#i am genuinely totally fine mentally but the post i almost made did NOT make it seem like it

[oldmanyaoi-jpeg]

the worst part of having disorders and symptoms is writing a long winded post about the symptoms that you think is so funny until you put on your neurotypical glasses before posting and you have to realize that it isn't funny just kind of sad and really concerning

[stilessssss]

Elevate Your Hopes Up

word count: 4599

characters: Mitch Rapp x Claustrophobic!Reader, Stan Hurley

summary: The first day of work isn’t going as planned as you get trapped inside an elevator with your co-worker, Mitch.

notes: This is for mitchtober, hosted by @writingsbychlo and I am surprised that I actually managed to finish this story in time, since I procrastinate everything. It’s the first story I’ve ever posted so I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this!

thank you @softstilinskii​ for helping me, you are amazing and so talented. I appreciate you so much <3

warnings: Just fluff, some angst, talk about elevators/small spaces

“Hold it! Please hold it!” You yelled at the man who was in the elevator, about to go up and he looked annoyed as if he was debating in himself whether or not to hold the door for you. It was after he saw your panicked movements when he placed his hand between the two doors which were about 3 inches away, making them stop before opening again.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, you quickly ran inside, trying to balance the two coffee cups in your hands without spilling anything. And as you pressed the number of your destination about ten times, the man next to you quirked an eyebrow. 

“Stupid thing.” You mumbled and the man coughed, making you look at him. “I already pressed that button.” 

Your eyes went wide, mostly in embarrassment and you looked away quickly. Not wanting to look him in the eye. Way to start off the day by making yourself look like a nutjob in front of a co-worker. Maybe you should've just taken the stairs. Although your body would highly disagree because of your poor stamina. Maybe you should take use of your gym membership like you always said you would. 

“You new here?” He asked and you nodded as the doors closed. Your eyes were focussing on the numbers of the elevator floors. “That obvious huh?” You tried to make a joke out of it and laughed nervously, but it quickly faded when you read his unamused expression. His eyes were an amber color, standing neutral yet stern and his hair was in a messy cut as it fitted his scruff beard. His face basically described someone saying 'really?' annoyed with their eyebrows scrunched, and you looked away at the elevator doors as the stranger did the same.

You sighed while mumbling in your breath and the stranger scratched the back of his neck, before silence took over. Just 3 minutes in an elevator with a handsome man with uncomfortable tension in the air, and you’ll be up, no problem. 

As you heard the pings of the floors that passed, you noticed the man eyeing you from the side. Something that made your nerves go up since you thought he was judging you by the second. It’s always been bothering you, that everytime people would look at you, you’d assume they’d think the worst of you. Luckily, the man seemed to notice, and he turned his head to the elevator doors again, scraping his throat.

“Sorry if I seemed rude.” 

You looked at your side, your eyes meeting his shoulder so you looked up, noticing the height difference. “Oh, you weren't rude, I’m clumsy. Guess I’m just kinda paranoid since it’s the first day. I’m not late, I just want to make a good impression. And as you can see I don’t handle elevators well. God, I don’t even know why I’m in here, I could've just taken the stairs but I didn’t want to meet my superiors while being all sweaty. Although I already feel like I’m soaked right now. Jeez, it’s hot in here.” Your hands were starting to get sweaty when you rambled to the stranger, and he still had his eyebrows raised a little. Inside you could mentally slap yourself. Of course that would be his reaction. If a random girl would suddenly ramble shit, you’d be like ‘what the fuck is going on’, no surprise that his reaction would be the same.

“It’s totally fine, don’t worry too much about it, alright? We’re almost up.” He caught you off guard as he gave you a genuine smile. Something that made you feel relieved that he answered calmly and this time you were the one scrunching your eyebrows up in confusion. Most times you weren’t this hyper, yet people still gave you looks that asked you to kindly fuck off. So this was new.

“So you need to be on the 9nth floor as well?” The stranger asked and you nodded slowly. “Yeah, I have a meeting with my superiors and other co-workers, you?”

“Same, so your superior must be Stan Hurley too, right?” You nodded and looked at the cups in your hands. “Yeah I brought him coffee, I hope it gives off a good impression.”

The man next to you looked at the cups as well, and you didn't realize he was really close to you. “You’re playing a dangerous game, what coffee did you get for him?”

“I got myself latte espresso with steamed milk, and I got Stan a Red Eye.”

The man beside you seemed to be impressed, making you feel relieved that you made the right order. “That’s his usual, how did you know that?”

 “His biography was on google,” You shrugged and he had an amused look on his face. “Wow... That’s actually smart.”

“Yeah, I felt like a stalker though. Anyway, everything to make a good impression.” 

“Can’t disagree with that.”

Both of you laughed and It actually felt nice to have a conversation with a stranger like him. Even though you kept thinking they would judge you, it could just be a friendly ear who might just become a friend. 

Maybe this first day isn’t gonna be as bad as you thought after all.

That’s until you heard a rattling sound and you felt the elevator slow down.

It was like the elevator jolted up before shutting down completely, and both of you snapped your heads up to the noise. The lights were still on, everything seemed normal but the one thing that made you know something was up, was that you couldn’t hear the sounds of the shaft moving. 

“What just happened?” You blinked and looked around. “I dunno?” The man took three steps forward, until he reached the buttons and inspected them as his face went close. “I think the elevator stopped?”

The words he spoke were enough for you to make a red light pop up in your brain, and you chuckled anxiously. “You’re kidding, right?”

He pressed the button to the 9th floor, but nothing happened. The only sound you could hear were scraping sounds, as if the elevator wanted to go up, but stuttered. The stranger turned around, his face in a confused look, and your heart felt like it stopped as your breathing hitched.

“No, no no no. Oh my god.” You mumbled as he tried it again for the third time, yet no luck. And the red light formed into panic in your head. “Try something, try pressing the open door button instead of the floor button?” He did what you suggested, again no reaction and you felt like you were getting dizzy, like anxiety knocked on your door.

“Why won’t it open? Are we stuck? Oh god.”

You started to feel light in your head, and dizziness started to form.

“Woah woah, easy easy alright. It’s probably just some malfunction, I’m sure the problem will be fixed soon.” The man was suddenly in front of you, holding your upper arms to keep you steady and your eyes darted around as you felt your chest tighten. “I am claustrophobic, I don’t even know why I took the elevator. Oh my god I’m gonna faint.”

“No, don't faint. If you’re gonna faint I’ll just have to faint as well, and that’s not gonna be fun for anyone. Just look at me alright? Focus on me. Look me in my eyes.” 

As the words rolled out of his mouth, your eyes moved to his, and you noticed there was a sweet and understanding look on his face. The lighting of the elevator also made his face brighter, his amber eyes now looking more like a honey color, making your breathing slow down a little bit. Yet, the tightness in your chest didn’t fade. 

You didn’t even feel the stranger take over the coffee cups and place them on the ground.

“Everything is gonna be okay, alright? I'll see if there is some way to connect ourselves to the maintenance downstairs, who can help us.” His eyes moved along the lines of the numerous buttons, and eventually settled on the yellow bell. The alarm button.

He gave you one more look of reassurance before turning around to the yellow button. He pressed it, both of you waiting in anticipation, and you started to feel as if the elevator doors were closing in on you, as if you were huddled in a tight little space. 

“Just look at the floor, not the walls… Just look at the floor, not the walls...” you mumbled to yourself as you looked at your feet. Everything looked like it was a little blurry as black spots appeared in your vision, and a ringing sound suddenly reached your ears. Shivers ran down your spine and you kept mumbling the same sentence over and over again on a loop. 

You probably looked like a lost kid now, and in truth, You were. Well, you felt like one.

“Alright, it gave a signal to the people in the building. These people know what to do, they’re trained to know what to do if an elevator gets stuck. We’ll be out in no time, and even if it’s worse than we thought, they’ll contact an elevator service technician to get us out.” The voice was dragged out. You couldn’t even hear the last words he spoke as the sounds around you were replaced with a high pitched sound. Black spots that were present just now, were starting to get bigger, and the pressure in your head felt larger. It felt like you were faltering. 

Your hands reached out to try and grasp something as everything went fully black, but it was too late as you fell on the floor, your side burning as you went.

“Holy shit!”

The last thing you remember is laying on the ground, wanting to open your eyes, yet everything stayed black.

-

“Look at me, you’re okay.”

“Hey, you’re okay.” You heard a voice say and your sight slowly reappeared as his face came into sight. “You scared the shit out of me.” 

You heard him chuckle a little, and as your sight was vividly clear again, you could see a look of worry on his face. “What happened?”

You coughed, your headache fading and you looked around to see you were still in the elevator, unfortunately. You hoped you were able to redo this day and choose to go with the stairs. Even though you wouldn't have had a conversation with the strange man if you’d taken the stairs, you wouldn’t have been in an elevator that was stuck.

“Elevators suck.” You mumbled and the man laughed at your retort. “Yes, they do.”

You then noticed he was crouching in front of you, and you thought he must’ve guided you to sit down slowly against the wall of the elevator, after you fainted. 

“That fall was pretty nasty. Are you hurt?” He checked your face quickly for any bruises or scratches from the walls, and you then felt a sting in your side. Like it was burning.

“Only my side, I think I fell against the railing at the button section.” You lifted your shirt up a little, and as you shifted your hips, you saw a purple-ish bruise. You groaned, remembering that you would go to the beach with a friend of yours on the weekend, knowing the bruise would be  noticeable.

He looked at your side before sitting down next to you and he inspected the bruise as your breath hitched.

“It’s not that bad luckily, although I’m afraid you will have to carry that for a couple of days" 

The stranger smiled lightly and that’s when you realized you hadn’t even introduced yourself. It’s nice to know someone on the first day of work, but it’s better if you know a name to pronounce them.

“By the way, you never told me your name” You questioned in yourself but apparently you talked out loud. Probably because of the aftershock of fainting, you were still trembling. 

The man held out a hand for you to shake and you happily obliged. “I’m Mitch.” 

You looked at him again, seeing a different view of him after he said his name, and you smiled. Mitch suited him.

“Y/n.” 

“Pretty name for a pretty girl." He winked and had a grin plastered on his face. "Get out of here with the cheesiness." You playfully said to him, slightly swatting his knee and you felt heat radiate from your cheeks. Looking down again to try and cover them up with your hair, although he undoubtedly already noticed.

The two of you sat there in silence. A sigh escaped your lips as your eyes wandered to his form. Since there was a meeting, He wore an all black suit, something that wasn’t really casual, it was rather fancy. And it was then you noticed it looked good. He looked good. Like, really good. His side profile was in your view as you looked at him, and you didn’t even realize you were starting to zone out, until Mitch started speaking and snapped you out of your trance.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you actually faint?” You thought about the day everything started. It required some digging in your memories you had buried, but thinking about it now, it all came flooding back.

“That’s a long story.” 

You didn’t know if he wanted to hear it, since you were afraid you’d ramble the whole bible to him. Anytime when people would show interest in the subject, you’d explain it to them, but then they would wander off or pretend they cared. You could easily see it in their faces. 

But he had a slight smirk on his face and chuckled.

“Well, we have all the time. I’m listening, I promise.” He folded his hands on his crossed legs, and kept looking you in your eyes. Making you look down, before you opened up to him. 

“When I was 8, I was playing hide and seek with other girls from my class. It was hosted by a classmate from school at his house, and the whole class came. And so we decided to play hide and seek inside the house. I decided to hide inside the closet. But when I sat there for minutes, no one came. I was pumped because I wanted to win, but after half an hour, no one came. I waited and waited for three hours. So eventually I shouted for help, tried to pry my way out of the closet but it wouldn't budge. No one heard my cries, because it turned out they went outside. I felt like I was trapped, like there was tightness in my chest, I couldn't breathe. And as I kept crying, after 3 hours and 20 minutes, an adult heard me and freed me.”

He didn’t have to be Einstein to know why you couldn’t get out of the closet, and Mitch felt bad as he saw your expression sadden as you told your story. All the memories came crashing down on you again, and it felt like you were in the exact same place and moment like you were when you were a little kid. You thought you were ready to open up to people, yet everytime you would talk about it, it felt like you were trapped again, your voice cracking. Maybe you overestimated yourself, maybe talking about it was still relatively hard to process.

As you looked slowly at your side, Mitch was in the same position as he was before, only his gaze that lingered on you was a little more sad. Like he had empathy and you immediately coughed. “Sorry, that was depressing, it happened 16 years ago, I feel stupid for still being hung up about it. Sorry-” before you could finish your sentence, Mitch interrupted you and shuffled a little closer.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for telling your story, and you shouldn’t feel sorry for feeling sorry for yourself. As a kid it’s traumatizing to go through something like that. Of course that would stick with you.” His words were well thought out, like there was a tone of understanding, yet something was still gnawing at you.

“I just feel ashamed. There are people who have gone through way more shit than I did, and I still act like the world is ending.”

"Just because someone else may have it worse, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to feel sad sometimes. Everyone has fears, it’s inevitable. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

He leaned in, and for a second it looked like he was trying to reach for your hand, but he hesitated at the last second. He subtly pulled his hands away, placing them back on his knees and you decided not to pay too much attention to it. “Have you got any?” 

“Yeah, mine is terrifying,” he let out a laugh, putting emphasis on ‘terrifying’ while wiggling his eyebrows and biting his lip. 

“And what may that be?” 

He didn’t answer, instead he just looked in front of him, as if he was thinking really hard.

“Well?”

“Well, I’m afraid of…" He lingered on his last words before squinting his eyes. “...spiders?”

His words were dragged out and you snorted. “That sounded really convincing,”

Mitch’s posture changed as if he was caught in the act, and he sighed with a tiny bit of guilt in his face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry, thanks for trying to reassure me, it’s been a while since someone did that for me.”

The thought of him trying to cheer you up a bit, was a small gesture, yet it felt like opening a christmas gift. Even though he hardly knew you, he cared. And it seemed as if that thought hit something within you, making a tear slip and roll over your cheek.

As much as you tried to hold it in, hold it together, more tears followed and you bit your lip, inhaling deeply to try and contain yourself. 

Why was it so damn hard to just keep it together?

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just, I feel like I haven't cried in weeks and all my bottled up emotions are spilling out right now. I'm starting a new job in a new town, so I haven’t really had anyone to talk to or hold either or whatever, so- what are you doin-” Before you knew it, warmth surrounded your body as Mitch’s arms were around you, and you could smell his cologne as your eyes went wide. “Oh- oh okay...this is-”

“-Shh, shut up.”

“Okay...”

Your surprised look faltered as your eyes closed, and your arms wove around his body to hug him back, your chin resting on his shoulder. This was exactly what you needed, to hold someone close and to just vent out whatever you buried deep inside of you.

“Hey Mitch?”

"Yeah?" 

“Thank you,” You whispered and smiled through your tears. “For listening.” His hands were on the back of your head, playing with your hair as you heard his voice vibrate throughout your whole body.

"Of course." He held you close for a little longer before he decided to break the contact. “You’re sweaty, ew.” His playful tone made you snort, and when both of you pulled back, he wiped away some stray tears that were still sitting on your cheeks. 

The two of you sat there in silence. Just savoring this moment. 

You then noticed something in the corner of the elevator, and as your eyes diverted to it, you saw the two coffee cups sitting neatly on the floor. You were glad that Mitch had put them on the ground just before you fell, because if he didn't, it would've spilled everywhere and ruined your outfit. Facing your superior with a big stain in your blazer, would totally not give the right impression, and having to go to the ER for burn wounds, wasn’t really a fun trip either. 

You reached out for the cups and grabbed yours, surprised that it was still warm, and you took a few sips of your latte when you crawled back to the spot next to Mitch. He watched as you took a few sips, and you then looked at the other cup in front of you, and asked if Mitch wanted the Red Eye. "Uh, well, yeah it would be nice, I guess, but what about Sta-" "-It's fine, really. I mean, it's getting cold and I don't think giving a cold coffee to your superior is a way to make a good impression." You gave a little smile, grabbed the cup out of the cardboard cup holder and handed it over to him.

"Thanks." He grabbed the cup from your hand and immediately took a big swing. Something he regretted after, since his face scrunched up and he coughed a little after he swallowed his mouthful of coffee. "Oh, wow. That's- that's really strong. Now I get why his blood pressure is always sky high." 

You cracked out the loudest laugh yet this day, and looked around once again in the small room. “I hope for you there aren’t any cameras in this elevator to record that, otherwise you’d be the one playing a dangerous game.” He chuckled at the sentence you used against him, and laughter once again filled the air around you. That’s until everything went silent, and you knew he was gonna say something more serious.

“I don’t understand why those girls did what they did when you were 8, you’re a really kind person.” 

Both of you took another sip of your coffee. Some foam of your latte on your upper lip and you rubbed it away with your tongue.

“Yeah well, they never really liked me. No one really did. After all, I was just an energetic hyper ball that would ramble everywhere I went. It’s not as bad as it was before, but sometimes I just freak out and then I’m 8 again. Just scared shitless, I guess this is just my way of coping when I’m nervous.”

“I like that about you.” His eyes went to yours to make eye contact, and you happily looked back.

“You do?”

“Yeah.” 

Well that’s a first.

He had a cheeky grin and licked his lips. 

“You’re not like other girls.”

“Okay shut up, you ruined the moment.” Even though he had a playful sound in his voice, you gave him a light push to his shoulder and you both laughed. That’s until the cheeky grin changed into a knowing smirk.

“Moment huh?” The little shit was enjoying this. He was enjoying seeing you flustered and you swallowed hard, looking everywhere except his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Heat spread across your cheeks again. “There is something.” 

Biting his lip, he scratched his jaw and looked at your form, grinning widely after he noticed something and you frowned.

“You stopped trembling.”

You looked down, indeed seeing that you weren’t trembling and your face that held confusion, didn’t change one bit as you looked around. The fear of the small space didn’t even reach to you the past couple of minutes, and you then faced Mitch again, gaping at him like a fish.

“How did you manage to do that?” He simply shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee.

“What can I say? It’s my charm, the ladies love it.”

He shot you another wink, and you felt something in the pit of your stomach. Not a feeling that wanted you to throw up, but the feeling in your stomach you haven’t felt in years. A nice one. It was like your stomach was doing twists and rolls, in a good way.

He seemed to notice your state after the wink, and the little shit almost had a grin like the cheshire cat. Having to contain yourself not to smile as well, you rolled your eyes and snorted.  

“Well, I’m not like the other ladies” 

“Shut up.”

Right after both of you cracked a laugh again, you felt another jolt of the elevator, before you could hear the shaft and your eyes shot up. It indicated that the maintenance manager managed to fix the problem,  “Mitch, I think the elevator moved again.” You told your companion but all you heard was him groaning. 

“Mitch-” You looked at your side and your mouth went wide as you saw a small stain on his pants. Turns out he held his coffee in his hands as the elevator jolted, and a few hot droplets landed on his pants.

“Shit, are you okay?” You held in a laugh and he nodded as he burst out laughing too.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a small stain.”

“Shit, uhh.” you felt the need to help him, but you knew a coffee stain was most likely permanent. “I can make it up to you. Let me make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me?” He had an amused look on his face, and the both of you stood up from your seating position. He looked at the stain on his thigh, and he then looked back at you.

“Yeah, I know a stain like that probably won’t come out, I can pay you back, or-” 

“-I know a way for you to make it up to me” Your eyes that diverted when you were thinking about ways to fix it, now shot back up to look at Mitch, and it felt like your eyes were glued to his face. “What did you have in mind?”

He rubbed his hands together, smiling.

“We should go out sometime.”

“We should?"

“Yeah,” Now it was your time to smirk, your eyes standing playful as you cocked your head. “You sure you can handle my energetic ass? You know I’ll probably ramble the whole bible to you.”

“Yeah I know,” He grinned, “and I’ll happily listen.”

That’s the moment when you both heard a pinging sound, indicating you were at your destination, and at the same time, both your heads turned around. 

“We’re here, floor 9.”

The doors of the elevator opened, the both of you wanting to walk out, but at that moment, you were stopped by a voice.

“Mitch, Y/n, where have you been? The meeting ended already, I- Mitch, you have a stain on your pants.” A man stood on the other side of the elevator, and you recognized him as Stan Hurley, your new superior. His voice was not mad, but you could easily hear the irritation in his voice, and see his unamused face. Before he could say anything more though, Mitch was quick to explain everything to him about the elevator being stuck.

Stan’s irritated face expression slowly turned into an understanding one, and he then looked at you. “Sorry to hear you both were stuck, but happy to know you both can get to work now. Hurry up.” Before both of you could say anything further, he already walked away. But Mitch said something just before.

"By the way, Stan, your taste in coffee is horrible."

Stan, who was now walking down the hall, turned his head around to shoot Mitch a look of confusion before turning back around. And you laughed at Mitch’s retort. 

“I thought this day was gonna be hell, but you know, being stuck with you in an elevator isn’t so bad after all.”

[yourfavouritetragedy]

I was adding onto the DSMP Actor AU post, but it turned into Wilbur musician AU, haha rip me, and I only know SBI anyways so here’s a separate post. (It goes back to actor AU at the end.) It’s hypothetically still in the same universe though, and obviously inspired by it. If anything’s phrased weirdly, it’s cuz this was originally an addition to that. 

tbh I kinda adhered to their IRL careers too much compared to the OP but whatever it’s fine. 

Also frick the “Dream SMP” for not having a better title lmaooo

Wilbur is an indie artist really on the come up

Your City Gave Me Asthma was pretty good for a first release, popular with both new fans and fans of his acting.

He had starred in a short mystery/thriller-ish series that started off disguised as a normal sitcom: Chilly in Lincolnshire {Editor Wilbur ARG}

It had a prominent release because of Jack Massey’s involvement and previous fame, but production was abruptly scrapped before it tied everything up with a bow on top, so to speak. It’s still unclear if this was actually planned in order to tell the story the way they way wanted. 

Even before that, critics had mixed reviews, either applauding the storytelling and acting or calling it “irrationally confusing, an amateurish attempt to box unconventional storytelling into a conventional medium.”

Also SootHouse was a sitcom that achieved a cult following during the two seasons it ran before cancellation. Either you’re a fan or you’re never heard of it, and people constantly forget Wilbur was in it. 

(He was a few other old shows on his resume too. Wilbur always focuses on the newest project, so everyone always forgets about what he was in before.) 

Maybe I Was Boring EP was initially just bonus tracks on his website, but his fans liked it so much he gave it a wider release

In between, he had a few comedy songs go viral on youtube. Everybody was so confused when they realized it was the same Wilbur as musician/actor Wilbur. He laughed about it in an interview, saying “How many Wilburs do you know?” 

That’s when it came out that ���Wilbur Soot” was actually a stage name. (”Ha, fair, only one.” “Make that zero-- my name’s not really Wilbur.”)

He kinda disappeared after that?? Didn’t do anything, really inactive on social media. It was semi-confirmed that he was both working on his mental health and prepping some stuff (music, auditions).

But anyways he just released a series of singles, combined into Digital Love {E-girl trilogy}-- he’s transformed his image yet again, but this time he does take ownership of all his past ventures.

The release of Digital Love bridges the end of SMP Earth and the beginning Dream SMP. 

But before that there was MCC and the other stuff.

They are shows where celebrities team up do stuff-- you know the type 

but Minecraft Monday is still inexplicably Minecraft Monday. Some Youtuber just managed to get all these up and coming celebrities to play a Minecraft tournament. 

And that’s where the Sleepy Bois (minus Tommy) met IRL so that’s where they meet here. 

SMP Earth, like Minecraft Manhunts, is also a former show they were on. I’m going to call it World Domination. Don’t @ me; I know that’s trash lol. 

They and the Dream Team met up because of their shared fanbases and were even talking a crossover, but it didn’t really work that well for the stories so they scrapped it

They make a non-canon cross over episode anyways {no IRL equivalent, I think}

Everybody loves the cons. Everytime there’s a con, five friendships are made and eight ideas are created. 

Techno backstory time

He’s done a lot of long running, though not exactly popular, serials and sitcoms: Blitz, Survival Games, and Sky Wars. 

Winstreak: 1000 {Bed Wars 1000 winstreak} was so popular they made a second season, but it never got as big as the first. He worked nearly exclusively with Hypixel Studios. 

He was doing lots of random content for their new Sky World universe {Skyblock} -- the small studio was big on experimentation -- , when a fictional documentary, The Great Potato War, went proper viral. 

They made two sequels WHILE he was doing those celebrity team challenge shows and then World Domination, and they were actually good sequels.

Got a reputation for being shallow and a sell-out, but he makes a joke of it so much he gets away with it and constantly self-promos.

Also a kinda scary to work with for the first time because of how single-minded he can get, but once you realize how socially awkward he is it’s okay.  

Now that’s he’s in a lot of stuff with worldbuilding, he practically has the wikis memorized. 

Tommy mainly did limited series and movies before World Domination, where he met the SBI.

He’d had been a fan of Wilbur for a while, and was super star-struck at first, but got over it really quickly in his Tommy style

He still is a total fanboy at concerts and whenever a new music video drops. “I’m friends with the guy! I know him, Wilbur Soot!” “Tommy, you’re famous too.” “Yeah, cuz I’m practically in the video!” “No--” 

Wilbur takes Tommy to one of his concerts and he’s so hyped the entire time, especially to go behind the scenes and on the stage. 

Sometimes he gets stressed about the pressure of being a child star, but Techno, Philza, and Wilbur promise to stand by him and they make him feel protected 

One time Wilbur’s drunk and almost hands Tommy a drink before swearing and going, “You’re a bloody child! You can’t have that! God, what would Philza think?” Tommy’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

Philza laughs at the story and actually lets Tommy try a little in a more controlled, responsible situation. Tommy texts his mum first, and then hates the drink anyways. (”This is rubbish! I am a man, but I’m not drinking this!” Techno: “Alcohol is disappointing. I drink orphan’s tears instead.” “Techno WHAT--”)

Philza had been the star of a zombie apocalypse show: Golden Core 

He did canonically die to a child zombie in the movie version. Yes, they made a movie version of the TV show, because the Golden Core franchise actually has had many other shows {other hardcore series}. 

Everybody tries to get the child zombie props near him because of that (they’re puppets)

He’s done a lot of other things, like in the original actor AU post, but none of them came close in popularity. 

He gives the rest of the SBI the knowledge he’s gained from being in the biz for so long. 

There’s also a running joke about SBI meaning “Spy Boys Incorporated” and them starring in a comedy spy movie

The fans would very much actually like this to happen. There’s so many fanons for it (maybe I’ll write one....) 

Back to the DSMP. Maybe I’ll call it Dreamland or smth. 

Wilbur constantly asks Tommy if he’s okay after any difficult scenes

Especially when they were hanging out together a lot in the exile arc.

All the brother scenes were cut because Wilbur kept breaking down and crying in them.

Sometimes people actually ask Techno and Tommy if they’re actually brothers. Tommy tries to go along with it half the time on the basis of “it’s be funny,” so there’s a subset of casual fans that genuinely don’t know. 

After Alivebur was killed off, Wilbur was going to leave the show to concentrate on his music

But he missed the SMP and hanging so much that he just showed up on set one day saying “I’m a ghost now,” and everyone just rolled with it

Alivebur was so popular that, seeing that Wilbur was willing, they decided to bring him back for Season 3. He’s been avoiding doing heavy scenes, but he still seems really invested and like he wants to come back to the show.

Wilbur talks with Techno about writing and lore a lot

it’s one the few times Wilbur actually seems like the older one

Wilbur attempted to get a D&D group going in the cast, but the show was already close enough, with the amount of improvisation they can get by with

Tommy’s Pigstep cover happened, but the background was Philza clapping barely in time with just Wilbur on bass instead (and of course Techno’s “BAHP”s)

It was a charity stream. They had put on their costumes (clothes only) for a previous goal. 

This one was simply called “We rap.”

Some people were almost disappointed that Tommy was the only one actually rapping, but he was so funny it made up for it. 

Okay I spent the whole morning on this and it got way too long but I think I’m finally out of ideas. sorry haha hope you enjoyed! ^_^

[goldentournesol]

All That Matters

*gif originally posted by @heat-waveee​ *

(Spencer Reid x Reader)

The one where Reader doesn’t visit Spencer in prison.

Length: 3.0k

A/N: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 12 FINALE AND BEGINNING OF SEASON 13! 

Part 2: Here For You

masterlist

Spencer’s absence was felt in every aspect of her life.The bullpen wasn’t the same without him, her apartment, although they lived separately, wasn’t the same without him, even the jet wasn’t the same. She was so used to looking over and seeing his tall frame sprawled over that beige couch that she found herself glancing over out of habit just to find someone else there. It was just as disappointing every time. Her heart ached for him. It ached because she knew that there was nothing more she could do to help him or ease the pain he felt as he was being tortured in prison and it took a huge toll on her mental health. Everyone else had visited him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“Hey, Spence.” JJ said tearfully as soon as he took a seat across from her in the visitation room.

“Hey, is everything okay? It’s not my mom, is it?” He hurriedly asked with slight panic.

“No, no, she’s fine. Y/N and I saw her yesterday, she asked about you.” She nodded, smiling in an attempt to reassure him. He mirrored her expression with relief when she told him his mother thought he was at the beach. A short silence ensued.

“How are you doing?” JJ asked, as sympathetically as possible. Spencer fought back tears.

“I’m okay. I’m, uh, really happy to see you.” He admitted, even though he knew it probably wasn’t a good idea she was visiting. However, she reminded him of the promise she made him the last time she saw him. She promised she’d never leave him alone.

“How’s…” he paused with a swallow, “Y/N doing?” The question came out tentatively, his facial expression displaying something between a grimace and a hopeful look. The last time he’d seen Y/N in the courtroom, she was in a silent fit of tears.

“She’s...fine.” JJ lied. Spencer raised his eyebrows questioningly. It didn’t take a profiler to know that that was a straight up lie. “Alright, she’s not doing very well. I just didn’t want to tell you that because I knew you would worry about it and I don’t think you need any more of that.” She gestured around. Spencer heaved a sigh. He expected her response, he just didn’t want to hear it. 

Later that day, JJ found Y/N at her desk, nose deep in a file. Her eyes were frantic as they raced through the words on the page, hoping to find something useful. She had thrown herself into the case files, the Spencer-related and the non-Spencer-related. When she wasn’t occupied with the work, her mind would wander over to Spencer, which would send her into a whirlwind of panic, guilt, and rage. 

Panic because she didn’t want to imagine what he was going through, alone, scared, hopeless--. 

Guilt because she hadn’t visited him yet, she just couldn’t bring herself to see him. Not when she couldn’t wrap her arms around him, not when she couldn’t kiss him, or hold his hand. 

Rage because time was moving so slowly without him and they weren’t any closer to getting him out.

She hadn’t heard JJ come up from behind her and rest a hand on her shoulder. She yelped out in response, having been totally focused on the file.

“Woah, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” JJ said as she was met with Y/N’s red rimmed eyes.

“It’s alright.” Y/N muttered softly.

“Y/N, when was the last time you took a break? Or got some sleep?” JJ asked, noticing the constant nervous tapping on her thigh.

“A break? I can’t--I can’t take a break, JJ!” She uncharacteristically snapped, standing from her seat. JJ took a step back at her sudden outburst, her friend’s eyes aflame. 

“How am I supposed to take a break when he’s in there, probably terrified out of his mind?! How do you think he would feel if he knew I was sipping on some tea or...or styling my hair instead of helping him get out of there?” She spat, not even caring that she was gaining attention from people around her. She didn’t know that this was the guilt taking over and speaking for her, but JJ knew.

“He asked about you today...again.” She stated coolly, seeing Y/N’s angry expression soften immediately. She averted her gaze quickly, heart wrenching in her chest. She grabbed some files and made a move to leave, probably to shed some self-wallowing tears, but JJ stopped her by grabbing her arm gently.

“We’re going to get him out of there, I promise. But we need you on board with us. I suggest you go home and get some rest. This won’t be solved overnight.” JJ assured her with a determined voice. Y/N pulled her arm out of her friend’s grip and made a beeline for the exit.

It’s not like she didn’t want to see him, of course she wanted to see him. She wanted to see him more than anything, but she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t rest until she caught the son of bitch who put him in there. Spencer wanted nothing more than to see her face and hear her voice.

 At first, he genuinely couldn’t blame her for not wanting to visit, but as matters outside the prison began to worsen, the matters inside were on another level. Then, hope began to elude him. He stopped hoping to see her, stopped hoping for a future. Spencer struggled to see his future as anything other than void and bleak as the four walls of his cell consumed him every night. He tried to file away any resentment he felt for her, he even stopped asking JJ about her. Whether or not she chose to share anything about his girlfriend was completely her choice. It had become too painful for him to think about her, let alone talk about her. 

And in the beginning, he was thankful for his eidetic memory because it allowed him to replay their conversations and memories on a loop. But now, the memories mocked him and kept him up at night. She became a part of his past life and he didn’t know whether his new life after prison could accommodate her.

What if they never solved the case? What if he had to spend the entirety of the 25 years in prison? Would she come see him then? At what point would she move on from him? Would she even bother showing up to break up with him? Or would he eventually have to learn from JJ that Y/N found a new lover as she mistakenly mentions her name in conversation?

This is ridiculous. She loves him. He knows that.

Right?

 Curse the intricate inner workings of his brain. It never ceased. He shouldn’t be thinking this way. But pulling himself out of the darkest place he’d ever been was proving to be increasingly difficult. 

Rage filled him as he learned of his mother’s abduction. He didn’t know why he expected Y/N to come take him home when he’d been released instead of JJ. He shouldn’t have done that. He also shouldn’t have felt disappointed when he saw Penelope all by herself right outside the prison doors.

But he did.

No one mentioned her on the way back to the headquarters, but she invaded his mind anyway. He didn’t have the time or the energy to be thinking of her, he needed to find his mother. 

She had been eagerly awaiting his arrival in the bullpen with the rest of the team. She grinned for the first time in months as she saw his tall figure appear through the glass doors. She watched as Rossi grabbed Spencer’s face and kissed his cheeks before pulling him into a bear hug. She watched Emily stroked his hair and kissed his head. Even Matt threw his arms around Spencer. Tears fell as she watched the scene unfold across the room from her desk. 

Spencer’s entire attitude shifted as his eyes finally landed on her. His smile dissipated, his shoulders were pushed back, and his eyes, his kind, soulful eyes were cold as they bore into her wet ones. She felt a shiver race its way down her spine. The air in the room shifted. It was eerily quiet, everyone waiting for the fallout. But Spencer stood still and silent, neither of them making the first move. There was so much left unsaid between them.

“Let’s go find my mother.” Spencer spoke as he averted his gaze from her and made his way to the conference room. 

A silent sob wracked through her body as she fell back into her chair, her fingers gripping at her roots in frustration. Penelope rushed to her quickly and tried to console her, the rest of the team already in the conference room discussing the case.

“Go help the team, I’ll have Emily brief me later.” Y/N said, taking a deep, shaky breath as she pried Penelope off of her frame. Penelope reluctantly nodded and made her way into the conference room. Spencer’s expression was stone cold and indecipherable as he watched Y/N scurry off into the direction of the bathrooms through the window. 

Hours later, they had managed to retrieve Diana after learning that Cat Adams was in fact impersonating Mr. Scratch along with some help from Lindsey Vaughn. They were now doing the best they could to track down the real Mr. Scratch, but the team had been caught in a horrific car accident, which led to Emily’s abduction. Spencer was currently at home with his mother. Y/N, Penelope, and Matt hadn’t gone with the rest of the team. Y/N had been too shaken up to go out into the field.

“Y/N, get Spencer and meet us at the hospital!  Rossi’s refusing treatment until he talks to you two!” Matt yelled as he and Penelope raced to the hospital. Y/N nodded and called Spencer. Her name was the last he wanted to see on his phone, but he picked up anyway. He almost didn’t.

“Spencer! There’s been a terrible accident, Emily’s been taken by Scratch, I’m picking you up now! Rossi’s refusing treatment! I’ll explain everything on the way to the hospital.” She spoke frantically into the phone, speeding off into the direction of his apartment. He hadn’t even had time to reply before she hung up. Minutes later, he got into the car and noticed her panicked state.

“Are you okay to drive?” He asked, immediately noticing her rapid breathing, wide eyes, and white knuckles from gripping the wheel tightly. She met his eyes, shaking her head. Spencer saw the tears and switched places with her, driving to the hospital. He also noticed how she failed to manage her breathing.

“Hey, hey. Try to match my breath.” He breathed in and out slowly. She shook her head in disbelief, hating the fact that this was their first encounter. He was still the caring man she fell in love with, even though she knew he probably hated her guts right then. Her breathing evened itself out and she fiddled with her fingers.

“I’m good, I’m good.” She muttered, mostly to herself, “Spencer, I-” she began but he cut her off harshly.

“Not now, Y/N.” He spat as he rolled into the hospital, searching for JJ and Rossi. Y/N’s heart wrenched as he ran to JJ’s side, treating her with the tenderness she craved. She found Rossi and ran to him quickly.

“Where’s Spencer? Get Spencer.” He uttered, obviously in pain. Y/N brought Spencer over.

“What’s going on?” He asked, walking into the room.

“Shut up and listen.” Rossi demanded, eyes shifting between Y/N and Spencer, landing on Y/N as he spoke, “First, you, go through my pants pockets and find my keys. Second, you’re back on the team.” He referred to Spencer.

“Not sure I should be. Has the director approved that?” He asked.

“I’m making the calls now. I’ll take the heat. You’re back on the team.” He panted.

“I’ve got the keys.” Y/N said, holding them.

“There’s a little one there to a file cabinet in my office. Inside, there’s Chicago Bears season tickets. When you get them, call Matt Simmons. I promised him those tickets.” He seemed adamant.

“Rossi, did they give you something to make you loopy?” Y/N asked.

“I’ll get the doctor, we’ll get him into surgery.” Spencer stated and made a move to leave.

“Just shut up and listen.” He insisted, “Emily is missing. Stephen is dead. As for you two ass clowns, you’ll do me the courtesy of following my orders. And for the love of God, work through whatever it is you two are going through and then I’ll go into surgery.”

She and Spencer nodded as they left the room. “This has nothing to do with season tickets.” She stated and he agreed.

“Ass clowns?” Spencer muttered confusedly and she repressed a giggle. 

They had been so caught up in the urgency of the case that they hadn’t found the time to talk, but Y/N was glad that Spencer was at least conversing with her, even if it was strictly about the case. With Emily now found and Scratch finally dead, they learned to breathe again. Y/N offered to drive Spencer home from Stephen’s funeral, seeing how morose he seemed. He reluctantly agreed and got into the car.

“I know you don’t want to, but we really have to talk.” She said softly, afraid that if she spoke too loud, he’d either snap or break. It was unclear which was more likely to happen.

“Now’s not really the best time, Y/N.” He spoke defeatedly, his hands running over his face and digging into the sockets of his eyes.

“It’ll never be the right time, Spencer.” She pushed, “I missed you.”

He laughed crudely, almost mocking her, “Oh, you missed me?”

“Yes, I missed you. Of course I missed you. I’m sorry I didn’t-”

“Sorry?!” He practically screeched, turning to face her. Her jaw clenched in reaction as she focused on driving. 

“You’re sorry for what exactly? For not coming to visit me? For not bothering to write me any letters? For practically pretending like I didn’t exist? Do you have any idea how often I hoped to see you? Do you have any idea what it feels like to be disappointed to see one of my best friends because I was hoping it was you? I hated myself for it, but it happened. How could you, Y/N?!” He seethed, voice uncharacteristically booming through the small space between them. It was laced with hurt and betrayal. She abruptly pulled the car over on the side of the road and turned to look at him. 

“How could you forget about me like that?” Spencer’s voice was small and shaky, tears threatening to spill.

Her own tears found their way down her cheeks as she stared at his heartbroken face, “Forget about you? I could never forget about you, Spencer.” She sniffled softly.

“You were all I could think about. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I’m pretty sure I developed an ulcer from the stress, by the way. I didn’t visit because…” she swallowed, pausing to blow her nose, “because I was angry. I was so angry, Spencer. Not at you, of course. At the situation. It was unfair to you and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I know no amount of apologies will undo it, but I couldn’t handle it. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing you in there and not be able to hold you or kiss you or...or touch you.” She paused again to blow her nose. 

Her words were disguised by the sobs, but Spencer managed to comprehend them. “It would have been too painful for me, I’m sorry. I was too weak and too selfish. You deserved so much better than that, I know.”

Spencer’s heart ached to see her cry, but he was so upset that he didn’t know if he could forgive her just yet. His throat got that familiar feeling of being so tight that he couldn’t speak. He just shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, turning away from her.

“Just take me home.” He whispered and she nodded, pulling herself together. Spencer occupied himself with a loose thread on his clothes, the soft hum of the engine was the only thing filling the silence between them.

She pulled up in front of his apartment complex and he was about to step out of the car when she reached for his arm, stopping him. She drew her hand back immediately, realizing that that was the first time they made physical contact since he got back. She hoped she wasn’t overstepping. He stared at her curiously at both reaching for him and drawing back.

“Spence, I understand if you want to end things. I just...I love you. I never stopped loving you and I never will.” She reminded him and he nodded, the tenderness she’d grown so used to returning to his eyes.

“I love you, too.” He spoke quietly, offering her a tight smile that obviously hid a lot of pain. 

She watched as he got out of the car and disappeared inside the building. He hadn’t confirmed nor denied that he wanted to end things with her and she didn’t know if she should be relieved at that. All she did know though was hearing those four words from Spencer again breathed a new life into her lungs.

He still loves her.

That’s all that matters.

Part 2

[curious-menace]

Can you do headcanons of any Riddler getting cared for and gentle kisses from reader after getting beat up? He needs some loves.

SO I MAY HAVE SUGGESTED THAT MY ULTIMATE FANTASY IS TO GIVE RIDDLER A HUG WITH BACKRUBS AS HE TELLS ME ABOUT HIS DAY AND I STAND BY THAT WHOLE-HEARTEDLY .

i freaking love this stuff so im going to do all of them mwahahah

post asswoop riddlers getting loves

Arkham riddler

He’s VERY quiet, which knowing him and his inability to stop talking, is  bad news.

I paint arkham riddler as a cry baby and i stand by that. this is the hill i will die on. He’ll have dragged his sorry ass into your apartment or house , dripping blood on your floors but he wont bother calling for you. he’ll just sit at the table with his head in his hands having a lil pity party until you find him.

when you do finally get home, he’ll be looking like a kicked puppy. he’s gotten stuck in his own head, mentally beating himself up even more. he got a fright when you came in because he was so caught up he didn't even hear you at the door.

He’s literally sits there like a child with his arms up for you to come scoop him up. he’s not even sure why his first thought after getting beat up was to come here, he’s probably lead the cops here or something and that was so stupid and- you should probably give him a lil soft smooch on the head to stop him before he goes into a spiral.

he needs more emotional and mental care than physical. Talk to him while you're patching him up. any topic, it doesn't matter just keep him focused on your voice and not the one in his head calling him dumb.

he wont admit he wants to be held and coddled after something like this. get your softest blankie and 2 mugs of coco with marshmallows and just ramble at him. tell him about your day or ask him to explain something boring and complicated so he’s focusing on that rather than how upset he is. let him sit on your lap or between your legs on the sofa and watch how its made or mythbusters or something until he falls asleep. he should be ok again in the morning, he doesnt stay down for long. 

Blacklight Riddler

He’s used to getting his ass kicked, either by batman, the other rogues or once he’s a PI, by unhappy clients and the people he put away. He might be tiny but he’s pretty tough. 

even if he’s really hurting, his probably trying to crack jokes and tell blood and bruise related riddles. He doesn't like to see you worry so even if he’s in a lot of pain or a bit upset about things, he’s trying to make you smile.

he likes kisses on his bruises. even if he just banged his hand on the table he’ll come to you because he wants you to kiss it better. 

He’s a decent fighter, unlike a lot of riddlers who couldnt fight their way out of a paper bag. He can throw punches but he lacks in defence and with his bad knee, dodging can be a little hard. even if he wins the fight he’s still likely to need you to patch him up.

He likes kids plasters. like hello kitty and spongebob. no im not joking, he ALWAYS wanted them when he was little and his parents always said no. now he’s an adult he’s going to use them whenever he damn well pleases.

 if it was a particularly bad one, he’ll be ok in the moment even if he has to go to hospital. But he’s going to drop the facade at some point and let you see how upset he is. winding up in hospital after being beat was a common occurrence in childhood. even after doing it time and time again as an adult it doesn't make it any easier on him. he’ll want to stay in your bed, be close to you for few days until either he starts to heal or something snaps him out of his funk.

BTAS Riddler

he really prefers other people to do the fighting for him. well physically anyway. he can handle his own arguments...most of the time. He’s going to need you to nurse a bruised ego more than anything. he probably got dunked on my batman or crane and now he’s huffing.

i don't know if this counts as care and kisses but he clearly needs you around to keep his sorry ass alive. he hurt his side in a fight once and said he wasn't hurt. believable... until he started to act a little confused, a little dizzy. needless to say it worried you enough to take him to emergency care. 

He was obviously in agony by now but he was still fighting with you the entire drive there, insulting you and insisting he was fine. its a good job you took him when he did, turns out he’d ruptured his spleen and would probably be dead if you weren’t around to act like his common sense.

he still hasnt apologised for that. or any of the other times you insisted on medical care to stop him from pushing up daisies. he just pretends like you know he’s grateful so he doenst have to admit he’s bullheaded, stubborn and worst of all, wrong. 

if he has been seriously hurt, he acts more indignant about it than anything. he wants to be waited on and pampered while resting in bed. he can be a genuine pain to deal with, talking about how lucky you are to see him in such a vulnerable state and how you should be grateful he’s letting you do this for him.

He doesn't want to admit how much he actually needs you. his goons wont put up with him when he’s like this and he’s freaking paying them to do it. you do it for free and no matter how annoying he is you havent left him yet. he doesn't tell you but youve noticed he starts getting you more gifts about a week after he’s recovered. like its taken him a day or two to work out he should probably thank you for all you do.

Original Riddler

this riddler is just weird. like he gets a freaking hang nail and he pretends like he’s dying. but he could nearly lose a limb and he’ll say “tis but a scratch” and still try to hobble about like nothing is wrong.

actually he’s more like olaf “oh look i've been impaled.”. he probably tries to laugh off life threatening injuries like its nothing, taking maybe 3 steps before he collapses on his face in a blood puddle and lets out a tiny “help”

good luck moving his tall lanky ass around. better get a gurney and maybe those vets at the zoo who deal with giraffes. seriously if you want to take care of him you are going to need help or some sort of action plan and a go bag because with his limp butt this will not be easy.

he’s kinda like BTAS riddler in that he needs you to tell him the injury is serious. hes not dumb he just has a high pain threshold and genuinely doesn't realise that injuries are as bad as they are. 

he can be a bit of a baby while being patched up. he doesn't like a lot of blood or gore, it makes him feel a little sicky. better give him your phone to play with like a kid at the doctors or put the tv on for him to watch while you bandage  him. word of warning, he will pass out or throw up if you try to give him stitches.

i think you should focus your love and attention on him AFTER medical care. just focus on the job, be silent and as fast as possible to get it over with quickly. you should probably bring him something sweet too. no not just you, although you are sweet for looking after him. give him something sugary because he’s going to be light headed after seeing any blood. maybe you could give him a lolly for being a good patient. 

Telltale riddler

this riddler is essentially a metahuman. he can REALLY take a beating and bounce back fairly quickly. just look how many times batman punched him in the face and it barely stunned him! he doesnt usually need patched up after a fight. maybe just a lil smooch and some hugs

he did really need your help after the whole pact thing. having his friends abandon him hurt like hell, more than any physical injury ever could.

after that, he clings to you. almost obsessively so; we know he’s got some serious mental illnesses but he usually has the worst of it under control, even without meds. now? it seems like he’s experiencing ptsd and is afraid to go anywhere without you, like you might up and disappear if you arent in his line of sight at all times.

i think this riddler might need the most intense care from you. hugs and gentle reassurance wont be enough. you’re going to be responsible for taking him to therapy, keeping him taking his meds and grounding him to reality. this is the kind of responsibility you took on when you got involved with him but i doubt you realised how hard it would be. i cant promise it will all be worth it but i can promise he wont ever forget your kindness.

the kind of care he needs after such a hard knocking down is just stability. im not one for romance or any mushy gushy stuff but please just pour your love into the cracks in this poor mans soul.

its hard going, but he has his moments. his gallows sense of humor is still there and hey, after him being in and out and gone for so long, it might be nice to have him around more.  

Zero year riddler

INSUFFERABLE LITTLE SHIT THIS ONE. he could LITERALLY be bleeding out in your arms and he’d STILL be backseat driving on your medical skills. the temptation to just leave him there to bleed is INCREDIBLE.

he’ll drop the act eventually. he’ll ask and maybe even beg for your help. man has  no shame and all the self preservation instincts of a lemming. dont get me wrong, he can be a total coward some times, only looking out for himself . but when he’s actually hurt ? not a fuckin clue. does this head wound need an ice pack or heat pack? is this spurring blood wound worthy of medical care? no idea. he was a very sheltered child who never got so much as a bruise so he has no idea what to do when he’s hurt.

he gets the everloving shit kicked out of him on a clockwork basis. like you could hear knocking on your door at 3 am and already be at the table with a first aid kit like oh its tuesday riddler must have broken his nose.

he takes entirely too much joy in making you patch him up. youre starting to wonder if he’s doing it on purpose just to see you in your little apron and latex gloves . he’s getting off on this and you know it but god help you, you just  cant resist his dumb face asking for your help and would you also wear this pink nurses outfit while youre at it?

one time he lost a LOT of blood. he would be fine but he was pretty damn loopy from lightheadedness. while you were trying to get him into bed to rest he started flirting with you. can you believe the audacity? he’s lost 3 pints of blood and he’s still more focus on his libido? 

he’s actually going to be both humble and grateful for your help when he finally comes round. dont get me wrong, he’s still a bit of a prick but at least he says thank you for saving him before he demands you kiss all his booboos and ouchies. 

nonnie i am having a stroke. i was trying SO hard to just pick one but i COULDNT because i am WEAK for hurt and comfort.

theres a reason i have a tag that literally says “i have naughty hands and no self control”

someone needs to stage an intervention

got something you wana talk about? send me an ask or a dm! im always game to talk about our favorite curious menace 💚💜

[juliabohemian]

the sky is falling

Apparently...

I have been a fan of LOKI since he first appeared on screen. I will admit that I did not seek out other fans on social media until after The Dark World. Mostly because I had a lot of other things going on in my life.

I distinctly remember being filled with hope that LOKI would appear in Age of Ultron, and being filled with hope that Ragnarok would magically resolve everything between LOKI and his family. I remember being disappointed about both. I remember having renewed hope that Infinity War or Endgame would somehow make up for those disappointments, only to be further let down by the kind of mediocre writing that is typical of blockbuster movies. That is a disappointment that many of us have shared, and even bonded over.

And I was so relieved to have a fandom where I could share my disappointment. I was happy to critically analyze what had been problematic about LOKI's story so far, even if most of it was due to poor/inconsistent writing as opposed to a conscious decision on anyone's part (minus Ragnarok, probably, but I digress). I was happy to have a place where I could write meta about problematic themes in fictional media and how they might negatively affect those who digest them.

When I found out the LOKI show was happening, I felt the same lurch in my gut that I'm sure you all felt. Will it suck? Will it just be another cash grab, using Tom Hiddleston as a lure? Even the trailers I was seeing in the months beforehand did nothing to quell my fears. The trailers were carefully edited for the sole purpose of gaining viewers for the show. Which is an almost laughable notion, since people would probably have watched it anyway. But I was still apprehensive, right up until the last minute.

Then, I watched episode one.

And I immediately realized a few things.

The first is that what we are seeing, now, is as close to 100% Tom-Hiddleston-approved as ANYTHING we have seen on screen so far. 

Take a minute to let that soak in. What we are seeing is how Tom sees LOKI. It isn't the product of someone else's editing, or someone else's vision. This isn’t a product of LOKI being a side character who they simply don’t have time to develop. This is a show about LOKI.

The second thing I realized is that this show is almost like an AU story that exists separately from everything else. So, LOKI isn't going to be exactly like any other specific version we have seen before. And that's totally fine. Because he has never been in this situation before, we have no idea how he would behave under these circumstances. It is uncharted territory.

Now, I realize that not everyone in the fandom has written fiction, or knows what it's like to construct a long narrative. I can personally attest to throwing in an occasional plot device that made slightly less sense than I would like, simply to put the story where I wanted it to be. I can also attest to completely disregarding minor aspects of canon that would have rendered my story pointless or required me to write an additional 5 chapters, simply to explain them away. That is writing, folks.

What I DO know is that we have only seen episode 1. We don't know what the big picture is yet. And I can tell you that if I had written a story and planned the whole thing out and, after posting chapter 1, people had posted giant rants about how everything I'd done so far was wrong, I would be extremely concerned about the mental health of those people. And I would hope that they would stop reading my story and go find something else to do.

From a purely scientific perspective, we don’t have enough information to draw a conclusion. And yet, I have been inundated with Chicken Little posts about how the sky is falling. I am practically getting whiplash from scrambling to unfollow these people.

This show is not going to be perfect.

There are going to be things about it that you don't like.

It is totally okay not to like the show, or to simply dislike things about it. But PLEASE PLEASE acknowledge that you not liking something does not equate to it being problematic. It doesn't even equate to an objective measurement of the show's value. It just means that YOU don't like it. I feel like a lot of LOKI fans have an image in their heads of who they think LOKI is and they feel so strongly about it, that they would assert their headcanon as being more in character than whatever Tom Hiddleston might choose to do with LOKI. And frankly, that is very sad. It also means that those people will always be disappointed, because you have zero control over what Tom chooses to do with his character.

I think that after so much continued disappointment, many LOKI fans have learned to seek their dopamine reward from criticizing LOKI content, as opposed to actually enjoying it. Because, frankly, that affords them more control over the outcome. If we go into a situation assuming it will be bad, and it turns out to be bad, we get to pat ourselves on the back for our genius. If we go into it hoping that it will be good and it ends up being bad, then we have to cope with that negative feeling. And no one wants to feel disappointed over and over again.

And I’ve realized that all the time I spent ranting about what I didn’t like about the MCU has not been good for me, mentally. It is not healthy to dwell on negative things, unless that dwelling is somehow productive. And this hasn’t been productive. It hasn’t led to anything but more ranting and whining.

I am choosing to have an open mind, not because I think that everything is going to be wonderful, but because it is the most mentally healthy thing for me to do.

I am GRATEFUL to have this show. 

Even if it ends up being less than awesome, I am still grateful to have a show that is all about LOKI, that gives us lots of Tom being LOKI on screen without anyone trying to steal the mic from him. I want to do my best to enjoy it. And so far, I am enjoying it.

And if, when the show is all over, I realize that it contained some genuinely problematic scenes or themes, I will explore those OBJECTIVELY. I will analyze them CRITICALLY.

But we're NOT there yet. 

[piano958]

My first AO3 Post: Don't Leave Again (chapter 1, Narusasu/Sasunaru)

So I wrote this after being horribly sad and stuck in a hole. Decided to post it, and was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who wanted to read it!

This is the first chapter. There are nine chapters (currently) in total, please check it out if you like it!! Also yes, it is indeed a Naruto fic. I am not sorry, I am just now getting into Naruto :')

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Link to fic Content Warnings: Angst, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, Alcohol, Drunkenness

Summary: Sasuke has been gone for so long that almost everyone has given up on him and moved on, but for some reason, Naruto is still hung up on him. Speaking of Naruto, he is not doing well in the slightest. The man is depressed, anxious, and on the brink of giving up on life in general. When suddenly one day Sai appears at Naruto's door with information on Sasuke, things are about to be shaken up out of nowhere.

Notices: They’re adults but aged up. Kinda like if Naruto had started a little later than it did? I don't know how to exactly explain it, but they're adults (around like 21.) This takes place in an 'AU' where the ninja war was more of a general thing than part of the main story, and where Sasuke isn’t as fucking stupid. Also, a lot of these words were supposed to be italicized but I wrote this all on my phone so it didn't carry over; that's why the formatting is weird too. READ. THE. WARNINGS. Thanks.

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Chapter 1: A Collapse Rarely if ever did anyone see Naruto cry. He was always a positive person. Being on his own had taught him that nothing would get done by moping, and a smile made you far less of a target than crying did. He was quite used to the side eyes he received every day, though a majority of it changed from angry glances when he was a kid to regular ones now. Realizing that Naruto could, in fact, kill them and blow up the village easily but didn’t and instead fought for the village probably has sunk in a little bit.

It would’ve mattered a few years ago. It would’ve mattered to Naruto a lot that people didn’t see him as a monster anymore. His ultimate goal, becoming Hokage and proving his worth, didn’t matter for a second if he couldn’t save Sasuke.

Sasuke shouldn’t matter that much, and Naruto was fully aware of that. Even Sakura had given up, truly given up, on the fucking stupid black-haired ninja. And she had been absolutely head-over-heels for the man. Naruto, however, just couldn’t give up and he didn’t know why.

It was starting to get to him. Like, really really get to him, that he couldn’t shake Sasuke. The team had previously discussed the possibility of killing the ninja should he ever become hostile and Naruto absolutely did not take the conversation well. He was no stranger to panic attacks, but no one else was aware of that and they almost had a meltdown watching the smiley, bubbly boy crumble. He wished they didn’t see that. They check on him far too often now and look at him questioningly when he does anything but smile.

He still hadn’t let them see him cry. No one would get that pleasure.

The dining table Naruto sat at felt cold. It felt empty. Naruto didn’t eat very often anymore. He still adored ramen; no one could take that love away from him. He didn’t buy any now, though, and instead only got some when he knew people suspected something was up and he wanted to keep face.

Cold. Empty. It genuinely didn’t bother him most of his life, and he enjoyed having space to himself, but tonight was one of those nights.

Some years ago Naruto learned something pretty awful: he healed super fast. The fox inside of him gave such a huge boost to his chakra that any wounds he received would heal pretty much overnight. This made him sort of reckless as a ninja, and a fun puzzle for the doctors at the Leaf hospital.

How could that possibly be awful? Well, Naruto had learned a very common form of coping: self-harm. As a ninja, you’re surrounded by knives and blades all day every day. You practically carry a dozen everywhere you go. Pair that, Naruto’s incredible healing speed, a young human whose life is seemingly falling apart at every turn, and you have a recipe for disaster. Sometimes, it’s literally the only thing that kept him alive other than being a disgrace.

Being treated like a monster, losing the only thing he ever considered to be a friend and facing the idea of killing him, losing his teacher, being alone, feeling so absolutely terribly hopeless… Naruto was stuck in a hole. He couldn’t see a way out of it. Sasuke wasn’t coming back any time soon, and he could never accept his life’s goal without him. He’d rather die with Sasuke than kill him. In fact, even if Sasuke came back there was still something eating at Naruto… something to do with him and Sakura… something to do with Naruto never being okay. He couldn’t figure it out, and it was eating at him like a heaven curse. Even if Sasuke was back, Naruto would still be a monster and would still have nothing. Sasuke hadn’t ever cared about Naruto’s attempts to bring him home, and even though Naruto would chase him till the end of time… well… it didn’t matter. Naruto didn’t matter. He was nothing but a burden and a tool, happy to give his power to the village, but in the end, he knew whatever this was that was eating at him would never allow him to become Hokage.

He trudged off to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He sat at the bottom of it, cleaning himself vaguely and staring mostly, eyeing the knife he kept in there. Did it really matter that he did this? If he healed overnight, no one would ever know, and for the times it was too deep some bandages and an extra few days were all he needed. He couldn’t hurt anyone else if they didn’t know, and there was no other thread than this one tethering him to the earth. This was, quite frankly to Naruto, the only thing he had control over.

Kurama wasn’t happy about what he was doing, but Naruto didn’t listen. The fox would heal him regardless. He felt what would be the angry stomping if the fox was in front of him in his chest, demanding him to stop because even it knew when enough was enough, but Naruto didn’t listen. He continued on and on until the last thing he was red. It was fine, he’d wake up anyway. Nothing mattered, not even his own life.

Except… this time he didn’t quite make it to red. A knock sounded on the door. Normally Naruto would ignore it, as it was probably just Sakura or Sensei checking on him, but the knocking grew frantic. Naruto groaned, picked himself up, and bandaged his arms the same way he always did when he awoke, and yelled, “Coming, just give me a minute!”

The knocking stopped suddenly, and Naruto rolled his eyes as he took his time. No one could know, after all. He approached the door mentally preparing himself to act happy.

When he opened the door, a black-haired someone collapsed into his arms, coughing blood. It wasn’t Sasuke.

[edwardforkhands]

Asking for help to become not transphobic

This is a long rant, very unorganized. Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going with it. But basically, I’ve been on terfblr in secret for the last 3 years or so, and I’ve become transphobic during that time. I want help to try and change. If anyone could point me to any articles, documentaries, studies, etc to help me get out, I would appreciate it. If you can add in your own two cents, that would be appreciated as well. I’m not sure how much I’ll respond to replies or reblogs on this post, or DMs, as I’m pretty shy and non confrontational (hence why I was on terfblr in secret). But I will read everything!

Basically I agree with a lot of things terf believe, but one thing I want is to find a way to escape the transphobic side of everything. I want to be a radical feminist minus the trans exclusionary part. I’m pretty leftist and progressive, but I hate being bigoted in this way. I almost feel like someone that’s fallen down a neo nazi rabbit hole, in the ways that I have to hide my true beliefs from friends and family. The problem is, I just can’t find a way to for my brain to make peace with a lot of principles of present-day trans activism.

I feel like the only way to make progress is to first just flat out say I’m transphobic. In many ways I’m not, but in a lot of ways I am. That way when I ask my questions, people aren’t just like “that’s really transphobic of you to ask” and shut me down. I want to be kinder, but I need to be able to say what I think. Like how you need to be able to write out your math in order to find any mistakes. But the way things are now, my math looks perfectly fine to me.

So that everyone understands where I’m coming from, here’s a summary of my beliefs:

I agree with terfs/swerfs on a lot of things. I believe there are 2 sexes, gender is a social construct that is not at all innate, women face female-specific oppression, sex work is dehumanizing, there is no such thing as a genital fetish, I think in recent years that some people are transitioning when they not “actually trans,” etc. And there are some more petty things I get annoyed at like saying “uterus owners” or “pregnant people.” I also disagree with the term swerf (though I don’t think terf/swerfs are slurs). I want to protect women and sex workers. To me, this is like calling people who are against child labor “child exclusionary human rights activists.” In my mind I’m trying to do a good thing for them. Sex work is the commodification of consent— which imo can’t be commodified.

But then on the other hand there are a lot of topics on which terfs would disagree with me. I think we should respect peoples’ pronouns, trans people should be able to use what bathroom they want, using someone’s deadname is rude, for many people medical transition is necessary, there are cases where it is appropriate for children to transition, and even if gender roles were totally nonexistent, there would still be trans people.

Here’s where I think I started to get sucked up into “terf” ideology: I think dysphoria is necessary to be trans. I think this was the “gateway drug” that made me into a terf. This stems from my belief that there are two sexes, gender is fake, and your biology is tied to being trans. My understanding of dysphoria is this: It is a state of being dissatisfied with the sex of your body, feeling like it shouldn’t be the way it is. Like how some people feel like a limb shouldn’t exist, and they want to cut it off (I can see how this analogy is a bit transphobic, I just don’t see how else to explain my understanding). Dysphoria is innate, and would exist no matter how men and women are viewed in society. If you don’t have dysphoria, then what is the point of being trans? Is it to change the gender roles you have to/don’t have to adhere to? Could that not be solved by being gnc? And wouldn’t it be more progressive to push to abolish gender? How is transitioning without dysphoria anything other than reinforcing gender roles?

I’m not trying to be bigoted, these are genuine questions and concerns I have that keep me in terf circles.

There are also just so many things my eyes have been opened to on terfblr. Why porn and sex work is harmful to women, why makeup and sexualized clothing is bad, how to read between the lines in advertising targeting women, seeing just how much woman-hate there is everywhere and how acceptable it is in society. These are beliefs I could never see myself abandoning.

Just a heads up: I use the phrase “trans positive” as an antonym to the word “transphobic” (can’t think of a better one atm).

But with the whole trans issue, that’s where I feel like I might have crawled into a hole that I want to get myself out of. I don’t like that in being a terf, many would consider me to be a hateful and bigoted person. I want to be progressive, and on the right side of history. But there are so many things that I see in modern day trans activism that just don’t make sense to me logically, and some that I view as actively harmful. Like reinforcing gender roles, or eliminating the ability to talk about sex-specific and female-specific issues. It seems every few months things that were once considered trans positive to believe are now transphobic. Most of the time, progress like this is wonderful! It’s good when realize they have racist, sexist, homophobic, etc microagressions and work towards becoming better people. That’s great! But a lot of the times the new transphobic things just don’t make sense. For example, I realized saying things like “bitch” or “cunt” casually was sexist, and it made sense. But if I were to say your sexuality is based on someone’s sex, not their gender, that’s transphobic because it implies trans women aren’t real women, or trans men aren’t real men. If they pass, society can see them as being men or women. But biologically, they aren’t. That’s why the word “trans” goes in front of their name. It just doesn’t make sense to me how it’s transphobic to have a sexuality, so having what’s basically a “gender-ality” is the only acceptable thing now. Obviously it would be rude to go around telling every trans person “actually, you’re not a REAL man/woman!” randomly. But when the context permits, like with dating or for female-specific issues, I just don’t see how it’s transphobic to acknowledge a very relevant biological reality.

Trying to say anything relating to feminist issues in a non-transphobic way feels to me like walking on eggshells to escape a maze. It would be easy to give up and just say everything’s related to gender, sex is a social construct yet somehow gender’s innate, and go with the flow but I just can’t if it doesn’t make sense to me. I know I don’t have to understand everything about everyone else’s experiences, especially if it’s not hurting other people, but I feel like in some ways trans activism nowadays is.

I just wish all this made sense to me and I could happily say I support everything trans positive. I don’t want to be transphobic. In some ways I’m not, but in so many ways I am, and I want to change. But I want things to make sense at the same time. Currently it feels like terf beliefs align with common sense, while believing a lot of principles of trans activism takes so much mental gymnastics.

Obviously if you don’t want to respond you don’t have to. It’s not your responsibility to change me— it’s my responsibility to change myself, and fix my beliefs. But if anyone is willing to listen or help, that would be appreciated. I feel like a lot of terfs start out where I did— initially trans positive, but had just one or two issues that brought them to terfblr, and they come out the other side transphobic. Hopefully helping me will help at least one other person down the line.

I feel terrible interacting with trans people, knowing I follow and listen to so many terfs. I have so many conflicting feelings and beliefs and I wish things could balance out the right way.

[residentlesbrarian]

Fandom and Fanfiction Galore

Ship It by Britta Lundin

Aaaaaalrighty...so this was written almost 3 years ago hot out of ClexaCon 2018 and it is...an interesting one. I had and still very much have feelings about this book. Would I write my thoughts the exact same way today as I did back then...probably not! So enjoy this bit of a pre-pandemic pre-a-whole-bunch-of-other-personal-stuff-y’all-don’t-need-to-know-about me talking about a book I still don’t really know how I feel about! Enjoy!

This was another book I found because of the Queering YA panel at ClexaCon 2018. Being able to talk to Britta at the booth after the panel was awesome, because you could tell talking with her that she was a true fan. She knew what being surrounded by fandom was like and it made me pretty excited to read the book.

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Living in the environment of fandom can be an insane experience in both good and bad ways. This book delivered a unique experience and look into fandom culture that was surreal to read about outside of fanfiction and tumblr.

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

I would say overall this book felt a little weird for me. I didn’t absolutely love it but I also didn’t particularly dislike it. It fell in a very ‘meh’ place for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have good things to say about it, they are just slightly confusing things.

The plot was actually one of the things I liked the most about it. Even though it was a crazy unrealistic plot, it helped capture the absolute lunacy of being a member of fandom culture perfectly. Sometimes being a fan is a simple life of surfing Tumblr and liking posts but sometimes the craziest things happen and change your life forever. In this case the reader is swept up in this craziness with Claire and the unrealistic aspect of it all made it feel more realistic as counterintuitive as that sounds. That is what the fandom experience can feel like at times, everything makes so little sense it actually circles back around to making sense, but enough about that...time for some character rambles.

Now we have two perspectives explored in this book. That of Claire, the fangirl, and Forest, the actor who has never had to deal with fangirls before. Let’s start with Claire. I am of two minds on her. Part of me really doesn’t like her, mostly because she is a person that in real life I probably wouldn’t spend time around and, as I’ve stated in a previous review, I have a hard time separating myself from characters and remembering that they are only teenagers. Multiple times I actually physically facepalmed, while reading a hardback book! That isn’t easy to do, but I did it, because she was doing things that just seemed so illogical from my perspective. But I am an adult, so of course I have a completely different perspective than a teen who is away from home and feeling a little out of control for a plethora of reasons. Now the other part of me really liked her, strangely enough for those exact same reasons, she was so real that I went full ‘Mom’ mode and wanted to sit her down and have a talk about what she was going through before she did something she was going to regret. Even if I found the character to be unlikeable the fact I was still on her side and wanted to help her really shows the depth that was written into her.

Now moving on to Forest. Oh, Forest. He was a character that I was very intrigued by at first because his was a perspective I, as a fangirl myself, had never seen in a book before, but damn if he didn’t make it so hard to like him. Some of the things he said and did made me want to throttle him. I could excuse some of the stuff Clarie did because of her age and the craziness of everything going on around her, but Forest is an adult and should know better. He would improve and his actions would start to win me over, but then he would overreact to something and make me want to put on my throttlin’ gloves again. I felt like that Tyra Banks ‘I was rooting for you!’ reaction gif while I was reading this multiple times. Again, though, there were parts that I was glad Forest called Claire out on her actions when it was called for, but overall they both needed an intervention to have them sit down and just chill for five seconds.

I actually genuinely liked a majority of the side characters in this as well. I actually have less of the weird mental confusion when it comes to the side characters. Rico was cute and great around the fans. Jamie was a total asshat but he was written to be that way to foil Claire in her mission to make ‘Smokeheart’ cannon. One of my favorite scenes in the whole book was actually between Claire and the social media consultant, whose name I totally remember and am just choosing not to put in because I think that’ll be all avant garde...okay fine I forgot her name and I am not digging the book out to find it. Anyway...I can’t really go into detail about the scene because, you know, spoilers but it was so well done in the context of the story.

Now for the last big character I want to speak on, the love interest, Tess. Now I really liked Tess and even understood how she wanted to keep her nerdy hobbies a secret from her small town friends. I was lucky that I grew up in a family and a circle of friends that let me embrace my passions no matter how off-the-wall they may seem to others. Tess obviously didn’t have that kind of support but she was still so passionate just privately. I will say though, ironically given the title of the book, I don’t ship it. Tess and Claire definitely share an instant attraction and the chemistry is there but they have so much growing to do before they are anywhere close to having an actual healthy functional relationship. Maybe if we saw more of them it would feel more compelling but it just wasn’t for me.

So my final thoughts on this book are just...a little discombobulated. Part of me was really happy to read a book that portrayed a part of my life that is so hard to put into words at times. I have never been a rabid fangirl, but after Lexa’s death I had to try and explain my utter devastation to people who just didn’t understand why a fictional character mattered to me so much. This book captures at least a layer of the fandom experience in a way that I’ve never seen before. The problem I have in the end though is how problematic everything that happens was, and then the ending just felt so sudden. We didn’t see any of the characters address their issues on the page. I hope this review made some coherent sense, because this book still doesn’t really make sense even in my brain, but I need to wrap this up now.

Queer Wrap-up: Okay, so, for our rep we have a questioning main character who definitely has some queer tendencies, but overall her realizing her feelings took such a back seat to her mission to make a fictional ship cannon on a show that was already filmed it took away from the rep as a whole. It just felt like the focus was so split that the actual rep gets lost in the pages. There is no argument by the end of the book that Claire is queer, which earns the three unicorns on that alone, but some of the tropes that played parts in the book were just so cringey that I couldn’t rationalize giving it more than that. Even with a couple side characters who were revealed to also be queer they weren’t enough to cover for the less stellar parts of this book.

Links:

Britta Lundin’s Website

TheStorygraph

Amazon

Okay, so if you couldn’t tell by that train wreck of a review this book just confused me. It kept me just interested enough to pick it back up after I’d put it down, but also wasn’t that bad. It lives in a weird oxymoronic vortex in my brain that honestly gives me a headache if I focus on it too much. There were aspects of this book that I did genuinely like but it all gets swirled together with the parts that made me put it down and need to take a break. If any of you want to discuss those more spoiler-filled aspects please send an ask and I’ll welcome you into the cyclical nature of whatever this book is doing in my brain. And as always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[yeet-imma-skeet]

Great, There’s Sky Everywhere

(Based in @starr-fall-knight-rise 's unique universe. Part 6 of the story)

(Part 1: https://yeet-imma-skeet.tumblr.com/post/613232997621202944/the-sky-is-falling)

"So, Olive... what is it that is so important that you need to tell me in the middle of a lake?"

The head human doctor, Olive as she goes, laid still on her floaty as she eyed around the bio-dome in suspicion. Captain Silva waded near her, shaking droplets of cool water off his peppery hair at her squinting. Both were inside the bio-dome of the strange alien ship along with quite the gaggle of humans and drev exploring within it. Raucous laughter could be heard through the whispering of ruffled leaves. The low rumbling of drev voices and the clanging of weapons echoed from the wide plains as they sparred each other with glee. A few adventurous humans attempted to climb the tall trees and rock formations, only to fail in climbing the plants. Their bronze trunks were strangely smooth with no handholds to grip. The vines that grew from them were the same, though the yellow leaves proved to be sturdy enough to hold their weight somehow. The doctor and captain absentmindedly watched some crewmen climb up the dangling vines like demented ladders. A leaf managed to smack one across the face as she fell down in a heap, rubbing a leaf-shaped mark across her head before she angrily chased her laughing crew mates.

Silva was happy to see them up and about, giggling like children after all that happened. He really wanted there to be nothing else after their ordeal, but the grim look across the doctor's face only concluded his fears.

"The...disease," She started, "I've finally looked over it and the research the AI-ball-thing did and... it’s disturbing."

"More disturbing than the dead zombies?"

"Yes. I've noticed some subtle affects it causes besides pigment changes, uncontrolled strength, and neural decay. It nearly matches the affects caused by the Infected Starborn Incident a while ago."

His heart pounded at the implications, "What?"

"Well, like I said, not exactly the same. Of course we're dealing with an entirely new species unlike ourselves, but the amount of residual brain activity the AI managed to capture before they died showed similar symptoms."

She somehow brought out a tablet as she swiped through it, never mind the fact that she was wearing nothing but a skintight swimsuit, "In the accounts of the Incident, the Starborn Convict described the spikes in brain activity in these logs as the infected humans receiving some sort of communication from somewhere. After that, they went nuts as they were... mentally tortured."

"...Go on."

"The AI's records found the almost exact same reaction in the infected that it scanned. The infected was closing in on its position in the med bay, sort of sluggishly like a fictional zombie would, before they heard the cry of another being taken down by Galia at the time. Their brainwaves spiked in response and so they went into a frenzy. Thankfully, she got there in time to kill them, but it’s a terrifying thought."

Silva bobbed in the water, barely hearing his crewmen's laughter, "We are safe from this, right?"

"The bodies are quarantined in the lab, there’s no sign of potential infection from the disease, and we have made vaccinations in case so we are safe in that aspect..."

He noticed a hesitation, "But?"

"Let's just be happy that we're in space with no chance of meeting a live one. It would very well snap us in half before we could get sick."

—————————

Galia watched as another caldat—er marine, tumbled off the vines like a newly hatched sky dweller. She had to admit, they were remarkably good climbers despite not having claws. Instead of forcibly marring the plants, they would search for existing handholds as they slowly made their way up the trees. A quiet huff made her perk up an arial as she remembered the marine perched beside her on the rock plateau, the very same marine who had crashed his wheeled plank of wood in front of her before. Apparently he did reckless things on the daily, his resilience showing as he climbed everything inside the bio-dome with nary a complaint after falling so many times. He joined her in her people watching, quietly appreciating the view atop the tallest pillar.

Despite their differences, she was reminded of her planetary days when she would perch up high with her fellow Vigils. They were strong, aloof, untouchable to many, and she was one of them. But at the same time, she wasn’t. Her insides did a flip as she remembered those times, always doing something past what should be done. The only thing that kept her sane was the thought of seeing her litter mates again wherever they were.

“Uh, are you okay?”

She glanced over at the sitting marine, noting his concerned look as she tilted her head in confusion.

“Your nails—er claws are kinda...” He motioned towards their perch.

Twelve jagged lines cut through the hard stone leading to her clenched fists. How she missed her own hands grinding down rock unnerved her as she flapped her arials in nervousness. Surely the human would be terrified by the show of strength.

“As cool as that is, are you really okay? You were looking pretty off.”

She gave him an incredulous stare, “I’m fine, but aren’t you... scared?”

“Scared? Of what?”

Galia didn’t know what surprised her more, the fact that the human looked so genuinely unafraid or that he was still insistently asking about her condition. A quiet hum of laughter escaped her as his face changed from confused to weirded out.

“Ah, pardon me.” She curled her tail around her sitting form once again, “Any show of emotion is forbidden for my occupation. Unless it is an order, I should not convey any.”

“Well that sounds like a load of bull.”

“What?”

“I mean, it sounds like a stupid rule. You mean to do that all the time and don’t have any breaks?”

“It is required if I don’t want to be terminated.”

A flash of some unknown emotion crossed his earthy eyes, “Term-Terminated?”

“I am a Vigil, a weapon and shield for my king’s use. If I break or warp, I’ll be tossed away.” Her body seemed to stiffen, “There is no use for a caldat who knows Vigil training yet can’t utilize it to their best ability. Holding any of that knowledge is a threat so it must be controlled.”

A terse silence grew between them as the joyous sounds below did nothing to break it. The marine, in question, felt quite awkward. Like celebrating a birthday next to a funeral home awkward.

A quick idea popped into his head as he though of a way to change the subject, “Wait you guys have a king? Like crown-wearing, sword-wielding, do-as-I-say king?”

Amusement crept into her mind as he swung an imaginary weapon, “We have three who share Farris, our planet. One for each people and place.”

“Each people?”

“Though we are of the same species, we have three variants made for each dwelling on our planet.” She flexed an arial towards the gigantic dome, “The sky, the sea, and the land.”

“Sky... So where we are now? This rock thing and the forest?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re a sky person?”

“The official term is sky dweller and not exactly...”

“Oooooh, so you’re half and half? What’s the other?”

A flicker of anger and confusion reignited itself within her, “I don’t see a reason to tell you.”

His eyes widened as he watched her tufted tail hackle into spikes, “Oh shit, I’m so sorry if I offended you!"

For a moment, he thought that she would deck him flat and that he totally deserved it. His big mouth managed to piss people off for all the wrong reasons so it wouldn’t be the first time he got what he asked for, even if he had no bad intentions. Her golden eye seemed to burn a hole into his head as he kept apologizing. Damn, he just had to piss off the one person who owned the cool spaceship.

“...I am part land dweller.”

His bowed head perked up as the alien’s tail tuft flattened and her head turned towards the expanse of savanna below. He followed her gaze to see some of his crew mates playing a game of tag in the tall grass. The drev stood at the sidelines, sometimes serving as living obstacles to dart around much to their amusement. With a pounce, an engineer managed to tag a marine as she scrambled atop one of them. The drev took one look at the determined tagger, and before they could react, had two humans dangling from their body as they ducked and weaved around.

A question snapped the marine out of his observation, “What do you call that game? It looks similar to one we have.”

“Tag. Where one person is ‘it’ and they have to touch another person to make them ‘it’ and it continues from there. It can get pretty intense.”

“Hm.” Her tail flicked back and forth, “You humans are okay land dwellers, but we can be much faster.”

Sensing a challenge he grinned, “Oh yeah? Care to demonstrate?”

“If it will keep you from asking too much next time.”

He sheepishly nodded as she stood to her haunches, stretching a lithe leg behind her. The marine's eyes widened even more at the full length of the leg that almost reached his height. With little hesitation, the white alien began to skid down the cliff, leaving a trail of cuts down the side. By the time he scrabbled down to join her, the small gathering of his crew mates ended their game with gasping breaths, watching her stroll by in curiousity.

She crossed her arms, a new intimidation tactic she picked up from the humans, "Who's the best sprinter out of all of you?"

The panting humans and bystanding drev all pointed to the last human that was 'it'. Galia had been watching them and knew that this man had been 'it' a lot less than the rest as he ran literal circles around the others. The strangely bald, lanky, and dark skinned man straightened his back at the guard's scrutiny, exuting a challenging puff of air. Knocking him down a peg would probably make her feel a lot better.

[everydisneymovie]

Review #38: The Light in the Forest

Post #42

8/4/2020

Next up is 1958′s The Light in the Forest

Enjoyment : [1]

Watching this movie feels like pissing blood. Watching it actively gave me a throbbing headache I was so furious with it. There is almost nothing enjoyable about this garbage and I actively think lesser of people who defend it. The issue is that the entire premise of the movie is racist and hateful so you can never get on board with the story unless you are also racist and hateful. The story is about a boy named True Son who was adopted by a tribe of Native Americans. Due to a treaty he is forced to return to his biological family where is then tortured and brainwashed until he finally acts ‘white enough’ for their approval. Even if True Son is ethnically white, he was raised by a loving Native family and this movie acts like none of that matters. From the first frame the moral of this movie is “The Races don’t mix, stay with your own kind” and it boils my brain to try and think why Disney thought this was ok.

Quality : [1]

The filmmaking is fine. Camera, lighting, sets, costumes, it probably would have gotten a 4 if the plot was anything other than the shit show it turned out to be. Because the writing is so unbelievably hateful this movie gets a 1. The reason this devalues the quality of the movie as a whole, is that the way scenes are structured is now fundamentally flawed. The writing tries to frame the racist white cultists as villains, but then also does nothing to refute them. The racist villains say something racist, True Son looks sad, and the film moves on like there is nothing else to be said. You can’t possibly write likable character when they are just awful from start to finish. Besides some musical stings, there is nothing behind the camera to display that these racists are wrong, if anything I think the framing supports their arguments and it ends up ruining everything.

Hold up : [0]

The second ever 0 given on this blog, and boy does this movie deserve it. I have already gone over how hateful the core premise is. A ‘respectable white family’ tries to ‘tame a savage native’ because ‘this is where he belongs!’ It is lazy, stupid and spiteful writing. However, what makes this movie truly awful is the ‘both sides!’ angle it tries to push and utterly fails at. The opening scene has the Native chieftain arguing with a British general. The Chieftain says that the British troops have been raping and killing men, women and children that were not part of any war party, to which the general snaps “Yeah but they only killed the civilians because they were scared of facing your savage warriors.” and then they just moves on like that was a fair answer to those accusations. You cannot compare the violence the Natives committed against the Pioneers to the violence the Pioneers committed against the Natives. One side was an invading army and the other was made up of civilians defending their home. Whenever a scene tries to ‘both-sides’ the argument it just sounds like “Why do the people we keep killing say they don’t want us to kill them? That’s so rude of them!” Fuck off movie this is pathetic and you know it. This movie is also truly horrible in its depiction of adoptive families. Despite the fact that True Sons Native family knew him most of his life and provided nothing but stability, the movie frames his racist, abusive biological family as his ‘true family’ since being related by blood trumps everything else. Like honestly fuck that, adopted families ARE real families regardless of race.  On a final absurd note, as if this movie couldn’t get any worse, the final conflict revolves around True Son fighting his uncle, who has been shown to not only be a racist murderer, but also an attempted rapist. And yet, True Son explicitly states he is going to fight his Uncle not because he is evil, but because “he wants to prove his is a white man and wants to earn his respect.” Yeah I am sure the respect of a monster like that is really that important to True Son. Go rot in hell Disney.

Risk : [2]

This movie is once again drenched in the sloppy discharge of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. I have already gone into detail about how horrible the ‘both-sides’ argument is since it paints the past as an inevitable conflict where the genocide of the Natives was just an unfortunate side effect. The only reason this movie doesn’t get a lower score in terms of risk, is that there WAS actually some attempt to humanize the Natives. They are shown to have complex inner lives and for the most part True Son remains steadfast in his refusal to give up his upbringing. He still ends up ‘turning white’ by the end but his determination made him the only likable character. Even though it was handled poorly, this movie actually acknowledged the existence of the Native genocide rather than painting over it like Westward Ho, The Wagons! did.

Extra Credit : [2]

There was one scene that actually was fun to watch. After True Son has been pushed around by his awful family for most of the movie, he is reunited with one of his Native cousins and it is genuinely joyful. The two wrestle and run around laughing, just happy to be in each others company. It made me smile and I hate that it didn’t lead into True Son going home to be with the family that actually loves him. If this movie had the balls to pick a side, this could have been a really wonderful moment, but spoilers: It wasn’t.

Final thoughts:

This is easily the worst movie on this list so far. Worse than the true life documentaries and worse than Peter Pan. It has been a long time since I sat through a movie that I could describe as ‘genuinely hateful.’ You get the feeling that the people who made this movie actually hated Native Americans and set out to intentionally demonize another race. I didn’t even get around to talking about the bland love interest who ‘fixes’ True Son with love because as we all know the best way to cure racism is good old fashioned heterosexual marriage. The best way to sum up this movie is with this simple fact. The main characters name is True Son, but his biological parents want to call him “Johnny” The scene were he meets his biological mother for the first time, instead of hugging, or getting to know each other, the mother simply says. “Your name is Johnny, you won’t leave this room until you say your name and act like a civilized gentleman.” Her concerns are not about True Sons mental wellbeing or safety, she just wants him to act ‘white’ so SHE is comfortable. There is ZERO love between them and yet the movie frames this like a heartfelt reunion between long lost family. After this scene, no one calls him True Son anymore, not even his love interest. They all call him Johnny and it has the same vibe as a someone getting dead-named over and over until they finally submit. I hate this movie and what is worse, I don’t think this will be the worst movie I’ll watch by the end of this project. God help me, this movie took years off my life. If I have to watch something this bad again I will dig up Walt myself and beat his zombie ass senseless. 

Total Score: 6/50

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the list

Edit: I would like to make a minor note about this movie. It is implied through dialogue that True Son was not adopted by kidnapped by the Native Americans. Which does make his biological families desire to bring him home understandable... HOWEVER: The way the movie is shot and written, it is clear that True Son is happy and treated as an equal while in the tribe, and he is emotionally abused the moment he is brought into the white town.  While he was not adopted in the text of the movie, it is clear that the movie frames and interprets True Son as an adopted child being ‘saved’ by his biological family. Either way Disney did a crappy job with this movie.

[darkshadow90]

Joker: My thoughts on Arthur Fleck

Hey guys. I’ve made a few posts about Arthur already, but I wanted to make another one. I love the Joker movie. I think Todd Phillips and the writers did a great job at writing an intriguing character that works as part of a Joker story or a possible origin story for the Joker. I think Arthur is an interesting take on the Joker because he’s so different from other interpretations. I think he can be really hard to pin down sometimes. I don’t think Arthur was maliciously evil, at least not at the beginning. I saw a post from @another-day-in-chuckletown talking about Arthur’s morality and I thought it was interesting. So I thought I’d share my thoughts too. But she’s probably better at putting things into words than I am. So anyway here we go with another meta post. Yay!

So in the beginning we can see that Arthur has a lot of issues. He’s dealing with mental illnesses and living in dire poverty. Neither one of those things are easy to live with, but both combined are no doubt a fucking nightmare. He’s trying to get help. He’s doing everything he can. He’s taking his medications and going to therapy. He knows it’s not “normal” to do the things he does. Things like stalking, and, well, killing people. As odd as it might seem to read this from me, but one of the most interesting things I find about Arthur is he seems somewhat childlike and doesn’t understand social cues, but at the same time he’s aware that his behavior in social situations is creepy and weird to other people. So I do think he’s somewhat self aware.

Arthur doesn’t know how to approach people so he just stands there awkwardly or he follows them. And it makes sense because he’s clearly been socially isolated for most of his life. He had no one to teach him proper social skills and boundaries. But I do wonder about his past experiences socializing with others because he’s aware he makes people uncomfortable. I think Arthur is smarter than he lets on. He apologized to Thomas Wayne because he knew he crossed a line. He even said he didn’t mean to cause trouble or make him uncomfortable he just wanted answers. And he also knew when he imagined Sophie coming to his apartment asking if he was following her that she would be creeped out when he said yes. He had a look of guilt when he said “yeah” He knew it wasn’t the best way to go about talking to her. Like I said, I think he’s smarter than he lets on. But even with all his struggles and all the bad things that happened to him, I don’t think he’s particularly a good person.

The only people we see Arthur kill are the people who hurt him or wronged him in some way. We’re not really meant to feel sorry for them because most of them are just assholes. I do feel bad about Penny that one upset me. Regardless of the context, of wether or not she lied to him and allowed abuse to happen or not, it was still upsetting that he killed a helpless person. In general, I don’t like scenes in movies where animals and helpless people are killed. That shit is really upsetting to me. So yeah didn’t like that part. Anyway, it doesn’t make him the well meaning guy we think he is. I actually thought it was pretty fucked up that he was opening up to the clerk in Arkham about what he did. It’s fucked up because he knows what he did was wrong and he’s happy about it. He knows what’s right and wrong.

For most of the movie, Arthur doesn’t hurt random people for no reason. He doesn’t do bad things for the sake of doing bad things. He has a code. He only hurts “awful” people or people who wronged him. I think he would feel bad if he hurt an innocent person. He didn’t hurt Gary and I’m very glad for that, but he felt bad that he scared him so badly. He felt bad that Gary saw him kill someone in such a brutal way. He knew Gary would be even more upset if he saw Randall’s body. So he said, “Don’t  look, just go.”  And then he jumped out and scared him so he wouldn’t look at the body as he was leaving. That scene makes me think Arthur doesn’t like to see innocent people hurt or upset. Up until the end of the movie, I was thinking this take on the Joker was kind of like an anti hero. He only kills bad people.

I find it interesting when Arthur is about to go on the Murray show he tells Murray he doesn’t believe in anything, but then when he confesses to killing the Wall Street guys, he rants about how society treats poor people and mentally ill people like shit, and hold the rich up on a pedestal. He talks about how no one has any empathy for other people, and he’s upset about it, rightfully so. So he clearly does care about and believe in something. Why else would his rant be so passionate? Also, Arthur killing Murray isn’t quite as spontaneous as we think. If you look and listen closely, after Murray tells Arthur not everyone is awful, Arthur says, “You’re awful, Murray.” He literally told Murray he was gonna kill him.

I write different stories about Arthur. I write both fluff pieces and I also write darker pieces where he’s further along his transition into the Joker, and I’ve written a few based on the persona we see in Arkham (I like to call him Arkham Joker because he is the Joker at that point.) My fluff pieces are based on what Arthur would be like if he had someone positively affecting his life and he was getting the help he needed and didn’t become the Joker. My darker pieces focus on the darker aspects of his personality and the persona in Arkham because I like to explore those aspects of his character. I feel really bad for Arthur. I want to believe that if he had just one person aside from Gary who cared about him in his life he would be the person he was in the beginning, but unfortunately he isn’t that person anymore. I feel bad for him, but I hate what he does.

Now, I’ve talked about the persona we see in Arkham and the end of the movie a bunch of times. That scene fucks with me every time I see it. I love it because it’s pure Joker, and it’s probably the best Joker moment in the whole movie. It makes my anxiety skyrocket, too. @another-day-in-chuckletown touched on it in her post. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who noticed the sudden change in his personality. It was jarring to see Arthur like that. He was suddenly much more malicious and had a dangerous presence that he didn’t have at any other point in the movie.  He was genuinely laughing without pain which was unsettling and when he suddenly stopped laughing and said, “You wouldn’t get it” I got very, very worried and immediately started shouting in my head “Get out of there! You’re not safe!” And then as he’s singing That’s Life and the way he’s staring at the psychiatrist and grins at her with those cold, dead eyes, I was like “Why are you still sitting there?! Go now!” I was scared for her. I was and still am genuinely afraid of him in that scene. The look in his eyes and facial expressions are the look of someone who is about to do a very bad thing or he’s thinking about about doing something bad to her. Wether or not he killed the psychiatrist is open to interpretation. I think it’s possible he did. He is full on Joker in that scene. It’s glorious and terrifying.

The man sitting there is a mystery. I always find myself wondering who he really is because he so different from Arthur and even the Joker we saw on the Murray Franklin show. The psychiatrist doesn’t refer to him by name, so Arthur might not be his real name. So I agree with Catherine’s post. It’s almost like the man we came to know over those two hours is a persona he made up and the man we see in Arkham is the real Joker, who he actually is. Smug, condescending, calculating, detached, malevolent, vain, petty, and narcissistic. I just get the feeling he’s a huge asshole, not as sympathetic as Arthur.

I’ve talked with some of you about this before and I know we have our own opinions and that’s totally fine. It’s what makes the ending so great. It’s whatever you want it to be. I still don’t see Arthur in him. Arthur wasn’t like him. It’s possible he could’ve been on drugs in that scene, but I doubt it. I think it’s safe to say since Gotham is a shit hole, Arkham is an underfunded hellhole. It’s understaffed, and there could be people working there that shouldn’t be. They probably don’t have enough resources to properly treat patients, and “Arthur” could be being mistreated. But I think he was actually pretty lucid in that scene. Given that he’s the Joker, I think that psychiatrist would’ve wanted him as lucid as possible so she could interview him. It would’ve been a huge career opportunity for her. I don’t think her using the Joker as an opportunity to advance her career would bother him. The Joker loves being in the spotlight and talking about himself. The whole movie is about him and told from only his perspective, so he’s probably okay with it. But whatever the case, I still think the man we see in Arkham is not Arthur. He’s the Joker. God, I love how this movie fucks with me and still makes me question everything even though I’ve seen it so many times. Best ending ever.

[tenglows]

in the name of the old days

summary: it’s the last day of the year and you’re feeling nostalgic. you come across the twitter of the boy who used to be your best friend a few years ago, and decide to message him.

category: fluff, a bit of angst? maybe??, internet friend!mark

it was currently december 31, at half past one am, and you were scrolling on twitter

some chuckles here and there while reading your friend’s posts about timothee chalamet

you were about to close the app to go brush your teeth and prepare for bed

when your eyes wandered off and focused on another tweet

“almost 2020 and still no flying cars” read the tweet

from @/markly_

this made you sit straight in your mattress

you clicked on his profile

you two still followed each other

there weren’t a lot of recents tweets, so that’s why you figured you hadn’t come across the boy’s twitter sooner

plus; lately you weren’t the type to be so active on social media either

you mentally counted the years since you first met mark lee

it was 2019 (almost 2020) now and you guys had met in 2015

you had gotten involved in a drama with a one direction stan, you being part of 5sos stan twitter

and mark, little mix stan, had defended you

it was in the middle of the zayn and perrie scandal, so he assured both of your teams had to stick together to defeat one direction’s fans

you became mutuals after that

and you soon realized that mark had the tendency to initiate lots of twitter fights

often with the people that would bash perrie and her group

your friendship rose as the two of you took turns defending the other one on those enfrentations

you don’t know how but all of the sudden there was no day you wouldn’t talk to mark

you were both 16 at the time, you being older just by a few months

you guys would talk about everything and anything

and basically grew up together

you were there for him when school got hard and future scared him

he was there for you when you faced a pretty bad relationship

and you honestly considered him your best friend

sleepless nights with him on facetime were one of the things you looked forward to the most

hearing him talk about his day

him showing you a new song he learned on the guitar, or him playing some melodies and lyrics he composed himself every now and then

watching the same movie or show at the same time on your respective screens

struggling to press play together to match the exact second

“i totally knew he was gonna die”

“shut up you’re way ahead!!!!”

you had other friends at school, too

but mark was just mark

and you two had such a loving bond, you were so close you took him with you to everywhere you went

you just wished you had him closer

at least you were both from canada

him being from vancouver and you from quebec

you had made lots of plans about meeting in real life, and you genuinely believed they would come about

but it is true that time passes and people drift apart

you were about to begin college and made new friends

mark moved out to toronto

and gradually, the responses took longer

and the calls had kinda been left aside

until one of you just stopped replying

you honestly don’t remember who it was

but there isn’t really a reason, either

you just parted ways

and it’s fine, it’s human and natural and normal

but now looking at his profile picture: a polaroid of him hugging another boy

you felt as if a bucket of cold and frostbound nostalgia had been dumped over your head

you recognized his moles, and how he had the same smile

his header picture was a guitar

and it wasn’t the same he used to have, but something about him still liking music made you feel warm

it’s always astonishing to see how the life of a person who is no longer in yours just,,,

goes on

and you aren’t aware of a thing about their existence

or even think about them

so it’s almost as they don’t exist

but now you know mark still exists

and it’s so weird to think about how your lives had been so overlapped, so united

and now you didn’t know anything about him

the mix of reminiscence about this and the year ending

resulted in your impulsive fingers pressing the envelope icon in mark’s profile

you stayed like that for a few minutes, writing and deleting messages. the sentences you thought about never feeling enough

you sighed as you told yourself this would be the last attempt

“hi mark, i’m not sure if you remember me but i saw you on my tl and it made me want to check on you! maybe this message will disappear into thin air but i just wanted to try. i hope you’re doing well <3”

you stared at the blue bubble of text almost without blinking for a moment

maybe he didn’t want to talk to you, and it was okay. you stopped talking in 2017, almost three years had passed

you thought looking at yourself in the mirror while you brushed your teeth

you came back to your room and turned off your lights, ready to go to sleep

but when you grabbed your phone with the intention to charge it, you saw you had a twitter notification

��y/n! how could i forget about you? haha it’s been so long two years without talking. how are you? how’s life? tell me something”

an instant smile started growing upon your face

the way he texted was the same as before

and you missed his haha

two and a half hours into the night you felt as if you were stuck in 2015 all over again

you had always had this fluidity at the time of talking with mark

the conversation just,, bloomed

he told you he still lived in new york, but he was actually gonna move back to toronto in a couple of months

he was majoring in music and owned a soundcloud rap account, and he had gotten quite popular as well

you mentioned how you had changed majors

what started as you being a marketing management major ended up on you leaning towards philosophy

something that no one had seen coming

so you expected the same reaction from mark

“i can totally see it, you always liked to think and question everything a little too much”

and that comment made you feel thrilled in your stomach, to say the least

even after all these years

mark was probably the person who knew you the most

days passed

weeks, even

and what you thought was just a conversation remembering the old days and filling the other in on your life

just,,, never stopped

mark and you went back to talking every day

everything felt the same as it did before

because after all, it was the same mark. it was always mark

still, the day you had agreed on facetiming for the first time again you felt kinda nervous

what if you ran out of what to talk about? what if it was suddenly weird?

and when you picked up the call and found yourself face to face with a flustered mark you knew he felt the same

you both hesitated as to who would speak first

him being the one to break the ice

“hey y/n” he giggled

“wow, your voice has gotten deeper”

he laughed loudly at your honesty, making you laugh back

“your hair is shorter”

“i know right? it was so long, i just got fed up of it reaching my waist”

“i like it, it looks pretty” he paused “you look pretty”

and in that moment you wondered how your heart could be beating this hard at a blurry screen with poor connection

comments like that kept making an appearance as time went by, sometimes from mark and eventually from your part

and that was the only thing that differed from the relationship you used to have with the one you had now

was it flirting? you didn’t know

but you had never thought of mark the way you think about him now

“so? what do you think?”

you set the phone on your desk as you walked away and showed mark your white dress. you were on your way to a costume party one of your friend’s brother was throwing, and even though it was cliché, you couldn’t be bothered to think of a more ingenious costume than a traditional angel

mark took his time fixing his gaze on you, his eyes getting closer to concentrate on what the vague wifi let him

“i can’t recognize the costume”

“what do you mean? i’m literally wearing wings and a halo”

“could it be because you always look like an angel?”

“ayee mark that was cheesy”

“i know, i’m sorry” you both laughed

“but really, you look amazing. go and have fun babe”

then pet names came into play

you weren’t sure what you were doing, but flirting with mark was sweet and fun and innocent

you always found yourself wanting for more

you were yearning for mark, you wanted to see him, listen to him, touch him

and you didn’t know what to do with yourself

until one day he called you out of the blue, which startled you, since he always asked before calling

“hey! were you busy?”

“no no i’m just doing the dishes, what’s up?”

“okay, so you know how i’m moving to toronto in two weeks, right?” you nodded “well, i just managed to change my flight so i would go to quebec for some days before properly settling in toronto, you know since it’s not that far”

“you’re kidding”

“i’m going to visit you!!!!!!!”

he squealed in your ear and you squealed back, scaring your poor cat who was sleeping soundly

after some more yelling, the excitement died out a bit and you stayed in silence for just a few seconds

“i don’t really have a place to stay though” he snorted, embarrassed

“you can always stay with me, mark”

after some long and never-ending hours and days (you had seriously convinced yourself some wrinkles had appeared on your forehead from all the waiting)

it was finally the day you would see mark

it was currently 11 am, mark’s flight was at 1 pm and he would arrive at quebec at approximately a bit less than 3 pm

now, he was at new york’s airport taking care of all the travelling procedures

and you were cleaning up the same spots in your aparment for the fourth time in a row

to say you were nervous was an understanding

you felt like you were going insane

you barely had gotten any sleep the night before, not being able to defeat the crowding thoughts about finally meeting your long-time friend

(who now you wanted to be more than a friend and seeing him physically could totally help with that)

you arranged some lunch for you and your cat (magnus) and sat in front of the tv, wanting to find literally anything that would keep your mind occupied

luckily, it worked, and you let yourself lose track of time

until your phone beeped, indicating you had received a text

“i’m boarding now!! i’ll text you when i get there, can’t wait to see you”

“have a safe flight love”

you sighed dramatically and rested your arm against your forehead

magnus stared at you in confusion and boredom

“magnus, i think i’m going to die”

as promised, mark texted you as soon as the plane landed

you offered to go pick him up at the airport, but he denied, saying he had already scheduled a taxi

so now you were ready and dressed, going all over your apartment non stop

mark was texting you through all the taxi drive and updating you on his location, you growing more and more anxious as you knew he was getting closer

you went to the bathroom and as soon as you stepped out, a knock was heard on your door

it was soft and steady, and you opened your eyes widely when the realization of who the owner of the hand was hit you

you panicked, one last time

you even eyed your room window to check if you had any chance of jumping out and running away

but you took a deep breath and walked decidedly towards your door

you just had to remind yourself it was the same mark as always, and nothing could go wrong if there was him

thus, you opened the door

and the facetime pixels and instagram pictures could have never prepared you for how dreamy mark looked

you two stayed like that for a bit

just watching the other with shy eyes and smiles

you eventually snapped out of your trance and helped mark get his luggage inside

"it's a bit small but i hope you can make yourself comfortable"

"oh please it's perfect, don't worry" he gave you a reassuring smile before getting totally distracted by the fluffy ball of hair in your couch

"oh my god is that magnus!!!!"

after letting mark get comfortable and installed, you guys decided to take a walk and go over your apartment zone, showing mark all your favorite places and memories you had there

it was a bit cold and you were both tightened around your coats

eventually, it was getting late and more chilly

so you opted for going back to your place

as you walked there in a bit of silence, you could feel mark's body getting more close in proximity

you looked at him, his gaze fixed upon the path with a small grin on his lips

you got closer too

and you liked it

it was cold outside but when mark brushed against your body

canada has never felt more like summer

you guys were really close now

as you took step after step, your jackets made static sounds, rubbing against the other

you looked at mark and delicately touched one of his fingers with your pinky, as if asking for permission

he finally looked up from the way and focused on your eyes instead, breaking into a smile once again

he took a peek at your close hands and softly intertwined your fingers

both of your faces reddening, from the low temperature and the feelings that were growing in your stomach

when you got to your apartment you guys were still holding hands, but you realized you had to open the door with that one, and couldn't find the keys in your pocket

"y/n, you will have to let go of my hand to get the keys"

"that's the point. i don't want to"

"y/n, i'm freezing. please open the door i can still hold your hand when we're inside"

and yeah,,

he did

you changed into comfortable and warm clothes and prepared some hot chocolate while mark chose a movie in your laptop

when you entered the room, two mugs in hand

mark was lying on his stomach on your bed, his hand on his chin with his mouth a bit open while concentrating on the variation of movies netflix offered

you felt a shiver down your spine

he really was here

after taking a while to decide on a movie, or at least its genre, you just selected a random title

you turned off the lights and went back to your bed, getting under the covers

and you just felt warm

and whole

maybe more because of mark than the actual sheets that were meant to keep you heated

(he also held your hand the entire time, rubbing his thumb against your palm and drawing invisible figures on it)

your head rested on his shoulder and you went up as the same time his chest did with every breath he took

in some moment you stopped paying attention to the movie

your mind wandered off to thoughts about the boy, about how you have never felt this close to him. you felt like you were really inside his ribcage

still from his shoulder, you moved a bit so you could look at him

his face was glowing

yeah, the images and lights of the computer were reflecting on him

but you meant this boy glowed in the dark

he just had something in him

it was either rays of sunshine or neon paint

but he, in this frosty and amusing night within your bedroom walls, glowed on his own

he turned his gaze towards you too, and tightened the grip on your hand

you felt mark’s arm on your waist and he rearranged the position so you would be on his chest

hearing his heartbeat, it was music

mark always did music. and he himself was music too, his heart creating your new favorite beat

“markie”

“hm?”

“i’m falling asleep” you confessed with a drowsy voice, making him laugh

“let’s turn off the movie, shall we? we can continue it tomorrow”

he shut the laptop closed and placed it on your desk, quickly making his way back to the bed so he would hold you

you had prepared him another bed next to you, a mattress already covered

but he was showing no intentions of moving a muscle

“are you going to sleep here?”

“that was the plan, yeah” he giggled on your neck. you shuddered

“i made the bed just in case”

“i can go there if you prefer”

“no” pause “i want you here”

and he smiled proudly as he hid his face in the crook of your neck

you smelled nice, like coconut and vainilla and all his sweetest dreams combined

and with his arms around your waist he felt strong, like he could defeat anything that the world aimed at him

“do you think it was meant to be that we’re here after all this years? would you consider it destiny?” he thought out loud, gazing at you

“i can’t give you an answer right now”

“fine, philosophy major” he mocked, making you both laugh

“as a philosophy major, i don’t know. destiny is always a tricky thing to discuss”

“but as y/n, yeah, i believe it was meant to be”

he stared at you in awe

“i really want to kiss you right now”

[nikkoliferous]

Now, About That Sceptre

Based on hair growth, if nothing else, it seems that a fair amount of time must have passed between Loki's appearance in the post-credits of Thor (2011) and his dramatic entrance via the Tesseract in Avengers Assemble. Despite the apparent time jump, Loki's physical well-being is still clearly... not great. His appearance has improved in some ways from the horror show above (the burns have healed, his mouth isn't full of blood), but he shows a number of signs of heat exhaustion, at a minimum (something especially relevant because, remember, Loki's a Frost Giant). He's visibly exhausted and disoriented, he nearly collapses on multiple occasions, he's sweaty and pale with dark and sunken eyes. This is not a healthy man. And while there was maybe an argument to be made for his prior physical distress being contributable to the effects of the wormhole, whatever's happening here is all Thanos.

Beyond his immediate physical state, he comes across as paranoid, afraid—desperately fighting to get through just this one moment, and then the next, and then the next. If he just holds it together a little bit longer, he'll be safe. He'll be able to rest. Watch how he stumbles. Observe his deathgrip on the sceptre and on the truck rail. Look at his desperate facial expression and body language. He's trembling.

Now we're getting into psychology, and well... Loki says some odd things throughout this film. The Loki of Thor (2011) was clearly dealing with a mental health crisis, but the Loki of Avengers Assemble seems—not to put too fine a point on it—crazy. And he's not just crazy. His words and his body seem to, at times, be in direct conflict with one another. He may talk down to the humans, but he appears to take little pleasure in actually hurting them. And yet he summons an army of aliens with the expressed purpose of doing just that. He's sassy and grandstanding while facing the Avengers, but on the occasions where he's violent with civilians, as well as whenever he's alone, he appears to dissociate from himself. Look at his face. This is not remotely fun for him. He looks dead inside.

Overall, Loki's body language and facial expressions often betray a Loki who is struggling to justify his actions. He seems, at times, almost as though he is speaking to himself as much as he is taunting the Avengers or humanity. Here are some quotes/scenes that grab my attention.

For a start, there are these exchanges with Fury shortly after he first arrives via the power of the Tesseract:

Fury: "This doesn't have to get any messier." Loki: "Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else."

"I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."

Loki: "I come with glad tidings of a world made free." Fury: "Free from what?" Loki: "Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know peace."

He goes on to reiterate his bizarre speech about "freedom" again in Stuttgart.

"The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

This all sounds a lot like indoctrination to me, and it's worth noting that the Black Order—for whom Loki is ‘working’ in this movie—is literally a cult. In fact, they use very similar rhetoric at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War. Compare this to Loki's rhetoric on the nature of freedom:

"Hear me... and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan. You may think this is suffering. No. It is salvation. Universal scales tipped toward balance because of your sacrifice. Smile, for even in death you have become Children of Thanos."

And then there's Loki's outburst directed at Natasha after the Avengers have taken him prisoner for the first time and she's trying to get information out of him:

"You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you and they will never go away!"

Before this moment, he seems relatively calm and in control. Something changes here; he becomes disgusted and aggressive. His words could easily be applied to himself as well. Here Loki is on Midgard, pretending to have his own agenda. "Something that makes up for the horrors". Yet as much as Loki claims to be free of sentimentality, we as the audience know better. We can see it in his microexpressions and his body language. We know of his being psychically linked to The Other. We see the nature of Loki's interactions with them: the tears in his eyes, the threats and his attempts to suppress and hide his fear, the pain they're able to inflict on him with just a touch.

"If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain."

There are also subtle indicators that Loki's memories might have been tampered with, such as his initial conversation with Thor.

"Our father—" "YOUR father. He did tell you of my true parentage, did he not?" "We were raised together! We played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?" "I remember a shadow. Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss."

Yes, of course, it's possible that this is hyperbole on Loki's part. Regardless, it's worth noting as part of a pattern of bizarre, cult-like behaviours that Loki displays throughout the movie. It becomes even more noteworthy in light of the revelation that Loki was being influenced by the mind stone all the while. The specific phrasing Marvel uses is, "fueling his hatred over his brother." Does that include distorting his perception of what's happened between them? It's not conclusive, but it's certainly possible.

Now, Loki does at times appear to be genuinely enjoying himself. I'm not denying that or sweeping it under the rug. But look at the context. Notice when he seems to be the most amused. It's when he's grandstanding. It's when he's the center of attention. When people run screaming from him. When he's being interrogated. It's not the violence that pleases him; it's the recognition. For the first time in his life, he's center stage. He feels powerful. And Loki will always take negative attention over no attention at all.

Simmer down there, you lovable maniac.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, we have moments like just before he stabs Thor, in which he looks at the destruction around him with legitimate panic and horror written on his face. As though he's awoken from a haze and is only just realising the extent of what he's done. (Side note: for the life of me, I'll never understand people who call Loki a psychopath. Every single time we've seen Loki hurt Thor, he does it literally with tears in his eyes. And yet Ragnarok would have us believe he's done so all throughout their childhood just for funsies).

Surely this isn't the expression of a man who wants all this death and destruction—who's carrying out his own will. And why should he? Even if he truly meant to/cared about ruling Midgard, there's little reward in ruling a world of corpses.

Which brings us to our ultimate conclusion. As mentioned above, there have long been theories—now confirmed canon—that Loki was under the influence of the sceptre AKA the mind stone throughout Avengers Assemble. An observation I had missed initially is that some fans desperate to cling to Loki's identity as a Villain™ have differentiated between the total mind control of Barton and Selvig and the 'influencing' of Loki's behaviour via the sceptre. But note that the same language is used for both instances:

"Gifted with a sceptre that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the sceptre was also influencing him."

I do believe that the mind control over Loki was less effective; he clearly maintained some measure of autonomy, despite the sceptre's influence. But I still think it's important to note the consistency of language used. And in fact, it’s worth noting that his control over Barton and Selvig wasn’t absolute either. Barton admits he may have failed to kill Fury because of his connection to him; Selvig installs a failsafe for shutting down the portal.

We also know—thanks to yet another stupidly discarded deleted scene—that The Other can hear and communicate with Loki at all times. Look at the longing on Loki's face when Thor tries to reason with him. He wishes so badly that he could accept Thor's offer. But this is still a hostage situation. He's on permanent speakerphone, and he knows there's no safe escape route for him.

↩️ back to the compendium

[starfirelove]

Rollerblading

(Bc I’m super lazy and cannot think of a title)

(We’re just gonna ignore the fact that this makes no sense in the context of any particular time period and we’re also gonna pretend that rollerblade existed before 1980)

********

“Aim for the pole,” Remus shouted.

“I am aiming for the bloody pole, Remus,” Sirius snapped back.

He really was aiming for the pole, he just wasn’t sure if he was going to get there. Sirius typically wasn’t one to lose his balance, he was incredibly steady on his feet from years of being subjected to tedious posture and dance lessons by his mother. Which was why he’d quickly agreed when Remus asked him if he’d like him to teach him rollerblading. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sirius was all for learning about Muggle inventions, they genuinely interested him and the fact that it royally pissed off his Mother was an added bonus. Besides, any excuse to spend more time with his Moony was a good one. How hard could it be?

Turns out learning to skate had been way harder than he’d expected it to be. He found that he wasn’t particularly fond of having the use of his feet inhibited by the skates, his walking function replaced with the unsteady roll of the wheels beneath him. He’d already fallen more times than he’d ever care to admit— especially not to James — and was seriously starting to regret refusing those protective pads Remus had offered him before they left.

“You sure you don’t want them?” Remus had asked.

“Positive.”

“It’s going to hurt when you fall,” Remus said with a sigh.

“Who said I’m going to fall?”

“Fine. If you fall.”

“I won’t.” Remus had given him a skeptical look. Clearly not convinced.

“Besides, if I do what’s a little bit of gravel going to do to me?”

A lot, Sirius thought bitterly. It’s going to do a lot. There were small indents littered across his palms from where tiny rocks and sticks had pressed into them from his falls. A long, thin scratch that curved up the side of his index finger still stung from where he’d dragged it across the ground.

He finally reached the pole, stretching his arms out to brace for the impact. Remus, who had skated ahead while he waited, was now making his way back towards Sirius. Lazily skating backwards and then turning sharply on the backs of his skates and braking in front of Sirius.

“Show off,” Sirius grumbled.

Remus grinned at him, chuckling slightly at the way his boyfriend was wrapped around the metal pole of the stop sign.

“What?” Sirius asked.

“Nothing.” Catching a glimpse at the look Sirius was giving him Remus held up his hands. “Really, it’s nothing. Well it’s just — you thought this would be easy didn’t you?”

“I did not.”

Remus grinned and bit his lip. “ Well if I remember correctly you said —“

“I said absolutely nothing of the sort,” Sirius said, cutting him off.

Taking a deep breath he pushed off from the stop sign, struggling to maintain his balance as he skated ahead.

Sirius turned slightly. “Well come on then,” he called behind him. “Wouldn’t want me to go too far ahead and get lost would you?”

Remus snorted. The trail was a straight shot to his house. The only way Sirius could get lost was if he tripped over a rock and slid down into one of the creeks that bordered the path.

Nonetheless he pushed off, catching up to Sirius in only a fraction of the time it had taken him to get to where he was.

Remus watched for a bit as Sirius rolled down the path, making quite an effort to avoid the occasional large rock or stick. He had been thrilled when Sirius agreed to come along, counting down the days until Sirius came over. Remus smiled at his boyfriend, sighing softly.

“What,” Sirius asked curiously. They’d come to another intersection and Sirius was now leaning against another sign post.

Remus shook his head. “Nothing, just happy that you’re here.”

The light changed to green and they started off again. Remus skated further up the trail, effortlessly controlling his movements.

“How do you do that?” Sirius asked.

Remus turned around. “Do what?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. Remus knew exactly what he was talking about, he just wanted Sirius to say he was good at what he was doing.

“Skate like that.”

“Like what?” Remus countered, snickering.

“Ha-ha, wise guy. You know what I mean.”

Remus spun quickly on his heel, causing Sirius to suck in a breath. He was starting to understand the anxiety Remus got whenever he and James did a particularly dangerous stunt on the quidditch pitch.

“I dunno. I guess I’ve just been doing it so long that it’s natural?”

Remus weaved around Sirius, skating forward and backwards in a small circle around him.

Sirius nodded, instantly regretting the movement a moment later when his center of gravity dipped and his balance was thrown off. Remus caught him by the elbow, hoisting him up to his feet before he could fall.

“That makes sense,” Sirius said once he was stable again. “Kinda like me and flying.”

“Yeah except rollerblades didn’t start out as cleaning objects.”

Sirius groaned. “Give it a rest, Remus. Brooms aren’t that bad.”

Remus shrugged, digging his heel into the ground as they came up to another corner.

“I’m just saying you shouldn’t be flying on things that are supposed to clean your kitchen.”

“I won’t dignify that with an answer,” Sirius replied.

“You don’t have to. Here, take my hand.”

Sirius slipped his hand into Remus’ and gave his boyfriend a quizzical look. “What are you doing.”

“Taking you for a ride,” Remus answered, peaking around the corner for oncoming traffic. He turned back to Sirius who was waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Remus smacked his shoulder. “Merlin, Sirius! What’s wrong with you?”

Sirius laughed, “A lot of things.”

Remus rolled his eyes before tugging Sirius forward and across the street. Sirius death-grilling his hand as he tugged him along.

“Christ Remus, slow down.”

Remus ignored him. “Think of it like walking.”

“This,” Sirius said, each syllable strained with tension. “Is nothing like walking.”

“Sure it is,” Remus laughed. “You just use your legs to push you forward.”

“Remus,” Sirius said calmly. “You’re an idiot.”

“Noted. Now I’m going let go—“

“What?! Remus we’re going way too fast. You can’t just let me go!”

“I can and will. Releasing in five…”

“Remus no.”

“Four…”

“I mean it I’m going to hurt you.”

“Three…”

“Remus, I’m Sirius —“

“Of course you are.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“You always seem to think it’s hilarious. Two…”

“Please don’t,” Sirius said tightening his grip.

“And one.”

Remus let go of Sirius’ hand, twisting his own so that he could get away.

Meanwhile Sirius was struggling to not fall on his face. Mentally trying to conjure up what Remus had been telling him during this joy ride of doom.

“Fuck, ok, fuck. What did Remus say? Just alternate pushing, left, right, left, right. Just like walking. Just. Like. Walking.”

Taking deep breaths Sirius slowly pushed his left leg out to the side. Drawing it back in and then repeating the same motion with the opposite leg.

“I’m doing it! Holy shit I’m actually doing it! REMUS.”

Remus spun around again, laughing joyfully when he saw Sirius awkwardly skating towards him.

For a moment Sirius understood why Remus enjoyed this insane sport. The feeling of the breeze as it slipped through your fingers and the warm summer sun streaking across your face. For a moment everything was perfect until —

“Sirius watch out for that—“

He didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. He didn’t really need to, either. Sirius could probably guess it ended with “rock” or “stick” or “large object that will cause you to end up flat on your back.”

Sirius closed his eyes and groaned. He made a mental note to never go rollerblading with Remus ever again.

The sun disappeared from his face and Sirius opened his eyes and looked up. Remus was looming over him, blocking the sun and wearing a shit eating grin on his face.

“Need a hand?”

“Yes you arse.”

Still grinning, Remus crouched down, gripping Sirius by the waist and pulling him back to his feet.

“What are you chuckling about?” Sirius grumbled irritably, dusting off bits of gravel and dirt.

“This is payback for that tunnel of love ride.”

Sirius shoved Remus away from him, glaring. “You’re still on about that? That was months ago Moony. Give it a rest.”

“Never,” Remus said, picking a twig out of Sirius’ hair.

“For the record, you did really well for your first time.”

“Uh huh,” Sirius said, he didn’t believe that for a second.

“No really, you did.” Remus said earnestly.

When Sirius went on ignoring him, Remus rolled his eyes and dragged his boyfriend closer to him, pressing their lips together. Sirius melted into the kiss, his hands finding their way into Remus hair. Twisting into the tawny brown curls.

From somewhere to the side of them, they heard someone whistle as they passed by. They broke apart, Remus smiling down at Sirius.

“I’m sorry for laughing.”

Sirius leaned further into Remus, resting his cheek against his chest. “‘Sokay.”

Remus looked up at the sky. “We’d better get going. It’ll be dark soon.”

Sirius nodded in agreement. He hadn’t dressed for colder weather.

“Wanna come rollerblading with me again tomorrow?”

Sirius looked up at Remus, scowling. “Are you out of your mind? I won’t be able to walk for the next week and you’re asking me—“

Sirius stopped mid-sentence, Remus was giving him a pleading look. Sirius sighed.

“Alright, yes. Fine. I’ll go.”

The smile that Remus gave him in return was worth it. The sun bathing his skin in a warm glow, making him take on an almost golden hue.

“But only if you kiss me first.”

Remus’ smile widened. “Done.”

This is totally worth it, Sirius found himself thinking. Then, Remus leaned down and kissed him and the whole world faded into shades of gold.

[gevejsbvdj]

Fine. Pt 1

Okay. I did NOT want to do this. I don’t want it to look like I’m trying to start something. When I made the announcement post, I thought that would be it. But a lot of you got really angry and reeeeally bitter about it, suspiciously enough. I am actually hoping that after I post this, I get an explanation and an apology. I tried to explain to these people time and time again about how I was hurt by this situation but they refused to listen. So here I am, spelling it the fuck out. Also, this account is dead anyways and i am so tired of keeping this to myself. I can’t do it anymore. 

That’s enough preamble for now, I’ll make more notes at the end. Let’s get onto the “situation” that was the final straw for me and inspired my complete leave. 

For comprehension purposes, this took place in the Crackerbox Palace discord server. 

For a warning, I’m pretty theatrical when stressed. If I joke here I’m sorry. I’m going to hold back on the humor. 

CW: mentions of sexual abuse, pedophilia, racism, and seizures. You have been warned.

It sounds disgustingly simple, but when I joke about this (to myself, because it’s better than crying about it), I say that me having a seizure was the cause of this all. It isn’t really, but- let me explain. 

I was alone, and I was chatting with the people in the server when suddenly- I just felt fucking weird. Initially, I was like “oh what the hell” until I realized that the weird sensation was actually familiar. It’s what people who have seizures call an “aura” or a “ting”, and it’s a numbing, buzzing sensation that’s kind of like an alarm bell that lets your body know what’s about to go down. And I have a habit (you can decide whether it’s good or bad) where I feel like I have to tell anyone around me that I’m going to have a seizure as SOON as I recognize the aura. Well like I said, I was alone. There was no one physically around me that I could tell, but I already had the chat open, fingers on my keyboard, I typed: I think I’m gonna have a seizure. Something like that. And I did. Don’t worry, I’m fine now. The older I get, the less extreme my seizures are for the most part. I got a splitting headache for the next two days, but we’re getting it checked out! This is only context for what happened next. 

After that happened I eventually came to and as soon as my senses were recollected and my memory came back, I felt so embarrassed that I told my friends who I thought were super cool that I had a SEIZURE. But I noticed that Ley and Emma (in their genuine concern) were discussing seizures and how dangerous they could be, and was wondering if I was okay. I was honestly so relieved they weren’t laughing or anything like that. Vulture then responded saying “hey can you censor the word seizure, it’s a trigger.”, and so Ley and Emma did so. I was confused by this because I thought Vulture was saying it’s MY (me, a person who has them regularly) trigger, or that they were saying it was a trigger in general? I soon found out that it was a term on our “blacklist”, which makes sense.

So In our server, we had a channel (the prior mentioned blacklist channel) where people can suggest words and phrases to avoid. Phrases/topics that make you very uncomfortable, triggering, etc. Someone suggested that the name “Zack” be blacklisted because it’s the name of someone that manipulated them. And no, not Zach like me Zach, but Z-A-C-K, you know? Anyways, sometimes the sheltered southerner in me jumps out, and someone asking for that name to be blacklisted rocked my world! Even more so that the admins I worked with were willing to blacklist it. I thought, wait all this time I could have asked you all to blacklist a NAME that upsets me? I didn’t know I could do that. Never have I ever been in an environment where something like a name could be avoided to ensure my comfort. While THAT was what I was thinking, when I went to type it in the chat, it did not come off that way to vulture. Here’s what I said:

Vulture took what I said wrong, which is totally fair. Words fail me as they do everyone else, and looking back, I could have done better in explaining what I felt. I’m not blaming them for the misunderstanding, and I'm not even blaming me that much. It happens, man. But what got to me, was them accusing me of belittling or more so INVALIDATING the trigger. Me, someone actually has seizures, invalidating someone being triggered by them. Okay. Here was my response:

My response was unnecessarily snarky and I am still sorry for that. I thought I got better at thinking before speaking but it’s evident that it’s still something I need to work on. However, like I said I’ve never been one to accept it when someone’s trying to have an attitude with me. And no I’ll be the first to say that Vulture wasn’t explicitly rude to me, but I was gobsmacked that someone was trying to tell me how traumatic seizures are and accused me of invalidating them after I just said that I have them frequently. And that even after I explained what I meant, I was still met with an accusing response. Can you imagine if I went up to a homeless man and said “you have no right to invalidate my trauma with homelessness. I read matchbox girl.” Like okay? Also, yes that mod chat had a history with taking everything I said as aggressive or belligerent, hence my telling them to stop that. I was always met with a dismissive and antagonistic response. Remember that. I will get back to that. 

Because of Vulture’s immature response, I removed them as chat admin. Do I regret it? Halfway, yes. I should have pulled them to the side and spoke with them about what they did. But looking back on that, after seeing the things they’ve posted today? It’s probably for the best that they weren’t a part of the admin team. 

Andy (also known as shadowylemon here) and Cody are partners who also helped me run the server. They were admins,obviously. Andy asked me why I removed Vulture as Admin. I explained to him why, very civilly with the help of one of my friends because my response almost WASN'T. And to be frank, I ignored most of what he said because again I was being made to be the evil villain and I wasn’t being heard. So I ignored him. Also I was on a call so I wasn’t going to break my brain listening to ten people at once. I was so tired, my seizure happened like only a couple days prior and my head was still affected. 

I mulled over that whole ordeal for a bit until me and my friend (the same friend I mentioned earlier, who helped me with my response to Andy. Lenny. He also helped me mod there and was the original co-founder of the server) came to the conclusion that the mods were too young. We need an age limit. So I told them, like “hey you guys are fine for now but I think that in the future, we should start having the mods be older”.

 At this point I’m super careful with the way I word things. I’m always like that to be honest, as a black (visual-wise, a female) female you learn real quick that you’re the angry one in every situation unless you learn to talk super duper civil. But I didnt think I had to be that way in THAT server, you know? I thought I was safe there. Apparently not. Anyway-

I was met with, again, an aggravated “how dare you” type response from Cody. Which was okay with me, still is. When you work with someone in a group, you’re not going to agree with them all the time. So we were having a pretty civil, short lived back and forth until I mentioned that we tone it down on blacklisting every word. I suggested earlier to blacklist the word “blue” to see how far they would take it and they literally blacklisted it. I didn’t get to say this then, but I’m actually against over censoring, even if it’s supposedly for someone’s mental health. I have ADHD, RSD, on the damn spectrum, all that good stuff, so don’t come for me. But if you’re wanting to avoid words like blue, or a very common name, that is not my responsibility. That is your therapist. The server had people in there who- well English wasn’t their first language, and adding more barriers to their language is, I feel, very inconsiderate.

 Cody started to threaten to delete the blacklisting channel all together and was acting really panicky. AGAIN (if I can find the screenshots, I will share) I was met with a very victimizing, whiny response. Like come on now. I told them to please do not make me the aggressor or I will leave.

No response. 

So the rest of us were just getting ready to start a call and play some games until we noticed something. 

Channels, titles and colors, and nearly everything was being deleted. 

By who? Andy and Cody. This is just one screenshot. I wouldn’t include what’s over ten i have saved on my phone.

I was afraid that they got hacked and was being made to delete them. Until I thought “wait...it’s funny how they’re the only mods that are being ‘hacked’ while the rest of us were left alone. RIGHT after I just had a disagreement with them. Oh my god is this a tantrum.” The server then echoed my concerns. Please don’t be a tantrum. We noticed they left and so I dmed Andy. I said “Why” and he blocked me. That confirmed that it was indeed a tantrum. A tantrum because I IMPLIED that they were being micro aggressive towards me. Alright. 

Me and the server joined a sort of conference call where we discussed what happened and they asked me questions as well as talked about what our next move was. At the time, I thought I was being dramatic because my breathing was super labored, and my face was super hot, and my heart was pounding. I was furious. There was a tiny voice telling me that ‘hey, you’re mad because after you told them that you were uncomfortable and upset with them treating you like an unhinged angry person, they did all this shit’ but I ignored it. 

That is a common theme with me. I know a lot of you think I’m using my race as a weapon and that I call everything racist, but I HATE calling things racial discrimination for that exact reason. I don’t wanna look sensitive, or get called a snowflake. I honestly used to be a self-loathing black person, and you could hurl slurs at my face and I’ll excuse it. My friend group in the 9th grade was mainly racist white people. I’m so glad I grew out of that nonsense but damn some of that toxic mentality stuck with me to the point I never wanted to acknowledge when someone was biased against me. 

I mean, how could it be any more clear? Do I think that Andy and Cody are racist? Of. Course. Not. I think that’s why a lot of you got so mad at me when you realized that what you did was microaggressions rooted in racial bias. Because you thought I was calling you a RACIST.  I’ve had white people who will march with me during protests say and some really off-putting shit the next day. You can be an ally and make mistakes. You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. None of us is. You have to allow yourself to make errors, and be confronted. Running away cursing and kicking rocks just tells me that you don’t want to listen to black people. 

But anyway, we attempted to move on from the childish ordeal and I enlisted the help of new people to help me mod since we were short two, and could have used the help anyway. 

We were doing alright, really. One day, though, Joane messaged me saying that Vulture wanted to apologize and wanted to talk. And I was like great now's the perfect time to talk to them like I should have the first time, but wrongly didn’t. So I told Joane to dm me. 

Well, Joane sent me a screenshot of some of hers and Vultures conversation.

As you can see I initially did feel willing to apologize and speak to vulture. Because like I said earlier, my snarky response was UNNECESSARY. However, Joane joining in the discussion with her “I can’t understand him which frustrates me lmao” peeved me. As did Vulture acting like I’m unhinged. While I didn’t need to make the “imma blacklist lmao and lol since it bothers you so much” comment at ALL, it wasn’t that deep….at all. Vulture has a habit of virtue signalling too. Their comment “I’m patient and forgiving” is an example. 

While I was annoyed initially, I soon felt pretty hurt that Joane would say that about me behind my back? It made me wonder if there was more she didn’t show me. Joane was a really good friend and I loved her a lot so I was extra sensitive about it. I’ve never spoken ill about her behind her back. 

Now, this is a recurring theme in this post but let me say now: I am aware that no one is OBLIGATED to treat me a certain way because I was nice to them. Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt? Talking negatively about someone isn’t a problem, but having them think you’re their friend while doing so is. You know? It’s very deceiving, but in Joane’s case, only slightly deceiving. 

So I just didn’t speak to her for a bit. I was already annoyed at having to re-build my server because of a couple of teenagers having a tantrum, as well as things that were happening in my personal life. Also, the news was no damn help at all, you all know. But I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day and I...I hated it haha. I don’t like avoiding people when I’m frustrated, and after I saw what happened with Vulture when I did the same thing, I should know better. Plus I felt bad. Joane was still a friend, and I wanted to get to the bottom of things. 

I’m not going to include every little screenshot and whatnot, but I messaged her like hey what’s up let’s finish our discussion. Because I thought that at that point, I had my head screwed on a bit better. 

During our discussion, I eventually showed Joane me and vultures conversation, and she acted astonished that Vulture didn’t show her all the context, and even said that they were being irrational. This was after I told her that after everything Andy and Cody did, they made a server with Vulture to which she informed me that she was aware, and she was invited. Honestly, at the time I didn’t think vulture was being irrational. While I said it’s no excuse, PTSD can make us say and do pretty wild things, and calling someone like that irrational feel like ableist language. 

So me and Joane had a little moment. I apologized to her, and she apologized to me.

I was sure that after we both had our respective breaks, that we would be good to continue our friendship like normal. Just a bump in the road. It happens

That was until I got a certain anon from Vulture. 

She asked me why we were done, but when I went to ask her “what in the world did you say to them” she blocked me.

Sorry I keep showing me messaging them, I just don’t wanna get lied to or something again. 

I was really sad about that. I went to bed, and when I woke up, I was still sad. Joane was telling me one thing, and Vulture another thing. She was changing her opinion on a person depending on who she was talking to. It was dizzying and disingenuous and I didn’t even get to talk it out with her because she blocked me. Which was really suspicious. She told me that she would be taking a break from the server and that she still respected me as a friend, but went to vulture and told them that I treated her like SHIT, or at least acted enough like a victim to make them accuse me of that. I’m sorry, but where in the world did I do that? If me confessing to someone that they hurt me is the same thing as treating them like shit, then fuck man a lot of us are assholes. 

Wow, look at me treat her like shit. Absolute garbage right?

I wasn’t even being completely honest to Joane about my feelings for that reason. Because of accusations like this. Another instance of someone taking literally me being normal and civil as being AGGRESSIVE. Vulture, I’m sorry for accusing you of utilizing white girl tears. I accused the wrong person. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. 

I went to our #vent channel on the server and told whoever was online and whoever was listening about the whole ordeal, and how HURT I felt because I was literally played by this girl. And I was accused of basically being abusive. Treated her like shit? Cmon man…

But another user in the server, as it turns out, had a similar experience with Joane, and provide in-depth screenshots. Which made me even madder, so we kept venting about the situation. 

Also, because of a couple of dms, and because the more I ranted, the more pained I got, I felt compelled to say the following, NOW LISTEN CLOSELY:

I first prefaced my concerns by saying “I AM BY NO MEANS CALLING JOANE A GROOMER”. That was fucking useless of me to say because- okay I’m getting ahead of myself. 

So I was saying (and in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. I know. But like I said, it was in the heat of the moment and I got a dm that made me feel bad) that it was strange how as soon as someone young and innocent was present, Joane would cling to them in an obsessive way. I’m not the only one who noticed that, and even one of the younger users in question agreed to my statement. 

Listen fucking closely. I don’t think Joane is a sexual predator at ALL. That’s why I had that warning before I said anything in the chat. I do, though, think that if you’re a grown adult and you’re obsessed with being friends with people who are as young as 14, that it’s concerning, not in a sexual way, but in a power dynamic way. I’m only 19 and I honestly don’t get older people who become besties with much younger people. I was “friends” with the users as well, but I was a mentor/brother/dad more than anything. Do you understand? When I was 15, I’ve had people who were 20 and older become my friend and dump their adult problems onto me, as well as expect adult reactions and responses out of me. It was stressful and damaging and I did not want that happening to anyone else, especially the younger people in the chat. Okay? Okay. 

That being said, my protectiveness is a major flaw of mine. Oh my god, do I take it too far sometimes, man. I didn’t want really young teenagers (13-16) to have a serious relationship with an adult because of what happened to me, and I didn’t want Joane to play and hurt anyone else the way she did me and my other friend. So I went into the announcements channel and told the users to read what we’ve been saying in regard to Joane and come up with your own decision. I did not have to do that, I can sit here and say that the things that transpired the past few days really took a toll on me whatever blah blah blah. But I could have kept it in vent, really. And the dumb thing is, that before I sent that message in announcements, I was literally telling myself that THIS is a bad idea. GOD, Zach. But I was at work, it was the last day before holidays started, and I was feeling super protective and I wasn’t thinking and- well yeah. 

During all of this, I was having a conversation with vulture in Tumblr dms. I gathered the courage to finally dm them after receiving the anon. That conversation was on my old Tumblr, so I don’t have a screenshot of the key points, but I typed my starting message in notes, and this is what I said:

“Hi vulture. I don’t want to be here for long but I just wanna ask: why? You accused me of invalidating a trigger and even after I told you that’s not what I meant you still went off on me? You’re mad at me about an inaccurate perception and it really upset me. I’ve been terrified of talking to you specifically because I’ve been dealing with micro aggressions from you, Andy, and Cody and it’s really been wearing me down. And when I told Andy and Cody about their treatment of me, they deleted shit from my server and leave? How do you think that makes me feel as a black person? Makes me never want to talk about my feelings ever again out of the fear of being antagonized. I’m sorry I was snarky towards you, if you didn’t like my remark about “lmao” and “lol”. I agree it was immature. But don’t forget you came at me first. If you’re willing to further discuss this with me then great, which I am sure you are seeing that you asked me to on anon. I finally gathered the courage to contact you so let’s do this.”

We had a brief conversation. Vulture dismissing my microaggressions concerns but really- it happens so much that at that point I was so numb to it. Also a little bit “it’s not about your race. Remember when I…” more virtue signalling. Bleh. But after all, I did thank them for actually wanting to talk to me. Andy didn’t wanna do it. Cody didn’t wanna do it. Joane didn’t want to. Vulture did. And I appreciate that to this day, after everything. I can always admire that about someone. 

It ended prematurely because of me. I was at work and got distracted by that as well as by what happened in the server next. 

Emma sent a pretty long message basically calling all of us out for “bullying Joane” and talking ill of her behind her back, as well as announcing that she would be leaving the server and that we should all be ashamed of ourselves. This was right after someone confessed that Joane made him feel uncomfortable with constant flirting. I admitted that I should not have put the message In announcements, but guys.

I went off. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I was sick of trying to be docile and sweet. I didn’t care if I would be portrayed as the angry black again I DID NOT CARE. Bullying Joane? Me talking about how she hurt me is bullying? Let’s look up what that means. 

Yeah okay. That’s incorrect usage, right? I didn’t even call Joane names. I didn’t persistently harass her. I spoke about what she did to me in distaste, but I was done with her as a friend at that point, and she knew that, so was not going behind her back. I wasn’t being predatory towards her. And I definitely wasn’t being AGGRESSIVE or BLUSTERING. Emma was using broad pronouns and terms (you guys, you all, etc) but I knew she was talking about me, as I was the most prominent in my venting about Joane due to my situation with her happening just yesterday. I sent the most messages, I- while wrong in doing so- posted the announcements. That message primarily was directed towards me. When I say that microaggressions tear you down, it tears you THE FUCK down. 

That being said, I did cuss Emma out (she wasn’t present when I went off, but still) and cussed out everyone who agreed with her. I was so blinded by rage and hurt I don’t even remember at all what I said. One line that sticks out to me though is “y’all saw a white girl crying and thought oh man we can’t have that” and that’s a mantra I’ve repeated a couple of times when I find myself in scenarios such as this one. 

But- I do regret going off like that. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t justified slightly, though. I don’t expect any of you to understand completely what I went through, but please try. I regret going off like that, though. And I’m sorry. 

I guess I was also upset because I was JUST in a good mood? I was literally singing to myself all happy and shit, but Emma’s inconsiderate message threw me off. It’s making me even more upset now that I know why she said that. She wasn’t the only person to tell me I should be ashamed of myself for manipulating (yes, MANIPULATING) Joane. 

I dmed Emma in an attempt to fix things, but i gave up quickly. I was too raw with emotions anyways. So I mournfully told her that we probably should’t be friends anymore, to which she responded

Carelessly?...ouch.

From the moment Joane dmed me about Vulture, and the moment Emma sent that message, all of that transpired within three days. Three fucking days and THAT much happened. It was taking a toll on me, that’s not even counting Andy and Cody’s tantrum. 

I was in a dark place, still am. I made a post saying that I was going to take a break from Tumblr and then made one saying that I was going to kill myself in the tags. Not exclusively because of all this, of course. So. Much. Bullshit. Happens to me on a daily basis. Abusive parents. Sexual assault. Racism that’s actually violent. Dying relatives. So much. I’m crying as I type this it’s just so much. In real life, I have no friends. Not even fake acquaintances. Yes, I cut off all those people because they were extremely toxic, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have literally no one. That server was my escape. Parents fighting? Open discord. Mental spiral? Discord is there. Just had a seizure? Don’t worry, you have friends. And now I don’t. And all because of some dumb shit that wouldn’t probably have happened if two kids didn’t get mad at ME because THEY were ignorant. I know it’s not good to rely on a server to improve your mental health, but I couldn’t help it. I was desperate. And I really did think so highly of everyone in that chat. I loved them.

I received a couple asks that night saying that I don’t have to hurt myself, I’m loved, all that. Very kind messages. And right when I was going to delete the post (I was so embarrassed for posting it), I got a message from ley that read something like “I don’t agree with what you said at ALL but that doesn’t mean I want you to kill yourself or leave” something along those lines. I thought, really? You couldn’t just say you didn’t want me to leave and have it at that? 

I really don’t want to make it seem like I posted something so graphic for attention, man. I can’t stand that manipulation tactic and I don’t want that harmful stigma about suicidal people to be encouraged. 

But Ley’s message threw me off. Agree with what I...huh? Then it pissed me off

So I deleted my account. And fell off the face of the earth for 15 days.