#i just want to be a jacked epileptic

[junoscarnations]

me when i research creatine and they’re like ! yo it may be good for depression ?

say less my fellow jacked brother, i will start noting the moods more intensely than i already do

[soullessjack]

going thru jack stuff on spn tiktok is like

millennial white woman (Taylor’s version) : he’s so precious 😍😍😍 mah nougat child son 🥰🥰🥰 so innocent and adorbsies!!!

millennial white woman OR young new fan (SPN character’s version): i want to kill dean with a hammer for what he did to this sweet little baby, he’s just a toddler :( and sam and cas are his real only dads!!

𖤐 SPN character (Taylor’s version) 𖤐: i want to kill dean with a hammer for what he did to this sweet little baby, Lucifer really loved Jack deep down he would have been a better dad if he got the chance :(

millennial white woman who thirsts for pedro pascal: unmmmmm you can find this grown 35 year old man hot but the character he plays with no physical distinction whatsoever is basically intellectually disabled (wears Velcro shoes) so you’re a creep if you like them

Brazilian editor that posts dubbed 1080HD embossed power scaling edits with epileptic-unsafe flash effects and transitions like 2016 PowerPoint slideshows 🇧🇷🇧🇷 : Goku pode derrotar Jack Kline?

Russian editor that posts dubbed 1080HD embossed power scaling edits with epileptic-unsafe flash effects and transitions like 2016 PowerPoint slideshows 🇷🇺: Сможет ли Гоку победить Джека Клайна?

13yo iPad raised heartstopper fan who just got into spn recently: I love jack so much they’re so badass and silly, beautiful boy and this other song by Olivia Rodrigo/Melanie/Taylor/Billie/the NBHD is so them core

13yo iPad raised heartstopper fans and millenial white women (Alex’s version) and a Brazilian fans: ommgggggg i loovee alex hes so hawt he’s literally my husband 😍😍😍 so innocent as jack but not in real life 😝😝 I’m such a simp for himm teeheee

spn content maker who really only cares about destiel or the original trio: yea he’s okay, killing Mary was the best thing he ever did to the show 😝😝

very small cluster of ppl who could fall into any of the top categories honestly: he so find i won’t him

[meta-squash]

Squash's Book Roundup 2023

Last year I read 67 books. This year my goal was 70, but I very quickly passed that, so in total I read 92 books this year. Honestly I have no idea how I did it, it just sort of happened. My other goal was to read an equal amount of fiction and nonfiction this year (usually fiction dominates), and I was successful in that as well. Another goal which I didn’t have at the outset but which kind of organically happened after the first month or so of reading was that I wanted to read mostly strange/experimental/transgressive/unusual fiction. My nonfiction choices were just whatever looked interesting or cool, but I also organically developed a goal of reading a wider spread of subjects/genres of nonfiction. A lot of the books I read this year were books I’d never heard of, but stumbled across at work. Also, finally more than 1/3 of what I read was published in the 21st century.

I’ll do superlatives and commentary at the end, so here is what I read in 2023:

-The Commitments by Roddy Doyle -A Simple Story: The Last Malambo by Leila Guerriero -The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell -Uzumaki by Junji Ito -Chroma by Derek Jarman -The Emerald Mile: The epic story of the fastest ride in history through the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko -Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks -The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington -Sacred Sex: Erotic writings from the religions of the world by Robert Bates -The Virginia State Colony For Epileptics And The Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown -A Spy In The House Of Love by Anais Nin -The Sober Truth: Debunking the bad science behind 12-step programs and the rehab industry by Lance Dodes -The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima -The Aliens by Annie Baker -The Criminal Child And Other Essays by Jean Genet -Aimee and Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer -The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov -The Mustache by Emmanuel Carriere -Maldoror by Comte de Lautreamont -Narrow Rooms by James Purdy -At Your Own Risk by Derek Jarman -Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm -Countdown: A Subterranean Magazine #3 by Underground Press Syndicate Collective -Fabulosa! The story of Britain's secret gay language by Paul Baker -The Golden Spruce: A true story of myth, madness and greed by John Vaillant -Querelle de Roberval by Kevin Lambert -Fire The Bastards! by Jack Green -Closer by Dennis Cooper -The Woman In The Dunes by Kobo Abe -Opium: A Diary Of His Cure by Jean Cocteau -Worker-Student Action Committees France May '68 by Fredy Perlman and R. Gregoire -Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher -The Sound Of Waves by Yukio Mishima -One Day In My Life by Bobby Sands -Corydon by Andre Gide -Noopiming by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson -Man Alive: A true story of violence, forgiveness and becoming a man by Thomas Page McBee -The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art by Mark Rothko -Damage by Josephine Hart -Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai -The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector -The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock n Roll by Simon Reynolds and Joy Press -The Traffic Power Structure by planka.nu -Bird Man: The many faces of Robert Straud by Jolene Babyak -Seven Dada Manifestos by Tristan Tzara

-The Journalist by Harry Mathews -Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber -Moscow To The End Of The Line by Venedikt Erofeev -Morvern Callar by Alan Warner -The Poetics Of Space by Gaston Bachelard -A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White -The Coming Insurrection by The Invisible Committee -Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson -Notes From The Sick Room by Steve Finbow -Artaud The Momo by Antonin Artaud -Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle -Recollections Of A Part-Time Lady by Minette -trans girl suicide museum by Hannah Baer -The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars -Sweet Days Of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy -Breath: The new science of a lost art by James Nestor -What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund -The Cardiff Tapes (1972) by Garth Evans -The Ark Sakura by Kobo Abe -Mad Like Artaud by Sylvere Lotringer -The Story Of The Eye by Georges Bataille -Little Blue Encyclopedia (For Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante -Blood And Guts In High School by Kathy Acker -Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton -Splendid's by Jean Genet -VAS: An Opera In Flatland by Steve Tomasula -Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want To Come: One introvert's year of saying yes by Jessica Pan -Whores For Gloria by William T. Vollmann -The Notebooks by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Larry Walsh (editor) -L'Astragale by Albertine Sarrazin -The Decay Of Lying and other essays by Oscar Wilde -The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot -Open Throat by Henry Hoke -Prisoner Of Love by Jean Genet -The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia -The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx -My Friend Anna: The true story of a fake heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams -Mammother by Zachary Schomburg -Building The Commune: Radical democracy in Venezuela by George Cicarello-Maher -Blackouts by Justin Torres -Cheapjack by Philip Allingham -Near To The Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector -The Trayvon Generation by Elizabeth Alexander -Skye Papers by Jamika Ajalon -Exercises In Style by Raymon Queneau -Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein -The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson

~Some number factoids~ I read 46 fiction and 46 nonfiction. One book, The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia, is fictionalized/embellished autobiography, so it could go half in each category if we wanted to do that, but I put it in the fiction category. I tried to read as large a variety of nonfiction subjects/genres as I could. A lot of the nonfiction I read has overlapping subjects, so I’ve chosen to sort by the one that seems the most overarching. By subject, I read: 5 art history/criticism, 5 biographies, 1 black studies, 1 drug memoir, 2 essay collections, 2 history, 2 Latin American studies, 4 literary criticism, 1 music history, 2 mythology/religion, 1 nature, 4 political science, 2 psychology, 5 queer studies, 2 science, 1 sociology, 1 travel, 2 true crime, 3 urban planning. I also read more queer books in general (fiction and nonfiction) than I have in years, coming in at 20 books.

The rest of my commentary and thoughts under a cut because it's fairly long

Here’s a photo of all the books I read that I own a physical copy of (minus Closer by Dennis Cooper which a friend is borrowing):

~Superlatives and Thoughts~

I read so many books this year I’m going to do a runner-up for each superlative category.

Favorite book: This is such a hard question this year. I think I gave out more five-star ratings on Goodreads this year than I ever have before. The books that got 5 stars from me this year were A Simple Story: The Last Malambo by Leila Guerriero, Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko, The Mustache by Emmanuel Carriere, The Passion According to GH by Clarice Lispector, trans girl suicide museum by Hannah Baer, The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia, Mammother by Zachary Schomburg, and Blackouts by Justin Torres. But I think my favorite book of the year was The Fifth Wound by Aurora Mattia. It is an embellished, fictionalized biography of the author’s life, chronicling a breakup that occurred just before she began her transition, and then a variety of emotional events afterward and her renewal of a connection with that person after a number of years had passed. The writing style is beautiful, extremely decadent, and sits in a sort of venn diagram of poetry, theory, fantasy and biography. My coworker who recommended this book to me said no one she’d recommended it to had finished it because they found it so weird. I read the first 14 pages very slowly because I didn’t exactly know what the book was doing, but I quickly fell completely in love with the imagery and the formatting style and the literary and religious references that have been worked into the book both as touchstones for biography and as vehicles for fantasy. There is a video I remember first seeing years ago, in which a beautiful pinkish corn snake slithers along a hoop that is part of a hanging mobile made of driftwood and macrame and white beads and prism crystals. This was the image that was in the back of my head the entire time I was reading The Fifth Wound, because it matched the decadence and the strangeness and the crystalline beauty of the language and visuals in the book. It is a pretty intense book, absolutely packed with images and emotion and ideas and preserved vignettes where reality and fantasy and theory overlap. It’s one of those books that’s hard to describe because it’s so full. It’s dense not in that the words or ideas are hard to understand, but in that it’s overflowing with imagery and feelings, and it feels like an overflowing treasure chest. Runner-up:The Mustache by Emmanuel Carriere. However, this book wins for a different superlative, so I’ve written more about it there.

Least favorite book: Querelle de Roberval by Kevin Lambert. I wrote a whole long review of it. In summary, Lambert’s book takes its name from Querelle de Brest, a novel by Jean Genet, and is apparently meant to be an homage to Genet’s work. Unfortunately, Lambert seems to misunderstand or ignore all the important aspects of Genet’s work that make it so compelling, and instead twists certain motifs Genet uses as symbols of love or transcendence into meaningless or negative connotations. He also attempts to use Genet’s mechanic of inserting the author into the narrative and allowing the author to have questionable or conflicting morals in order to emphasize certain aspects of the characters or narrative, except he does so too late in the game and ends up just completely undermining everything he writes. This book made me feel insulted on behalf of Jean Genet and all the philosophical thought he put into his work. Runner-up: What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund. This graphic designer claims that when people read they don’t actually imagine what characters look like and can’t conjure up an image in their head when asked something like “What does Jane Eyre look like to you?” Unfortunately, there’s nothing scientific in the book to back this up and it’s mostly “I” statements, so it’s more like “What Peter Mendelsund Sees (Or Doesn’t See) When He Reads”. It’s written in what seems to be an attempt to mimic Marshall McLuhan’s style in The Medium Is The Massage, but it isn’t done very well. I spent most of my time reading this book thinking This does not reflect my experience when I read novels so I think really it’s just a bad book written by someone who maybe has some level of aphantasia or maybe is a visual but not literary person, and who assumes everyone else experiences the same thing when they read. (Another runner-up would be The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, but I think that’s a given because it’s an awful piece of revisionist, racist trash, so I won’t write a whole thing about it. I can if someone wants me to.)

Most surprising/unexpected book: The Mustache by Emmanuel Carriere. This book absolutely wins for most surprising. However, I don’t want to say too much about it because the biggest surprise is the end. It was the most shocking, most unexpected and bizarre endings to a novel I’ve read in a long time, and I absolutely loved it. It was weird from the start and it just kept getting weirder. The unnamed narrator decides, as a joke, to shave off the moustache he’s had for his entire adult life. When his wife doesn’t react, he assumes that she’s escalating their already-established tradition of little pranks between each other. But then their mutual friends say nothing about the change, and neither do his coworkers, and he starts spiral into confusion and paranoia. I don’t want to spoil anything else because this book absolutely blew me away with its weirdness and its existential dread and anyone who likes weird books should read it. Runner-up: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner. I don’t even know what compelled me to open this book at work, but I’m glad I did. The book opens on Christmas, where the main character, Morvern, discovers her boyfriend dead by suicide on the kitchen floor of their flat. Instead of calling the police or her family, she takes a shower, gets her things and leaves for work. Her narrative style is strange, simultaneously very detached and extremely emotional, but emotional in an abstract way, in which descriptions and words come out stilted or strangely constructed. The book becomes a narrative of Morvern’s attempts to find solitude and happiness, from the wilderness of Scotland to late night raves and beaches in an unnamed Mediterranean city. The entire book is scaffolded by a built-in playlist. Morvern’s narrative is punctuated throughout by accounts of exactly what she’s listening to on her Walkman. The narrative style and the playlist and the bizarre behavior of the main character were not at all what I was expecting when I opened the book, but I read the entire book in about 3 hours and I was captivated the whole time. If you like the Trainspotting series of books, I would recommend this one for sure.

Most fun book: The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko. This book was amazing. It was like reading an adventure novel and a thriller and a book on conservationism all wrapped into one and it was clearly very passionately written and it was a blast. I picked it up because I was pricing it at work and I read the captions on one of the photo inserts, which intrigued me, so I read the first page, and then I couldn’t stop. The two main narratives in the book are the history of the Grand Canyon (more specifically the damming of the Colorado River) and the story of a Grand Canyon river guide called Kenton Grua, who decided with two of his river guide friends to break the world record for fastest boat ride down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The book is thoroughly researched, and reaches back to the first written record of the canyon, then charts the history of the canyon and the river up to 1983 when Grua made his attempt to race down the river, and then the aftermath and what has happened to everyone in the years since. All of the historical figures as well as the “current” figures of 1983 come to life, and are passionately portrayed. It’s a genuine adventure of a book, and I highly recommend it. Runner-up: Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton. It asks “What if Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was actually a trans woman?” Actually, that’s not quite it. It asks “What if a trans woman living in poverty in southwest America believed to an almost spiritual level that Brian Wilson was a trans woman?” The main character and narrator, Gala, is convinced that the lead singer of her favorite band, the Get Happies, (a fictional but fairly obvious parallel to the Beach Boys) is a trans woman. Half the book is her writing out her version of the singer’s life history, and the other half is her life working at a hostel in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, where she meets a woman who forces her out of her comfort zone and encourages her to face certain aspects of her self and identity and her connection with others. It’s a weird novel, and definitely not for everyone, but it’s fun. I was reading it on the train home and I was so into it that I missed my stop and had to get off at the next station and wait 20 minutes for the train going back the other way.

Book that taught me the most: Breath: The new science of a lost art by James Nestor. In it, Nestor explores why humans as a general population are so bad at breathing properly. He interviews scientists and alternative/traditional health experts, archaeologists, historians and religious scholars. He uses himself as a guinea pig to experiment with different breathing techniques from ancient meditation styles to essentially overdosing on oxygen in a lab-controlled environment to literally plugging his nose shut to only mouth-breathe for two weeks (and then vice-versa with nose breathing). It was interesting to see a bunch of different theories a laid out together regarding what kind of breathing is best, as well as various theories on the history of human physiology and why breathing is hard. Some of it is scientific, some pseudoscience, some just ancient meditation techniques, but he takes a crack at them all. What was kind of cool is that he tries every theory and experiment with equal enthusiasm and doesn’t really seem to favor any one method. Since he’s experimenting on himself, a lot of it is about the effects the experiments had on him specifically and his experiences with different types of breathing. His major emphasis/takeaway is that focusing on breathing and learning to change the ways in which we breathe will be beneficial in the long run (and that we should all breath through our noses more). While I don’t think changing how you breathe is a cure-all (some of the pseudoscience he looks at in this book claims so) I certainly agree that learning how to breath better is a positive goal. Runner-up: The Sober Truth by Lance Dodes. I say runner-up because a lot of the content of the book is things that I had sort of vague assumptions about based on my knowledge of addiction and AA and mental illness in general. But Dodes put into words and illustrated with numbers and anecdotes and case studies what I just kind of had a vague feeling about. It was cool to see AA so thoroughly debunked by an actual psychiatrist and in such a methodical way, since my skepticism about it has mostly been based on the experiences of people I know in real life, anecdotes I’ve read online, or musicians/writers/etc I’m a fan of that went through it and were negatively affected.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: Mammother by Zachary Schomburg. The biggest reason this book was so interesting is because the little world in which it exists is so strange and yet so utterly complete. In a town called Pie Time (where birds don’t exist and the main form of work is at the beer-and-cigarettes factory) a young boy called Mano who has been living his childhood as a girl decides that he is now a man and that it’s time for him to grow up. As this happens, the town is struck by an affliction called God’s Finger. People die seemingly out of nowhere, from a hole in their chest, and some object comes out of the hole. Mano collects the things that come out of these holes, and literally holds them in order to love them, but the more he collects, the bigger he becomes as he adds objects to his body. A capitalist business called XO shows up, trying to convince the people of Pie Time that they can protect themselves from God’s Finger with a number of enterprises, and starts to slowly take over the town. But Mano doesn’t believe death is something that should be run from. This book is so pretty, and the symbolism/metaphors, even when obvious, feel as though they belong organically in the world. A quote on the back of the book says it is “as nearly complete a world as can be”, and I think that’s a very accurate description. The story is interesting, the characters are compelling, and the magical realist world in which the story exists is fascinating. Runner up: trans girl suicide museum by Hannah Baer. This is a series of essays taken (for the most part) from Baer’s blog posts. They span a chunk of time in which she writes her thoughts and musings on her experience transition and transgender existence in general. It is mostly a series of pieces reflecting on “early” stages of transition. But I thought it was really cool to see an intellectual and somewhat philosophical take on transition, written by someone who has only been publicly out for a few years, and therefore is looking at certain experiences with a fresh gaze. As the title suggests, a lot of the book is a bit sad, but it’s not all doom and gloom. A lot of the emphasis is on the important of community when it comes to the experience of starting to transition and the first few years, and the importance of community on the trans experience in general. I really liked reading Hannah Baer’s thoughts as a queer intellectual who was writing about this stuff as she experienced it (or not too long after) rather than writing about the experience of early transition years and years down the line. It meant the writing was very sharp and the emotion was clear and not clouded by nostalgia.

Other thoughts/commentary on books I don’t have superlatives for:

I’m glad my first (full) book read in 2023 was A Simple Story: The Last Malambo by Leila Guierrero. It’s a small, compact gem of a book that follows the winner of an Argentinian dance competition. The Malambo is a traditional dance, and the competition is very fierce, and once someone wins, they can never compete again. The author follows the runner-up of the previous year, who has come to compete again. It paints a vivid picture of the history of the dance, the culture of the competition, and the character of the dancer the author has chosen to follow. It’s very narrowly focused, which makes it really compelling.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington could have easily won for most fun or most interesting book. Carrington was a surrealist writer and painter (and was in a relationship with Max Ernst until she was institutionalized and he was deported by the Nazis). In The Hearing Trumpet, an elderly woman called Marian is forced by her family to go live in an old ladies’ home. The first strange thing about the place is that all of the little cabins each woman lives in is shaped like some odd object, like an iron, or ice cream, or a rabbit. The other old women at the institution are a mixed bag, and the warden of the place is hostile. Marian starts to suspect that there are secrets, and even witchcraft involved, and she and a few of the other ladies start to try and unravel the occult mysteries hidden in the grounds of the home. The whole book is fun and strange, and the ending is an extremely entertaining display of feminist occult surrealism.

Sacred Sex: Erotica writings from the religions of the world by Robert Bates was a book I had to read for research for my debunking of Withdrawn Traces. It was really very interesting, but it was also hilarious to read because maybe 5% of any of the texts included were actually erotic. It should have been called “romantic writings from the religions of the world” because so little of the writing had anything to do with sex, even in a more metaphorical sense.

Every time I read Yukio Mishima I’m reminded how much I love his style. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea almost usurped The Temple of the Golden Pavilion as my favorite Mishima novel. I’m fascinated with the way that Mishima uses his characters to explore the circumstance of having very intense feelings or reactions towards something and simultaneously wanting to experience that, while also wanting to have complete control and not feel them at all. There’s a scene in this novel where Noboru and his friends brutally kill and dissect a cat; it’s an intense and vividly rendered scene, made all the more intense by Noboru desperately conflicted between feeling affected by the killing and wanting to force himself to feel nothing. The amazing subtle theme running through the book is the difference between Noboru’s intense emotions and his desire/struggle to control them and subdue them versus Ryuji’s more subtle emotion that grows through the book despite his natural reserve. I love endings like the one in this book, where it “cuts to black” and you don’t actually see the final act, it’s simply implied.

In 2016 or 2017, I ran lights for a showcase for the drama department at UPS (I can’t remember now what it was) that included a bunch of scenes from various plays. I remember a segment from Hir by Taylor Mac, and a scene from The Aliens by Annie Baker. In the scene that I saw, one of the characters describes how when he was a boy, he couldn’t stop saying the word ladder, and the monologue culminates in a full paragraph that is just the word “ladder.” I can’t remember who was acting in the one that I saw at UPS, but that monologue blew me away, the way that one word repeated 127 conveyed so much. This year a collection of Annie Baker’s plays came in at work so I sat down and read the whole play and it was just incredible. I’d love to see the full play live, it’s absolutely captivating.

Narrow Rooms by James Purdy was a total diamond in the rough. It takes place in Appalachia, in perhaps the 1950s although it’s somewhat hard to tell. It follows the strange gay entanglement between four adult men in their 20s, who have known each other all their lives. It traces threads of bizarre codependency, and the lines crossed between love and hate. The main character, Sidney, has just returned home after serving a sentence for manslaughter. On his return, he finds that an old lover has been rendered disabled in an accident, and that an old school rival/object of obsession has been waiting for him. This rival, nicknamed “The Renderer” because of an old family occupation, has been watching Sidney all their lives. Both of them hate the other, but know that they’re destined to meet in some way. Caught in the middle of their strange relationship are Gareth, Sidney’s now-disabled former lover, and Brian, a young man who thinks he’s in love with The Renderer. The writing style took me some time to get used to, as it is written as though by someone who has taught themselves, or has only had basic classes on fiction writing. But the plot itself is so strange and the characters are so stilted in their own internality that it actually fits really well. Like The Mustache, this book had one of the strangest, most intensely visceral and shocking endings I’ve read in a while. It was also “one that got away.” I read it at work, then put it on my staff picks shelf, and only realized after someone else bought it that I should have kept it for myself.

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector blew my mind. I really don’t want to spoil any of it, but I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to do. The build in tension is perfect and last 30 pages are just incredible. Lispector’s style is so unique and so beautiful and tosses out huge existential questions like it’s nothing, and I love her work so much.

Moscow To The End Of The Line by Venedikt Erofeev was another really unexpected book. It’s extremely Russian (obviously) and really fun until suddenly it isn’t. The main character, a drunkard, gets on a train from Moscow to Petushki, the town at the end of the line (hence the title), in order to see his lover. On the way, he befriends the other people in his train car and they all steadily get drunker and drunker, until he falls asleep and misses his stop. Very Russian, somewhat strange, and I was surprised that it was written in the late 60s and not the 30s.

Dr. Rat by William Kotzwinkle was what I expected. Weird in a goofy way, a bit silly even when it’s serious, and rather heavy-handed satire. The titular Dr Rat is a rat who has spent his whole life in a laboratory and has gone insane. The other animals who are being tested on want to escape, but he’s convinced that all the testing is for the good of science and wants to thwart their rebellion. Unfortunately, all the other animals who are victims of human cruelty/callousness/invasion/deforestation/etc around the world are also planning to rebel, connection with each other through a sort of psychic television network. It’s a very heavy-handed environmentalist/anti-animal cruelty metaphor and general societal satire, but it’s silly and fun too.

Confessions Of A Part-Time Lady by Minette is a self-published, nearly impossible to find book that came into my work. It’s self-printed and bound, and was published in the 70s. It is the autobiographical narrative of a trans woman who did drag and burlesque and theatre work all across the midwest, as well as New York and San Francisco, from the 1930s up to the late 60s. It was originally a series of interviews by the two editors, who published it in narrative form, and it includes photos from Minette’s personal collection. It’s an amazing story, and a glimpse into a really unique time period of gender performance and queer life. She even mentions Sylvia Rivera, specifically when talking about gay activism. She talks about how the original group of the Gay Liberation Front was an eclectic mix of all sorts of people of all sexualities and genders and expressions. Then when the Gay Activists Alliance “took over”, they started pushing out people who were queer in a more transgressive or unusual way and there was more encouragement on being more heteronormative. She mentions Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, saying “I remember Sylvia Rivera who founded STAR – Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. She was always trying to say things – the same kinds of things Marsha P Johnson says in a sweeter way – and they treated her like garbage. If that’s what ‘order’ is, haven’t we had enough?”

Whores For Gloria by William T Vollmann was exactly as amazing as I thought it would be. I love Vollmann’s style, because you can tell that even though the characters he’s writing about are characters, they’re absolutely based on people that he met or saw or spoke to in real life. The main character, Jimmy, is searching for his former lover, Gloria, who has either died or left him (it is unclear for most of the novel). He begins to use tokens bought from sex workers (hair, clothes, etc) to attempt to conjure her into reality, and when that doesn’t work, he pays them to tell him stories from their lives, and through their lives he tries to conjure Gloria. This novel’s ending had extremely similar vibes to the ending of Moscow To The End Of The Line.

Prisoner Of Love by Jean Genet was a lot to take in. It was weird reading it at this moment in time, and completely unplanned. It’s just that I have only a few more books to read before I’ve made my way through all Genet’s works that have been translated into English, and it was next on the list. Most of the book focuses on Genet’s time spent in Palestine in the 70s and his short return in the 80s. He also discusses the time he spent with the Black Panthers in the US, although it’s not the main subject of the book. Viewing Palestine from the point of view of Genet’s weird philosophical and moral worldview was really interesting, because what he chooses to spend time looking at or talking about is probably not what most would focus on, and because even his most political discussions are tinged with the uniquely Genet-style spirituality (if you can call it that? I don’t know what to call it) that is so much the exact opposite of objective. It’s definitely not a book about Palestine I would recommend reading without also having a grasp of Genet’s style of looking at the world and his various obsessions and preoccupations, because they really do inform a lot of his commentary. It was also written 15 years after his first trip to Palestine, partly from memory and partly from journal entries/notes, which gives it a sort of weirdly dreamlike quality much like his novels.

Blackouts by Justin Torres was so amazing! It blends real life and fiction together so well that I didn’t even realize that most of the people he references in the novel are real historical figures until he mentioned Ben Reitman, who I recognized as the Chicago King Of The Hobos and Emma Goldman’s lover. The book follows an unnamed narrator who has come to a hotel or apartment in the southwest in order to care for a dying elderly man called Juan Gay. Juan has a book called Sex Variants, a study of homosexuality from the 1940s which has been censored and blacked out. Back and forth, the narrator and Juan trade stories. The narrator tells his life story up until the present, including his first meeting with Juan in a mental hospital as a teenager. In turn, Juan tells the story of the Sex Variants book and its creator, Jan Gay (Ben Reitman’s real life daughter). The book explores the reliability of narrative, the power of collecting and documenting life stories, and of removing or changing things in order to create new or different narratives.

Again, Clarice Lispector rocking my world! Generally I can read a 200-ish page novel in somewhere between 2 and 4 hours depending on the content/writing style. Near To The Wild Heart took me 9 hours to read because I kept wanting to stop and reread entire paragraphs because they were so interesting or pretty or philosophical. The story focuses on Joana, whose strange way of looking at the world and going through life makes everyone sort of wary of her. This book is so layered I don’t really know how to describe it. So much of it is philosophical or existential musings through the vehicle of Joana. Unsurprisingly, it’s a beautiful book and I highly recommend it.

I’m just going to copy/paste my Goodreads review for Skye Papers by Jamika Ajalon: This book had so much potential that just…fell short. I could tell that it was written for an American audience but the way the reader/Skye is “taught” certain British terms and/or slang felt a bit patronizing. The characters were fleshed out and interesting and I liked them a lot but the plot crumbled quickly in the last half of the book Things sped up to a degree that felt strange and unnatural, the book’s pacing was inconsistent throughout. Perhaps that was deliberate considering the reveal at the climax, but if it was, it should have been utilized better. If the inconsistent pacing wasn’t deliberate, then it just made the book feel strange to read. There were moments were I felt like there should have been more fleshing out of certain character relationships. Even with the reveal at the end and the explanation of Pieces’ erratic/avoidant behavior, I wish there had been more fleshing out of the relationship or friendship between her and Skye at the beginning, when Skye first arrives in London. Characters who seemed cool/interesting got glossed over and instead there was a lot more dwelling on Skye walking around or busking or just hanging out. I could have gone without the last 30 or so pages after the big reveal, where Skye went back through everything that happened with the knowledge she (and the reader) had gained. It dragged on and on and at that point I felt like the whole story was so contrived that I just wasn’t interested anymore. A friend who read this book before I did said she thought it was an experimental novel that just hadn’t gone far enough, and I completely agree with her. I think if the style with the film script interludes went further, into printed visuals or more weirdness with the interludes, more experimental style with the main story, or something, it would have been really good. It just didn’t push hard enough.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson was a fun little true crime novel about a young flautist who broke into a small English natural history museum in 2009 and stole hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of preserved rare bird skins dating back to the 19th century. He was a salmon fly-tying enthusiast and prodigy, and old Victorian fly designs used feathers of rare birds. The book first goes through the heist and the judicial proceedings, then examines the niche culture of Victorian fly-tying enthusiasts and obsessives, and then chronicles the author’s attempts to track down some of the missing birds. It was a quick, easy read, but fun and an unusual subject and I quite enjoyed it.

In 2024 I don’t plan on trying to surpass or even reach this year’s number. I’m going to start off the year reading The Recognitions by William Gaddis, then I’m going to re-read a number of books that I come across at work or in conversation and think Huh, I should reread that one of these days. So far, the books I am currently planning to reread: Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, The People Of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Mustache by Emmanuel Carriere, McGlue by Otessa Moshfegh, Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neil, Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell, and Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.

[autismguy55]

hello! i was wondering if you have any headcanons about the lotf boys before they crashed on the island? like their home life and other stuff.

i hope this question doesn't bother you! your art is amazing btw :)

it doesn’t bother me at all!!! i love talking about this book! :) my thoughts aren’t all together on it so this may be a little jumbled up but. yea :) gonna put this under the cut bc it’ll get long. also this is all just headcanon!

ralph - his mom died when he was young and his dad was in the navy, so he was in the custody of nannies and babysitters most of the time. legally, his guardian is his older brother (~10 years older) but his brother works a lot and generally does his own thing so ralph doesn’t see him often. ralph spent most of his time bored inside and is very well-read because of this, though he isn’t very good at wording his thoughts. his favorite book is the coral island (in the original manuscript he talked about it constantly - lol). we know he had ponies because of some flashbacks in the book, so he’s pretty good at horseback riding and generally enjoys the company of animals.

jack - catholicsaywhat? extremely religious. he could recite the bible backwards in his sleep. he prays his rosary until it leaves indents in his hands. he had a similar childhood to ralph with absent parents but it turned him into a bitter, bitter little thing. let’s face it he’s a teacher’s pet who bullies everyone when the teacher’s back is turned. i think he spent his formative years in dusty old libraries and sitting to get his portrait painted. he has a lot of pent up rage and violence in his heart. ummm… he’s a countertenor and actually a pretty good singer for his age. he likes to hit whistle notes and piss everyone off. i think he’s less one of those bullies who beats people up and more one of those kids who just makes you feel like shit thru words. also i think he’s tall as fuck lol giraffe headass

piggy - we know he’s an orphan and his aunt took care of him - i think we know the most about piggy’s backstory than any other boy in the book. he probably has a lot of cousins (his aunt’s kids) and has to share most of his stuff. he’s very smart, obviously, but he’s poor so he doesn’t go to a good school and relies a lot on the public library. i think he’d have pets. he seems like the kind of guy to have like, a hermit crab or a lizard or fish or something. he’s generally nice to people. definitely an atheist but his aunt makes him come to church every sunday. he has one teacher who he loves and looks forward to that class every single day. pretty cool guy i don’t have anything against him.

simon - coal mines for you gayboy. jokes aside he has a lot of younger siblings and doesn’t mind taking care of little kids. definitely into photography and painting! he often goes on “wanders” and doesn’t come back until it’s 10pm and he’s covered in sticks and leaves and carrying some random woodland creature (“i made a friend!”). he’s epileptic and undiagnosed because it’s the 50s. got sick a lot when he was younger because he spent so much time outside, but his immune system has hardened up since then. he likes to read books but only so he can do character analysis. would also probably write. doesn’t have a lot of friends but he’s generally well liked at school and adults in town love him because he’s so polite. yeha.

that’s about it off the top of my head but yeaa… if u want to know more for a specific character lmk

[briamichellewrites]

49

Apples and avocados. Jason would have to remember that. He enjoyed being able to talk with his sister-in-law. Muto and Donna gave him more of an update after she and Mara left. They also explained to Jack who she was. They first met in 1998. Mike brought her to Thanksgiving dinner because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. They then dated on and off for several years, but they remained close friends. It was about a year ago that she was in a serious car accident.

She and a friend were driving home from getting something to eat. They were waiting to cross through the intersection when they were hit on the driver’s side at around a hundred miles an hour. The accident caused her to have bleeding in her brain, fluid in her heart, and a broken leg. Along with minor cuts and bruises. She had emergency surgery to stop the bleeding in her brain.

She also had open heart surgery. Because of the trauma, she had permanent, irreversible brain damage and epileptic seizures. She was nonverbal and paralyzed. How did she move around in her wheelchair? She could move her hands but she lost the ability to move her arms. That was why she got a new monitor. Mike moved in with her after the accident, so he could take care of her. Were they married? Yes, they had a small courthouse wedding.

“She doesn’t want pity or sympathy. Mike’s band loves her. They don’t treat her any differently. They’re always joking around with her while making sure she’s okay. She has another group of friends who also come over to see her or help out.”

“What happened to the person who hit her?”

“She was found guilty of driving under the influence of drugs. All of us wanted her to go to jail, but she ended up being sentenced to community service.”

They found out after the arrest that the woman who hit her was her half-sister. That family never visited her in the hospital or asked how she was doing or how they could help. Where were her parents? Her mother died when she was a baby and her father died when she was seventeen years old. Biologically, she was an only child.

Even though it was late, Mike called home to see if Bria was still awake. She was. Mara set her phone up on speaker, so she could hear what he said and respond to him with her monitor. It was like a real conversation. She told him about having dinner with his parents, Jason, and his boyfriend, Jack. They just got home from that. How was that? It was very fun. She hadn’t seen Jason in a while, so she liked talking with him.

“Mara and I showed them my monitor and how it works.”

“I’m going to have to ask him about his boyfriend. This is the first time I’ve heard about it.”

“You didn’t hear it from me.”

He laughed. “I’m sure he won’t mind you telling me.”

“We should take a vacation somewhere when you get home. We could go hiking or something.”

“That is a great idea. It can’t be too remote because I want us to be near a hospital, so we can’t go camping or anything. Just in case. I’ll look into wheelchair-accessible hiking trails.”

“Awesome. Maybe Abbie can help me look into it tomorrow when she comes over. What time is it there where you are?”

It was about four in the morning, but they had a day off to sleep and rest. That sounded wonderful. He agreed it was. Would she bring the cats hiking? They would not enjoy being on leashes, though they would probably enjoy smelling everything. He laughed and agreed that was probably true. After talking for a while about the tour, they said I love you, and good night.

Mara left the room to give them privacy. Whatever they were talking about as husband and wife was none of her business. She noticed her coming over to her, so she got up and walked over to meet her. After taking the phone, she turned it off. How was the phone call? It was wonderful. They were going to plan a hiking trip somewhere close to LA. She was going to look into it with Abbie when she came over. A vacation sounded like a great idea.

“He called me at four in the morning.”

“Oh my gosh. Does he have to get up early?”

“No, they have the day off. He can sleep in.”

“Good. I’m glad you got to talk to him. Are you tired now?”

Yes, she was. It had been a fun day and evening but she was ready to go to sleep. They went into her room. She helped her to bed before hooking up her medical equipment. Abbie would be over the next morning to bring her to a group for adults with Lou Gehrig’s disease. It would be her first time going. Abbie called the contact person listed on the website to ask if she could attend since she didn’t have an official diagnosis. She was told that yes, she could attend.

Who would be joining her? Abbie gave her name. She was her nurse and caregiver. After getting more information, they ended the call. Bria was anxiously waiting to hear if she could go. She zoomed around the house to give her a distraction. When she heard she could go, she was very excited.

What was she excited about? She was excited about meeting other people like her. Maybe they could learn more about the disease and how to get a diagnosis. She thought that was possible. They might be serving snacks. Was she okay with bringing her feeding tube and supplies? Maybe she could have something to drink. Yes, she would like that.

She would pack it into her bag for her, then after breakfast. After saying good night, she walked out and closed the door behind her quietly. She then went into the kitchen and found the notebook. Mara wrote about their morning and afternoon. She wrote about having dinner with her in-laws and her phone call with Mike. It was a later night than usual, but there weren’t any problems. She was in a great mood the entire day.

Bria was one of the easiest patients she ever worked with. She loved coming to work and hanging out with her because she never knew what to expect. Abbie felt the same way. Ten out of ten would recommend having her as a patient. They had patients who were sometimes aggressive or borderline abusive, especially when it came to patients with brain injuries. But, not her.

She was more than a patient, she was like a friend. The house was quiet, as the cats were also asleep. She went to the dining room and worked on her laptop. It was near her room, so she would hear if any of her monitors went off. Meow. Rascal jumped up onto the table. He was awake and ready to cause trouble. She sighed as he sat on her keyboard. Do you just want attention? He slowly blinked at her. After getting what he wanted, he ran off and she continued working.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia

[mycological-mariner]

For the game, 4, 16, 35, B

I’ve talked about Fred a few times before but never Tredwen (my oldest OC, Age of Sail, and proto-oc for all others to come after)

4: How easy is it to earn their trust?

Not at all. All relationships are transactional, everyone wants something, nobody ever says what they mean, etc. The only character he kind of trusts in a non-professional manner and thinks of as an old friend rats him out to the Admiralty. The only person he genuinely WANTS to trust is actively trying to kill him.

5: What makes their stomach turn?

Watching someone die. He’s done a great deal of killing people, as an officer and a mutineer, the violence is impersonal and you don’t need to stop and think because you’ll die too if you do. After the mutiny, he was cast adrift with only a 12 year old midshipman who died in front of him due to wounds over the course of several days and Tredwen couldn’t bring himself to do what needed to be done to give him a peaceful death, either.

35: How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

Well, he’s a cold bastard so no one ever tries. The friend that betrays him is always talking about his daughters and Tredwen just suffers silently through it. He does try and take an interest in the natural world and medicine and suchlike because the kidnapped med school graduate gets excited about those things (and he also feels bad for abducting the wrong person). He is trying to make an effort.

B: What inspired you to create them?

Oooh. Like I said, probably my Oldest oc. It’s been over a decade and he’s gone through a ton of iterations before becoming Jaded and Cynical Old Bastard With a Death Wish. I was reading a lot of maritime adventure books and my favourite was Jack London’s The Sea Wolf. And I was also really into Thomas Cochrane?? I used to read his autobiography aloud to work on my tongue-tiedness pre ops. I could rattle about him for hours (still can but you’re more easily excused at 10 years old).

But I can tell you the precise moment that really inspired this character: I was 11, I had made up my mind to become a sailor and one day even a captain, I went during my turn on the computer to find out what qualifications you needed and I got hit with a page saying basically “If you take seizure medication, have ever taken seizure medication or are epileptic, you’re disqualified.” I went to my room and cried. I was on 6 AEDs at that time! And so, Tredwen was born. Originally a fun, chaos-causing, curious, ex-Navy pirate captain. I was 11. But then I did get older, life just got worse, and he changed into a more world-weary, depressed, cynical and honestly kinda suicidal smuggling captain (still a Navy mutineer though) who was also a total cad. Male slut. Also moved the time period from 1800-1813 to the 1760s. Some things that DIDNT change over the years are: he’s Cornish, he antagonises the RN at every opportunity, he used to be a child miner before joining the RN, was a mutineer, and whatever is Going On between him and his 1st mate (who in early drafts was his bosun? Either way it’s kinda gay), oh and also the whole trans thing.

[chalkarts]

Dancing on Steak Knives (A true story)

I have epilepsy.  I have had many emergency HR meetings with the floor (My last performance review was not great).

I wanted to tell you about a seizure I had well over a decade ago. As fuzzy and wrecked as my memory is, this one remained with me because of the stories told to me later by friends who were there to witness it and my retellings of the day to others. The repetition has locked the event in place, while most everything else just drifts away.

I once worked at the Fox Theater in Atlanta as a bartender. A magnificent building constructed by the Shriners in 1929 and converted to a theatre after the depression. It was built in an Arabic style, the architect was told to "Out Baghdad Baghdad." Onion domes and crenelations dot the rooftops of tan and red brick. I didn't know it then but It was to be the best job I would ever have. The general flow of a regular night began with a Preshow meeting, then taking our liquor/snacks/cash drawers up 4 flights of stairs to our assigned bars.

This night went a little sideways. It was already a little bit wonky due to the date. It was Halloween night. We were all in costume. Liz's flappy plastic fairy wings could have killed any one of us on the steep stairs that night. We were also overloaded with extra cases of liquor and sheaths of beer cups. 311 was playing a Halloween show and we were the ones with all the booze. It was going to be hell.

We'd managed to get our bars set up, product in place, and drawers counted when things began to spiral. In my brain, I had more product to retrieve from the "vault". So I double timed it downstairs. When I stepped off the stairs I thought, "Weird, no one is here for the preshow meeting." My mind had reset. It was as though the past 2 hours had vanished for the moment. They weren't completely gone but they didn't matter, like an old memory.

So I did what I often did when I got to work early and was waiting for everyone.

I grabbed a knife off of a table and started pegging the dart board. It was something I started doing out of boredom years earlier and had gotten not bad at. Arm thrusting through the air, the release, a second of silence, "6". Not bad. Some of my coworkers passed through getting this or that from their lockers and double checking product counts with the boss. I just kept chucking my knife. A light weight, wooden handled, serrated steak knife. Cheap and easy to bend, we only used them to slices lemons and limes for our cocktails. But they flew well. I'd throw, walk the 10 feet to retrieve, return and repeat. No one thought anything of it, it was just me doing that thing I do.

Then we get to call time. The doors are opening, everyone else rushes up the stairs, except for me. I'm just blissfully unaware and throwing my knife. Thunk, retrieve, return, thunk, retrieve, return. A motion set on repeat. Then, Blackout. Apparently Darius came down stairs to grab his radio and saw me standing there. The knife was clutched in a death grip and I was just staring at him. I can't imagine what he must have been thinking. He was a fairly new hire so he didn't know I wasn't a murderer yet...He didn't know yet, not, I hadn't become one yet. He then got to witness the beauty and elegance of an epileptic statue fall. He said that I was standing there and just tipped forward. I Didn't give any warning. I didn't put my arms out to stop my fall. I fell like a toppled confederate memorial statue. Face first, into the glassy concrete floor. I'm not sure when the TC started or how long it lasted. Darius lost his shit. I was told there was a scream which summoned Jane who saw me laying on the ground dancing the dance of my people. She'd just seen me pretending to be Bullseye moments before and shouted, "Where's the Knife!!"

This where the good fortune comes in to play. I am a bit of a Jack of all trades sort. I find something interesting, go hard on it for a while, then learn something else. At one point I had turned my interest to mediaeval crafts. I had taught myself how to spin, cut, and weave rings into armored clothing. It was Halloween. Why wouldn't I be wearing a full coat of chain. The armor added probably 50 pounds of weight to my already 250 pound frame. So all of that fat and ferrous material ferried my face into the floor with force. I do not envy the EMS crew that had to lift me onto a gurney. On the other hand, a 14 gauge steel armored shirt is far superior to a shitty kitchen knife. I'd landed with it under me. I was flailing atop the serrated edge. My 3 month college obsession with armoring had probably saved my life. I woke up in the ER with one of the worst headaches I've ever had but nary a scratch otherwise.

When I returned to work a few days later, the Bar staff had done me a solid. It had been a concert night. We were expecting to make bank, but I dropped at the same time as the curtain. The crew was tight so they kept me in the pool and handed me 3 franklins. Best Job I'll ever have.

The moral of the story,

Learn every random weird thing you can, one of them may save your life.

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Thank you for the tag!

Okay uh characters who are me coded…

Renfield from Dracula. He’s bitter, mean, and obviously mentally ill in a way that’s extremely uncomfortable to read. He’s willing to sell out the entire cast to his old man crush (as he should, they all suck) and the narrative acts like this is condemnable for some reason when it isn’t and he did nothing wrong actually. Also Bram Stoker gave him 19th century-inherently-evil-epileptic-disease because Bram was an ableist hack, but also I’m still allowed to consider him having epilepsy to be canon because it means he’s JUST LIKE ME FOR REAL.

The Creature from Frankenstein. I think reading Frankenstein for the first time did something to me. It was all I could think about for like six months after I read it, and a big part of that was how the creature resonated with me. The way he repeatedly tried to get people to like him but none of them did, even the guy who is literally responsible for him existing, the way he turned to revenge, which made his life even more miserable, but kept going through with it until Victor was dead (and he claimed his death as his, intensifying his guilt) because he'd given up on ever being happy and wanted to die but still felt the need to take the guy who created him down with him... that all really resonated with me (maybe that's a red flag but oh well).

This list was gonna be a lot longer, but then I realized that a lot of the characters I immediately thought of were from books/book series that I have not read or even thought about in years, so I don't know if I'd still feel like those characters were so much like me anymore (I used to think that Moon and Peril from Wings of Fire and Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables were just like me for real, and on reflection I'm pretty sure 70% of my reasons for feeling that way were autism, but I haven't read any of those books in so long I can't really say anything about them.) Also the thing I'm obsessing over right now is mythology, and I feel like putting actual gods on a list of characters who are me coded is great way to get smote by divine wrath.

I will say that I re-read The Shadow out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft recently, and I originally hated that story the first time I read it, but now I've decided it's actually really good and that Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee experiencing the slow horror of realizing something in your past wasn't something that your brain made up and actually did happen is kind of me coded. (Also I'd like to retract the time I described the plot of it as "useless alien nerds waste a man's time." In retrospect, that was uncalled for.)

I'll tag @wooboomoomoo @aimless--jack and @cindereleanor

I got tagged by @fangirl-saya so here, characters that I think are very me-coded: 1. Master, from "Master and Margarita". The guy wrote a doorstopper about his special interest, was told to get fucked by the publishing industry, suffered a mental breakdown and ended up in an insane asylum his wife had to get him out of. Also he hallucinates, can't talk to people or understand the social and political norms of his time. He's like me for real.

2. The Wizard from "An Ordinary Miracle", 1978. A solipsist who summons people to tell their stories to the detriment of his relationship with his wife can be someone so personal.

3. Dracula from "Renfield", 2023. Spends half of his movie physically disabled and snarling at people because of his chronic pains, can't apologize for shit, has a big Dostoevskian Idea TM of the bright future his love interest looks at and goes: "Dude, what the everloving fuck". Also his RSD attacks are creepy and he genuinely believes that church and the psychiatric system are one and the same, which is very right of him.

4. Renfield from "Count Dracula" 1997. This guy has some nasty meltdowns, grumps at anyone and anything who looks in his general direction, quotes poetry and deifies his attraction to men. Him and his man should have been endgame, no I will not elaborate, that's the hill I will die on.

Pretty much if you have a messed up dude with no earthly tethers except for his lover (who's at least somewhat better at humaning), I'm going to relate.

I tag: @the-malfunctioning-somnambulist @ava-does-dumbassery

@fecto-forgo @scribe-of-monsters @angelofthemornings

[aceyanaheim]

Something that I didn't add to that post that got hella popular about how "act your age" and "you're only x age once" are poison is they absolutely target people whose neurodivergencies affect how childish they "act" and that's kinda enough reason to do away with them bc like its just....its just ableism. Like nothing but ableism. Like condensed ableism in a can.

[kylejsugarman]

tell me abt epileptic jesse in post el camino!!

Oh Man....Oh Lord. so id imagine that for a little bit, it doesn't even occur to him that his newfound freedom means that he can start managing his condition again. he's still relearning how to like. sleep in a bed and catching himself lifting his arms only up to his waist because he's used to his chains stopping him from going any further, so the notion that he can start doing something about his seizures again doesn't even cross his mind until he wakes up on the floor of his new cabin with a throbbing pain in the back of his hand and a racing heart because for a second it was the blue sky sliced up by the grate above him instead of the chestnut-colored crossbeams. todd started dropping whatever anticonvulsants he could get into the pit when the seizures began interfering with the cooks, but it wasn't super consistent and only barely kept a lid on his tonic-clonic seizures, which are now resurging without any meds and his stress about establishing a new life.

he reluctantly goes to a doctor just to get on meds again, stuttering through his new name and fumbling with his new licenses, convinced the receptionist is going to see him as a fraud. she just smiles at him and says "we haven't had a new patient in a while" but he still feels sick and panicked and exposed as he sits in the waiting room and goes back to the little examination room that doesn't have windows and is way too small. when the doctor comes in, he doesn't know how to get the words out because there's so much he wants to say, but he's so fucking afraid and he knows the doctor can see the scars on his face. finally, he just blurts "i need keppra. im sorry" and looks at the linoleum floor instead of at the doctor. she's quiet for a second, then asks if he's okay. he still can't look up, so he just shakes his head. "do you want to talk about it with me?" head shake. "would you like to talk about it with someone else?" pause, then a shrug. "okay. that's okay. there are some people in the area that are great. ill get you their contact info. you said you need keppra?" he nods, then a quiet "i have epilepsy. i can't remember what the real name is. its called JME." she says "juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. was keppra managing it well?" a nod. she asks him a few more questions, gentle and noninvasive, gives him the contact info of some local neurologists and psychologists and her own contact info so he can establish care at this practice if he wants, calls in a new prescription. finally, she says "whenever you're ready to talk, there's lot of people ready to listen" and he still doesn't have the right words, but he leaves feeling a little less feral.

on a lighter note, his girlfriend/future wife is a vet and when she learns that he's epileptic and doesn't have a medical ID on him (jack took his), she uses the nameplate stamping machine at her clinic to make him a new dog tag ID but forgets to switch out the vet office stamp that has the office's phone number and says "if lost, please return to" and doesn't realize until she's giving it to him. she's super embarrassed and is like "oh god im sorry, ill make you a new one" but he thinks it's funny and honestly?? it kind of feels nice to know that he has a place to go if he ever is lost again.

[sparksinger]

fic is up :D

so my little tfp fic is up and posted over on ao3...i will post it on ff.net at somepoint tomorrow...

ao3 link // https://archiveofourown.org/works/37694785

Title: All of Me 

Characters: Optimus Prime, Miko Nakadai

Summary:  When the Autobot leader witnesses Miko Nakadai have an epileptic seizure, he is surprised at how willingly the young woman lets him in.

Rating: General 

Trigger warnings:  Description of epileptic seizure and general discussion of epilepsy.

Word Count: 3522

fic below cut

Bored.

If there was one word that Miko Nakadai could use for her current mood; it would be boring.  

Her characteristic space buns drooped, almost as if in synchronisation with her deflated state of being.  

The algebra homework sat in front of her on the upturned wooden crate that she and the other kids had filched from Agent Fowler to use as a desk and general dumping ground. Her pen sat next to it, mocking her.

She turned away from the offending piece of paper, her delicate features turning downwards in an annoyed scowl.  

When am I ever gonna use fragging quadratic equations?!  She thought irately to herself, absent-mindedly fiddling with the little character figures that were attached to her belt.

It sucked being at the base when hardly anybody else was there.

Raf was in Mexico on a family holiday to visit yet more members of his very large family. Jack and Arcee were out on some famous bikers’ road whilst Bulkhead and Bumblebee were out on a fresh energon scouting trip.  

Only the stoic Autobot leader remained on the base.  Even the grumpy old medic had been called out to run some boring errand with Agent Fowler.

Miko sighed and pressed her slim fingers to her temples, moving them in small circles to try and massage away the headache that was slowly making itself known.

She allowed herself a quick glance at her watch.  11:17am. She groaned inwardly at the thought of the long day that was stretched out in front of her.  

She didn’t want to go home, as nice as her host parents were, they were just a little too…enthusiastic.  Constantly worried about how she was feeling, if she was comfortable enough, if she had remembered to take her medication.

Although she knew that they meant well and that their concern came from a place of genuine care and concern, she couldn’t help but feel incredibly suffocated by it all. This then, in turn, led her to push them away and rebel against the rules that they had set out for her.

It was only until Agent Fowler had spoken to them personally and informed them that she was interning at a state funded ‘robotics’ lab, taking part in a juvenile apprenticeship for communication, that they had backed off a little bit.

She shook herself out of her reverie, not allowing herself to ruminate too much.  

Miko was a cheerful and happy-go-lucky person by nature, but she was prone to bouts of ‘ailments of the soul’, as her father had called them back home.

His sagely voice came into her mind at that moment, like a wind blowing across a long-forgotten meadow.

My daughter, when you have these ailments of your soul, do not shy away from them. Learn to embrace them and live with and through them.  The cherry blossom cannot bloom without the rain, can it? The same applies to us, Miko-chan. Our souls cannot grow to love and cherish without a little rain from time to time.

Miko smiled at the thought of her father.  He was a small man who loved to dote on his daughter as well as their two purebred Persian cats, Chi-Chi and Ding-Dong.

At the thought of Chi-Chi, a sad smile ghosted across Miko’s lips.  She was the more intuitive out of the two felines that resided in the Nakadai household, and Miko often woke with the soft weight of Chi-Chi on her feet.

The white cat would also approach her, meowing loudly when she was about to….

Miko shook her head at herself, pushing the thought away and shoving it in a mental drawer to be dealt with later.

She got up off the worn sofa.  It had looked ready for the scrapyard when Miko had first met the ‘bots back close to two years ago, but now it looked well and truly past it.  It was so comfortable though that she couldn’t bear the thought of parting with it.  She was sure that Jack and Raf would agree with her.

And if someone does say anything about getting rid of it…I’ll just get Bulkhead to hide it somewhere on base!

Stretching lightly, Miko approached the service elevator that would take her up to the very top of the missile silo.

Pressing the button, she examined her nails while she waited for her ride to arrive, half-heartedly wondering what colour she would paint them next.

A beep alerted her to the lift’s arrival, and she walked in through the double sliding doors, hitting the ‘ascend’ button with a lazy and well-practiced nudge of her hip.

The strange residual sensation of her stomach dropping barely registered in her mind as the lift began to take her upwards.  

It wasn’t really that different to being picked up and carried by Bulkhead, she thought.

It was the same basic action and feeling…just with someone who was at least eight times her height and God knows how many times her weight.

If there was one thing that she was definitely certain of, it was that she trusted Bulkhead a hell of a lot more than a glorified pulley machine that was only held up by a flimsy chain.  

When she emerged into the warm sunlight, goosepimples erupted on her arms and on the back of her neck, causing the fine hairs located there to stand on end.

Miko loved the feeling of the sun on her skin.  

Back in Tokyo, although it would get very hot (sometimes unbearably so), Miko felt that the residents never got the true benefit of the sun’s light, broken up as it was by all the smog and pollution of the major metropolis.  

Out here in the wide-open space of the Nevada desert, it was a different matter entirely.

The sunlight seemed to permeate through her skin, penetrating her pores and warming her very bones.  

She approached the cairn of rocks that was Cliffjumper’s memorial and brushed a gentle hand across the topmost stone.

“Hey Cliffjumper, how are you doing today?”  

Although she had never met the red Autobot with the horns, she felt as if she knew him through the stories that Arcee told with such passion and fond remembrances.  

She loved watching the femme’s optics as they glazed over, lost in the memories of the story she was telling, bringing her old partner back to life even if only for a few minutes.

It was a talent that few possessed, but one that Arcee was highly adept at, and wielded with quiet modesty.  

Miko lowered herself to sit on the very edge of the silo, her legs dangling over the side. She swung them gently to and fro, enjoying the slight breeze that was always around up here; the perfect solution to keep her from getting too hot.

Most of the time.

Leaning back on her hands, she tried to swallow down the metallic taste that was in her mouth and shut her eyes against the onslaught of the headache that she knew was on the way.

She tipped her head back, exposing her throat to the sun and just sat like that for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and the occasional call of the predatorial birds that stalked the plateau of the desert spread out beneath her.

When she’d come to the top of the silo for the first time, she had been rather taken aback and somewhat…weary of the desert that seemed to spread out for as far as the eye could see.

Miko was used to skyscrapers that towered above her and busy crowds of people.  Not these wide, open expanses where seemingly anything could happen.

It was unnerving, but she’d grown to admire it…from a distance.  

She didn’t mind being out and about in an open space with Bulkhead, because he was so much bigger than she was, and she felt totally safe as a result.  

On her own?  Not so much.  

An irritating feeling of anxiety was pressing itself against her consciousness, demanding that she feel its threatening presence.  

She took a big breath in, trying to overcome it, but the metallic taste in her mouth suddenly multiplied tenfold and the headache finally burst through her mental walls and attacked her skull with a devastating ferocity.

It was too much for her small body to bear, and she surrendered into the safe embrace of the black abyss that wrapped itself around her.  

.o

Optimus Prime stood quietly at his work-station, intently studying the data pad he held in his hands.

He was taking advantage of a rare, quiet moment on the base.  His Autobots were all elsewhere undertaking duties or pursuing recreational activities.

Decepticon chatter was at a low for the time being and the only other person on the base with him was the rambunctious Miko Nakadai.  

Optimus replaced the data pad in its dock and stretched his stiff joints, his sonorous baritone rumbling deeply in involuntary satisfaction.  

He clapped a hand to cover his mouth, surprised at the sound that had escaped his vocoder.  

He made a concerted effort to keep his emotions and actions well within check when he was on the base and around his Autobots and the three children.  After all, he was a Prime and had to lead by example.  His soldiers needed to know that they could come to him with any concerns and also be safe in the knowledge that they could request his ear at any time.

A rumbling Optimus Prime certainly did not fit into that pretext.

He found his thoughts straying from his Autobots to their three young charges and in particular, Miko.

She was a unique young woman and Optimus found himself genuinely fond of the young female.  

Of course, he was fond of all the children for various different reasons, but he found his thoughts visited Miko more than Jack and Rafael.  

He thought of the strange customs of Earth and how the humans seemed to be so governed by them.

He thought back to when he had first arrived on Earth and how awestricken he’d been about the concept of gender.  

He, theoretically being a genderless alien, had found it rather difficult to reconcile himself with the idea.  

Nonetheless, the scholar within him had gotten to work and Optimus had spent long nights researching the Internet about the subject of gender.  He’d been surprised and humbled by what he had uncovered.

Always hungry for more knowledge, Optimus had begun to examine the stereotypical gender roles that many human customs seemed to be deeply steeped in and made the observation that Miko Nakadai did definitely not fit into the ‘damsel in distress’ type that was often cast upon young women who spent most of their free time with male friends.

Her willingness to run blindly into danger for the sake and protection of her companion in Bulkhead was inspiring.  

Although he would never dare voice this thought aloud for fear of causing offence, Optimus never ceased to be amazed at the way all the children, but Miko in particular would throw themselves into harm’s way with no regard for their own safety.  

He had seen, with his own optics, Miko charge at Megatron and scream at him, with no trace of fear in her strong voice.

She, a tiny human, had defied Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons with no worry or sense of self-preservation.  

It was truly remarkable.

Yet, there was a tender side that was kept hidden.  

Deep beneath her show of bravado and extrovert temperament, there was a vulnerability to Miko that she did not like to show.  Optimus had quietly observed this when Bulkhead had been injured by the Insecticon known as Hardshell.  

A distant whirring sound stirred him from his deep thoughts, and he turned to exit his private quarters, heading in the direction of the main communications room.

He trod slowly and carefully, suddenly self-conscious of the sound his footfalls made on the concrete floor.

How must this feel and sound to the humans?  They are so small…and we are titans upon their planet.

He shook his head as if to shake the thoughts away.  

He was surprised to see that the main hangar was empty.  

He surmised that the whirring sound he had heard only seconds ago must have been the elevator that the humans used to go to the top of the silo.  

Optimus turned and pushed the request button to call the freight elevator down.  

Once he ascended to the top of the silo, he immediately cast his azure optics downwards and scanned the ground for Miko.  

Alarm rose in him, causing his neural clusters to increase in sensitivity.  

Miko lay on the floor, her eyes rolled into the back of her head.  

Her limbs convulsed in stiff, jerky movements, first going rigid before flopping to the ground, only to jerk up rigidly again.  

Optimus rushed over to the young human and fell to his knees before gently sliding his palm underneath her slender body and moving her onto her side.  He used his thumb as a buffer between her head and the hard ground, bringing his free hand down to cup loosely around her, so as to stop her from inadvertently hurting herself.

Fear painted a cold line through his circuitry, although he was somewhat calmed by the cardiac reading he had just taken from her.

Though beating fast, her heart was not in danger of arrest.  

Countless seconds went by as he helplessly watched the tiny girl stiffen and loosen.  

A thin line of saliva ran down from the corner of her mouth, and he gently used the tip of his little finger to wipe it from her exhausted looking face.  

At last, the convulsions ceased, and she went completely limp in his palm, a soft groaning sound escaping from between her clenched teeth.  

He carefully drew her up against his chest, bringing his other hand beneath the one that held her for additional support.  

She pushed herself weakly to her knees, her hands trembling and white-knuckled with the effort.

Her black and pink hair sat in rumpled disarray around her petite face, framing her bloodshot eyes and pale skin.  

She rubbed at her eyes before looking up at Optimus, a frightened expression on her suddenly child-like features.

“Koko wa doko? Where am I?”  She asked in her native Japanese.

Optimus lowered his visage closer to her and responded in kind. “Wakai hito o osorenaide kudasai, anata wa anzendesu.  Do not fear young one, you are safe.”

Understanding dawned on Miko’s face.  

“Scrap,” she mumbled, switching back to English.

“Miko,” Optimus rumbled from above her, “do you require medical attention?”  As he spoke, he raised her to his face so that he could look her directly in the eye.

She shook her head, leaning heavily back against his curled fingers.  “No, no.  I’m fine. I know that must have looked scary to you, but don’t worry.  It’s happened before and it will happen again.  I knew it was coming, I just tried to ignore it and hope it would go away.

Now that the emergency seemed to be over, Optimus rearranged his seated position on the ground.

He stretched out one long leg in front of him, bringing the other one up into a bent position.

He carefully transferred Miko from his palm to sit on his knee, keeping one hand cupped firmly behind her.

“Is this comfortable for you Miko?  I can change it if you wish, but I am hesitant to put you down for the moment…just in case you were to fall and injure yourself.”

She waved his concern away with a lazy flick of her wrist.

“No worries big guy. I’m not gonna complain if you wanna hang on to me for a minute.  Kinda dizzy right now.”

Optimus frowned in concern.  

Miko noticed.  “Don’t worry.  It’s normal after a seizure.  Give me ten minutes or so and I will be okay.  I’ll need to sleep but I will be fine.”  

Never one to beat around the bush, Optimus spoke up.  “In that case, Miko, may I ask you a question?”

Miko met his gaze, some colour already coming back to her pale cheeks.  “You already did, but sure, you can ask me another one.”  

Optimus awarded her with one of his rare smiles, and she gave him a weak grin in return.  

“What was that you just experienced?  Forgive my ignorance, but you said it was normal and that it has happened before, but I have never witnessed another human go through what you have just gone through.”

Miko sighed and readjusted herself on his knee, leaning back against his curled hand and letting her legs stretch out on the surprisingly comfortable surface.

“I have a condition called ‘Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy’.  Basically, it means that I can have fits or seizures at any given time.  There are things that make having a seizure more likely, like me not having enough sleep, missing my medication, some strobe lighting.  I’ve not had a seizure for about a month, but I could feel this coming on this morning.

“Epilepsy is a sudden burst of electrical activity in the brain that causes seizures or fits – what you just saw me have.  I have three types of seizures: myoclonic, tonic-clonic and absence seizures.  I don’t have rescue medication because I recover quite quickly, although I do need to sleep afterwards, because they kinda knock me out.

“So…yeah, that’s basically it.  That’s all of me.”

Optimus studied the young woman carefully, watching for any signs of distress or fear.

He found none.

“Well, Miko, would you allow me to do one thing this afternoon?”  

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “What’s that big guy?”  

He smiled gently at her, offering her his palm.  When she faltered slightly, he very very gently plucked her up between the finger and thumb of his free hand and deposited her onto his broad palm.  

“Dude!  Your hand is like a king-size bed compared to Bulk’s!”  

Optimus appraised her through curious optics as he observed the rush of blood to her cheeks.

“Erhh…sorry big guy if that came off as rude.  You just have really big hands…but I suppose you would, being the biggest ‘bot and all that…”  

He uttered a low chuckle and rose slowly to his feet, being extremely careful not to jostle Miko even the tiniest bit.  

She was a feather weight on his palm, and there was a light, fluttering and tickling sensation as her tiny hands explored his for something to hold on to.  

She settled on his forefinger and poked her head out between that digit and the one next door.

“Woahhh, you’re so tall dude!  This is really high.”  

He watched in mild amusement as she withdrew her head and tightened her grip on his finger.  “Anyway,” she continued, “what did you want me to let you do?”  

Optimus pressed the descend button in the freight elevator.

“Would you allow me to keep an optic on you for the remainder of the day?  You can also have a recharge; my private quarters are equipped with a bed that would be suitable for such an undertaking.”  

Miko nodded, strangely quiet.  “Hey, lemme up there for a sec,” she said, motioning to his face.  

He obliged her out of pure curiosity, wondering what she wanted to do that needed to be in such close proximity to his face.  

He felt his Spark skip a beat when her tiny hands pressed on either side of his facial plating, followed by a strange but not altogether unpleasant sensation of a soft, tiny pressure that was applied just above his lip plates.

Miko drew back, settling herself to sit back down in his vast palm.

He realised what she had done.  

She had kissed him.  Just a simple peck.  

“I umm…just wanted to say thank you, for…looking after me.”  

Optimus surprised himself by dipping his head forward and returned her tender affection, planting a gentle, metallic kiss on the top of her head.  

“It was my pleasure Miko, I just want to make sure that you are safe and comfortable.”

He suddenly realised that the lift had reached the ground level of the silo, and he hurriedly stepped out.  

Miko turned around in his palm to regard him through her shy, hazel eyes.

“Umm, Optimus?  Can we keep what happened up there between us for now?  I’m not sure if I am ready for everybody to know yet…about my epilepsy.”

Optimus felt his Spark go out to the young female.  “Of course, Miko.  If that is what you want, then that is what shall happen.  Just do me one favour though; tell me when you think a seizure is coming on?”  

“Deal,” she said with a fervent grin, leaning back against the wall of his curled fingers.

And like that, the Autobot leader carried the young girl into the bowels of the base, each humbly surprised at the new sense of camaraderie that had formed between them.

[idiotwhotalkstoomuch]

How did everyone react to Yuus real age and connection to the great 7?

 MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THANK YOU FOR ASKING CAUSE I ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA ON HOW THEY FOUND OUT 

Note: Some characters already knew her age and connection to the Great Seven so they will react to her appearance in NRC

Btw for looks she looks very generic hence why some boys who know her history overlooked her. (by generic like long brown hair, blue eyes and eyebags. I’ll show a picrew of how I intend her to look soon when I finally pick a favorite)

Also Yuu is royalty of the Valley of the Thorns. When I get back to writing everything will come together.

Also also I need more research to do all these characters properly but since everyone needs a reaction I asked my friend for help so if there seems to be a difference then yeah you know why.

How they found out

(Post overblot Riddle)

*in the infirmary*

Yuu: Relax I was only cut-

Sebek: *enters infirmary* Your Highness! Malleus-sama ordered me to check on you after the news of the overblot came out!

Ace: Wha-

Deuce: Y-your Highness!?!

Yuu: *chuckles*

Yes the scene is somewhat comedic but its just how it is. Me and my friend liked the scene better as a comedic one than a serious one as things get more serious later on so may as well keep up some humor.

HEARTSLABYUL

Riddle Rosehearts - Very shocked and ashamed. He knew of Yuu’s existence and actually read about her and her history as a child but couldn’t tell it was her on first glance because they’re meetings had him in a bad mood from troublemakers so he didn’t notice.

 Treats her with the utmost respect even if she tells him to relax. He’s very embarrassed that someone who’s been in the presence of all the Great Seven and befriended or in some cases raised them had to see him and the dorm in such a state.

Trey Clover - It came off as quite a surprise to him especially since he had been treating her like one of his kouhai. He’s one of the more relaxed about the reveal and will only ask if there needs to be changes in the way she’s addressed but overall their interactions are hardly affected. Though he will stop treating her like one of his kouhai as she is older than her by quite (*cough centuries*) a lot.

Cater Diamond - See this man had the advantage of putting a picture of him with Yuu in Magicam which definitely brought out someone who knew of Yuu.

He was pretty surprised to see a bunch of comments asking if that’s legit and was going to ask her about it but Unbirthday party preparations got in the way. Needless to say wanted another selfie with her on his Magicam to tell all his followers it’s legit and how he JUST found out.

Ace Trappola - Isn’t all too worried about it. He’s not one to care all too much about titles and all that stuff but he does take her age as something to tease her on.

When Grim and Deuce are annoying him or causing trouble, he’ll joke about how their troubling the “grandmother” and overall takes it without much effect on their relationship.

Deuce Spade - Is shook beyond belief and has to go and mentally process the reveal.

Should he tell his mom that he’s met such an important historical figure? Wait no should he ask Yuu about it? Would it be rude? AH! SHE SAW HIS DELINQUENT SIDE WHILE ARGUING WITH ACE!

Poor boy is so confused on what to do especially since Yuu came from a magicless student that supposedly has a curse according to the mirror to royalty that raised or befriended all members of the Great Seven.

SAVANACLAW

Leona Kingscholar - Well this lion will continue to chug his respect women juice.

He already respects women back at his home and while for them its due to their strength, in Yuu’s case its cause of her age and wisdom that she shares from time to time. 

Ruggie Bucchi -   Ruggie would joke around Yuu and treat her like he does his grandmother. He'd probably poke on her getting old and how she probably shouldn't do so much strenuous activities both teasingly and seriously (much to Yuu's dismay. Her body doesn’t actually age.)

Doesn’t rob from or prank her mainly because he doesn’t feel like getting chewed out by the others who treat her like a goddess for befriending and even raising some of the Great Seven.

Jack Howl - Jack is cautious of his behavior around Yuu as he is a respectful young man.

Tends to worry a bit over her being very casual and relaxed in Twisted Wonderland especially since she’s such an important person in history and tends to be a bit overprotective of her.

Is still tsundere.

OCTAVINELLE

Azul Ashengrotto - He. Freaks. Out.

He did extensive research and studying as a child so he knows all about her and her history with the Great Seven.

He wonders how such a historic and ancient woman can casually walk around NRC with little recognition and hopes he can stay calm and suave if she were to ever approach him.

Jade Leech -  Jade is intrigued and amused with Azul’s reaction to her. As long as both Azul and Floyd were happy, he couldn’t care less. Though he does want to know if she can cook, he wants help in Mostro Lounge.

Is pleased to have someone to help wrangle Floyd in his more problematic moods. (”In the years I’ve lived in I’ve seen many moody people this isn’t much)

Floyd Leech - Floyd really couldn’t care less.

He sees the little shrimpy (she’s 170 cm tall) and wants to squeeze her, so what if she’s like 900? Floyd wants to play with the shrimpy!

SCARABIA

Kalim Al Asim -  Kalim is, well, excited. He’s awe struck at the fact she’s been alive for that long and would probably want to know more about her life. Kalim is a curious kid.

Despite his energetic nature, he likes hearing her share stories of the past.

When he wants to be more independent, he goes to her for help since she’s lived for so long.

Jamil Viper -  Jamil would be curt and formal, though he’s currently having a epileptic brain seizure. Jamil was well versed in history, and well...having someone his influential just struck something.

Is cautious of her during the Scarabia arc since she might be old and wise enough to see through his plan.

POMEFIORE

Vil Schoenheit - Vil was already interested in Yuu at the beginning due to being a woman and had a lot of potential but was unimpressed at her eyebags but likes her mature appearance despite being a first year- 

Wait the potato is HOW old?

Vil is impressed. Yuu is hundreds of years old yet looks to be in her early twenties at most.

When he learns that Yuu had even met the Evil Queen, he immediately went to ask about what the beautiful Evil Queen did to look as gorgeous as she did and Yuu happily indulges him.

Rook Hunt -  Rook is undeniably curious, especially after Yuu manages to evade him. He makes it a habit to monitor her movement, randomly ambush her, and try and chase her around the campus. His success varies on the amount of potato's that surround her. He stays away when she's near Diasmonia.

He enjoys chasing her whenever Yuu is around Ruggie or at rare times, Leona as he'd say, "It's hitting two birds with one stone"

Rook scopes out and probably doesn't intervene as much, opting to observe her movements.

Epel Felmier -  Epel is essentially confused, and is currently feeling pity for her as she’s being crowded by so many students. He grimaces when Rook takes interest in her. Epel sends Apple Juice for life fuel. He knows she’ll need it

IGNIHYDE

Idia Shroud -  Idia has heard of Yuu, especially with their rather complicated family history. He’s pretty formal towards Yuu.

Generally avoids her even with their family in better terms and Yuu even friends with Hades now. Is upset at her and Ortho’s alliance to get him out of his room.

Ortho Shroud - When Ortho hears her age and experience, Ortho is overjoyed.

He’s so happy to have Yuu join him in his mission to get his brother out of his room. Is oblivious to past family drama.

DIASOMNIA

Malleus Draconia - Yuu had raised him and his family up to his grandmother, the Witch of Thorns, of course he recognized her as soon as he saw her. He’s surprised to see her in NRC but its a welcome one. He uses a spell on Ramshackle to make it habitable for the woman that raised him alongside Lilia. 

Finds it amusing that the students had no clue. She’s in history books though Yuu does have a rather mediocre and youthful appearance so it must be why they mistook her as a student.

Yuu had asked him to keep quiet on it but unfortunately it seems that Sebek had exposed her while doing orders on his behalf. He apologizes over it and of course Yuu isn’t mad over it, more exasperated.  

Lilia Vanrouge - Lilia is amused that Yuu was mistaken by the teachers as a teenager that could be a student especially since Yuu is older than himself by a few hundred years. 

When the cat’s out of the bag, he’ll openly tease the students to be nicer to Yuu who could’ve been friends or related to their great great great great great etc or less grandparents and is their elder.

Is amused as the students attempt to get Yuu into more modern culture, having been accustomed to letters and more traditional ways for so long.

Silver - While Silver was primarily raised by Lilia, he’s surprised to see obaasa- Lady Yuu in NRC. 

He isn’t affected all too much since he isn’t addicted to guarding Malleus and Yuu like Sebek but he is quite happy to see her and can always tell when she visits since he tends to wake up with a pillow at the random place he slept in.

Sebek Zigvolt - He is ABSOLUTELY A P P A L L E D. Yuu to Sebek, is the most honourable woman to have ever walked the face of this planet. She has managed to raise most of the great seven and bring kingdoms to prosperity. She helped Malleus-sama train, she helped Lillia-sama rise through the ranks and even brought Maleficent to power in her early days.

The moment he gets to catch up to her in Ramshackle, Yuu has to calm him down because he goes feral when he sees where she has to live in but is appeased when Malleus uses magic to make it habitable and helps her personalize it.

Very clearly struggles to address her casually, shown with him being the one to expose her post overblot Riddle. 

Keep sending asks bois I love receiving them. Sorry this took a while there was a lot to go over.

[interstellix]

november; epilepsy awareness month

since november is epilepsy awareness month, I’ve been considering dropping something like this for a while now, though hesitated since I wasn’t sure how many it would reach out to. however, not too long ago, I got the request of writing about it and explain what it is like to live with the condition (thank you anon :’)) and i figured that, really, there’s no harm in doing it. so, i decided to put this out there and hope that this reaches out to as many people as possible. admittedly, this ended up longer than planned but if you still decide to read it, thank you, big kudos to you :)

before actually going on, i may add that epilepsy, like most conditions, is something that varies from person to person so part of this is written based on my own experience with it - if a fellow epileptic wants me to add something, or feels like there’s something to correct, please do let me know.

i'm writing this purely to let people know about at least some of the pain with epilepsy, because it's not just having seizures. it's also worrying your family and friends, having to adjust your lifestyle to it (which i’ll come to a lil bit later), medicination, the side-effects of medicination, the fear of forgetting medication, the side-effects of forgetting taking medication even just a single day, possible anxiety or depression, embarrassment, hospital visits, tests, not being able to do certain things you want to do, people joking about it and making fun of you, scary and random body jerks, fear of waking up in an ambulance, fear of waking up with serious injuries or fear of not waking up at all - all of these are things that come with epilepsy and it's more of a pain than, to be honest, non-epileptics can imagine.

all that said, to those who have heard about epilepsy (or not at all) but don’t know what it actually means, is a neurological disorder; the activity in your brain becomes abnormal and uneven which mostly leads to seizures but also various sensations or loss of awareness. so it’s not constantly on-going and only actually happens when something triggers the brain to have that abnormal activity. it can happen to anyone, and when i say anyone, i mean anyone can have seizures, it’s just that it doesn’t automatically always mean that you have epilepsy (basically, epilepsy -> seizure; seizure -> not always epilepsy).

again, the condition is different from epileptic to epileptic, meaning that the triggers for seizures can vary a lot and depending on what kind of epilepsy it concerns. my own main triggers are flashing lights (also called photosensitive epilepsy) and lack of sleep but it can also be stress, skipping meals, overeating caffeine/alcohol/drugs/medicine, head trauma (aka head injury), brain damage (for example a tumor or stroke), etc.

symptoms for seizures can also vary. i’ve noticed that a lot of people think it’s always going unconscious and violently shaking/jerking, but it can also be staring blankly at nothing for a short amount of time, losing awareness, have rapid twitches in arms and/or legs, body stiffening, muscles going limp, and on and on.

honestly, one particular thing i feel like people need to know is that epileptics are just as human as others. aside from the condition itself, it socially and emotionally feels like shit when we’re treated differently. what i’ve, personally, often seen epilepsy being treated as contagious, a disease, mental disorder/illness or psychological disorder is in reality a neurological disorder. for the love of god, please take that into mind when you meet someone with epilepsy (especially if it’s your first time) because, while there’s nothing wrong with any of those, it’s really not fun when people treat you like it. we’re still human, and more human than those who think otherwise. on top of that, most epileptics are able to live just like anyone else, sometimes perhaps on the cost of adjusting your lifestyle to it, but by the end of the day many of us can live the same way as anyone else.

adding to that, if someone actually opens up to you about their epilepsy, tbh i hope you’re feeling grateful. for some, it’s not always an easy topic to talk about it so when they actually do let you on about it, you should know that it’s because they’re putting their trust in you.

something else i want to bring up is the do’s and don’t’s if you see someone have a seizure. it can be scary, understandable and this might sound ridiculous, but stay calm, for the sake of yourself, the person who’s having the seizure and people in your surroundings. this one got quite lengthy, so i’ll put it under the divider. thank you for making it this far, seriously, but it’d be great if you continued since this, no joke, can save a life.

time the seizure: most seizures end within a few minutes but if it’s still going on after five minutes, call an ambulance, whether you know if they have a history of seizures or not (what goes that, you can also check if the person is wearing some kind of epilepsy i.d)

surroundings (brief mention of blood): basically, bring the person away from harmful objects. to bring up my own personal examples, i have, during two different seizures, hit my head against a table (literally broke the entire thing) and against a shelf. while the first one miraciously didn’t give me more than a bump, the latter caused a jack and i ended up bleeding from my head. keep in mind though, that the objects don’t always have to be harmful for the head, but any part of the person’s body. obviously (i hope), bring them out from water if that’s where the seizure started.

turn the person to lay on their side: while they’re still unconscious, don’t let them lay on their back as this can block the airway. instead, put something soft under their head and loosen anything tight that might be around their neck.

don’t put anything in their mouth: for the love of god, just don’t. be it food or a cloth or something of that kind. a lot of people do especially the latter to prevent the person to bite their tongues off or swallow it (no, you don’t) but this just increases the risk of blocking their airway or making them choke on it. yet again my own personal example, this happened during my first seizure and i ended up having a cardiac arrest (how the hell i’m still alive, i still don’t know).

don’t restrain or hold their body: aside from turning them to lay on the side, don’t restrain their body, for example holding onto the parts that are jerking. this can also cause injuries or make it more aggressive.

stay with them: not only during but also after the seizure, stay with them. seizures are really, really exhausting both the brain activity and since the muscles in their body stiffen during the seizure. it can also cause one hell of a confusion/dizziness and stress so stay with them and calmly explain what happened as well as where you are. if you called for medical help, please, try to wait until they’ve arrived.

don’t give them cpr during the seizure: just don’t, it’ll only make it worse. you can, however, do it after the seizure in case the person doesn’t wake up and has stopped breathing.

also, if you’re an angel like @astronomlns and warn an epileptic for something that might include flashing/rapid lights, i love you and hope you’re having a good day :D

[artezui]

so, about cyberpunk 2077,

it really seems that the game could fix its issues with transphobia and ableism in pretty much three (kind of) small updates:

1) have an option to disable the epileptic visual scene to allow those with epilepsy or anyone that experiences seizures to y’know, not have one

2) address the poster. personally i don’t think it needs to be removed, as the artist specifically says that it was designed to make you uncomfortable, which it absolutely fucking does. she says that the poster is meant to “reflect exploitation” of the transgender community in the year the game takes place, which is understandable and honestly given the context of the entire game and society by that point, pretty much everything in the game is sexualized. it would only make sense that transgender communities are also exploited in a similar fashion.

however, that is not the issue. the issue comes from the fact they haven’t contrasted it with jack shit. it’s essentially just there without anyone saying “ugh fuck that thing”. there is also a considerable lack of just... non-cisgender representation, honestly, throughout the game from what is being reported beyond just the fucking poster.

you can argue that “there is representation in that you can change your genitalia and remove it and be gender-nonconformist”, which is a pretty good thing. however, the way they’ve decided to handle pronouns in this game is pretty counteractive to that. they’ve assigned it by your tone of voice chosen in the game.

as a trans woman, i can’t stand that. my voice is pretty deep compared to a cisgender woman, and while i am trying to feminize my voice, i would fucking hate it for someone to refuse to identify me by my chosen pronouns just because my voice doesn’t match, regardless of what i look like. this is essentially the game doing that.

how do you fix this? update number three!

3) just make pronouns a separate option to choose in the character creator. all they have to do is put another selection option on the character creator to just let whoever be whatever they want, whether it’s male, female, or anything else.

these are simple changes. hopefully the studio can actually implement them rather than like, fuck this up, because they can and honestly probably will fuck this up.

(everything above was just my take on this issue and how i feel, if i’ve gotten something wrong then please update me. i want to learn, because honestly i haven’t looked into this game much until the release date has neared, which is... 2 days from this post’s creation, apparently. just don’t be a dick)

[aion-rsa]

Val Kilmer Documentary Punctures the Actor’s Bad Boy Myth

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Leo Scott and Ting Poo’s new documentary feature, Val, is not a mortality play. It is a rehearsal for an upcoming act. During a tour of his one-man stage show, Citizen Twain, Val Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer. The actor underwent two tracheostomies, and now can only speak while covering a tube. The narration of the new film is thus done by his son Jack Kilmer, allowing the pair to share a non-verbal connection throughout the journey, and through time and expression itself. While there are flourishes of humor, the documentary is a serious study of an artist who has always struggled to be understood, told through the selective memory of Kilmer’s POV.

“I’ve wanted to tell a story about acting for a very long time,” Kilmer says toward the beginning of the documentary. “And now that it’s difficult to speak, I want to tell my story more than ever.” Kilmer is an artist, one who takes his vocation very seriously and introspectively. An actor’s voice is more than a tool, it is their primary source of communication. Non-verbal exchanges are important, but dialogue is the primary idea delivery system in staged and filmed works. Surgical procedures have split his throat, shredding the scope of his instrument. In the film, Kilmer is forced to project his story on the empty space between the notes.

Among Kilmer’s many defining roles, the one which appears to ring truest is his encapsulation of Jim Morrison, the poet and lead vocalist of the Doors in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic, The Doors. The young Kilmer is shown onstage in a small club, lost in the music, awaiting his cue to become one with the mic. Moments in Kilmer’s personal history, like how the actor was tagged with a “difficult” label, are consigned to rests. The most overt reference to Kilmer’s “bad boy” reputation comes from Robert Downey Jr., who smashes the notoriety to bits in a moment of impromptu dismissal.

There is no gossip here. There is no discussion of A-list-bad behavior. Kilmer sees it all as artistic license.  He was searching for honesty, he remembers. Choices like lying on top of a mattress filled with ice in order to feel a real pain during his last scene with Kurt Russell in Tombstone come across as perfectly valid. Kilmer is still bitter over spending four months learning to play guitar for Top Secret!, and his first note informs him the director thinks he looks funnier faking it. There is little evidence of unprofessionalism, only growing pains.

The bulk of Val comes from clips of 8mm home video footage Kilmer has been shooting most of his life. “I’ve kept everything, and it’s been sitting in boxes for years,” Kilmer informs us. The archive was intended to tell a story about “where you end and the acting begins.” We are gifted with moon shots of both Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn, which have nothing to do with the films Apollo 13 or The First.

Early self-directed screen tests provoke a series of what-ifs. A tortuous encapsulation of a Juilliard acting class is a lesson in what-nots. Val’s hand-held approach to The Island of Dr. Moreau is a highlight. The actor respectfully rocks his co-star and idol, Marlon Brando, on a hammock they both wish was strung to John Frankenheimer. Please turn off the camera, the film’s replacement director demands. But Kilmer only hits pause when it’s time to rehearse.

The behind-the-scenes camcorder footage from sets of Top Gun, Tombstone, and The Doors are treasure troves in themselves, and possibly underused. Most of the audience will be very interested in the candid youth and truth recorded over his career. Val uses the archival clips and unearthed b-roll to establish a chronology.

Many videos were made at home in Los Angeles with Kilmer’s younger brother Wesley, who had an epileptic seizure and drowned at age 15. His death casts a mournful pall following the news that Val was the youngest applicant ever accepted as a drama student at Juilliard. Kilmer calls his brother “an artistic genius,” and one of the most revealing things to come out of the documentary is how often Kilmer used this brother’s art to augment the backgrounds of the sets he is living through on film.

Seeing how Stone speaks about Kilmer now makes me wonder if Val would have been able to put in the same performances in his movies if he knew it at the time. In his audition tapes for Full Metal Jacket and Goodfellas, we see an actor who needs to be taken seriously. He flies 6,000 miles to hand deliver his tape to Stanley Kubrick in London.

While he makes no comment, footage reveals Kilmer’s favorite Batman was played by Adam West. “Every boy wants to be Batman,” we hear, and see the Caped Crusader in every era of Kilmer’s life. A short, animated film he and his brother made with what looks like crayon is a Batman spoof. He still glories in the moment he got deposited behind the classic TV series’ iconic wheels as a youngster visiting the lot. It appears Kilmer still can’t pass a grocery store Batmobile without feeding it quarters. He wears the classic blue Halloween ensemble expecting tricks and treats as a kid, and as a daddy with his kids.

Don’t expect to see Kilmer wearing his cinematic puffed rubber suit at home, and it’s not because he left it at the dry cleaners. Footage old and new, homemade or professionally recorded, presents the Batsuit as an albatross. Heavy rests the cowl. He has to be lifted from chairs, deposited on marks, and his only identifying feature on the set of Batman Forever is a chin and bottom lip. Anyone could have been behind the mask, and the human superhero envied the subhuman villains. Kilmer comes across as quite happy Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones are able to create fully formed performance art in their portrayals. But he wanted to play with those toys.

“Batman Forever,” Kilmer laments, “whatever boyish excitement I had going in was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit. I realized it was just my job to show up and stand where they told me.” As the captured past footage is juxtaposed with modern sequences, we get an unfiltered glimpse of how little this has changed. The sequence of Kilmer at the Comic-Con autograph booth is wrenching. He initially didn’t want to take the part of Iceman in Top Gun because he felt it glorified the military. So many fans ask him to sign “You can be my wingman” on their souvenirs. It turns his stomach. He throws up in a garbage can and wheeled through hallways with a blanket over his head. Trouper that he is, he returns to the booth to finish out the signatures.

Kilmer blurred himself into the role of Mark Twain. There is a beautiful sequence where the actor walks through town to the beach, in full stage makeup, dressed in the signature white suit and long mustache of his character. It is extremely telling when Kilmer tells the camera it’s hard enough writing a good screenplay, much less a great one, which itself doesn’t even match what he feels he needs to bring to a script of a film version of Citizen Twain. Kilmer sold his ranch in New Mexico to finance the project. The documentary only captures some of the frustrations.

Most of the anecdotes are guarded, and all the admissions are part of a subjective narrative. Kilmer’s arc has rough edges, these tales are too smooth, and leave little room for impressionistic interpretation. Kilmer met his former wife, Joanne Whalley, when she was starring in a West End play directed by Danny Boyle, but he didn’t approach her.

“She was brilliant, and I was in town making fluff,” Kilmer concedes. It’s all about the art, even appearances. The documentary hints that Kilmer’s dedication to character did the most damage to their relationship. Wearing the same pair of leather pants for nine months could almost be on the books as probable cause for divorce in Hollywood.

Similarly, Kilmer’s Christian Science upbringing is brought up, and dropped. There is a loving but ambiguous undertone to Kilmer’s relationship with his once-rich-and-powerful father, who put his son in debt after trying to become a southern California land tycoon. But a sequence on his Swedish mother which juxtaposes a car ride he took with her when he was a child with one of being driven to her funeral speaks volumes without words.

Val is about the next step. “What’s past is prologue” William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. Kilmer pondered the “too, too solid flesh” while rehearsing Hamlet, and the documentary opens after the actor faced his own mortality. Kilmer swears he feels better than he sounds and, while he finds little to regret in his memories, he expects less in the ones he has yet to create.

Val can be seen on Amazon Prime Video.

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[doof-doofblog]

"Our Family's Alright - That's All That Matters!"

Friday 21st May 2021

Hello again everyone! Hope you're all doing well! Today I'll be reviewing Friday's episode, before I do however I know I missed Thursday's episode so I'm going to give you a quick debrief on what happened during that episode. Needless to say that everyone was more than excited when they learnt that Sonia's Dad, Terry, had arrived on the Square! It seemed that he had made quite an impression on Tiffany specifically, she seemed more excited than anyone. But I do have to mention the iconic quote she said to Dotty, after over a decade since she last quoted it, Tiffany told Dotty where to go ... "You're NFI - Not Flippin' Invited!" ... absolutely iconic!! However, after Terry making a good impression with Sonia's family, Sonia couldn't help the feeling that it was too little too late for her Dad to be walking back into her life. As politely as she could, she informed Terry that a simple drink isn't going to make up for long lost years without her Dad. Understanding her completely, Terry left informing her that Jack has his number if she ever wanted to call him and reach out to him to possibly rekindle their relationship. Sonia watched as Terry turned away and walked off into the night.

Meanwhile, Martin makes a fool of himself and lashes out Zack after believing Lily's lies about Ruby cheating on him with Zack. After punching Zack in front of Sharon and Ruby in the club, Ruby puts him straight that his daughter is lying to him and how it hurts that he believed his child without even talking to Ruby first. Is Martin now in the dog house? What is he going to do make it up to Ruby? But also, how are they going to deal with Lily and her lies?!

Elsewhere Mick was preparing himself for court, Frankie still feeling the pressure of her Mum asking her to give a character reference for her. Although I can understand how Frankie must be feeling like piggy in the middle at the moment, she wants to be there for Mick, but I don't know, even though she loves her Mum, she can't stand by her after what she's learnt.

--

Anyway focusing on Friday's episode, I'm going to begin with Sonia and Dotty. I guess it's fair to say Dotty and Sonia have always had a rocky relationship, they've never really seen eye-to-eye. Does Dotty really get a thrill out of slagging off Sonia? I feel there is more to it really and in this particular episode, I think Dotty gives Sonia some food for thought.

After having a bit of a row at home, Dotty leaves and heads to the club, but Sonia follows to check if she's alright, it here that Dotty admits to her that she'd give anything to have one last chat with her Dad, how can she stand there and watch willingly as Sonia just let's her Dad walk out of her life. At the beginning of the episode, Sonia claims that she's surprised that Tiffany believed everything that Terry had said about his life, in Sonia's eyes - why should she believe this man who, even if he is her Dad biologically, he is a bit of a stranger to her. She knows nothing about him and he knows very little about her, as far as she was concerned, it's too little too late to make up for lost time.

But I think after Dotty admitting that she's give anything to be with her Dad again, Sonia takes these words on board. I think she probably will reach out to her Dad and slowly begin to build a relationship with him. What do you guys think? I'm not 100% sure whether Terry is going to be a permanent role in the soap, but it'll be interesting to see what he brings to the Square, what friendships he'll make and whether we'll find out anything about is past?

--

Elsewhere, Sharon has informed her brother that regardless of him not actually sleeping with Ruby, he's not as innocent as he makes out, as he has been continuously flirting with the married woman, purposefully winding Martin up and instructs him to apologise and take him for a pint. But, Ruby seems less than impressed with her husband's actions as we see he has been sleeping on the sofa. As he wakes, Ruby walks in informing him that she's been up since the early hours of the morning looking after his children, almost kind of giving them guilty treatment. She mentions how she was looking forward to him coming home from Dubai, how much she had done for his children whilst he was away and he throws it back in her face by listening to Lily's lies. It's fair to say that Ruby is deeply hurt and informs Martin that he has to confront his daughter and stop her from saying all these horrible lies, otherwise Lily or Ruby herself will be moving out.

Realising the seriousness of his mistake, he gives his word to Ruby and eventually gets his chance to speak to Lily. I believe that Lily is still holding a grudge against Ruby for putting her Mum in prison for something she didn't do, so feels she needs to get her own back in some way. Is she really trying to split her Dad and Ruby up to maybe teach Ruby a lesson? However, even though she's a kid and she's missing her Mum, what she is doing is really out of order, making up lies about Ruby just to get back at her.

Martin confronts his daughter and informs her that she needs to stop the lies and give Ruby a break. But it's not just the lies she's been saying, even cutting up her deceased Mum's wedding dress. Even though Lily claims she didn't know it was Ruby's Mum's, she still shouldn't have done it. This is an interesting one though, who's side are you on? Ruby's or Lily's? As Martin instructs his daughter to be more respectful to his wife, Lily leaves the house without saying a single word, although it's clear she's not very happy about it. Later we see her sat at the allotments calling her Nan, asking whether she can move back in with her.

Of course Jean isn't going to see her Granddaughter out on the streets, but I feel that maybe Jean will start to ask questions about why Lily is wanting to return to live with her. Actually speaking of Jean, I happened to notice that maybe two or three times in this episode, she complained of stomach pains - although she used the excuse of having prunes for breakfast and it has made her slightly windy. But something is telling me it could be more than that. Could it be the cancer? I have to be honest, I am still stunned to realise that no one in her family knows about her cancer and only Ruby is aware about how terminal she is. If Jean takes a turn for the worse, surely Ruby is going to have to inform them about what she knows? I swear though if EastEnders come to the decision of killing Jean off, I will be deeply upset!!! (Let's hope it won't come to that!)

--

Now of course the main focus of the episode was Mick and his family. Today was the day that they had been dreading, but yet they had all been waiting for. It was the day that Mick would finally face Katy in court. Even though he is twitching his leg with nerves, he's looking as ready as he'll ever be as the cars pull up outside the Vic, ready to take him and the family to court.

As everyone gathers in court, Frankie is trying to tell both Mick and the rest of the family something, whatever it is it seems really important, but she's never given the opportunity to say what she needs to say. As The Carter family make their way into the court, you can't help but feel for Mick as he comes face-to-face with Katy, the person who abused him as a child, one last time. Frankie is sat beside her Dad as she tries one last try to attempt to tell him something really important, but unfortunately the moment is taken from her a second time.

As statements are read out in the court, it becomes clear what Frankie was so desperately trying to tell her Dad and his family. It turns out that Frankie did give her a Mum a character reference, regardless of what she did in her past, Frankie cannot deny that she was a good Mum to her. Katy looks over to her daughter with a smile as the Carter family look over to Frankie in shock. Frankie almost looks as if she feels she's betrayed her Dad's side of the family, but Mick does the most honest and decent a thing a Dad could. He takes a firm hold of Frankie's hand, informing her that he completely understands her giving her statement, at the end of the day, Katy is her Mum and she gave her a happy childhood, regardless of her crimes.

As the court goes into recess, The Carter's confront Frankie about her decision, informing her that she could've jeopardised the length of sentence that Katy could receive for her crimes. Shirley more so than anyone is voicing her disappointment in Frankie, but Frankie defends herself. Do they really have wanted her to be a victim of Katy's also? Frankie cannot deny that her Mum gave her a good childhood, and Mick interrupts the discussion claiming that Frankie did the right thing and he completely understands and supports his decision.

During this whole interaction, Nancy makes herself scarce and gets some fresh air. But as the court is called in to hear the final statement and the verdict, Mick goes to search for Nancy as the rest of the family enter the courtroom. As he makes his way outside, he's faced with the terrifying scene of Nancy having a vicious epileptic fit in the middle of the road. Mick acts fast and stays with his daughter, putting his jacket under her head so she doesn't get any lasting brain damage from bashing her head against the gravel. Devastatingly, the rest of the Carter family have no idea what's happening as they're waiting for Mick to return to give his victim statement.

But Mick knows he cannot leave his vulnerable daughter in this state and desperately calls an ambulance. Linda then informs the judge to read out Mick's statement on his behalf. Now I have to say how this moment played out was really powerful, the words used in Mick's statement were so moving that it brought both Linda and Shirley to tears. But hearing these words about how much he was made to feel embarrassed and how it affected his anxiety and relationships with his family, he claims that without Linda and the strength of his family he wouldn't have been able to carry on. While hearing these words, Mick stays with his Nancy until she slowly comes round from her seizure.

Eventually Nancy is helped by paramedics and she slowly comes round from her horrific seizure. Together they walk back into the courtroom, just in time to hear the sentence Katy is given. A total of 10 years in prison! Now I have to be honest, how this episode ended was absolutely perfect, touching and powerful. As the Carter's leave the court and step out into the fresh air, Mick grabs each daughter, Frankie and Nancy, from both sides and hold them ever so tightly. The air is blue and bright, the birds are singing and Mick takes huge breath in. I absolutely LOVE that Julia's Theme was used for this ending, after a horrendous couple of months that Mick has had to endure, it's all over. Katy has been put away for her crimes of child sexual abuse and Mick can now sleep easy knowing justice has been done.

Together as a family, Mick, Linda, Shirley, Nancy and Frankie leave the court together. A untied front showing full well that nothing could ever bring The Carter Family down! With Katy now behind bars, the can carry on with their lives as a family. An absolutely beautiful and moving ending to a deeply devastating storyline! I can't applaud everyone enough for their performance in this storyline - Danny Dyer, Kellie Bright, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Linda Henry and Simone Lahbib! They've all been absolutely incredible!

What did you guys think of the episode? Was it a satisfying ending for you or do you think Katy should've got a longer sentence? Did you enjoy the use of Julia's Theme? I'm really excited to see what happens with the Carter family now, I'm hoping and praying that Frankie will now become a firm member of the Carter family. Thank you all for reading! Please feel free to leave me any comments or messages regarding any of the current storylines happening in EastEnders right now. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Love you all xXx