says no, but I know I was awake when that 'happened', so. who knows.

if I'm sitting down and not actively doing something, it's pretty likely I'll fall asleep (like when I'm watching TV, reading, listening to an audiobook, in the car as a passenger etc.) - but it doesn't happen if I'm the one driving or anything that means I'm really alert/tense/active like that

I've fallen asleep in class/similar situations many times, but I think that's normal? like, that feeling of trying really hard to stay awake and focus because you can tell you're getting very very sleepy and it takes like a few minutes but eventually I just doze off (for a few seconds I think? obviously I can't tell because I'm not awake...)

that happened very frequently when I did my apprenticeship (it was awful - I'd be entering client's receipts and fall asleep over and over again while doing it. it was a problem because obviously I made some pretty big mistakes and people weren't happy...) - that was when I slept about 12 hours a night because I was too tired to stay awake once I came home from work.

I've fallen asleep in the cinema several times too (usually during movies I was really excited to see)

I dream even when I only sleep a few minutes. like if I fall asleep on the couch for five minutes I'll still dream. apparently that's not normal?

also if I'm watching something, for example, I'll fall asleep over and over and over again, each time for a few minutes. then I wake up, rewind what I was watching, and immediately fall asleep again. that goes on for hours sometimes and it's very frustrating because I try so hard to stay awake.

I don't know what this is exactly, but it sounds a little bit like very mild cataplexy... I think? sometimes I'll just suddenly be really really weak like my muscles aren't working. I can't grip/hold anything, can't lift my arms or legs, can't move/hold up my head (it feels too heavy), can barely speak, and just have to stay sitting/lying down like that until it passes. but I can't remember if that was because of intense emotions or anything like that because I had no idea that could be related. I think it does often happen when I'm really scared/anxious but I think that's just because that's exhausting?

my hands especially do often stop working right when I'm really stressed/overwhelmed. like I can't grip anything/use them properly. it's especially bad when someone is watching me write/do anything else with my hands - I get so anxious that my hands don't work right. and my knees/legs go really weak when I'm standing and I get very anxious (like during a presentation). but that's just anxiety I think?

I did fall to the floor when someone scared me once because my legs gave in, but that was like 20 years ago so it probably doesn't count (and isn't that normal anyway?). though, now that I'm thinking about it... that has actually happened at least twice after that 🤔 (my nephew scared me once, my legs gave in so I fell down, and he did it again another time because he thought it was funny)

oh yeah and I was so scared during my driving test that my legs stopped working and starting shaking uncontrollably while I was trying to park, so I had to wait a minute or more until it passed

okay I just googled what cataplexy really feels like because I just don't understand it at all, and apparently going super weak from laughing really hard isn't normal?! that can't be right. that happens to everyone, doesn't it? like when you laugh really really hard and your arms are like giant useless noodles? (that actually sums up that muscle weakness that I get pretty well: my limbs are like floppy noodles that I can only sort of control)

(I've seen several people give tickling as an example now.. but everyone goes completely limp when they're being tickled right?? like no one can move in that situation right?? lol this list is so stupidly long now that no one will get to this point but if you do, please tell me if that's normal or not.)

I don't know. It's probably nothing. Or maybe it's something else, like sleep apnea? Or I'm just overly sensitive or whatever.

I usually just put all of this weirdness down to 'oh my brain is just being weird again'. But I guess it can't hurt to at least mention it? 😬 It seems like a long list when I actually write it down but I tend to exaggerate things, probably? I guess most of this is normal anyway, so I'm sure it's nothing. But it is very annoying either way so I will at least mention it once.

[knolkovu]

Silently losing my cool over recent anime I've watched because they're all "almost" stories.

They've got everything they need to be amazing and you can clearly see the intended story ark, but they're just not. I don't know if the animators didn't have enough time or resources or if the source material is just genuinely an unrefined product.

It's one thing with the newer anime having multiple cut corners in their animations, but the story issues have me reeling inside. Great characters, great storyline concept, but terrible execution like they've skipped the nuance and development.

Randomly throwing in character development that doesn't make sense for their current relationships with other characters, like yes it's tragic but they aren't close enough for it to be as important as it is. Throwing in bonds of love & friendship for characters that aren't fast friends, were disagreeing or even fighting each other only an hour ago and haven't had a real conversation with each other until this heartfelt moment with zero emotional weight for the viewers.

You can clearly see how they could eventually get that relationship if the lead up was actually more detailed and spread across more episodes or just in world time.

Then there are times were multiple questions are answered in a single moment that don't organically fit together with the situation for them to be answered so forcefully and in many cases lead to more questions that are never answered. Pacing things as quickly as possible so you don't have time to process the new information and force the finale to play out in worse shape than it could have been.

Villains not having clear origins or motivations. They just appear, cause shit, leave and get emotional, but aren't just doing it for fun nor just because they're crazy. They've got reasons and palpable intentions that get skimmed over with passing comments that aren't good enough to explain why they do things, but are somehow the answers while being wholly open ended. One anime I watched gave the villain monologue time and it was roundabout, nonsensical and somehow easily understandable and shocking for the MCs while the side characters are also monologuing elsewhere about the villain's intentions and have by some miracle got the right answer despite there being zero context clues upto that point and they just somehow figured it out. It's like if Sherlock Holmes didn't explain anything and just said, "trust me bro," after finding the culprit and people just accepted that like it makes sense to blame this random suspect.

There are some cases of characters encountering things that are clearly important and are contextually major plot points that could shift the whole story that are dropped to make the finale happen. Even cases of characters using brand new, never before seen powers with zero explanations as to how or when they got that power and why they didn't use it before.

These anime have context without impact and development without lead up and it's so annoying to me. They're so close to being good, but everything was forced together and made the key points disappointing and hollow.

[mareastrorum]

WIP Wednesday: The Fool and the Soldier, Ch. 9 (Shop Date)

The Fool and the Soldier is now up on AO3, updated every other Friday (usually). I'm aiming for Friday, but might bump to Saturday/Sunday this week.

Unfortunately, I'll have to bump this next update to next Friday, 12/22. Work has been insane. Like before, I don't want to rush and get something half-assed posted. Hopefully work calms down after the holidays and we'll be back on schedule.

I didn't post a WIP scene last week because all the ones I had ready were super spoilery! So I've posted both this WIP scene and a Meta post today as a treat. Enjoy!

See the directory for other TF&TS posts.

Why did it have to be shopping?

Fjord was ready to declare mutiny and take his chances facing Avantika, Vera, and Bouldergut head on himself, in the middle of the busy port, so long as it would mean an end to this asinine errand. He felt an itch all along the inside of his skin. They’d spent the better part of an hour checking in with the wharfmaster about repairs, then Vera briefly reported what she’d already stocked at each vessel before insisting upon accompanying Avantika for the rest of the day. They’d spent the next two hours stopping in shop after shop, making bulk orders for supplies and assigning a trailing crewman to finish the request or handle delivery, eventually dwindling down to the final four. To make things worse, the dear captain was a haggler, prolonging each of their stops.

Gods, if it wasn’t for the Nein counting on Fjord to keep the crew distracted, he would have gone for the combat option. Instead, he kept a courteous smile on his face and followed Avantika down the busy road. “So, what is it that we still need?”

“Thankfully, Vera’s already ensured that we’ve restocked on most supplies,” Avantika replied. “However, there are a few items I prefer to check myself, and some favors I need to call on.”

“I take it these will be necessary equipment for our next destination?” Fjord noted.

Avantika grinned, though she continued looking forward as she led the way. “Oui.”

That was Nuash for “yes.” Fjord only knew a few key phrases, though he hadn’t heard the Ki’nau language spoken much since he left Port Damali for Nicodranas. It wasn’t that Nicodranas necessarily disfavored Naush; it was that there were far more languages spoken there that he just hadn’t noticed it much during his stops.

Darktow seemed similar, with most speaking in Common, plus a background melody of Marquesian, Naush, racial languages, and another with quick consonants that he didn’t recognize. Everyone switched between multiple languages with ease, depending on who they spoke to. Most land-based locals spoke an airy mix of Common and Naush while most sailors stuck to Common with thick Marquesian accents. Now and then, a group of halflings, dwarves, or elves passed by, speaking in their own tongues.

This mix of cultures and languages was typical of the Menagerie Coast, though there were unique blends at each port. Novel but familiar, nostalgic and diverse, in every new place Fjord had encountered during his time as a crewman. Fjord had missed it more than he realized, and he wished more than anything that he could enjoy it without all this doomsday business hanging over the Nein. It was strange to be homesick for a home that wasn’t a single place. Stranger still to walk in a place that should be like home and to feel like an outsider despite a welcome.

After a time in silence, Fjord teased his regrowing tusks, not yet long enough to protrude from his mouth, but enough to bother his lips. “I presume we’re going to be divin’ at the Diver’s Grave, but have you done that before? I’ve got some experience. Perhaps I can make some recommendations.”

Vera tilted her head slightly to leer at him from the other side of Avantika. Bouldergut said nothing, still stomping along behind them.

“A few times,” Avantika answered coyly as they approached a storefront at the end of the docks. The front wasn’t a proper wall, mostly a giant gate swung open and locked against the side, with a massive furnace along the back wall and anvil in the center, and a counter up front. A blacksmith of some kind.

Before Fjord could ask anything further, Avantika immediately addressed the clerk. He sighed and kept silent so she could work. He’d heard of strange diving suits, leather and metal contraptions for exploring the reefs for shipwrecks. As far as he knew, they worked a few hundred feet down, but they required a pump and tubes to provide air. Not the most efficient way to explore the depths, but then, most people didn’t train for free diving like Fjord had at Driftwood Asylum.

As unpleasant as they were, Fjord let himself get lost in the memories of that terrible place rather than wait mindlessly. Sabian had also been an orphan there and one of numerous bullies that made his life a living hell. Half-orcs weren’t common in Port Damali, and they’d needled him for anything they could think of. Called him a foundling, insisting his parents must have abandoned him rather than died, and he did not have a memory to speak to either possibility. Made fun of his teeth, jeering that he was a half-beast for his tusks. Mocked his uneven skintone, that he’d been left to soak in the water and it was that the green had bled from his flesh.

When Vandran had shown up looking for recruits to join his crew, Fjord had jumped at the chance—and so had Sabian. Thankfully, the work kept them both so busy that Sabian either didn’t have the time to continue his bullying or found enough distractions that were more pleasurable. Those years were hard, without a doubt, but they were some of the best of Fjord’s life. Within a few months, Vandran took him under his wing, tutoring him in sailing, leadership, swordmanship, and generally just getting along with people. All the things a father would have taught.

Then, perhaps a year ago, Sabian blew up the Tide’s Breath in the middle of a terrible storm, killing everyone else aboard and sinking it to the depths.

There had been no lead up to it. No whispers of mutiny or dissatisfaction with Vandran’s leadership. They had left port a few weeks earlier, when Sabian could have left and sought other employment. The half-elf hadn’t even taken anything with him when he dove into the roiling waters just seconds before the explosion. No hints as to a motive. Fjord had first thought his own survival was sheer luck, but after waking half-drowned with the Sword of Fathoms in hand, it must have been Uk’otoa that saved him.

Then, how had Sabian survived?

That thought brought Fjord’s mind to a halt, just as it had all times it cropped up before. Why did Uk’otoa choose and save Fjord, a hapless sailor shipwrecked during a terrible storm? Fjord had seen a vision of Vandran standing over a corpse with the Sword of Fathoms in hand, and after Urukayxl, Avantika had claimed that he had been a chosen of Uk’otoa when she met him (though Fjord had lied that he didn’t know the man). If Avantika had been telling the truth that Vandran had forsaken his plan to release Uk’otoa, then maybe Uk’otoa had taken that chance to send the sword to a new chosen. But why did Uk’otoa pick Fjord, who was loyal to Vandran, instead of Sabian, who had betrayed him?

Maybe Uk’otoa didn’t think Sabian was worth of being chosen. But then what did the demi-god prioritize? Vandran and Avantika were both personable, driven, and had a strong commitment to whatever path they chose. Fjord did alright presenting that sort of personality since he’d started emulating Vandran’s attitude and speech, but—

Avantika interrupted those thoughts as she spoke, “Bouldergut, you can manage, yes?”

Fjord roused from his distraction to turn and see a goliath stop a pallet on spoked wheels behind them. Because of the decline, the man was behind the cart, his grip on a rope preventing it from rolling down the grade. The massive metal construction resembled a bell with strange metal clasps and hooks on the bottom rim.

Bouldergut grinned toothily. “Yeah, boss lady.” She took the rope from the goliath and slowly began down toward the ship, while the goliath rolled his shoulders and walked back behind the storefront with a grunt.

“The balancing weights are inside on the pallet,” the dragonborn blacksmith noted. “I suggest gettin’ a crane to lift it onto the ship. No gangplank’s gonna handle that weight.”

“Of course,” Avantika said as she nodded to Vera, who counted out some silver bars from Bouldergut’s pack and laid them on the counter. “Bouldergut, just guard it at the dock once you get back to the Squalleater. Don’t try to take it aboard.”

“Yes, Captain!” Bouldergut cried as she left.

Once they were on their way again, Fjord asked, “A diving bell? I wasn’t aware that anyone in Darktow was interested in salvage. Actual salvage, not ‘salvage.’” He emphasized with air quotes.

Avantika chuckled as she began leading Vera and Fjord away. “It is not a popular vocation in the Revelry, but there are a few crews dedicated solely to such ventures. Enough for the merchants to keep several useful items stocked. You said you had experience. Are you familiar with deep sea diving?”

“Can’t say that I am,” Fjord answered honestly. “Before I was a sailor, I did some salvage in shallow waters, but none at a depth requirin’ equipment. Just good ol’ fashioned lungs.”

“Yes, I know you have quite the capacity for holding your breath,” Avantika mused with a smirk. Fjord felt his face flush, and while he didn’t look, he could feel Vera’s pointed glare. “However, that would only last you minutes. The depths of the Diver’s Grave require more than skill.”

Fjord took the opportunity to dig. “You didn’t mention how deep we’d be goin’. Do you know, or are we gonna improvise once we get there?”

“The Grave is only perhaps a hundred, a hundred fifty fathoms deep,” Avantika explained. Fjord was only slightly taller than a fathom, and such a depth wasn’t considered deep sea—surprising for a location in the middle of the Lucidian. “Prone to storms, which is why there are many stories of wrecks and treasure to be found there for enterprising divers. Assuming that their own vessel does not join the ones below.”

“With the blessings of Uk’otoa, we have no such fear,” Vera added with conviction.

“Of course,” Avantika agreed.

“At that depth, we’ll need somethin’ for the bends, or else it’ll take much longer between dives,” Fjord noted. He’d heard horror stories of blood boiling, spasms, skin swelling, burning lungs—all symptoms of going too deep too quick and then rushing back up. Even free diving to only twenty fathoms had to be gradual, taking stops on the way back up to settle the change in pressure. He had a feeling his water breathing spell would take care of that, but he’d never told Avantika he had it, and it was one more way to delay.

To prolong the shopping.

“Ah, you are right, my quartermaster,” Avantika noted. “We should stop by the alchemist.”

Fjord nodded, swallowing his frustrated sigh. Godsdamnit, this had better pay off.