#but no. we don't fucking know what it was but it happened twice

[haunting-hufflepuffs-basement]

Genuinely one of my favorite things about the maruaders fandom that is widely agreed upon:

Regulus is trans. Everyone assumes Remus is trans because werewolf behavior can look suspiciously similar to having a period. Shenanigans ensue:

*During 1st Year*

Sirius: *discreetly giving Remus chocolate during his time of the month*

Remus, in his head: HOW DOES HE KNOW? HOW DOES HE KNOW I'M A WEREWOLF? HOW DOES HE KNOW CHOCOLATE HELPS? WHY IS HE NOT SAYING ANYTHING? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

*Quidditch Locker Room*

Marlene: FUCK!

Sirius: What's wrong?

Marlene: I started my period and don't have anything on me!

James, who started carrying extras because he's a mom friend: Oh, here you go.

Marlene: *intensely stares at them* Okay if James carries the tampons and Remus is the one who uses them, why the FUCK is Sirius named Pads???

James: I. . .what?

Sirius: Abort Prongs. There's no right answer to this one.

*During a Study Session*

Regulus: Ugh, I'm so jealous of you sometimes Lupin.

Remus "Low Self-Esteem" Lupin: Why?

Reg: It's just that. . .well, if your mood is any indication, your time of the month is so CONSISTENT! Like, every 28 days like clockwork. You've never had 2 in one month or anything!

Remus, in his head: . . .is. . .is Regulus a werewolf too? Is this how Sirius was so accepting?

Remus out loud: You get it TWICE sometimes, how is that even possible?

Reg: I know right, it's so unfair!

Regulus: . . .

Peter: . . .

Regulus: So is there a REASON you've been stalking me or---

Peter: Are you a werewolf?

Reg: The fuck? No? Why---

Peter: KAY THANKS BYE!

*later*

Remus: oh my God Peter I didn't mean ASK HIM

Peter: Well how the fuck else was I supposed to find out?

Everyone start milking the comedy potential, or I'll have to write it myself! This is a threat! There's enough angst in this fandom, we need more pure comedy fics!

[maybe-im-dark]

Half the boyfriend, half the fun

The first thing Wade felt was cold. Not the gentle coolness of an autumn breeze or the refreshing chill of freshly fallen snow. No, this was a biting, numbing cold. His vision was blurry and his body felt...off. he tried to move but nothing happened. As he blinked away the fog in his brain and looked down at himself the realization hit him like a punch in the gut —his legs were gone.

"Crap!", he muttered in a raspy voice.

Slowly the memories returned. He and Logan had been on a mission, targeting a group of small-time criminals, who had holed up in the woods. Get there, take them out, get the cash, done. But apparently something had gone horribly wrong.

"Logan?", he called out.

No answer.

Panic flared as he looked around the wooded area. Using his arms, he began to crawl foward, twigs and pine needles digging into his stomach. Not caring for the blood trail he left behind. A few yards away he spotted Logan and the sight made his heart skip a beat. Logan looked just as bad, if not worse. Instead of being cut, his body was ripped off at one of the vulnerable intervertebral discs, that were not adamantium, torn apart brutally. One half of his metal spine was sticking out of his torso, glinting against the bloodied mess of torn skin, flesh and tendons.

"Oh, no, no, no!" Wade mumbled, dragging himself as quickly to Logan's side, as his upper half would allow. "Come on, peanut, don't do this to me!"

Logan's healing factor was strong, but unlike Wade, he couldn't regrow limbs. They needed to be attached to his body, for the wounds to start closing. Unfortunately Logan's lower half was nowhere in sight. Wade's mind raced. His belt was nearby, scattered in a pile of dried leaves. Wade rolled onto his side, grabbing it. Thankfully his Hello Kitty fliphone —small enough to fit into one of the tiny pockets— was in there for emergencies.

His fingers shook so badly that it was difficult to press the small buttons. As he went through the contact list, the adrenaline started to wear off and the pain set in. Today was really turning out to be a shit day.

The phone barely rang twice, before Dopinder picked up.

"Hey, Mr. Pool, what can i do for you on this fine day?", the cab driver's familiar thick indian accent greeted him.

"Cut the chit-chat, Dopinder! Shit has hit the fan and it's flying everywhere! Get to the coordinates i'm sending, stat!"

He hung up, quickly typing in their location and hitting send twice in agitation.

It didn't take long. Ten minutes later, Wade heard the distant screech of tires as Dopinder slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop. Dopinder hurried over, as fast as he could on the uneven ground. When he saw Wade and Logan, he looked as though he was about to puke, pressing a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah, i know! America's next topmodel isn't in our future anytime soon! Now pull yourself together for fuck's sake!", Wade yelled. "You need to help me find Logan's legs. They're around here somewhere."

Dopinder nodded, his legs wobbling, as he searched the area. A moment later he returned, cradling Logan's legs to his chest like a baby. They were still inside the yellow pants and blue boots. And why would they have undressed him? Surely nobody was that sick. Wade pushed the distracting thoughts aside.

"Alright Dopinder", he instructed, trying his best to sound calm. "Attach them to his torso. He'll up on his own."

Dopinder followed the instructions, carefully pressing Logan's lower half against his upper body. Nothing happened. Logan's wounds remained open, his body still split in two.

"Maybe...maybe he's already dead?" Dopinder suggested, looking uneasy at Logan's unconscious form.

"No, he's just passed out", Wade said. Then quietly to himself: "I hope he stays that way. I'd rather he didn't have to see this sight himself."

The wheels inside Wade's brain turned as he wracked his brain for what to do next. "We need to prevent his body parts from dying off! Ice! We need ice! Dopinder get us to a gas station, quick!"

Wade grabbed Logan's legs and Dopinder hoisted him under one arm and Logan's torso under the other, rushing back to the car. Wade maneuvered himself onto the passenger's seat as Dopinder carefully laid Logan's halves on the backseat.

Then he sped off, ignoring speed limits, though to Wade the drive still felt far too slow. Every red light cost them precious minutes. Finally they pulled up to the first gas station and Dopinder sprinted inside.

Desperately Wade turned to look at Logan. His skin was ashen with deep shadows under his eyes, that hadn't been there before.

"Hold on, honey", Wade whispered, reaching out to gently stroke Logan's disheveled dark brown hair.

A tingling sensation ran through Wade, as he realized, with some relief, that small stumps were beginning to form below his hips. His own legs were regenerating, at last. At least something was working as it should.

Dopinder returned, carrying two large plastic containers and several bags of crushed ice. He filled both containers two the brim with ice, carefully placing Logan's upper half in one and his lower half in the other.

"This is sick! Just sick!" Dopinder murmured as he took in the sight.

"Quit whining and drive to the mansion!" Wade barked.

Dopinder swallowed. But...shouldn't he be in a hospital?"

Wade rolled his eyes. "Yeah and what are you going to tell the doctors? 'Oh the guy in pieces here is actually a mutant with self healing powers, that aren't working right now. If you could fix him up, please!' Newsflash: Most people aren't too fond of mutants! These anti-mutant-propaganda-posters all over the city aren't just for show!"

Dopinder opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, nodding stiffly. He got behind the wheel and drove off. On one hand Wade felt guilty for going off on him. It wasn't fair. But on the other hand, he didn't give a fuck. Right now Logan's wellbeing wad all that mattered, everything else could wait.

"The gate's closed!" Dopinder said as they approached the mansion.

The school was an imposing building from the 19th century made of grey stones, its turrets and bay windows making it look more like a castle.

"Should we...announce ourselves?"

Wade shook his head. "Just drive right through!"

Dopinder floored it, crashing through the gate. The metal wings bend inward, scraping the sides of the car with a horrible screech as a shower of sparks flew across the windshield. Whatever. The professor could cover the damage; the old fart was loaded.

Dopinder parked, leaping out of the car. Wade wadled behind him on his tiny stumps.

"Help!" Dopinder screamed, pounding on the entrance door. "We need help!"

"Yeah, we have a medical emergency! Screw what Professor Egghead says, come out here!" Wade joined in.

The door swung open revealing Hank McCoy in a white lab coat over a beige cable-knit sweater and corduroy pants.

"Mr Wilson, i believe we made it clear, that you are not welcome here! And to have the audacity to insult the professor..."

"Come off it, cookie monster! Logan's badly injured and he won't heal!" Wade cut him off.

Hank adjusted his glasses, irritated. "Yes, yes. I'll take a look at him right away."

"Oh my stars and garters!", he exclaimed as he saw Logan's body halves in the ice-filled containers.

"Holy crap!"

Jean Grey had joined them, without Wade noticing. Not exactly ladylike to curse like that. Did Cyclops know his fianc��e used such language?

Using telekinesis, Jean carefully levitated Logan's body parts, guiding them as she and Hank rushed back to the mansion. Wade followed as quickly as his stubby legs would allow.

"What are you gonna do? Will he be okay? Why...?"

The door slammed shut in his face.

Outraged, he turned to Dopinder. "Really? They're just leaving the readers with a cliffhanger like that? Well, to be continued i guess."

[highwayphantoms]

ugh I was going to sit down and write tonight but now my organs are big fucking mad, which is, of course, consuming my active brain power

things I can do while my brain is preoccupied: watch TV, listen to music, play lightweight video games that don’t require much Brain

things I cannot do while my brain is preoccupied: difficult video games, creative writing, problem solving, etc

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[witheredgardenparty]

I will never forgive a single one of you

[nomidreams]

god i finally watched new episodes my honest reaction is jgiwoaoKzmxmkwkakkak

[bijoumikhawal]

"Biden is the best choice and he's actually really empathetic and reasonable but also you can't wait for a candidate that won't do genocide and war crimes because to become a presidential candidate you have to be willing to do that" see what you fundamentally don't understand is I'm not waiting for a candidate that won't do war crimes, because I know that. I cannot morally stomach this system, it's a joke to claim its democratic, and AMERICA DELENDA EST. this country is a plague on this Earth

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

now deeply curious after reading some comments on a related news article

(whether you get periods now or you got them 20 years ago...doesn't have to be current)

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Person on Avatar podcast: One fan wanted to know if Rangi or the events of RoK/SoK will be in Realms Collide. Me, watching the podcast: That's me. I was the fan. owo

[anaalnathrakhs]

i keep looking at posts like "i stopped a binge" "i prevented a binge" and all of them are like. "i waited until the urge went away". buddy. the urge doesn't go away. there's no urge. there's just nothing else to do. i don't have anything else to do. every time i stop eating no matter how long i sit with the feeling or not, i always go for more food because there is genuinely nothing else in my life. nothing is enjoyable anymore. the world sucks. no matter what i force myself to do it's the only positive thing i can ever find.

[rosesradio]

day 2 of what i call the redneck convention aka a family function

[notjanine]

okay so our internship cohort is pretty tight and mostly women, so we be girl talkin. and the girls have gotten invested in my love life, partly bc this situation is so ridiculous and partly bc they're not autistic so they're like Omg you just talked with them directly about your wants and needs?! multiple of these bitches have expressed their desire to live vicariously through me in the context of all this etc etc. so anyway. a bunch of us are chatting about this after class and it's fun and loud, so Messy Guy comes up like Ooh what are we talking about?! and classmate is like Al out here dating two people, living the dream!! and i had to leave for a meeting before i could catch his reaction but they were still giggling about it when i left so l m a o

[inbabylontheywept]

The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss. 

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town. 

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse? 

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed. 

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now. 

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it. 

---

My job has glue traps. 

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life. 

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just 

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you. 

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out. 

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me. 

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps. 

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me. 

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was: 

Do NOT mess with animals in the building. 

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences. 

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop. 

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve. 

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went 

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover. 

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell. 

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair. 

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.  

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right? 

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes. 

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil? 

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question. 

Who grabbed the snake? I asked. 

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right. 

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No. 

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago. 

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again. 

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think. 

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be. 

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.

[twig---verginix]

swear to god i'm just gonna stop watching the endings to shows i like. good shows need to get cancelled on cliffhangers forever

[nexus-nebulae]

"hey. what the fuck, man"

- one of our fictives coming to front for the first time in eight months and immediately scrolling past fanart of him even though we literally haven't seen content from that fandom much less of that character since we left it eight months ago

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.