#easier than having to think about capitalism or whatever

[andhumanslovedstories]

I was originally going to move to the Pacific Northwest with Cyrus at the beginning of 2017. Then Trump got elected, and I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t know what I was going to do instead, but I felt a duty. It feels more comfortable in a way to say I felt a duty to my community, and I did, and I do, but it might be more honest to say rather I felt and feel a duty to my country. As a kid, I heard the phrase, “My country, right or wrong. If right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be made right.” To me—naively, idealistically, yes—that was what America meant. A flawed nation full of people who were trying. And Washington DC was the place where that happened. So the work I needed to do would be in DC.

It wasn’t. I didn’t end up going into politics—probably a good call since I think that would have killed me. Instead, I became a nurse. I help people on a more personal level. I try to change one hospital’s culture. It’s a smaller focus, more sustainable, and one that gives me satisfaction, but it’s not what I thought I’d be doing in 2016 when I woke up to discover that I’d been even more naive about our country than I thought. And it’s a role I’ve been feeling the limits of lately as history unfolds.

But weirdly enough, thinking as much as I have about the country lately, I’ve come to the realization that I am still as patriotic now as I was as a kid attending anti-war protests and sitting during the pledge of allegiance. The worst of us don’t get to claim to be the only people who get to love our country. They don’t get to make this country whatever they want. I am an American, and as fraught as that identity is, it is mine as much as it is anyone else’s.

For better or worse, for good and for evil, the core of the American identity is that we can make America whatever we want. You can (and should!) analyze, critique, deconstruct, and often condemn that idea and the ones underpinning it (like, for example, the false and harmful idea that the continent was a vast empty space just waiting for us to fill it with “real” civilization). But the idea endures. And the idea has power. And the idea doesn’t have to be ceded over to those who can’t conceive of a world not shaped by their cruelty, hatred, bigotry, and a bottomless lust for power.

I’m not just an American. I’m also a Virginian. Sandwiched between the capital of the Union and the capital of the Confederacy, teeming with civil war battlefields, it’s a state that reminds you constantly that you have to fight for the country you want. To the north, we’re the south, and to the south, we’re the north, and every region of the state is its own distinct subculture. It’s not easy to find the overlap between Nova and coal country. I love my state, and I am deeply ashamed of so much of its history and culture. Leaving Virginia didn’t make reconciling those two facts any easier or make me hold them any less true.

After writing the first part of this post, after thinking all the thoughts that led me to writing it, I went on the most impromptu cross-country trip of my life back to the east coast and northern Virginia. Crazy what makes you homesick. I wanted so badly to move away from Virginia after living there my whole life. And I love the west coast. I bought a house out here, it’s safe to say I’m pretty locked in to the PNW. But lately I’ve been feeling wistful for other versions of my life. Not regretful, but still a little sad that life is a series of mutually exclusive choices.

There’s worse fates than loving two places. And that love has given me comfort when reality has absolutely not. As Trump and his cronies remake American in their image, the betrayal and grief I feel has been strangely invigorating. I wouldn’t mourn as much as I am if I didn’t love what they were taking away. It’s not a simple love or an easy one, but it’s still love. As we go into this particularly dangerous continuation of the debate about what America is, it will be very important for us to remember what we love.

There's so many horrible things happening in America right now that it has been interesting to see what individual horrors hurt me personally the most. I grew up going to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Musicals, plays, concerts, that weird bust of JFK, playing around on terrace during intermissions, putting on a velvet dress that you're going to ruin dropping a milk dud in your lap and not noticing until it's fully melted, wearing the pinchy shiny shoes that are the training bras of women's formal footwear, operas I didn't like but did love, jazz I didn't understand but still fascinated me, red carpet, big stairs, the absolute nightmare amount of experiences I had as a new driver as I repeatedly got trapped in the Kennedy Center's fucking private DC island or whatever the hell is going on traffic-wise, free performances on small side stages, getting to see an enormous production on the Center's most enormous stage, all of which was accessed by walking through that a long, tall hallway lined with flags of the world that made you feel like a dignitary attending the most important even in the world.

And now Trump's taken it over. He fired its board. He appointed one of his loyalists to run it. I want to throw up.

Sometimes I miss DC so much. I love the Pacific Northwest and expect I'll live here for the rest of my life, but this isn't my hometown. I grew up the edge of the District. I've lost cumulative years of my life stuck in traffic on the inner loop and outer loop. Because of the Smithsonian, it used to be so baffling to me that anyone ever had to pay to get into a museum. I've used the Washington DC zoo as a shortcut to a different part of the city because it's free to enter. You couldn't count the amount of knockoff Spider-man popsicles that I've eaten sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My reading tastes were molded by Kramer Books in Dupont Circle. I spent afternoons walking around the National Mall, normally just a big empty field until there's an event--book fair, country music program, international cuisine, whatever--at which point for a day or a weekend or a week it becomes a sea of tents and stages. I went to protests outside the Capital and the White House about the war in Iraq. I froze my toes off watching Obama's 2008 presidential inauguration.

It seemed like everyone's family touched the federal government in some way. Everyone's family had moved here because they were military or state department or a political consultant or worked with an NGO or some other reason that meant you had to be here, in the nation's capital. Plenty of people had connections to the federal government that we more hush-hush. Like kids in class straight up going, "I have no idea what my parents do for a living. They're not allowed to tell me." High schoolers regularly, accidentally drove into the CIA parking lot and got escorted out because the premises were that accessible. My family moved here because my dad is a reporter who ended up covering international trade. (Imagine how much his job sucks right now.) He switched beats one summer to cover the White House instead. He got to fly on Air Force One. He got official Air Force One M&Ms. I was SO disappointment my dad didn't work there for Bush to call on him by nickname.

Every day my family got The Washington Post. I read the comics and the kid's page, then the rest of the Style section, then Metro, then news. I learned to read from it. We wrapped our delicate Christmas ornaments with its pages. We used yesterday's papers to clean our windows because they didn't leave streaks. I took journalism in high school. You can't IMAGINE how much and how frequently we talked about Watergate. When Post changed its motto to "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after Trump's election in 2016 that meant something to me. I knew Bezos owned the paper now, but that was still my paper, and the motto spoke to something I fervently believed: if people just knew what was happening, they wouldn't allow it to happen. If you expose a problem, people will naturally agree that it is a problem and that we should do something to fix it. Flash forward to Trump's third fucking campaign, and the newspaper wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate. Chickenshit cowardice. Then they change the motto. "Riveting Storytelling for All of America." Eat shit. You're nothing now.

Politics in America is just telling everyone how much you hate Washington, DC so that they'll elect you so you can move to DC. Well, guys, the city fucking hates you too. Republicans will never give the District actually meaningful political representation because no one in that city would vote for them. It's not just the policies; it's the contempt. No one in the new administration loves the city they schemed and lied and stooped to take over. It's just iconography to them, and all they care about is taking that iconography for themselves. Trump doesn't give a shit about the summer program for the Kennedy Center. He has never seen a show at the Kennedy Center. When he was president, he never attended the annual awards. He's trying to destroy one of the most significant places of my life and I'm genuinely unsure if he has ever stepped for inside of it.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Can I request Matt and Frank with a neurodivergent reader who rocks to self-soothe when they’re overstimulated/anxious

Hello darling! Absolutely you can. I’m sorry it took me so long to respond, it’s been a WEEK. Wayyyy too many thoughts below the cut.

Let me just say, I think both Matt and Frank would be fantastic partners to someone who is neurodivergent. They both understand the constant frustration and sense of injustice and all that.

Matt

It would take a few weeks for Matt to even realize what you were doing, I think. He can hear the movement, but it wouldn’t really seem off to him, given how much time he spends with Foggy–who never STOPS moving.

Because he doesn’t have much experience with people who are neurotypical and not stressed beyond belief, he’s sort of used to people fidgeting and doing what they can to calm themselves.

I don’t think he would bring it up without someone else prompting. Maybe Foggy or Karen says something offhandedly, catching you by surprise. You hadn’t even noticed you were doing it at the time, swaying your weight to your heels and back to the balls of your feet, your body rocking with the movement.

“Don’t worry, sport! We’re coming.” Foggy laughed, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his coat as the four of you prepared to grab lunch.

You froze, suddenly regaining your self-awareness and immediately choking on a wave of embarrassment.

“Ready to go?” Matt’s voice startled you out of your stupor, making you jump

“Uh yes. Sorry.” The apology was instinctive, habitual. A symptom of perpetually feeling like your innocuous stims were troublesome for others.

“Why are you sorry?” Head tilting in the signature way it always did when he was concerned, Matt’s hand came to rest on your arm as he scanned you for evidence of harm.

“Nothing. We should catch up.” You murmured, hurrying out of Matt’s office to follow his business partners out of the building.

He’d let you deflect, but he’d set the thought in a special corner of his mind, privately vowing to bring it up at a later time.

After Foggy and Karen had escaped the pile of paperwork in the conference room, hesitantly allowing you and Matt to sort through it without them, he’d leap on the opportunity.

“Out with it,” The command is tender but stern, very classic Matt.

“Out with what?” Playing dumb worked sometimes, easier than an outright lie in front of a breathing polygraph machine.

“You’ve been biting your tongue since before lunch.” Apparently your go-to strategy wasn’t going to work this time. “What happened? Did I say something?”

The fear simmering below his concern caught your attention immediately. You had to answer now. “No nothing like that, Matty. I just..got in my head.”

“About what?” His wandering gaze is so earnest, you cave immediately. You tell him everything. The way you always felt different from those around you. The confusion and constant frustration when you inevitably misunderstood people. The pile of issues you had with various sounds and textures. The need to rock back and forth in place when you were nervous or overwhelmed, and the shame that forced you to stop when someone laughed or criticized you.

As always, Matt listens. Asks a question here or there, to help himself understand, but he seems to get it. There’s no judgement in his eyes, only total acceptance and a blaze of protective fury.

Once he knows about the stim, he would fiercely defend you in public. Scold people for staring and encourage you to do whatever you needed to do to feel comfortable.

Frank on the other hand would notice it VERY quickly.

This man is capital O Observant so he spots the rocking before you’re even together.

He has weird fidgety things he does too so he’s not judging whatsoever. He’s not interested in dissecting the root cause if it’s not hurting you or anyone else. So he jots it down in his mental notes about you and moves on past.

I think he’d also pick up on the soothing nature of it, notice that you seem calmer when you allow yourself to stim. So when he catches you in a bad mood or in a stressful moment, he’d pull you flush against his chest, one hand cradling your back while the other cups your head, and he’d rock the two of you together. (If you need to rock alone, he’d absolutely let you. But this personally would be nice for me so I’m including it lol)

If anyone ever commented on it, they’d find themselves on the other side of a MURDEROUS stare, urging them to quickly apologize and move on with their day

[miesozernacma]

loved my choice of essay themes in class today

it was

1. what determines the value of a person? reference the book "crime and punishment" along with another piece of literature of choice

2. what female characters in literature do you find the most compelling? reference multiple pieces of literature of your choice

[bossuary]

Neve is painless. Rook is real.

Lucanis likes Neve because she represents what he is desperate to regain. He wants to feel normal, to work and cook and focus on the things he used to enjoy (such as they were) before the Ossuary. He wants capital R Romance, right out of a book.

Most importantly, he wants to get rid of Spite. He wants to pretend that he is the man he was...not this abomination.

Without truly knowing her, Lucanis believes Neve is a pathway to all of that. He's attracted to her, and she to him. Their flirting has an edge, but it's also friendly. She dislikes Spite, and her presence makes Spite disappear.

Neve will tell Lucanis that he's still himself, and that Spite doesn't change that. She will never be the one to reconcile Lucanis with Spite, to get them to accept each other. So, yeah, he gravitates to the charming, flirty, warm person who (through no fault of her own, really) feeds his desire to pretend he's not an abomination.

Even early on, I think he's smart enough to know that accepting Spite is his only option, but he...just... can't. With what tools? Nothing in his life has prepared him to deal with this. Rook does that. When denial tears Lucanis apart, Rook puts him back together with acceptance. Rook accepts the reality of Spite, and deals with it head-on every time.

Neve will remind Lucanis that she's not going anywhere. She'll tell him to open his eyes and look at facts, but she (probably) won't be the one to push him out of his own prison. Lucanis knows this, so Spite knows this, and therefore Spite will not look to Neve for help.

It's important for Lucanis to accept that Spite has changed him. But when it's Rook who says it--for whom Lucanis has developed real feelings, not idealized ones--well, it destroys the fantasy Lucanis clings to so vehemently, the one where he isn't this.

For me, the Lucanis/Rook romance feels the way it does NOT because the writers "preferred" that Lucanis and Neve get together, but because Neve is simply easier for Lucanis to accept. She's easier to talk to, unchallenging. Easy isn't bad! Comfort isn't bad! God knows they both deserve some comfort.

Loving Rook is a profoundly complex choice. There's not a lot of cute ways to work that profundity into sexy banter. It makes sense, then, that Lucanis doesn't have as much dialogue for a romanced Rook as he does with Neve. What he can do is cook, make small gestures. He can, heartbreakingly, tell Rook, over and over, that he doesn't have the words to express how he feels. That's such an awful state, knowing that the person you care about needs to hear words you simply cannot locate. As soon as he does have the words, he shares them.

Rook is real. And real is not easy.

To Lucanis, Rook represents a difficult path to recovery, a path he has to keep choosing to follow, every day. At a time in his life where he is incapable of seeing Spite (and his own PTSD ) as anything but a 'distraction' to shove aside, Rook shows genuine interest in helping Lucanis heal. Rook takes consistent action toward that goal, particularly when it's clear that Lucanis doesn't know how.

Lucanis also has to believe that he's worth the effort, his own and his love's. Neve is great, love her, but I don't see this struggling cynic, this chronic worrier, being very helpful in the self-worth department. No, people in a relationship do not have to perform therapeutic roles. But, partners do have to respect each others' boundaries and needs.

Of course Lucanis goes all-in for Neve, romantically, even while he and Rook are dancing around each other. Accepting how much he loves and cares for Rook means looking at himself the way Rook does. That is so much harder than whatever will happen with Neve.

The fact that Lucanis isn't afraid to pursue Neve, even if Treviso is blighted, tells me that Neve is an indulgence for him. Again, that's not a value judgement. If they treat each other with respect, then the merits of the relationship don't have to fall on whether Lucanis 'heals' as a result. Sometimes not hurting all the time is enough.

BUT. Contrast the ease he feels with Neve with his feelings about Rook:

"When I was afraid to want you..."

That is a powerful admission.

What was he afraid of? The annihilation of neglect, worthlessness, and shame. The awful but knowable pillars of his existence.

Wanting Rook means that Lucanis wants to dismantle everything he knows in pursuit of something he doesn't. To love Rook is to love and accept himself, exactly as he is.

Then...then...Lucanis finds real comfort.

[witherby]

How do the Waynes (+ Hal) react to Truce Juice? I mean, I assume they're supportive but how supportive do you think each of them would be?

- 🌃

Bruce:

Initially hates the idea. Wait — no he doesn't, he loves this idea but doesn't love that it would be you running it. He is The Catastrophizer. He's thinking about every single terrible thing that could go wrong and multiplying it by ten. He puts you through a less intense version of Robin combat training before he feels even the slightest bit comfortable letting you spend your days making lattes for villains. He's extremely proud of you though. Just please, god, please don't fucking make him bury you.

Hal:

Excited, similarly nervous to Bruce but not to the same extent, and relieved to finally have an official Neutral Ground that the Lantern Corp can be around in Gotham. This makes the paperwork much easier. He's proud of you, kiddo! What, you're still gonna charge him for a croissant? No family discount?? Damn, that's cold. 😒

Dick:

Thinks it's genius. It's a form of outreach nobody has attempted yet, and when it starts working, couldn't be more proud to call himself your older brother. He helps you with the combat training Bruce puts you through before you're allowed to open the business, and when he drops in as Nightwing, teasingly pesters you to make an item named after him.

Jason:

Has a drink-and-sandwich combo named after him. (The "Red Hood" is a large, black coffee with two sugars and a panini.) He helped Bruce design the Robin training regimen for you because he's a realist, and knows that even though your business model is proving to be much more successful than anybody anticipated, there will always be people who don't care and will try to hurt you just because. He needs you to be okay while your big heart makes waves.

Tim:

A little jealous he didn't think of it first. He knows you're intelligent and empathetic, so to see your passion project flourishing makes him happy for you. If you even hint at a desire to expand the business, though, he's ready with plans and strategies to turn it into a Franchise in other cities. Drake Industries is ready to capitalize on this with whatever funding you need to guarantee your success.

Damian:

Conflicted. He did the most sparring with you to prep you for self-defense. He wants your business to succeed, especially because you care about it so much, but doesn't see the Gotham rogue gallery as worth the effort. They've had chance after chance to redeem themselves and turn away from their illegal paths, so why should they be rewarded with a cafe that will cater to them? To help ease his and Bruce's nerves, you employ him part-time so that he gets to experience for himself how well the business model is working.

Alfred:

Helping you come up with new drink and food recipes. Thank fucking God someone in this family is learning how to use an oven. He has no fear for your well-being, because you were raised by a family of vigilantes. You never took up the crime-fighting mantle, but you are far from helpless, and you never were.

[hadesoftheladies]

why you should have hope for separatism:

-this is one of the first times in history where women en masse are educated and (are expected to) participate in the working class which means now more than ever women are better equipped to take care of their own financial needs (even with all the tradwife influencers, not many women will be able to convert because house-wifery is strictly limited to the upper-class, which is shrinking more and more, so most women will always have to work anyways, and most women see this! even the ones that joke about being housewives/strippers are serious about their careers!)

-separatism is mostly non-action. it is strategic non-interaction with men or male media which makes it extremely accessible and easy to replicate across cultures. it removes women from exploitative relationships with men. this means the only thing you need to do to convince women to become separatists is attack the idea that their lives will be unfulfilled without men. and more women and girls are embracing that culture simply because of their experiences (and access to education)!

-late stage capitalism and the rise of blatant misogyny men display is radicalizing women. which means more and more women are open to living together and raising children together romantically/platonically. (literally every woman i've talked to who's unmarried lives with their parents or wants to live with women because men are genuinely an unattractive option--thank you men for showing your asses <3)

-the internet and globalization positions women from all over the world to share their experiences (and we have many shared experiences), which means consciousness-raising has never been faster or easier or more powerful!

-men and boys are failing and dropping out of school way more than women and girls which means that women and girls are on the way to dominating academia and relevant industries! women will make up more of the skilled workers in future job markets which means that women who are educated now will likely be better off and more pursued financially than men. women's influence in society is increasing! think about it. as much as male violence is increasing, male literacy and competence and skill is DECREASING (even nepotism or sexism will not be enough to fix that problem because hiring men will still result in profit losses and other financial inconveniences). in short, male culture is killing men!

-resistance to pornography and understanding the evils of pornography are also increasing. awareness of male violence is increasing!

please read more literature on separatist strategies and don't think whatever is happening on tiktok/IG is how all women think. most women irl are not stupid enough to trade in their jobs for prostitution because women don't actually want that. many women i've talked to in real life also don't want children (in these conditions or at all)! they aren't radfems but they still have self-preservation instincts and intelligence!

there is literally so many ways we can use the current sociopolitical climate to our advantage. it is too early to give up. like wayyyy to fucking early.

[ckret2]

If Goldie was a normal human, unrelated to bill, would bill want to hit that

Well, she'd have the prettiest eyes he's ever seen on a human, she's got that going for her—right up there with some of the sexiest frogs on Earth—but aside from that, the rest of her body is just human. And unless they're fascinatingly mutated, all humans are about a 5.5/10 on looks for him. Like, the whole species. Uniformly. So her looks don't really make a difference. The frog eyes knock her up to a 6/10 but having a 0.5 point lead on the entire rest of humanity isn't really that much help.

The answer rides entirely on personality.

By "normal human" do you mean normal human? As in lives a Regular Human Life has some random generic Regular Human Personality, with normal human traits and behaviors like "participates in capitalism by having a job" and "goes on dates in the hopes of finding romance" and "remembers that Thanksgiving exists" and "thinks wearing makeup has any actual impact on her appearance even though she looks just as human with or without it" and "doesn't have any delusions of grandeur"?

If that's the case, then whether or not he'd want to hit it comes down to this: has she been recruited into one of his cults? Does she literally worship him? If the answer is yes, then yeah, he'd want to hit that, because he's got the world's most grandiose praise kink.

On the other hand, by "normal human" do you mean born and raised on earth like any other human—and yet, for whatever nature/nurture reason you want to imagine, still ended up with the exact same personality, opinions, and beliefs as Bill?

Because if you mean THAT, then Bill would go "that human's a FREAK! Down to party, up for chaos, and has all the right political opinions! How can somebody be SO social and yet SO misanthropic at the same time? I LOVE it! And talk about your secretly insecure egomaniacs, wow, this little lunatic is desperate for fame and popularity, I could get her to do anything if I promised she'd be famous for it. Most pathetically manipulable human I've ever seen, she's an even easier target than Ford. Bang her, hench her, get her to build a portal, invite her to the party, bang her again while we're both too high to feel our faces. Bam. She'll have me on earth in half a year and if I offer her a minor demigodhood I won't even need to lie to her about what it's for, she'd probably let her own dimension burn in exchange for three days of youtube viral fame"

And he would NOT have the self-awareness necessary to realize how viciously he just dragged himself

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

“And we're not doing ourselves or our dogs any favor by pretending that any of this is normal.

And so again, to contextualize the anthropocene and the world we are living in is absolutely unprecedented. The rate of change that is still occurring and frankly, even speeding up now, it's never occurred in the history of the planet before. And we are like, this is normal.

No, none of this is normal. None of this was here 100 years ago. And like we haven't evolved and our dogs haven't evolved to those conditions.

But as we're kind of putting out all these messages and signals, like on TV and social media and whatever, that like, this is normal. And if you're not getting along with this, then like, I don't know what's wrong with you.

When the truth is, is that the research that's coming out on humans, you know, there was a study I just heard about this week where, you know, they pulled a few thousand teenage girls and over 65% of them felt completely and totally helpless.

But on the outside, we're posting on social media, little smiles and all the fun things we're doing. And our whole, those three circles for us, like, are so compromised as well. I mean, I kind of put this out a few decades ago, and I made myself so depressed in the process, I stepped away from it, but it doesn't mean it's any less true.

The idea that dogs are kind of an indicator species for us, right?

They're like the dog in the coal mine, because they're like screaming for help, rather than telling themselves, this is all perfectly normal, I must be the problem, that I'm not fitting in.

Like dogs don't flip it back on themselves in that way, automatically, you know?

Whereas we're like, I'm broken, I'm not working, where it's like, no, this whole world isn't working. And like, this is where I actually think, this is what's so inspiring about this moment, if we can lean into it. We have an opportunity to help ourselves and our dogs.

And in a way, it's almost easier to look at the dogs first. It's really hard to put the microscope back on ourselves.”

From Cog-Dog Radio: Consequences of Captivity with Kim Brophey, 22 Jan 2025

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/cog-dog-radio/id1128562867?i=1000684853950&r=2649

This part was a massive highlight from the discussion between Kim Brophey and Sarah Stremming about our dogs being captive animals - but also humans being captive in the system of capitalism!!!

This is what I’ve been saying for years in the anti vs pro zoological facilities discussions. We think we’re free but we’re not. While we are not living in physical cages we are caged by the systems that a select few have created to benefit themselves.

We are living in captive environments where we have limited autonomy because our whole system of existence is based in working to make money and creating a culture of hyper individualism that is extremely unnatural and unhealthy for social species!

Our dogs being indicator species was something I had never considered before but it makes so much sense. Just like our dogs have been unable to biologically adapt to the rapidly changing world, we are too!

[transmutationisms]

How do you feel/think about euthanasia as an option provided by medical care for mentally ill or disabled people?

As much as I want to support bodily autonomy in an absolute way and think ultimately it’s a persons choice whether they want to live (i also have first hand experience with the “care” after suicide attempts, which is punishment, not care) and comfortable effective options should be available for that. it also is deeply, deeply upsetting to me, as someone who probably would have chosen to die years ago but found out i want to live — and infuriating, since they make it so fucking hard for disabled people to live, i don’t think making it easier for us to die is the answer.

being disabled feels like a death march from the start. we are isolated, have very little community, were tortured, neglected until we want to die. then it’s like “ok if that’s what you really want :)” as if that wasn’t the plan from the start? it’s just eugenics. not even with extra steps. but they make it think it’s our idea.

how would you reconcile these 2 ideas in like, a grounded materialist kind of way ? if that makes sense. or whatever i am asking your opinion

i actually answered this before but now i can't find it. i agree with everything you've said about the potentially eugenic function of physician-assisted suicide under capitalism; however, i think the problem is the capitalist context and its attendant ableism, not the PAS itself. people will and do kill themselves regardless of the legality, and i believe it's important to offer them as painless and controlled a method as possible, while simultaneously toppling the capitalist ableism that makes this fraught from a disability justice perspective. since we are in the context we are in currently, for now i do also support laws forbidding PAS from being suggested to patients (ie, they must be the ones to bring it up and pursue it) and i think there are ways to build in some checkpoints to the system without excessively restricting people's ability to end their lives. but i do not support making suicide illegal, whether by physician or otherwise.

incidentally, this would also be an issue where you can see how the biopolitical remits to make live and to let die exist coterminously to one another: though the state is more than happy to let disabled people die on the grounds that it views them as economic liabilities, legalising suicide is still not exactly a slam-dunk from its perspective because in general its interest also lies in promoting the continued existence of its healthy [wealthy/white/abled] labouring population. this is the actual material reason why in most jurisdictions PAS is still strenuously objected to by openly ableist, otherwise eugenically motivated reactionaries, and why it's often proposed only for terminally ill patients or with other such extremely narrow eligibility criteria.

[headingalaxys-spicy]

Thinking of Ludwig slowly becoming a yandere after being in a relationship with his s/o for years and s/o just accepts it because they love him so much. They take every punishment he gives, and feel torn between wanting to escape but they love him too much to leave. They’re timid around him and he takes advantage of that, teasing them for his own pleasure- that’s what I’m thinking about 😅

Hello there you beautiful human. Thanks for waiting in purgatory for your ask to be answered. I hope it satisfies you ✨

Gonna put the warning here : Totally touches on things like toxic relationships that are abusive so if that’s triggering for you then yeaaaah skip this one.

How you first encountered Ludwig: 

You were having a blast at a small German town's annual summer festival. You’d gotten separated from your friend group as you spotted some fancy Deutsch wine crafted by a family doing it for over 200 years. You hadn’t realized that you were pretty drunk when you’d bumped into the German General & spilled your cherry red wine all over him as you took a tumble to the ground. 

“Oh Sheibe! Es tut mir leid! Ich kann diesen Kleidung sauber helfen.” Panicked, you pulled out many napkins and water bottles to assist him with removing the stain. Ludwig may have been annoyed but became relaxed & spellbound by your beautiful face, perfectly framed by your freshly trimmed hair. 

‘Humph. Well, at least they’re remorseful.’ 

“Es ist okay. I have dry cleaners I can drop this uniform off at and more to wear, but…” Ludwig reached into his back pocket to pull out his business card. 

“If you’re around in Berlin & want to get the best Wurst in all of Germany, call or text me. Ciao” 

[He learned his rizz from Italy.] 

The first date was a smooth yet fantastical affair. The two of you dawdled through the sprawling city of Berlin. From the Brandenburg gate to the TV tower, & down to the River Spree. You got to be fully immersed in the capital city of Deutschland by none other than its resolute representative, Ludwig Belischmidt. 

You were dazzled by all the history he knew of, down to tiny details you knew couldn’t be found in a surface-level history textbook. Your admiration of him, combined with your cute face & intellect, make it much easier for Ludwig to catch feelings. 

As the two of you moved past the honeymoon phase and into the waves of a long-term relationship, you began to notice subtle changes in Ludwig. 

He wouldn’t complement or encourage you as much. Instead, his adoration would be criticism or telling you whatever you accomplished wasn’t good enough / didn’t meet his skyscraper-high standards. This breaks down your self-esteem, so you’ll doubt yourself more. Ludwig will want you always to be pining for his approval. 

When you do something that significantly displeases him, he will have you do something that will physically break you down. Ludwig is like a loving but stringent drill sergeant. Here is a short list of things you’ll have to do in order to get back into his good graces: 

50 Push-Ups 

100 Jumping Jacks 

Hold the ‘T’ pose for 30 minutes to an hour 

Planks 

5 to 15-mile runs (depending on how Sadistic he’s feeling, if someone tried to get close to you, and your level of non-compliance will depend on how long you’ll have to run for) 

These are all things that will exhaust you and prevent you from wanting to talk back, argue with him, etc. This rigorous training also mitigates 80%-85% of your free time to socialize with others. 

Ludwig does his best to avoid putting his hands on you because you’re a human. You’re incredibly fragile. You weren’t meant to withstand him at his maximum strength. However, when you cross him, he has a leather belt to put you back in your place. For the most part, it's not something he takes great pride in, but he needs to keep you under control. He’s realized over the years that once you’ve become emotionally attached to him, he could get away with more & more problematic behavior. All he had to do was hit you with the line: “Es tut mir leid, Liebling. I had to. It was for your own good. I’ll make it up to you.” Ludwig will give you a chastised kiss on the forehead. This gesture never failed to make you turn bright red and send butterflies pouring through your guts. Your heart would sprint due to feeling the adrenaline that comes from being in love. However, your nerves would be feeling a dry stick rubbing against them gaining friction that produced a thick smoke. 

Your typical response to his apology would be followed up by a brief: 

“Kein problem. I forgive you, Ludwig.” 

Even though Ludwigs' smile touched your skin like an early morning Fall sunray heating up your chilly skin, the glaring truth about him and his progressively toxic tendencies became far more difficult to ignore as time continued. 

You evaded his gaze this time when you accepted his apology. You wondered how many times he’s said that to you now. 

‘But all relationships are like this. I shouldn’t have upset him in the first place.’ This was one of the many rationalizations that you told yourself. 

You often wondered how many more times you’d hear him say “sorry” when you cried out for him to “stop” or say “Ludwig, please! It was just a mistake!!!” As more lashes came swinging through the air & made the all too familiar crack against your soft skin. It never failed to vivid crimson 4-inch whiplash there. 

‘Is my relationship with Ludwig actually normal, though?’ Came the uncomfortable question that came to your mind every now & again. It normally materialized after you’d faced another grueling punishment of military-style exercise, a lashing, being denied access to friends, fun, and family, a disagreement, etc. You longed not to have to walk in a minefield of broken glass, eggshells, & razors when navigating conversations with him. 

“Y/N?” Ludwig says sternly with a touch of concern. Your lack of eye contact with him when accepting his apology was a subtle signal to him that he had to go all out when he planned your latest couples' make-up trip. It had to be something spectacular. 

“Yes?” You say in an exhausted tone that was weighed down by the conflict between your heart and your head. You continued to stare at the concrete of the garage. 

“Where do you want to go for dinner?” 

Ludwig would ignore your gradually growing frigid demeanor since you’d been together for such a long time. 

‘It’s just a rough patch. They’ll get over their hesitations soon enough. A well-planned and thought-out day always wins Y/N back.’ 

This is what Ludwig tells himself in order to keep up the delusion that he’s doing nothing wrong and that your relationship is normal. It’s always been this way. 

Why would it be any different now? 

A vacation was the only thing Ludwig needed to get the two of you back on track. 

Usually, Ludwig relished in silence, but not when you refrained to talking to him at all. You would at least give a few compliments about something or try to start a conversation. Only having spoken the basic pleasantries of “Guten Morgen” or “Guten Nacht” with no attempt at speaking more did make him feel uneasy. But not enough to make him rethink where he was going next. 

“Y/N, while planning our trip, I thought we could do something far more exciting.” You stopped staring at your food to move your eyes up to meet his. “We’re going to climb up Watzmann.” Ludwig knew damn well you hated heights. 

“And …..why, for the love of God, would you think I’d enjoy that?” Not being able to hold back your disbelief and irritation. 

“Well, all that training you’ve done. It’s time to test your mettle Y/N! You can’t let all of my hard work go to waste!” Utterly oblivious to the fuse he’s just ignited. 

The tense and uncomfortable silence choked any peace out of the atmosphere. It stayed that way for 90 seconds as the sparks set off the bomb. Its flames made its way through your veins. 

This was not what real love looked like. You pushed your plate away & slammed your fork and knife onto it. Your reaction hit Ludwig like a lightning bolt. 

“I'm seriously done with you, Ludwig!” 

With that, you went back to your hotel room in a huff. Some people stared silently at Ludwig, and others watched you march away. 

You never turned back. 

[curiosity-killed]

curio's chaotic guide to corralling brain squirrels ✨for Capitalism✨

obligatory disclaimer: my only qualifications are having lived with Cocaine Squirrels In My Brain for my entire life and getting the fun experience of people regularly telling me "you can't have adhd, you're too organized/successful/put together" meanwhile i am regularly held captive by my brain zooming through deep dives on cicada facts at 1 AM on a work night

first off, the general overarching bits:

Come in at 70%. I tell this to literally everyone and am stealing it from my sister, but basically—don't come into your job at 100%. That 100% will be taken for granted by you and your coworkers and become the expectation, meaning when you have a day where the brain is holding you hostage or you're tired or hungover or for whatever other reason can only give 50%, it will be a crisis. Come in at 70%, so 50% isn't a huge deal and you can whip out the 100% for some special sparkle times.

Embrace the good bits. look, lbr. cocaine squirrels are not a great time, generally speaking, in a corporate 9-to-5 space. BUT sometimes there are perks. for instance, I am the person you want in a (corporate) emergency because the right pressure (and coffee and high BPM music) makes the squirrels band together and pull some damn good shit off in crunch time. whatever quirk you feel you can leverage, do it.

okay now more squirrel-corralling thoughts (am I doing this instead of my actual job? obviously.)

build a system of systems

okay i know if I say anything about a planner or to-do list, I will be shot on sight but. well. this is about planners and to do lists

I am a chronically aspirational planner user. I love the concept of planners. love to have such a tidy and organized way of going about life. And I can use planners—for about 1-3 months at a time, max.

what I've found works best for me is to have kind of a rotation of task tracking systems: sometimes my planner*, sometimes sticky notes plastered across my desk/wall, sometimes color-coded to do lists in an actual notebook, sometimes color-coded to do lists in my dry erase notebook, sometimes notes on my computer.

I don't think it super matters what you use so much as it matters to have things in place that you can swap to when your brain stops liking the one you're using

*this isn't an ad but I rlly like the Rocketbook planner specifically because it doesn't have a timeframe, so you don't have to worry about "wasting" it during the months you're not using it. just wipe it down and start fresh whenever it's back to being useful

agree to slightly more than you should (but watch out!)

if i have a normal workload, the effort it takes to make myself Do The Thing goes up by about 50% with a negative relationship to the quantity of work. ergo I am best off if I am just slightly overutilized—if I have about 9 hours of work to do rather than 8. That doesn't mean I always work a 9 hour day (because the squirrels and I fucking hate that) but it means there's just a little additional pressure to help make it easier for my brain to, y'know, execute.

THAT SAID, it is really easy to fuck this up. don't be like me and wind up basically doing an entire contract solo (that was supposed to be a 9-person team)!!! it's bad!

mostly i think this is trial and error, so figuring out the right balance for yourself will take getting it wrong some of the time.

the squirrels crave that novelty

this is also related to the first point, but I've found I get more done if I let myself bounce between projects/tasks more than probably makes sense to people who aren't possessed by manic rodents in their brain.

I try to break down tasks in a way that lets me cross something off (dopamine! or. something??) and lets me skip over to something different/novel as a break (e.g., today I need to copy edit a bunch, draft some appendices for a different project, and create an autopopulating tab for an internal project—so I copy edited one whole section, skipped over to the appendices to get a first pass down, hopped back to the next section of copy editing, and then switched to the internal project).

too much of this can feel like playing pinball with your brain, but giving myself the option to switch out into something different helps keep me from getting into the Dreaded Tedium Stage of things

flexibility and structure

this is going to depend some on your work structure, but use what flexibility you can. My work offers a flex schedule, meaning I can take a four hour break in the day as long as I make those hours up somewhere else. I don't. necessarily recommend?? taking a 4 hour break BUT sometimes the squirrels unionize and demand I vacuum the living room, and trying to ignore it and work will be infinitely slower and more exhausting than if I just get up and vacuum and then get back to work. other times, the squirrels stage a sit-in protest and i am stuck scrolling tumblr aimlessly or re-reading fanfic for no reason and then at 8 PM they decide they actually are willing to do The One Goddamn Task i absolutely must do.

it sucks and I genuinely really hate this part of ADHD, but the best option I've found is to sometimes let them win in the moment and come back to the challenge/ask at a better time (for instance, my energy/focus tends to be worst in the afternoon and much better in the evening, so it's easier for me to get something done in the evening than fighting squirrels all afternoon).

...and on the flipside, where you can impose some self-made structure, it can also help get the squirrels in line. calendar holds (i.e., putting an event on your calendar that's just for a task/project and turning on do not disturb for notifications) can help with this if you're able to stick with them (ime this is a skill that has to be built and practiced), organizing things by 'must do' vs 'quick wins' can help, etc. as with everything, it's a process, but finding a balance between where you can flex and where you can lean on structure to help you along has been beneficial to me

anyway idk if any of this is new or helpful but my personal squirrels have been sated and i do. unfortunately. actually need to work now kbye

[eccentricgrace]

Once Bitten, Twice Shy || IronDad

summary: in the midst of a very high fever, peter accidentally calls tony instead of may.

tags: fluff, sickfic, fevers, humor, hurt/comfort, tony acting as peter parker's parental figure

wc: 3,749

cross-posted on wattpad under the same name!

He hasn't felt like this since he was thirteen going on fourteen, and his muscles ached and he had cold-shakes and he just kept thinking, shit, May just got her new job, she doesn't have health insurance yet— and, oh, he'd been nursing an infected spider bite. Radioactive, specifically.

Giving May a big ol' smile and convincing her that he felt fine, she could definitely work, he'll be okay— and then going unconscious for twelve hours at a time, kind of thinking he was going to die.

Obviously, he didn't die. Actually it felt like he did kind of the opposite, 'cuz then suddenly he had like, abs, and no asthma, and he could sit on the couch and actually see every pixel of May's cheesy medical dramas without having his (broken, taped) glasses.

And also he could do things like avoid bullets. Or not avoid bullets, bleeding all over Flushing Avenue, and still live to tell the tale. This is how, two-ish years later and at the ripe age of sixteen, he knew he'd live through whatever nasty virus this was, too.

Viruses be damned, though, he'd rather take a bullet.

He felt like shit. Capital S-H-I-T. The Bo Burnham song reincarnated into his sweating, fleshy form. His eyes burned, everything ached, and he was pretty much resigned to lying completely still on his lumpy twin-sized mattress and taking shaky, measured breaths until he fell asleep.

He's pretty sure the fever's gotten worse since May left this morning, and he was only able to convince her to leave to begin with because it had been low. A measly 100. Not great, but not the worst either.

May had given strict instructions before she did finally backtrack out the door: keep down as many fluids as he could, and to check his fever every two hours. Call her if he needed anything. And Peter said, "Okay."

Now, he's been so-so with the first instruction. He had a pitcher— literally, a pitcher. The kind that store a gallon vat of iced tea or lemonade, or god forbid iced tea-lemonade in the summer— and he filled it to the brim with water and had just been sipping at it.

This seemed insane, and kind of was, but he didn't want to keep getting up to fill a puny 12oz water glass when his legs felt like they were about to fall off, and his bed was so warm, and the outside world was so cold, and the pitcher worked, damn it.

But he'd finished that an indeterminate amount of time ago, somewhere after 'the-neighbors-are-still-watching-Curb-Your-Enthusiasm' timebut before 'my-eyes-feel-like-they're-not-real' time. Either way, his neighbors have moved on to watching Scrubs, so clearly it's been a while.

As for the second one, the thermometer is on his bedside table, and he thinks he checked his temp a few times, maybe, but he keeps forgetting the results. And he keeps forgetting if he actually checked his temp or if he just thought really hard about checking his temp and his brain decided to keep those thoughts as the word of God. (Also, he really likes the word 'temp.')

He should probably check his fever again. He doesn't really know what time it is— he's been using Scrubs episodes as a clock, and he's may be hallucinating but he's pretty sure he's slept through at least half a season. Or there were a lot more Christmas plotlines than he remembered.

Unfortunately, all the evidence points to the fact that Peter must resort to step three. Call May. So makes a half-hearted series of motions, all shivering violently as the blanket lifts up to expose his skin to the air, and grabs his phone off the charger.

His hand is fumbling blearily through his phone through his contacts, the starred ones, because he can't focus at all and he's pretty sure May is at the top of the list— makes it all easier for him in emergencies.

The phone is ringing and his ears are ringing and his head is ringing and J.D. is monologuing to Dr. Cox about a Super Bowl party he wasn't invited to, and then the line clicks.

"May," Peter greets with as much cheer as he can muster. He can't tell if he's speaking very loudly or very quietly but his throat rasps and it hurts and he wants to go back to sleep. "Hi, May."

"Peter? You sound like you just got hit by a bus," a voice answers, and it sounds muffled, like it's talking through water. But Peter's chest eases at the sound, like he's hearing home, so he smiles and his dry lips crack open a little bit. "Kid? Please tell me you didn't get hit by a bus."

"Haha," Peter says, and yeah, he literally says the word 'haha.' He doesn't have the energy to actually laugh. "I wish!"

He's been hit by a bus before. He's been punched through a bus before. Way more of an enjoyable experience.

"You've what?" The voice slices, a sharpness cutting through on deaf ears. "What the hell? Peter, where are you? Isn't it a Tuesday?"

"Home sick," Peter mumbles, his eyes slipping shut as the sunlight moves just enough to stream in through his blinds.

"You're—" a pause. "You're homesick? For what, kiddo? I— alright, back up a moment. Are you safe?"

Peter groans, shutting his eyes tighter as sunlight continues to infect his little cave. The light stings at his head. "Owww. May, 'm so sorry."

"Hey, talk to me," the voice says, so strong, so parental that Peter can't help but feel equal parts soothed and scolded. "Why're you sorry? Are you hurt? FRI, bring up schematics, vitals—"

"Today was such a big day," Peter says, his tongue feeling numb as he stumbles along each word, going slower than molasses at the speed of which his mind supplies them. "You had to do the thing and then the other... and I told you I'd be okay, but 'm not feeling okay anymore. I need you. 'M sorry."

"Okay," the phone says. "Peter, it's okay. I'm on my way, alright? Are you bleeding?"

"Mm," Peter mumbles a faint disagreement, feeling absolutely miserable. "Jus' tired. I drank all the water already and I can't get up. An' I think they're watching it out of order."

"Who's watching what out of order?"

And Peter can't find the proper words to explain that it's the apartment across from them, who's definitely watching Scrubs out of order, because now J.D. is being locked on the roof of Memorial Hospital, and that's definitely a season one episode.

"Right," Phone says, befuddled. "You're sick, aren't you? Caught the spider-flu?"

Peter groans again. Loudly, to emphasize the misery.

"Okay. I can handle sick. Listen, thank you for calling me, I know that's often difficult for you," Phone seems to laugh, like he's poking fun of Peter about something.

Peter's not amused, as much as he really, really would like to be. Phone seems like a funny guy. Phone seems like he tells really funny jokes, and Peter would love to be laughing at them right now.

"It is," Peter sulks instead, because it's true, andit's not funny, and he wants his aunt.He sniffles. "It is really hard. I don't wanna 'nother spider powers. Ugh, my head hurts so bad..."

"Aw, Pete," Phone chuckles, and sighs. "I know, buddy. Alright, hang in there. I'm gonna send a call to your aunt, quick. Stay there, capiche?"

This is a silly request, because Peter can't go anywhere even if he wanted to— which he resolutely does not. His limbs are so stiff, and heavy, and he's so tired that even twitching a finger is a Herculean effort.

His phone drops lamely from his hand as he waits for something, but he forgot exactly what he was waiting for. He thinks May. May is supposed to come back, right? And take care of him?

He ick-shivers and cold-shivers and listens to the distant muddy voice of Zach Braff and someone singing about Superman to a banjo, and then everything goes blissfully fuzzy.

For the next whenever, he can't genuinely tell what is a dream and what isn't.

A hand soothes over his forehead, and when he flutters his eyes open it's all blurry— someone tells him to go back to sleep. It sounds like Ben. Peter didn't realize he got home from work so early.

"Oh, kid..."

Peter listens to Ben, and dreams again.

The hand returns, this time to take his blankets. A cold shiver racks through his entire body, every notch of his spine. He can feel the sweat gathered at his neck, the crooks of his elbows. He grunts his disproval and grips his fingers onto the fabric, pulling it back towards him.

"I know, but we have to bring your temperature down. Let go of the blanket, Spidey."

"That's a secret," Peter croaks. "'M not Spider-Man. I'm Peter Parker."

"Yeah, well, I'm Iron Man. So you have to listen to me. Let go of the blanket, Peter Parker." Someone tugs again at the duvet.

Peter peaks an eye open again, to verify the identity of his assailant. He blinks a few times, feeling dizzy even with his head pressed back firmly against his pillows.

Iron Man was not in his bedroom.

Tony Stark, however, was.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter furrows his eyebrows, shifting around on the bed. He wants to sit up, even if the thought alone makes him sort of crosseyed. His muscles don't budge more than a few inches before aching again. "Is'ere a mission?"

Tony quickly leans forward, gently guiding Peter back down. "Easy, killer. No mission."

Peter's brain short-circuits momentarily, and then starts the slow process of reboot. He blinks. Then sniffles.

Tony looks amused, his head tilted in a funny way. His mouth quirks up on one side, dimpling at his cheek. He clears his throat, and gestures to the blanket again. "You willing to work with me here?"

Peter starts, and looks back down at the blanket forlornly. "But..."

"I'll trade you. Why don't you go take a shower, and I'm going to change these sheets for you, something I have done maybe once in my life," Tony rattles off. "See? We're good for eachother. Can you stand?"

Peter sluggishly twitches his hand under the blankets. He thinks of all the ways he could say no. (Negatory. No-siree. Nopers. Thumbs-down. Absolutely not. Not gonna happen.)

He squints, and slowly gives Tony an affirmative nod.

Tony's eyes focus very intensely. Peter kind of feels like he's about to explode from the sheer power of his gaze, or like, be blown to bits with lasers.

Peter slowly shakes his head.

"Maybe a bath, then." Tony finalizes. He pulls the blankets off, ignoring Peter's whines, and helps him up. Used tissues fall to the floor, and Tony's nose curls up. "Alright, kiddo. Let's get you to the bathroom."

He lets himself be led into the bathroom, wincing as the lights are flicked on. Tony starts running the bath's faucet, one arm still outstretched like he's ready to catch Peter if he falters. It's kind of humiliating, but as it stands— Peter can hardly stand, and they both know it.

His cheeks burn red.

"I'm not a baby," Peter points out, just so they both remain aware of this fact. He's shivering so hard that his teeth clack against each other.

"I know. That's why I'm not staying in here," Tony says offhandedly. He runs his hand under the water and shakes it off once he's seemingly satisfied with its temperature. "Don't prove me wrong by drowning, will you?"

"I'm cold," Peter complains, trying not to shift from one foot to another. Every movement makes him lightheaded, which really wouldn't prove... whatever point he was starting out with.

"I know, buddy." Tony pulls back from the bath. "You able to get in there on your own? The water's not cold. Rapid cooling is a no-no these days, I got the rundown from FRIDAY on the drive here."

"I'll say thank you to her later," Peter shuffles over to the bathtub and sits down at the edge. He takes a moment to breathe and then nods. "I'll be okay, I think."

"Alright. Yell if you need anything. I'll be just across the hall," Tony says, backing up. "Do you want me to leave the door closed, or open a crack?"

"Does your old ears need it open a crack to hear me if I yell?" Peter asks unthinkingly. A moment of silence passes. Then his mouth opens, and he stares blankly, like a fish. "...Uh..."

Tony's scrubbing at his face, and his eyes are covered but it almost looks like there's a smile pulling at his lips. "I'm going to close the door. You little shit. Don't drown."

Peter smiles weakly and gives a thumbs up. Tony retreats, the door shutting softly behind him, so Peter starts peeling off his sweat-soaked pyjamas. He grimaces, and tosses them to the floor with as much effort as he can (they land about a foot away from him).

The water is not warm. Peter's still shivering when he slides into the tub. It's not as cold as the air, though, so he soaks into it and relishes as the water starts to soothe the ache in his joints. It's nice not to stink like a middle school locker room, too.

He can hear Tony outside the bathroom, rummaging around through a closet, shedding the sheets off his bed, all rustling sounds of fabric— and then the beeping of the washing machine being turned on. His footsteps creak back and forth on the old wooden floors of the Parker apartment.

The realization of his circumstances suddenly seems very, very funny. He accidentally called Iron Man instead of his aunt, and now Iron Man is doing his laundry. Iron Man is probably cleaning up his disgusting snot-tissues. This really is the timeline he's living in.

Anyway, the longer he's in the water, the better he feels. His thoughts are coming back to him a little clearer now, for better or worse, so he scrubs himself head to toe with soap and then lets the bathtub drain.

Tony, apparently, had grabbed a pair of fresh clothes for him before they'd even left his room, which Peter now clocks on the bathroom counter. He tries not to cringe as he pulls on a very old, very faded Stark Expo shirt that Ben bought when he was eight. (Peter begged for an extra extra large adult size, so he would never grow out of it, because "it's limited edition, Ben!")

To add insult to injury, it seemed Tony also picked out the cursed Hello Kitty pajama pants. At least they were warm, but Peter knows that wasn't why they were picked.

He drudges out of the bathroom and pushes open his door. The window's been cracked open, the whole room being filtered with New York's closest approximation to fresh air. Peter's sheets were in-fact changed, and all of the popsicle sticks, tissues, and miscellaneous pill bottles have all been cleared out.

Tony's crouched over, filling a laundry basket with the sporadic mess of clothes strewn across the floor. His head turns up at the door. "There he is. You feeling better?"

Peter answers by crawling into his bed and sighing with all the breath his lungs could hold.

Tony makes an amused noise and sets the laundry basket down. He takes the thermometer from Peter's newly cleared bedside table, and Peter shuts his eyes as the cold plastic smooths over his forehead gently, down the side of his face, stopping at the back of his ear.

It beeps twice in quick succession, which could be worse. Last time Peter remembered it beeping a lot more, and the light was red, which is notoriously not a good colour for a light to be.

"Well, your fever didn't break, but it is significantly lower," Tony clicks his tongue. "Congrats. You're no longer cooking your brain."

"Yippee," Peter says dryly.

"I'm making you tea," Tony decides, putting the thermometer down. "Are you hungry? You want soup? You a chicken noodle guy?"

Peter blinks open an eye, feeling a youthful hope spark up in his chest. "...I think we have cans of minestrone in the pantry?" He says quietly.

"Minestrone? Sure. I'll look for minestrone." Tony clears his throat. "I filled you an actual water bottle. It has ice in it. Drink that, I'll be back."

"Please don't burn down May's kitchen," Peter calls after him, sinking into his pillows. "It's seen enough!"

"We'll see about that!" Tony calls back.

Peter decides to sip at the water for no other reason than he knows he should, and checks his phone while Tony is suspiciously rummaging through cabinets.

Ned has been messaging him all day, talking about things he's missing: a broad spectrum ranging from Spanish quizzes to that squirrel who apparently found its way in the cafeteria again. Peter sends him back a text that (to reiterate) Iron Man is making him soup, because if anybody could understand how bizarre this was, it would be his best friend who had personally seen him in his fanboy phase.

May has been sending him texts, too. Ones that he apparently had already replied to, although he doesn't even remember getting them. He decides not to let her know about that particular detail and goes right on to updating her.

tony came over he's making me soup against my will

LOL. I know, baby. Tony called me.

How are you feeling? You sure you don't need to me come home?

feeling better now

i'm okay, promise

they need you over there! you're too special and important and amazing to leave

😋Alright, that's enough out of you

Drink lots of water. I'll be home soon ❤️‍🩹

i will, larb you!

Larb you too ❤️

He looks at his phone blankly for a measly few seconds before he once again realizes how exhausted his eyelids are from staying open. He sighs and falls backwards onto the pillows, and lets himself drift.

It seems like it's only a few seconds before he's gently shaken awake again, just a hand sweeping over his knees. He makes a grumbly noise and peeks an eye open, and Tony is there again, a mug—(a mug?)—of soup in his hand, and a bottle of pills in the other.

"Take these," Tony says, handing him the bottle. "Take three. Drink your soup so you've got something in your stomach to help digest it." 

"How do you know this stuff?" Peter mumbles, but does so anyways. He pops the pills in his mouth and swallows them down with some water. "Thought only parents knew that."

Like May, his mind suggests.

"May told me," Tony confirms his thoughts as if he had spoken them out loud. Peter nods in understanding. 

He sips at the minestrone, wincing as the liquid passes over his scratchy throat. It's bland from how congested he is, and the steam makes his nose start to run again, but the warmth feels good in his stomach. 

"Why're you here?" He rasps out finally, because his brain is finally catching up now and while Tony being here certainly wasn't unwelcome, he also cannot remember when or how or why he got here. There's definitely some pieces of the story he totally missed due to being only quarter of a functional human.

Tony raises an eyebrow, sitting down on Peter's bed. He kicks his feet up so they're resting on his spinny desk chair. "Why? You waiting to kick me out already?"

"No," Peter rolls his eyes, smiling. "Although you may wanna get out of here while you can. You might catch whatever super-flu knocked me out, and then where would we be? No Spider-Man and no Iron Man? That's like, half the Avengers right there."

"Very funny, kid," Tony says, trying valiantly and in vain to bite back a grin. "You'll be back on your feet in no time. Until then, I don't mind staying around to make sure you don't brain yourself on the windowsill or something."

"I wouldn't do that. The bathtub, maybe. But the windowsill, doubtful."

"Great, well, at least you know your limits." Tony clears his throat. "You should take a nap. Let those meds kick in."

"I've been sleeping all day," Peter complains— and he's not entirely sure why he does it, because yes, he has been sleeping all day, but he really wouldn't mind sleeping for another week. Maybe two weeks. He's really, dreadfully tired, and if a literal coma is what is gonna get him up and swinging around the city again, then it is what it is. 

But Tony is right here, and something about that makes him want to stay awake a little longer. Maybe it's because this situation as a whole is so bizarre and rare that he kind of wants to fiddle with the buttons, mess with some switches, see how far he can take it before Tony calls him out on it. 

"Alright, well you're certainly not gonna be running laps, so," Tony lifts his arms in a 'what'll-you-do' motion, a half-assed cocky shrug that he's really perfected over the years. "You can stay up long enough to drink more water, but then I'm knocking your ass out."

"You'll stay with me?" Peter blurts. Then he feels an immediate wave of regret and embarrassment, and makes the rapid fire decision to just power through. He puts on his best smile, tries not to think of how he probably looks miserable anyways. "We can watch stuff together on my laptop, it'll be fun. I'm just about to start the second season of Scrubs."

Tony scratches at his chin for a moment, and then sighs. "Yeah, alright. Punch it, Chewie."

So Peter drinks the rest of his soup and lets the fever reducers finally settle in his system. His eyes grow heavy with every line the Janitor says— and he's not entirely sure, but before he drifts off, he thinks he feels Tony run a hand through his hair, smoothing down his unruly curls, tucking them behind his ear.

"Thanks for calling me, kid," he thinks he hears Tony murmur.

Peter responds back with two spots of drool on his shoulder. Thank you for answering and I love you.

He thinks Tony will understand what it means.

[balkanradfem]

So, it's chestnut foraging season again! And I'm having some moral struggles about it. Let's discuss.

Few years back, while roaming the forest, I found an excellent chestnut foraging stuff; it was so good I found I could gather 10 kg of chestnuts a day if I appeared there at the brink of dawn. I gifted a lot of chestnuts to the plant lady, who was impressed, and asked me to show her where I found them. I took her to the spot, and she said 'we could sell these. I can put out an add'. And that sounded daunting, but I said okay!

At first she was doing the administrative part of work, finding customers and managing the communications, and I was collecting and delivering chestnuts, but then she grew tired of it, so I took over completely, made my own add and was able to sell them just fine.

Then, the market prices of all food, including chestnuts, rose high up, as in, doubled. The plant lady urged me to up the price of my chestnuts, because they were now dirt cheap in comparison to anything else on the market, and I thought about it, and decided, no. I hate rising in prices, this little chestnut thing is the only price I can control, and I can decide for it to stay the same. It was a bit insane business-wise, because I am impoverished, but I am not letting poverty control my moral standing! The price stayed the same.

The year after, prices rose again, and I still remained stubborn, and the plant lady was trying to convince me that I am not doing a good deed; chestnuts are a luxury item, they're not being bought by people in poverty who would benefit from cheap food, what I'm doing is only going to attract resellers and other people will capitalize on my work. To this I said, well, I'm refusing to sell any quantity over 10kg to a single person, so they won't be able to capitalize that much. And I knew people who I was taking the chestnuts to were just taking them home to their families, or even asked me to split them in multiple bags to give to their neighbours and cousins. So I kept the price low.

This year, I'm sickly, having financial issues that are worse than before, still having pain in my arm and can't walk for long, and I thought, ugh. Maybe I should up the prices a little and it would make my life slightly easier. It would still be the cheapest thing on the market but I'd be less stressed. But then I went into the forest, and I forgot all of my struggles. It felt so good to hunt around for the first fallen chestnuts. I climbed a hill. I discovered a new secret spot. I found a chicken-of-the-woods mushroom. I saw a salamander. Tiniest frog ever was letting me see her. And I got a message from someone who bought chestnuts from me last year, asking if I had them again. And I didn't have whatever it takes to tell this person I've upped the price. I was like 'yeah I can get the chestnuts to you. They still cost the same amount'.

So then I had to tell the plant lady my decision, and she is SO disappointed. Her vibe was like 'you are putting yourself in situation where only resellers will benefit from this!' and I'm laughing like, don't worry about it, I'm at peace with my decision. But now I feel bad because she thinks I'm dumb T_T.

And I don't know what the right decision is. I hate capitalism, I hate the idea that the price of something can change even though it's the same item, it hasn't changed, it isn't worth more, it doesn't cost me more to gather it, so just because the state of economy is worse, and the world is going to shit, now it's going to cost more? But it is also ridiculous that on the market, the price of the chestnuts is not only double, but 4 times of what I sell them for. It feels so silly! How are people selling them for such a high price? But from their standpoint, it is me who is silly, for giving them away so cheaply.

So I'm going to see what is your collective opinion! I'm curious.

oh and btw what I'm doing is 100% illegal, we're discussing the morality of me doing illegal black market shit. Other foragers are doing it illegally too so we're equals.

[prokopetz]

Brief summary of my thoughts so far now that I've done character creation and played half a session (we broke in the middle but may come back to it):

1) 7 players and a GM is too many. I know you know this already but I want to reaffirm it because that was what we had and it was really hard to understand what was going on.

2) I made my character 100% random and then backsolved an identity from there, and it worked better than it had any right to. The Traits are very evocative and I immediately had ideas of what I wanted my God Eater to look like.

3) I'm not sure the Calamity Clock is explained as clearly as I'd like it to be; to be honest, Tests in general are explained in a pretty convoluted way. It felt like some of the less-experienced TTRPG players at the table struggled with them, especially coming from a 5e-only background.

Sorry if this isn't the most helpful feedback; I'm just getting my thoughts down before any more time passes and I forget how the session went. I'll do a more full writeup if/when we finish the session.

(With reference to this post here.)

I definitely agree that the process of making tests could use a cheat sheet, and that's something that will be present in future revisions. However, it's worth noting that it's probably impossible to boil it down to something that a player with a 5E-only background would find intuitive because of some pretty basic differences in what kind of games they are.

In brief, 5E (and Dungeons & Dragons in general) keeps its conflict resolution mechanics almost entirely GM-facing in order to make it easier to onboard new players. Those mechanics are structured in such a way that it's completely feasible for the GM to figure out the target numbers, the applicable modifiers, the range of plausible outcomes, and the interpretation of the results with no player input whatsoever, with the player's sole responsibility being to roll a die with the correct number of sides (and if push comes to shove, the GM can do that part, too).

Eat God, conversely, is designed from the ground up to readily support GMless play (the specific rules for that will be in a forthcoming revision), which means that its conflict resolution mechanics can't be purely GM-facing. It puts a lot more responsibility on the player in terms of figuring out what the hell is going on, both narratively and mechanically, because its design goals mean it has to.

That said, it might help to frame it for a 5E player like this:

Making a test in Eat God is like playing blackjack: rather than rolling as high as possible, you want to roll as high as possible without going bust; "going bust" means all of your dice came up higher than your relevant Facet.

Everybody gets one die to start. If you can use any of your Traits to help with whatever you're trying to do, you get advantage on the test and roll an extra die. Unlike 5E, advantage stacks, to a maximum of five dice.

Instead of having a separate "damage roll", Eat God gets "did I hit or miss?" and "how much damage did I do?" from a single roll. A test's "damage" is the face value of the highest die that didn't go bust; the rules refer to this "damage" as a capital-R "Result".

You can get bonuses or penalties to a test's "damage" based on how effective the GM thinks your approach is. The GM will generally tell you about these modifiers before rolling. A penalty can't turn a success into a failure, no matter your Result; just like in 5E, a successful hit always inflicts at least one "damage".

Instead of critical hits, Eat God has critical fuckups. These have a range of dice roll values that trigger them, just like conventional crits; for example, you might score a critical fuckup on a roll of 11+, just like a champion archetype fighter in 5E gets a critical hit on a roll of 19+. This range can vary depending on how goofy the GM thinks your approach is.

Critical fuckups are assessed on a per die basis, so if you're rolling multiple dice, it's possible to generate multiple critical fuckups on the same roll. Yes, this also means that rolling multiple dice makes you more likely to succeed and more likely to fuck up, and creates the possibility of doing both on the same test. This is intentional.

When you roll a critical fuckup, the GM doesn't have to make something bad happen to you right away. They can do that, or they can take the fuckup and bank it toward a countdown to a really big fuckup that affects the whole adventure. You can see this countdown, but the GM is not obligated to tell you what will happen when it hits zero.

[anon-argentine]

I think it would be interesting to have a The Substance spin-off/prequel where we get to see what kind of sick people CREATED the stuff in the first place.

Or maybe-

There are two post-grad students, lab partners - a man and a woman. They are trying to finish their research, something that could revolutionize healthcare or make people’s lives easier - but funds are low and grants are hard to come by, so they are looking down the barrel of having to quit their work when suddenly a man appears.

He claims to be working for a company looking to create a serum. Something about unlocking your best self and taking the best of you and giving it new life. It sounds ridiculous, downright fantastical, but the money he offers them is very much real. It’s close enough to their original research objective, they would simply be working for a company and their work would be only for their benefit.

It’s a Faustian bargain, but the company is offering them to further fund their future research too. They just have to do this one serum and they can continue their actually important work. It’s just a simple beauty serum for aging models and desperate beauty queens - what could go wrong?

But then the testing starts. They can’t test it on animals because what does the “best version” of a rabbit even look like? The company insists they test with people. The two scientists protest at first, but they if they quit they lose everything. The money, the lab, the equipment. The company recruits homeless people as lab rats - they clean them up and give them food and a bed in exchange for their participation. Who is going to miss some junkies and hookers?

The horrifying effects of the Substance start appearing and the woman thinks they’ve gone too far. This is unethical with capital U. With every trial to figure out how the side-effects function, the bodies of dead and deformed bodies start to haunt her. She wants to quit - better to leave their research than to continue this madness.

The man tells his partner to think logically and put emotion aside. This could be huge - their work on the Substance could be even more revolutionary than their original research. Their names could go down in history. They can’t quit now.

Maybe the woman threatens to go to the authorities, maybe the man is too ambitious, maybe the Company doesn’t like loose ends. Whatever the case, the woman dies. Her body joins the ones used for testing - she might as well continue to be useful in death, the company decrees. Now with a knot in his stomach, the man is quiet.

The man finishes the Substance but now that he returns to the original research and he realizes he can’t finish it without his partner. He finally starts seeing the deformed bodies in his nightmares, in the mirror, on TV. He starts seeing his partner’s mangled form in the reflective surfaces of the lab, haunting him. He breaks every mirror, but the fractured image makes it worse.

He manages to write down the instructions for the Substance in an attempt at redemption. Maybe the users will realize how terrible it is and won’t use, they will be able to stop what he can’t. He takes his own life in the end.

The Substance is released to the selected few that are able to afford it and are desperate for it. All the deaths and the horror changed nothing. People ignore the warnings they don’t know someone died to give them; they don’t take into consideration what must have happened for the Substance to exist - why should they care? They just want to be young and beautiful again, that’s not a crime. The Substance won.

-

If the Substance is supposed to a critique of Hollywood and the anti-aging industry, this would be a critique of the beauty industry and the unethical business practices behind modern laboratories.

Thanks for listening. Someone get me Coralie Fargeat on the phone, we’ll need a lot more prosthetics.

[chronically-ghosted]

✨get to know your moots!✨

thank you thank you thank you to @sp00kymulderr and @perotovar for the tags!

What's the origin of your blog title? from the song boogeyman by dead posey, it reflects my deep seated desire to be hunted like a prey animal by one of pedro's many competent characters and finally give my overactive anxiety a real fucking reason to panic.

OTP(s) + Shipname: Been a hot minute since I shipped anything other than me and whatever pedro's flavor of the week is, but looking at my ao3 tim rockford and shane morrisey (@perotovar what's their ship name), aloy/avad (horizon series), and father john pruitt and this pu$$y.

Favourite colour: tbd but dark green or purple

Favourite game: all time? horizon zero dawn. currently? fields of mistria - yall the brainrot is so real and deep and i need to spend every waking hour harvesting my crops or repairing bridges or giving every goddamn shiny stone to Balor in hopes that he'll fuck me in his wagon

Song stuck in your head: Stayed Gone from the Hazbin Hotel soundtrack (for all of you who thought i was mysterious i hope you appreciate me showing my whole ass for this)

Weirdest habit/trait? I need a fucking chapstick on my lips and lotion on my hands or i will explode. my husband legitimately has a stash of chapstick and lotion in his car and in the house in case of emergencies.

Hobbies: thinking about writing, videogames, watching youtube essays and getting fed up with it and going back to nebula like an abused housewife

If you work, what's your profession? project coordinator, but i'm going back to school to get my license as an LCP so i can counsel people with addictions and their families.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? "I don't particularly dream of having a job, I dream of not having to work." <- real talk from @sp00kymulderr so i'm just gonna leave that.

Something you're good at: escapism

Something you're bad at: getting work done when i'm anxious

Something you love: the picture my husband gave me of our wedding for my desk at work, HotWorx, Dieter Bravo, and that little heart-shaped patch in Pedro's beard.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: how late-stage capitalism effectively ruined fandom, in conjunction with the pandemic allowing the normies to find fandom spaces.

Something you hate: when i forget crucial little details that make my life easier (like putting tweezers in my purse)

Something you collect: men's hearts weird and cozy baseball caps

Something you forget: my own fucking head if it wasn't attached to my body

What's your love language? acts of service

Favourite movie/show: rn Severance (i'm rewatching the first season with my husband and i'm catching all these little things and alsdjkfalsdkj we don't get tv with this much care any more) and movie rn is the 2018 Suspiria (cuz it was the first one I thought of)

Favourite food: chicken and white bean soup

Favourite animal: my dog specifically

What were you like as a child? overconfident, a reader, dramatic

Favourite subject at school? english always and forever, but i did take an economics class in college that i thoroughly enjoyed

Least favorite subject? Maths <- once again, gideon with the correct answer

What's your best character trait? i think therapy can fix everyone because people are fundamentally good

What's your worst character trait? i think therapy can fix everyone because people are fundamentally good

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? brought my fucking tweezers in my purse

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet? this might sound signal-virtue-y but Rosa Parks. What she and the rest of the NAACP did for community-building and protests is something that has been lost in time. we lost our unions and our local chapters of these social organizations and now we are more lonely than ever AND we are fucking powerless to fight back against an increasingly fascist government. (i think the isolation epidemic in this era is one topic i could yell about forever about too)

Recommend one of your favourite fanfics (spread the love!): going through old favorites:

making out to pablo honey by @mothandpidgeon

An End to Drought by @almostfoxglove

lotus-eaten postcard by @harehart (hope i tagged the right person bc i originally found it on ao3)

Forgot to tag!: @almostfoxglove @jolapeno @tinytinymenace @penvisions @quinnnfabrgay-writes