#i mean i knew conceptually this was a thing but

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

WHO THE FUCK IS THAT

[mars-ipan]

y’know this whole health situation is ass and i despise it but it has reminded me of the kindness inherent in other people. i’ve had almost everyone in my life- family, friends- send kind wishes and gifts and promises to take care of me and celebrate with me when all this is over. even relative strangers on the internet have been wishing me well and sharing their own stories. at the end of the day one of the things humans are known for is caring for their sick, and having so many people support me has made me feel stronger. it gives me something to smile about when everything else feels miserable. thank you to everyone who’s wished me well <3 you all genuinely mean the world to me

[ranvwoop]

i need to expel the silly guys in my brain . but i forgot how to draw and writing is hard... much to think about

[ziracona]

I know I say this every time I read my own work, but Speak for the Dead really is the best chapter in ILM.

“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?”

Jane Romero was smiling at him, sitting propped up against a tree in what had sort of become her usual ‘therapy’ corner in the past almost two weeks. And she was right, it did feel like fall. The air wasn’t as sharply cold as normal, and honestly ‘sharply’ cold was a nice break in and of itself when it happened—usually the weather here was somehow just cold—cold with no adjectives attached. But today it was nicer. It was the kind of waiting fall cold that came when it wasn’t biting outside yet, and it was almost pleasant. A promise of a change in the seasons. Tapp wondered why.

The trees hadn’t started to change color with it, or fall in piles, and as far as he’d gathered there weren’t seasons in here. Everything looked the same. Tall, thick woods, undergrowth and moss and rocks and fallen logs, a slight breeze on and off. Dark sky overhead, full moon, at this point long since throwing off everyone’s idea of what day and night were supposed to mean. All the usual. Except, somehow, the kind of cold in the weather. Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.

LIKE. Those opening lines mean nothing but environmental flavor when you read them. But they’re a lead in for the thesis of the entire chapter.

“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?” - A promise of a change in the seasons. - Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.

Like that’s it. Speak for the Dead is about a lot of things, but at its heart it’s about healing. It’s about forgiveness and healing, that exists between the living and the dead. It’s about how you can only speak for them, by speaking for them. Not how you want to punish yourself or live for them, but by how you know they would forgive you, or would ask you to live. Very little other than exchanges of information happen, but so much happens at the same time. All of it significant. It’s hope. It’s about how Tapp (and Meg) have spent every day here fighting in their own way to cope with the agony and failure of their lives, and the loss of people they couldn’t save, and have only dug their wounds deeper. About love. About nothing stoping the lambs from screaming except accepting that they want to let you go.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Other Misc. Rambling Thoughts on the topic:

(~ !!!!!!!!! if you're just reblogging this post for the Poll section, please reblog the original post without this addition* lol. ~)

(*not that there's anything super personal or weird about the addition, just that it's meant to be kind of casual Side Commentary, not really part of the Main Point Of The Poll, so it would feel kind of weird for it to be emphasized by being included in reblogs unless the reblogs were explicitly about the side commentary, etc..... if that makes sense.. ANYWAY!)

It's neat to read the written descriptions that people are mentioning in the tags, since it's almost like I can see or conceptualize the idea as well, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING it.

Like for example: I can imagine a vase, it's a muted mint green and slightly translucent, elaborate golden birds sprawled down the side in streaks of thin rough watery paint, the base material shimmers gently in the light, there's a small chip where it's cracked on the handle, etc, etc. .. But as I'm thinking about this I see literally nothing.

It seems like perhaps some people can visualize an object first, and THEN describe what they see. But I sort of work backwards. I am building the object in my mind, I can never see it, but it's a collection of concepts. Rather than visualizing all details as a whole at once, I am adding each detail one by one, building onto the IDEA of the thing.

The vase doesn't have a crack on the handle because I just automatically visualized a vase with a crack. It was more that I cognitively understand the concept of a vase, what they tend to be made out of, how they tend to look and feel, the properties they have. So based purely on that knowledge, I can imagine "a chip is something that a vase could have, it would look this way and behave this way" - more like... I'm constructing a bullet point Fact List about the object rather than seeing it.

So if you tell me to imagine an object, I can, in a way, imagine that object in great detail, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING those details, more just knowing it's qualities in a purely conceptual way. Sometimes in the tags when people are like "yeah I can see the skin of the apple, texture, little dots on the surface" it's like… I can imagine that too, I can know it's there, but just with no visual attached.

I guess rather than SEEING something and going ''ah. I know what this looks like because I have seen it''. I more just skip that visual step entirely and go ''I know what this looks like, I just randomly have a list of information about the concept in my mind.'' etc. Maybe similar to how sometimes in dreams, even though a house may look completely different and be in an entirely fake 'dreamlike' environment, you just somehow KNOW intuitively that it's meant to be your childhood home or something. Even when it looks nothing like it in reality. There's a built-in base knowledge of the properties or information of some things within a dreaming mind, etc.

--

This also makes me wonder about like.. how storytelling and myth is so important to cultures all across time. Or how this could tie also into concepts of religion.. etc. etc. If so many people really can kind of conjure these vivid images in their mind, then maybe that's part of why certain things are so meaningful to them? Like a "religious experience" being something you can actually really SEE/feel/lingering with you in your head, rather than just abstract words on a page, detached purely theoretical ideas, etc... hmmm

.

Plus also just for average emotional stuff too, even outside of broader cultural conceptual attachments..

Like, I don't think there's a direct 1 to 1 link (obviously not all people with mental illnesses that significantly reduce their emotional or expressive capacity also MUST have aphantasia or vice versa), but it's interesting as someone who DOES also have a much more lessened emotional range/pretty flat affect/etc. etc. to think like.. Maybe I WOULD be more emotional, in a way, if I could have these vivid experiences..?

Perhaps memories would hold deeper significance if they could really stay with me vividly. Or storytelling would evoke more of a deep emotional reaction to me if I could really picture and feel the things that are going on. If things were more TANGIBLE in my brain, rather than always merely conceptual highly abstracted ideas.

Kind of like, it's probably easier to get over the death of a pet or something, if after not seeing them for an hour you already don't remember what they looked like (beyond just a vague fact list of traits), and you have no vivid memories or mental reminders of them (beyond just factual information stores). COGNTIVIELY you can appreciate the idea of their absence, of course, you still miss them, but there's just no remaining visceral sensory ties. A very "out of sight, out of mind" sort of thing in terms of attachments, memories, emotions, etc. Maybe certain things are easier to "get over", when you're not having constant mental sensory reminders that occasionally rekindle your feelings about the event or etc.??

(like for example, maybe someone could remain angry about an argument longer if they could vividly replay it in their head over and over again. VS just like.. 'Yes I can factually recall the fact I had an argument, and I do have knowledge stored about what precisely was said, but any sort of sensory data such as sights/smells/feelings, etc. from the actual moment of the event are long gone and can never be conjured again in my mind." etc.)

Which again, I think lessened emotional permanence and image permanence in the mind are NOT inherently linked, can all be caused by different things for different people. And, since I can't visualize anything in my head, maybe I'm misunderstanding how it happens and the effect it may have on stuff like remembering things you miss or replaying arguments, etc. etc. But it's still a little interesting to think about, if they could influence each other to some degree.... :0c --

Lastly, It's also weird because I'm actually pretty good at estimating distance and spaces? I can quickly assemble furniture without an instruction manual, pretty easily have a concept of how much space a chair may take up in a room, how two mechanical parts might fit together - BUT, I am literally not actually visualizing anything. I cannot see 3D objects in my mind at ALL. It's like.. just based on the pure List Of Facts About Things Which I Have Observed.. I can intuitively go "oh this works like this/this is this size" just because.. I know it's that size. I don't have to see anything to know..?

But then on the other hand, I'm terrible at directions without a map (I guess because a 3d outdoor environment has WAY more complexity than like.. "Will this square fit into another square?"etc. lol ).

BUT, I also draw/sculpt/etc. entirely without references, and seem to do mostly okay at that..? Like.. I can't even remember the last time I actually used a reference or looked at anything whilst drawing. It's all muscle memory, and me just adjusting as I go until something "looks right" on paper, I never have a set image in my head (or external reference) before hand.. Hrmm....

AND.. I used to say that I had a photographic memory when I was younger, which I know NOW is not true (I always thought it was just an expression, not that people could literally see things in a photographic way). But what I was describing is, I do often associate information with imagery, just... without imagery....

Like "Oh, I know that I took my medicine earlier today because I have a distinct memory, a snapshot of a moment in time, of me rattling the pill bottle in my hands as I looked up at a stop sign while in the back seat of a car". When I say this, I can't ACTUALLY see/feel/hear a pill bottle, or vividly picture a stop sign, but it's more just a factual recall, of. Even though I don't see these things, I know they happened, the information of them happening (me hearing a sound and also looking at a stop sign at the same time) has been stored in my brain as a memory, a collection of linked facts. --

As for other senses, I cannot taste or feel anything in my head AT ALL.. wild that some people mention that. I mean, again, I can have a purely factual recall as if reading a textbook, knowing the information of 'X item typically has X texture, therefore I can imagine what it may be like to feel it' or 'X usually has this taste' etc. - but I can never actually experience those senses in any capacity in my mind alone. I would say audio is my strongest mental sense (maybe a 2.5 or 3 (if it were translated onto the above scale where 1 is most vivid and 5 is nothing)), then visual (4.5 at most, usually 5), and then taste and smell and such are just complete 5, absolutely nothing, I didn't even know people could experience taste or feeling just in their mind alone.. lol...

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[morganmnemonic]

I can't stop thinking about the relationship between Jon and Helen as perhaps one of the most important ones in the entire show. They are narrative parallels for each other, and they both know it. They've both known it from the very start!

Helen walks into the Archives, paranoid, unsure of who to trust, and Jon sees himself in her. And he thinks "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." Then he can't save her. The next time they meet, she's a monster. They're both monsters. There was never any other way their stories could have gone, their fates entwined from the very start.

And Helen answers his original thought with one of her own: "Maybe if we can help each other, there's hope for us both." But Jon looks at her and sees everything that he fears becoming, and so he turns her away, and refuses to accept that their stories are still one and the same.

Helen went to the last person who was ever kind to her, the only person who both knew her as a human and had the context to understand what she'd become, and he hated her. He hated her because he liked Helen, and told her that she couldn't be Helen.

So she stopped trying to be Helen, and embraced being a monster. Reveled in it even. Then Jon wakes up from a six month coma, more monster than person, and tries so hard to cling to the things that mattered to him when he was human. Even with no support, even with the entire archives staff against him, he chooses humanity and compassion over and over again.

And this is a direct threat to Helen's world view. Their stories are entwined. If Jon can continue to be a person even after everything he's been through, then she could have clung to her humanity too, if only she'd tried a little harder. And that terrifies her! She wants to conceptualize herself as someone who was completely overwhelmed by forces beyond her control, who never had a choice but to become a monster. She want's to be an innocent victim. But Jon argues with his actions that they'd both had choices.

And, Jon, in turn, holds out hope that she might make better choices until the very end.

This is the conflict between them for all of season 4 and 5. Jon wants to prove that they can both be decent people, and Helen wants to prove that they were never going to be anything but monsters. This is why she's so devoted to trying to goad Jon into enjoying his newfound godhood. She knows that they are the same, and wants that to mean that he has a spark of evil inside of him, and not that she was always capable of doing good.

When Jon kills her, she loses her life, but wins the argument. Helen is nothing but a dangerous monster who needs to be killed for the good of everyone, and in the moment he decides that, Jon dooms himself to the same fate. Their stories are one and the same. "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." he thought. But he couldn't help her, refused to, even, in the one moment when it actually mattered. And thus, there was never hope for him.

[lavendette]

It's been three weeks since my first EMDR session and I told my therapist today that its like, my anxieties surrounding the fire and being back home again have lifted a bit, but that tens of other anxieties have come out of the woodwork to fill that space and keep me feeling exhausted and anxious 24/7. She said that was a good sign that it was working 🙃

[nope-body]

.

[kerink]

the thing that's been most surprising to me with mouthwashing so far is how little empathy people are willing to extend to curly. and i don't mean this in a piss on the poor way, i'm deeply saddened and genuinely confused by it.

when i first played the game i was at one of the lowest points i've been at in a really long time. my mental health is bad my physical health is bad. i experienced SA a year ago and was recently diagnosed with cancer. i have 2-5 doctors appointments every week with various specialists.

all the while me and two of my doctors are talking about if i need to make a career change that's going to best support my poor health and improve my overall well being. and my family and friends struggle to understand, because i have a doctorate and a good job and live on my own. everyone looks at my life in awe, and they don't understand why i'm unhappy. they tell me so every time i try to explain it.

so when i played i immediately identified with curly. here is a man who's deeply depressed, having hallucinations, trying to reach out to his best friend for support but just has his words thrown back in his face, doesn't want to burden anya with his stuff because she has her own stuff and he wants her to lean on him, he has all these responsibilities and people look up to him and rely on him and have these ideas about him. the highest wrung of their ladder is the lowest of his, and they have no way of conceptualizing why or how he's unhappy and dissatisfied. before the reveal that he's innocent, i completely understood why he attempted suicide.

and then he develops a new disability.

when jimmy goes to crash the ship, he uses curly's unhappiness to try to convince him a murder-suicide is a good idea, and it works. it buys jimmy enough time to get to the cockpit and crash the ship. curly's too in his own head to realize what jimmy meant because jimmy distracted him with how bad his life is. it isn't until the sirens start that curly snaps out of it and it clicks for him what jimmy's done.

i'm not going to re-litigate the issue about if curly could have done more for anya because i've said pretty much all i have to say on it already.

but we really need to highlight that in addition to his lack of tangible choices, he's sleep deprived, deeply depressed, and hallucinating. this is not a man in his right mind making his best choices.

and over and over again i see people refusing to extend him any empathy, to call him a bystander. does a man who says he'll do anything to help and who wanted to be there when anya broke the news and who does his best to play liaison between anya and jimmy sound like a bystander? he let anya keep the gun case! he knew having it would help her feel better!

how good of a friend have you been when you were in your pit of despair? how much were you able to pour into others when your glass was empty?

anya wanted her and curly's support to be reciprocal. if she has enough psych training to do the evals, and having been thru nursing school, she's probably well aware that she and curly need to both be pouring into each other if either of them are going to be any good to anyone. but curly is so determined to defend and protect anya he won't confide in her, despite the fact it's running him so thin that he almost takes jimmy's bait that suicide is a good idea.

i don't think we need to absolve curly of his responsibility. i don't think we should over look his role as an enabler. i don't think we should discredit or discount analyses of his failures. but i'm so tired of people actively avoiding getting in his shoes, getting in his head, reflecting on how they've acted in the past when thinking and feeling similar ways. our worst moments don't make us monsters.

it makes me so sad. and frankly it makes me feel like all the times my family hasn't understood when i've tried to reach out. curly is screaming in agony and just like jimmy we're just trying to keep him quiet because it's too complicated to deal with.

[almightyhamslice]

Syringeon redesign!! FINALLY the last of the main characters (until Banban 8 comes out n I have to redesign the new silly guy and possibly Brushista)!!! He is a disgusting and disturbing worm but he wishes people didnt think he was disgusting and scary because he thinks he'd be a good parent!! (he's... not really...) He was conceptualized as a nurse mascot named "Fuchsia" but was "remodeled" when the scientists considered that he had no appeal to children, so they stopped caring to make him presentable to the public & modified him based on what traits would be useful to them.

"Fuchsia" was created with the DNA of a human woman and a hammerhead worm, though his four arms are from neither component, simply sculpted onto him when he was an inert clay figure. He is transgender and despises being viewed as a woman and has pretty severe body dysphoria that was only worsened by the scientists' modifications-- he always knew "Fuchsia" wasn't who he wanted to be, but the scientists and marketing department didn't know or really care about that. Several walls do display Syringeon's new name and appearance, but upper floors' gift shops still sell merchandise of "nusre Fuchsia" listed next to Slow Seline and Queen Bouncelia.

Comparison between Syringeon's original form and his new form. The scientists sought to make him a mechanized surgeon who could be expendable & care for the other mascots without fear of death, so he was made physically larger to effectively restrain the others. His original hands were all amputated to be replaced with various metal tools. He despairs over the loss because now he cannot use his hands to feel things. His mask is actually the same as it was pre-operation, he's not obligated to wear it anymore but he prefers to keep it on out of comfort.

Syringeon has a very strange complex about parenthood. He wants to be a parent and understands how to create subcases, but prefers to create them self destructively. He grafts them from his own flesh, injecting clay and givanium into his body and waiting a while for the new creatures to burst out of his stomach, like larval xenomorphs almost. It hurts a lot and he does it compulsively, he has no regard for his physical safety or wellness due to how his so-called caretakers treated him as expendable. The scar going down his stomach is permanent, the wound has been reopened and torn so many times the only thing keeping it together is his stitches.

He is cruel to his offspring in a similar way to how the scientists were cruel to him. He discards them once they aren't "cute" and creates new ones in their place. He has only one child he consistently cares for and loves unconditionally: Senengeon.

That was a lot and it was much heavier than usual!!! I overthought the fuck out of Syringeon because I designed him during a bout of dysphoria n that shaped a lot of how he is!! I hope you like him and aren't completely offput?? I mean ofc it's horror art but, you know what I mean!

[yangsharperavery]

my carmy/sydney related thoughts on season 2

i think when digesting this show, it's done more easily when we see who carmy and sydney are as people and how they bring that beingness to their dynamic.

it's interesting to see the takes from people who are troubled by what they saw in this season in terms of their relationship.

i personally thought there was so much fascinating groundwork that was laid.

we knew when molly gordon was cast they were likely trying to introduce a love interest for carmy.

i was not shocked, i was not surprised. i literally expected it.

doesn't mean i wasn't rolling my eyes but i was well aware of what function she would play within the narrative.

but the writing is so sharp that there are a million subtle elements of carmy's character, and what we know about him up to this point, including what was illuminated by the christmas episode.

let's first talk about carmy's choices and behavior where it relates to claire vs sydney and the restaurant.

we know that carmy is awkward, isn't incredibly relationally experienced and has sacrificed everything for his career and specific level of skill.

he'd just been ruminating on expanding his experiences as expressed in the al-anon meeting.

we know this man is intensely grief-stricken and also that he's battling his own mental health.

we also know he's literally been bred from chaos and emotional tumult.

even him not going to his own brother's funeral makes so much sense after that christmas episode.

he couldn't stand to witness what that type of grief had done to his already deteriorating mother.

so he's trying to conceptualize fun.

notice he wasn't trying to conceptualize love or relationships or a partner.

it was literally presented and integrated as fun.

so he runs into this girl he used to a have a crush on and even then, he's not sold because he knows himself, he knows his priorities, his propensities toward self sabotage, etc so he gives her a wrong number.

yet she persists.

so to me, this may seem like a sign to him to give this a chance, do some exterior exploration of something outside of the kitchen and outside of his career and outside of his own neurosis.

so he's just going with the flow. trying to be "normal". not really knowing the content or context of anything. another reason why he wasn't even calling claire his girlfriend.

claire even brings up the fact that they'd hung out so much but didn't actually talk.

which is SPOT on because the audience only actually ever sees them talking about their careers or what they were like as kids/teenagers.

but you know who carmy DOES talk to? hmm, more on that later.

so claire is symbolic of this thing that was pleasant when he was younger, when he was less of this grown conglomerate of anxiety and disarray and sorrow. a part of him that's separate from all of his current worry and fixations and dysregulation.

him saying he loves her so much and that he thinks she's so great actually rings hollow because we, the audience, didn't actually get to see when and where that level of specific emotion or intensity occurred.

so off rip i don't believe him. i don't think about it in the context of if or when he and sydney explore anything, because it feels patently untrue to me.

and completely separate from sydney.

it's not earned. it's not rooted. it's not tacitly valid.

it's fine. it's a good time. it's some laughs and conversation and sex and a nice, normal person he has fond, nostalgic memories of.

and i think it's written that way on purpose!

so him professing this to other people feels like this way to continue digging a hole of his own distraction, his absence, his lack of attention to detail.

i completely understand the frustration that many feel about interpreting this like carmy was essentially choosing claire over sydney.

carmy was trying to have an unfamiliar and different experience and didn't have the depth perception, the self awareness and the internal regulation to recognize he was doing it to the detriment of something so deeply and irrevocably important to him.

as soon as sydney brought it up, he got defensive but then moments later recognized his errors and apologized.

she told him she didn't want to share his attention.

he told her she was absolutely correct and that she deserved his full focus.

what's fascinating about this part is they aren't even explicitly talking about the restaurant.

she says "me" and "i", he says "you".

uh. wow.

now even in the context of JUST the restaurant this is saying ALOT here.

him instantly apologizing and agreeing with her requests means a substantial amount.

carmy isn't an ass because he stood sydney up for the palate cleanser. or even because he went absent when he shouldn't have.

carmy is deeply troubled and wounded and suffering and he was grappling for something else to feel or do or think about besides what he's ALWAYS thought about and done and fixated on.

that's why he's unreliable, that's why he's haphazard and emotionally or energetically messy. he's coping.

that's why he knows he makes mistakes all the time. because he feels like he's a screwup in a lot of specific ways in his life so he's used to it.

he's not being malicious or cruel or even unkind to sydney.

and this isn't an excuse. it's a reason. it's what all the information we have about him up to this point is providing us.

and yes, his timing is godawful.

but he trusts this person so implicitly because he knows how talented and capable she is.

carmy does not know HOW to be a partner, of any kind. where would he have learned that? where would that have been modeled for him?

"this is what you wanted originally and i'm giving it to you."

so let's transpose the way carmy and claire are presented with how carmy and sydney are together.

he literally can't WAIT to hear what sydney has to say. about literally anything.

at any given time.

"say more please."

all he wants to do is listen to her talk. he wants to know everything about her. the personal stuff too, almost especially.

he listens to her so closely. in the first or second episode she loses her train of thought and he repeats everything she just said.

i don't even think it was restaurant related.

he brings up her mother not once, but twice.

he feels like he should have known that sydney lost her.

he wants to pour into and believe in her because he does. he already does.

he's ready to apologize to her because he knows what a mess he can be and often is.

he knows what his anger can do. he knows how he was conditioned and raised in the industry and he doesn't want that at all for her, least of all from him.

especially after she walked out last season.

he's hyperaware of it. he calms down instantly both times she does the sign for sorry that HE taught her.

he has this propulsion to NEED to know what's happening with her in the very moment something occurs.

he did it last season when she quit on the spot and he kept trying to talk to her when she was leaving.

he did it this season when she was frustrated and trying to say goodnight after carmy was actively telling everyone goodnight and to go home, yet he tried to talk to her when she was leaving.

"what?"

"i'm saying goodnight."

he was repeatedly ushering everyone out but because of the look on her face, carmy's like wait, "what's that about, what's happening?"

he can't stand it!

same with them outside last season when he brought her food and asked what was wrong.

if something is up with her, he reacts immediately.

if she's peeved, he wants to know why right away, he wants to know what to do to make it better, how to approach it, what to say, he goes out in search of that information in the moment it's happening.

sydney is his soft place.

he feels very anchored and tethered to her and i believe she feels the same with him.

sydney is his respite. his peace. the thought of her literally calms and stills him.

her being energetically seats him.

we saw it penetrate his seismic and consistent panic in real time.

that was clearly displayed for all of us to witness.

he doesn't want to be cruel or unkind or anything other than present and communicative with her.

i'd venture to say he actually doesn't want anything more than that, besides maybe the restaurant to succeed.

now sydney is in her "i have something to prove" era.

she is so driven and so determined but she's also a realist and is inundated and surrounded by all this proof that what she's doing may be foolhardy.

at the very least, it's incredibly risky. it's a jump.

and someone deeply ambitious and creative and tuned in and focused like sydney has such fear of failure.

because she knows what it often means for someone like her.

that's why she overextends herself so continuously.

she's often had to and she thinks it gets her closer to the opposite of failure.

she was not only aware of the gaps carmy's absence was leaving but also planning this tasting menu with a MILLION things on it because something was gonna be the star because it MUST.

and i think the carmy absence flares a bit of abandonment as well, like he's left her in a lurch.

she has feelings about that.

she finds out why he did, and TRIES not to have feelings about that.

that's confusing and she's already beyond stressed out so she tries to stuff it.

her success is so tied to her identity because she's worked so hard to get where she is and still feels like she's not where she wants to be.

so she wrestles with worthiness and worry and the financial climate of affability for restaurants. she's riddled with what if she can't hack it?

she has evidence of that being true in the past.

she has evidence of her past failures and those are what keep her up at night, not the infinite possibilities of her future successes.

and that's also why she picked carmy.

because she was always going to pick the best.

she was always going to follow the career and moves of the standout in the industry.

of the person that made the best meal she's ever had.

so if he's anal retentive or jumpy or doesn't call about changing the structural elements of their restaurant while it's happening, she deals with it because she picked him.

she chose him. and then he chose her.

(and then she lightweight chose him again when she came back)

so that's why when they're talking he so often checks in by looking her in the face, scanning her expression. he instantly picks up on something being off or wrong or him being "shitty".

or why when they're under a damn table, despite being peeved or annoyed with his disappearing acts, she lets out the most vulnerable, softest admissions about the perceived necessity of her contribution and future failure.

or why he responds with "i couldn't do it without you" so instantly, so rapidly, it's like it's etched in him. that's the quickest response he'd given to anything she said to him the entire season, she barely got the words fully out before he was verbally soothing her.

then he STAMPS this by saying "i wouldn't WANT to do this without you."

there was such an unexpectedly, viscerally aching quality to that exchange.

it's honestly searing.

i'm sorry are these wedding vows or are we talking about opening a damn restaurant?

or the way he says "you love taking care of people" to her when she talks about making sugar food.

that's also a stellar mirrored moment because i've seen a few people, i believe @eatandsleepwell is one, talk a lot about how that's one of carmy's main drivers and internal tenants.

they see so much of themselves in each other.

the buried parts, the unknown parts, the odd parts.

the parts they wanna work on. the parts they wanna exalt.

they are so similar. they are also quite different.

they have reflected one another in the narrative since s1 ep1.

they exist so flawlessly within the others interstices.

she wordlessly hands him pepto for his stomach.

he tells her he won't let her fail.

the pulsing undercurrent of sydney and carmy is pretty fucking palpable.

there's people on social media who weren't convinced or didn't ship them last season that have suddenly completely seen the vision.

whether the writers actually go there or not remains to be seen.

i don't necessarily trust that they will or won't to be honest because i know there are so many moving pieces and variables and factors.

ships get bypassed and messed up all the time.

i don't watch any shows for ship guarantees but i know how writer's rooms work.

i'd venture to bet that at least 1/3 of that room DOES have an interest in seeing something happen between carmy and sydney, (maybe even 1/2).

or at the very least the option to have it explored.

different people write different episodes, the showrunner/creator can scratch or add whatever.

scripts are TIRELESSLY edited and shortened.

yet there is alot that makes the final cut that points to the potent carmy and sydney marrow.

him giving her the captain reigns before they served for the first time, her saying 'let it rip'.

to me, sydney walked into that failing sandwich shop with a mission that day, they locked eyes and immediately fused.

something happened to the both of them in that moment and they largely don't even realize or can adequately reckon with its magnitude yet.

[paper-mario-wiki]

transfems can be women but you are not, you're an agp

(i actually blocked the original person who sent this and then resent it to myself on anon to keep the presentation fitting since i would like to share my perspective on this anyhow. here's what i would have said to this straw-man argument-haver if they weren't already blocked!)

TL;DR: you're wrong with both of the things you asserted in your statement. 1) i am not an AGP which is because 2) AGP's are exactly as much of a woman as i am.

what meaningful categorization could you put on someone to fit the description of "autogynophile" that precludes them from womanhood without inherently being contradictorily transphobic? "it turns them on to think about being vaginally penetrated" yeah i bet a lot of cishet woman fantasize about that too. "they only changed their identity because they like being a lady so much it helps them get off" okay? and? this is not a categorization which is inherently predatory, so who cares? gender is, irrevocably, an invention. it's a farce. it's nothing, we made it up, that's the whole point of agreeing that people can change it if they say they want to.

drawing a social line by the physical distinctions of "do they have penis or the other one" is as arbitrary as separating people by right handedness and left handedness or the eye color they were born with. the social expectations, behaviors, and woes are a consequence of the fact that everyone has been taught "this is just how it is, and it makes you different in every way, and this is how it's always been, and this is how it'll always be", same as the way people keep using fiat currencies (the US dollar for example), despite them being backed up by no singular tangible thing in any way that matters, aside from the word of the person who controls it.

and sometimes going along with that stuff is fine! i mean not the money, but the other one. the gender one. i like to be called a woman, while also knowing that "woman" is an invention. "pretty" is also an invention, and i love to be called that. "sonic the hedgehog" is an invention that people talk about using the same verbiage they use when describing real, tangible, breathing creatures, despite the fact that sonic the hedgehog exists conceptually and not physically (not including physical representations, which are not the same thing).

i think agp's are also women. if i could read someone's mind and they said "hi im a woman" but i knew they were thinking "im actually a man" i would still say "hello woman" because they might as well have given me their name for all the difference it makes in how we interact moving forward. if someone has no intention or probability to harm themselves or anyone else, i couldn't care less.

all that being said, you're wrong with both of the things you asserted in your statement. 1) i am not an AGP because 2) AGP are exactly as much of a woman as i am. it is a meaningless category coined by bigots and only given credibility by people with bigoted views.

[it-was-summer]

Video Killed the Radio Star - Tape #3 (Spencer Reid x Fem!reader)

A/N: I am exhausted this weekend so if at some point you feel like the writing shows that DON'T BE ALARMED. It is simply just me fighting back the urge to go to bed. The chapter does contain a good amount of sexual assault and violence so please, please, please be mindful of that while reading. I love all the comments here and Ao3, they make my day! I have also been noticing a lot of love towards the original of this series and I appreciate everyone for taking their time to read the remake! Please know that as of right now this thing IS NOT PROOFREAD I JUST NEED TO GET IT OUT! Stay safe, healthy, and happy! -Love, Em.

Video Killed the Radio Star Remake Masterlist

Link to the Ao3: Video Killed the Radio Star

Previous Chapter: Tape #2 > Next Chapter: Tape #4

WARNING: Cancer mentioned, sexual assault, blood, knife, cutting, mentions of death, death threats. Remember that you are not alone.

Tape Contents: Spencer and Derek are sent to discuss your abduction with Adeline. You fight back a sexual and physical attack from Heather. Heather reveals her plans for what will happen if anyone finds you.

Word Count: 4,029

March 5, 20XX

Spencer wasn’t too fond of hospitals, but he was fond of children. He interacted with them, loving that he could see how they processed information–new and old—every day. He loved Henry to bits, the way the kid was so willing to listen to Spencer’s ramblings or the way he was so amazed at a magic trick Spencer was doing. 

Sick kids were a tragically different story, not that he didn’t like them. He always felt like… well, he was having a hard time conceptualizing it as he weaved through the crowded lobby. The pediatrics oncology unit was too packed for his liking. Statistically, he knew that one in two hundred eighty-five children could be diagnosed with some form of cancer before they hit twenty. That didn’t mean he had to like weaving through a small crowd of parents, doctors, and nurses on the way to room two hundred thirty with Morgan. There it was –the words for that feeling– watching someone younger than himself not being able to experience life at thirty. 

After finding the friendship keychain, Hotch decided that Reid and Morgan should find your alleged ride-or-die, Adeline Smith. Meanwhile, Hotch and Prentiss would drive to Norfolk to talk to your mother. Rossi and JJ were handling some information with the police, so they were all paired away. 

Derek and he slipped into the hospital room that housed Adeline and her daughter, Nicole. His chest tightened involuntarily at the sight of a mother stroking her daughter’s head, a smile on both of their faces. Derek was quick to speak, “Excuse me,” The mother and daughter jumped at the noise, and their eyes snapped to the hospital room door. “I’m Special Agent Derek Morgan, and this is Doctor Spencer Reid. We just have some questions.” His hands dug into his jacket pocket to pull out the badge, muscle memory for both.

Adeline’s hand fell from her daughter's hairless head to her shoulder, her fingers giving it a light squeeze. “Questions regarding?” She asked with a curious expression as she stood up, a skeptical look in her eyes. 

Spencer’s eyes met Nicole’s for a second, a small smile rising to his lips, and she gave him a nervous smile right back. He moved his gaze over to Adeline, who was now standing with her arms folded across her chest as she waited for the two men to answer her question. Derek looked over his shoulder at Spencer, then back at Adeline. He gently motioned for her to follow him to a slightly more private area to talk to her, the two moving to a corner of the room near the bathroom.

“Were you aware that Y/N L/N was being stalked?” Derek’s voice was calm as Spencer approached Nicole’s bedside chair and sat in it awkwardly. 

Spencer motioned towards the girl’s stuffed animal, a bright orange cat that sat in between her legs. “I love cats,” he said in a soft voice. 

Nicole beamed at him, grabbed the stuffed cat, and happily petted the top of its head: “Me too! This is Bee.” 

“Bee? Do you like Bees?” 

Adeline’s eyes strayed to Spencer's conversation with her daughter, and she nodded a little at Derek’s question: “We talked about it. She went to the police.” She said, a little numbly, before her head suddenly snapped towards him. “Why?” 

“She was taken from her apartment on March third. She recorded videos for the police to send to us, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, to help find her.” Derek explained gently as he watched Adeline’s face go pale. 

Adeline grabbed her clothed chest and searched for a breath, her eyes wild as she looked at Derek’s face. Her eyes began searching for some hint in his face that he was lying, but she found none. She couldn’t stop the tears that were filling her waterline, and she turned her body away from her daughter and Spencer in a desperate attempt to hide her tears from her daughter. Her knees felt weak as she tried to breathe. 

Spencer glanced back at Adeline and Derek, scooting a little to obstruct Nicole’s field of vision. He didn’t want the young girl to see her mother cry. Nicole shook her head slightly at his question, “No, not really. Auntie Y/N got her for me, and she loves bees.” She laughed softly, her words making Spencer’s heart melt a little. 

“Is Bee your favorite?” 

The girl covered the cat’s plush ears and smiled like she had a secret. “No, but she is my second favorite.” Her fingers scratched the stuffed animal’s ears gently. “Mr. Business is my first,” she whispered to him. 

“Ah, and where is Mr. Business?” His eyes searched her hospital bed, and then he spotted a stuffed cat, a tuxedo cat. He grinned a little, and he motioned to the stuffed animal with his eyes, “Mr. Business is a very fitting name, I think,” 

Adeline held out a hand for some space from Derek, and the hand clutching her chest came up to her mouth as she tried to keep from vomiting all over him. She had been stuck in this hospital when you had called her that first night. Having always loved talking to you, she answered enthusiastically. Still, the more she listened to the situation, the more she realized she didn’t have the emotional strength to comfort you the way you needed. And she said that to you. She said that to you. She couldn’t help you then, and she couldn’t help you now. She couldn’t even help her own daughter. 

A sob rose in her throat, and she shook her head rapidly. “No, no, no, we talked on that day. Th-That night,” She recounted softly to Derek through her tears. 

“What did you talk about?” Derek whispered the question softly as his eyes searched the room for some tissues, but his search was futile. He places a gentle hand on Adeline’s shoulder instead. 

“We talked about college; she wanted her mind off of things, so we talked about our apartment when we were in grad school. It’s been two days! What have you been doing for two days while my best friend went missing?” Her cheeks were red, her fingers pointing accusingly at him before she sobbed softly, and her hand was moving back up to wrap around her mouth to muffle the sound. 

“She didn’t show up to work on March fifth. That's when she was reported missing. We’re doing everything we can. What time did the two of you talk?” 

“W-we talked around nine, maybe nine-thirty?” She whispered back softly before she started to breathe heavily again. “Why didn’t I call? I should have called again. It was getting so late, and she had locked all the doors, and I thought she was just being anxious. I should have called her again. I should have left the hospital to visit her.” Her mind was spiraling, the neverending rabbit hole that showed her all the ways she could have saved her best friend, unhinged its proverbial jaw and swallowed her whole, ready to digest.  

Morgan wasn’t necessarily new to the information, as Penelope had already told him about your call logs from that evening, but he always liked to hear it be confirmed. It also helped him place an estimate of the time of your abduction. “Could you tell me about anyone, anyone at all, that might have been a little too into Y/N? Any ex-boyfriends that refused to leave her alone? Did she break up with anyone around Christmas?” 

“No, she hasn’t dated anyone for almost a year.” Adeline sighed thickly and shook her head as she tried to calm down. “No, all her ex-boyfriends, they were always so mousy. ” She sighed, “And they always look alike,” she paused and gave a soft, sad chuckle, motioning over to where Spencer was as he continued to entertain her daughter. “Well, they all look like your Doctor friend, if I’m being honest. She’s always been too nice for her own good, even in college.”

Spencer tried to talk over the sobs that could be heard from the corner of the hospital room, clearing his throat or laughing as Nicole stumbled through a story. “She’s a loud crier,” Nicole whispered with a gentle pat on Bee’s head. 

Spencer frowned as his efforts failed him, and he looked over his shoulder at Morgan, who was looking at him with a similarly sympathetic look on his face. He was about to say something when Nicole shoved Bee toward him, “You should give this to Auntie Y/N. Mommy said she was sad the other day. Bee always helps.” 

Spencer turned the stuffed animal over in his hands, and he debated telling her the truth, but thankfully, his better judgment decided against it. “It’ll be the first thing I do when I see her,” Spencer promised softly as Nicole smiled wide at him. 

As Derek and he walked out of the hospital, Derek’s eyes stayed on the stuffed orange cat in Spencer’s hands. As they pushed past a small group of people, Spencer found himself almost slamming into a pretty nurse, a gorgeous nurse. Her blue eyes blinked as she shuffled to one side, only to be unintentionally blocked by Spencer once more. She sighed a little and gave him a once over with a frown. Her eyes lingered on the gun holstered against his hip before she gave him a polite smile and said, “Excuse me,” and slipped past the two men with a determined look in her eyes.  

Derek only said something when they got into the parking lot, the two of them walking to the black SUV, “Did you pick one up at the gift shop?” 

Spencer groaned softly, making Derek chuckle as he walked around the car’s front to the passenger seat. “Open the door,” He said bluntly. When they were both inside the car, Spencer carefully placed the stuffed animal in his bag, and Derek chuckled again at the sight, turning the key. 

“You didn’t even buy me one,” 

March 5, 20XX

You were assuming Heather was angry with you. The assumption wasn’t baseless as the hunger in your stomach growled. You were quick to find that the harmony between a full stomach and morphine did matter and that harmony had left you many hours prior. You also were basing the assumption as you had spent what must have been a whole day fighting off tears and nausea. 

The sick part was that you were beginning to get used to how your body got swarmed with heavy, hot, and benevolent warmth. The dull pain in your ankle was silenced under the warmth’s blanket of kindness. It reminded you of a heated blanket in a strange way. 

You had finished the sips of your water before falling asleep and regretting it. You had learned that the bucket off to the side of the dresser was the perfect distance from the bed. Your broken ankle was dragging against the carpet with every movement.  The chain around your good ankle didn’t snag as you sluggishly managed to hold your body up against the wall to pee into the bucket.

Once you were done, you hopped on your good leg and managed to pull your clothes back on. Your body fell face-first onto the bed, eliciting a soft groan from your lips as you found your body reluctant to move from its new home. 

You closed your eyes and fell into the position, letting the bed sink in deeper. Your eyes snapped open with a sense of alertness that you hadn’t felt in hours as you heard the first click of a lock. Your arms weakly managed to push yourself up into a sitting position, pushing yourself back to your former position against the headboard. Your head throbbed at the fast movement, and your vision blurred as you tried to focus on the door. 

When it slowly opened, you sucked in a small breath of air, watching as Heather slid into the room with a tray of food. “Hello, my Catherine.” She sighed as she shoved the keys into her scrub pocket with one balanced hand. “My, my, someone is looking pale today.” She asked as she sat down in the chair off the side of the bed with a gentle, pretty smile. 

You nodded a little. Your lips were numb as you licked them. “What day is it?” Your voice came out quiet and strangled. 

“Monday,” She stated simply as she twisted the top off a bottle of apple juice. She handed it over to your already waiting hands before she carefully lowered the morphine drip’s intake level. You greedily drank the juice without thinking twice, desperate to get something in your stomach. 

You panted lightly as you pulled the half-empty bottle away from your lips, “Th-the date, I mean,” 

“March fifth,” She rolled her eyes as she carefully rearranged a neatly made turkey sandwich on a paper plate, slowly placing the plate on the edge of the bed for you to take. “You moved in here early Saturday morning, don’t you remember?” she laughed out like it was the silliest thing she had ever heard. 

You felt your mouth start to move to correct her, to tell her that you didn’t move in; she had kidnapped you. But as you stared at the turkey sandwich on the edge of the bed, you realized that playing along would be better. Playing along meant more food and less nausea. Playing along meant living longer. “Right,” You said breathlessly as you pulled the paper plate to your lap. “How could I forget?” 

Heather smiled a little as she watched you bite into the sandwich, happy to see you adjusting. You were eating so fast that she was a little worried about your empty stomach. She didn’t want to make feeding you so sporadically a habit. But yesterday, when she came up with a food tray, she thought about your rudeness and how cruel you had been to her. It made her stomach twist into angry knots. She decided that not feeding you for a day would be a lesson.

“I’m so happy our first fight is over. I hate to be angry with you, Catherine.” Heather’s sweet tone wasn’t lost on you as she touched your arm gently. Your chewing slowed for a second before you swallowed, your eyes glued to her hand on your arm. 

“I picked out every gift just for you,” She sighed softly as she traced soft circles against your skin. You fought back the urge to pull your arm away. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know? You remember in college when you and Adeline dressed up as Lizzie and Jane Bennet. No one got it but god,” She sighed, her eyes finding yours as you stayed frozen. 

The hand on your arm slowly reached for the paper plate on your lap. Your fingers twitched a little as you fought back the urge to grab the food as she placed the plate on the nightstand beside your bed. Everything was happening so fast and yet incredibly slow at the same time.

Then she stood up and crawled onto the bed, swinging one leg over your lap before stranding you with a white smile. Her hands came to cup your face and tilt it up. A soft sigh fell from her lips. “You’ve always been brilliant,” 

You shook your head in her hands lightly. The warmth of the morphine was slow to leave your body, but as your body filled with an intense feeling of dread, you could feel everything. Your ankle throbbed sharply, and you were starting to feel like you were about to be sick again. “I’m not,” 

Heather threw her head back and laughed as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. When she lowered her head to meet your gaze again, she leaned closer, one of her thumbs reaching up to trace your bottom lip. You cringed a little at the feeling, a sight that she ignored. “You’ve always been so humble, too. How did I get so lucky?” She whispered as she leaned in to kiss your lips softly. 

You felt your lips tighten and bile rise to your throat, and you swallowed it. You let her kiss you once, then twice, then a third time. Your lips stayed closed in a tight line as you tried to imagine yourself in a different position, but with every touch Heather placed on you, the more you stayed cemented in your reality. 

Heather pulled back with a look in her eyes that you could recognize as crazed lust. You didn’t want to. You didn’t want to know what her hands felt like anymore. You bit your lip to silence a whimper. Her hands pulled roughly at your shirt as she grabbed the hem of it and pulled it over your head with a simple yank. 

You shook your head quickly now, “No, Heather, I-I’m not ready. I don’t-” 

She shushed you softly with a gentle smile as she traced the swell of your breast slowly, the touch eliciting your tears to pool over your waterline. “I know you’re worried, but I’m going to take care of you, I promise.” Her eyes lingered on the prominent bruise on the center of your chest. She frowned, leaning down carefully to kiss the blue and black patch of skin. 

“No,” You cried softly, your voice soft before you decided that you couldn’t take it anymore. “No!” You yelled, causing her back to straighten and sit up. 

“I’m sorry?” She asked with a soft scoff. 

“I-I can’t do it, I’m not ready. I don’t want to, Heather. Please don’t make me.” You begged softly as tears rolled down your face. “I’ll try next time, I promise. I just, please, please don’t make me.” 

Heather frowned a little before she let out a harsh laugh, her arms folding over her chest tightly. She looked down at you, “You know I saw your precious little Adeline today,” 

You felt your back tense at Adeline's mention, “What? I thought you worked in pediatrics, not pediatric oncology. W-why did you see Adeline?” 

Heather reached out a hand to press on your bruise roughly, the feeling making you wince. “I work in pediatric oncology. Sometimes, I help Nicole. I loved it when you visited her at the hospital. It was almost too easy to steal the copy of your apartment key from Adeline. She doesn’t love you as much as I love you, you know that, right?” 

You shook your head, and you cried harder as you realized that you had never even noticed her at the hospital. Your focus has always been so zoned in on Nicole or Adeline that you didn’t even register Heather’s presence. Would Adeline remember Heather? You doubted it. 

“She talked to some agents or something and was inconsolable. Fucking useless friend of yours. Anyway, I ran into them in the hallway. Scrawny kid with some buff guy, I’m sure Adeline called them.” 

You found your hands grabbing her hand on your chest and shook your head side-to-side. “No, Adeline doesn’t know. I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t, I promise.” 

Heather’s eyes met yours briefly before they trailed down to your bare chest and your hands holding onto her wrist. “Say you love me more than her then,” 

“I-I, what?” 

“Say it.” 

You opened your mouth, but all that came out were gentle sobs as you tried to form the words, terrified that she was about to do something to Adeline. The thought of Heather hurting Adeline had you gasping softly for air. 

Her eyes were on yours again as you panted softly, “You don’t love me?” Her spit hit your cheek as she hissed the words in rageful disbelief. She was off your lap in seconds as she moved to the dresser and quickly pulled out a small pairing knife. 

“Wait,” You cried softly as you tried to hurry away from her, making a vain attempt to get up from the bed that was meant with a howl of pain from your ankle and your body slumping over the edge lamely. 

Her hands grabbed your ankles, good and injured, and pulled you roughly to the edge of the bed. A scream left your throat at the contact. “You think I’m going to let them find you?” She questioned in a suspiciously calm voice as she grazed the smooth side of the knife against your collarbone.

You stayed frozen as she leaned in closer, her lips at the shell of your ear, “If they ever found you, Emma. I would kill you and then myself. I’ve already decided. We have to be together,” Her voice in your ear had you breathing harder as she slowly pressed the tip of the knife into the area above your heart. 

The knife only stung at first before it felt like a ripping pain. Heather dragged the knife into your skin with a deliberate sense of control. Not too deep, not too superficial. Something she wouldn’t have to stitch up. She made a diagonal line before staring a few inches apart from the other cut. “We belong together, Jane.” 

You cried out again as she started dragging the knife into your skin once more, “Please,” 

“You just need to open your heart. If they ever found us, I need to mark where to shoot. Stay still.” 

As Heather got close to completing the ‘X’ mark on your chest, marking you as a possible target. You felt your body thrash under her weakly. The edge of one of the lines skewed to the left, and Heather let out an annoyed groan before she pulled the knife away from your chest and to your lips. “Stop fucking crying,” She growled as she slashed at your bottom lip. 

You hissed at the feeling as blood coated your chest and filled your mouth. You stared up at her as soft sobs kept leaving your mouth, “Fuck you.” You muttered before gathering as much spit as you could in your mouth and shooting it directly at her. 

You laughed as it made contact with her cheek, and she wiped the bloody spit away with the back of her hand. She laughed harshly as she nodded a little, “Okay, so you want to be a brat.” She laughed. 

She was sliding off the bed now, leaving you lying on your back, her chest rising and falling quickly as she gripped the pairing knife in her hand tighter. “Enjoy the rest of your meal. It’ll be your last one, Emma.” She snapped at you before stomping to the door and flying it open. 

Once she was gone, you stayed there, staring up at the ceiling wordlessly. You licked at the cut on your lip gently as blood flowed freely into your mouth. You swallowed the copper-tasting liquid as you let the consequences sink in. She was going to kill you if they found you, and you had already called for a team of highly trained professionals to come to find you. 

You almost laughed at the irony. You didn’t want them to find you. You did want them to find you. It was almost hilarious. You tried to smile with your cut lip but found the action too painful to manage. 

You didn’t want to die at twenty-eight. You wanted to see your mom again, Adeline, Nicole, hell, you wanted to go to work one more time. You rolled onto your stomach and cringed the way the fluffy comforter grazed the bleeding “X” on your chest. You reached for the morphine drip and rolled it closer as you slowly turned a knob and upped the intake. Your shaking hands then moved to the sandwich on the nightstand with a sigh. 

She could kill you when they found you, but if she thought you weren’t going to try and manipulate the situation, she was dead wrong. You weakly bit into the sandwich while trying to think of a plan. 

You refused to die without leaving a mark.

TAG LIST: @babyspiderling @cocobean16 @kodzukenie333 @mmmunson

[raayllum]

I've thought about Terry and Rayla parallels before ("I think too much, get confused about the right thing to do" / "says I think too much about everything" / elves supporting their mages / Rayla leaving as love vs Terry refusing to leave as love / lovingly watching your partner sleep, etc etc). Even the way they can sometimes enable Callum and Claudia's actions.

This is more true, of course, in Terry's case than Rayla's, but in a similar vein that their bonds of love are unbreakable (look at Rayla and Runaan) and that it would take a LOT for Rayla to ever even consider maybe that Callum could make a Seriously Bad Decision (she got straight up told he had a heart full of darkness and went "you're the best/goodest person I know" + the idea of Callum being controlled by Aaravos in a bad way being unfathomable to her in S4).

However what I want to talk about today is their attitudes towards dark magic.

Part of why Terry loves Claudia, I think, is that he doesn't see anything 'wrong' with dark magic. He's seen her do "a lot of awful things, dark magic things" but dark magic to him is also useful and fine and has a tingly aftertaste. It's not a hangup for him with Viren or Claudia; all he see is that she has a Good Reason, and that's all he needs, because there's no moral wedge in the way to begin with.

That doesn't mean he has zero discomfort with dark magic ("You think if dark magic did this to someone, they might not do it") or Claudia's actions ("The way you treated that Moonshadow elf, it was just cruel" / "Please, Claudia, you don't have to do this, it's trapped, you won").

But even Sir Sparklepuff's murder gets couched under "had a good reason" because it did bring Viren back, which Terry happily joyously celebrated when it happened. With all that in mind, Terry has always reminded me of Ethari — you fell in love with someone who engages in "dark work, bloody work" (Lost Child) and you knew what it would involve, and love them regardless. That's not a choice or mindset that's easily broken, but it does lead to Terry's lack of assertiveness fucking him up in ways that Claudia's passivity can too ("Please Terry, tell me what to do" / "[to Aaravos] Tell me what to do").

Terry's lack of moral qualms with dark magic is clearest to me in 6x04 in some ways, because of this exchange with Claudia:

C: All I see is parts, for spells. T: But...? C: But it's so adorable!

His but being an 'okay but WHY is this a problem for you now?' not 'yeah Sounds Concerning (and like a red flag) jc'. Claudia says she's all messed up inside, but Terry (for whatever reason) can't fully conceptualize what she means. This also leads to him not truly understanding what it is and what it's doing to his partner (probably because he met her when she was already more than mid-spiral) because if Terry fully understood how it was hurting her...

Don't you think he'd tell her to stop?

Meanwhile, even though Rayla does have moral qualms with dark magic, she doesn't focus on any of them in her argument with Callum just an episode earlier. Instead, it's all about him and the risk it poses to him and his emotions.

But most importantly because it makes you more vulnerable to the thing you're most afraid of.

Not "well Aaravos could control you and that'd be bad for everyone else / the world" but that it scares him, it hurts him, it puts him in danger. Granted, she still switches to the greater good concern later both for mitigating the harm Callum might do ("If you ever have to choose between me or the greater good, do the right thing: make the sacrifice") and on her own end ("Yes. I promise [to kill you]" + "taught me to never break my promises") but that's not her primary concern, at least not in my head.

And it's precisely because of those reasons that Rayla tells him very overtly what to do, both in regards to sacrificing her and in regards to saving him:

Rayla has unbreakable bonds of love, too, nor are her moral qualms about dark magic why she's making this point. It's because her main drive has always been to protect Callum, not even necessarily to help him, and therefore his safety is at the top of her list, so if something hurts or puts him in danger, she's going to tell him to knock it off. (And that includes saving her, but anyway.) Their mutual assertiveness with one another is one of the reasons why Rayla and Callum work, and one of the reasons Terry and Claudia were going to crash and burn, because Callum is likewise Rayla's anchor, and Terry and Claudia didn't realize they needed to be each other's until it was too late

I risked losing the best thing I ever had: you.

[infiniteglitterfall]

here, have some Official-Looking Info on Autistic Burnout

“Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout

Although autistic adults often discuss experiencing 'autistic burnout,' and attribute serious negative outcomes to it, the concept is almost completely absent from the academic and clinical literature. Lay summary Why was this study done? Autistic burnout is talked about a lot by autistic people but has not been formally addressed by researchers. It is an important issue for the autistic community because it is described as leading to distress; loss of work, school, health, and quality of life; and even suicidal behavior.

This is one of those "WE ALL KNEW THAT" studies, where they have to study and write about Things We Already Know in order to make them part of the Official Body of Knowledge out there, and maybe even get useful research done on them.

I went digging on Google Scholar because I want to be able to send my smol child's summer day camp director something that actually explains why he's only shown up two days in the past two weeks.

I would kind of rather have something in the form of a cute handout, but I didn't think of that before I hit Google Scholar. (Also, the first thing I found in a regular Google search was kind of basic and kind of confusing; it seemed to be referring to shutdown, but was calling it burnout.)

What were the results of the study? The primary characteristics of autistic burnout were chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. From this we created a definition:

Autistic burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic life stress and a mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate supports. It is characterized by pervasive, long-term (typically 3+ months) exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimulus.

Participants described negative impacts on their lives, including health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people. People had ideas for recovering from autistic burnout, including acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking.

Oh, wow, this is a good burn:

...mental health treatment/therapy as a means of remediating burnout came up, but in the context of a missing resource, a negative experience, or unrelated to burnout (e.g., for treating a co-occurring mental health condition).

Yeah. That tracks.

[dmwrites]

Grian didn’t choose the CuteGuy lifestyle as much as it was thrust upon him. He had made one joke (just one!) about how he could be HotGuy’s sidekick, CuteGuy, and Scar went nuts. Within a week, a shulker box had been delivered to his base, containing some flashy pink clothes, a huge bow with a deadly-looking quiver of arrows, and, most unexpectedly, a bedazzled pink flip phone. There was only one contact in the phone, so, with a sigh, Grian pressed the call button.

“Hello?”

“Scar, what is this?”

“Oh, so you found your CuteGuy readiness package!” Scar gasped excitedly. “What do you think? Do you like my big package?”

“Wording, Scar. And, no, I’m not going to be your sidekick! The CuteGuy thing was a joke, bro.” Grian held up the clothes and looked them over with distain, using his shoulder to prop the phone to his ear. “And pink really isn’t my color, much less hot pink.”

“What do you mean? You’re blonde, you’re basically like a Barbie, you’d totally rock pink!”

“I have an alter ego already, Scar, I don’t need another, much less one that wears… does this shirt have a heart-shaped cutout in the chest? Scar!”

“Oh please.” Scar scoffed. “Do you really think Poultry Man will make a comeback? Let’s all be honest with ourselves now.”

“Hey now, mister ‘HotGuy is like half of my personality’. PoultryMan was the blueprint of superheroes!” Grian put the clothes back in the shulker and closed it firmly. “Scar, this dress up game is going a little too far, don’t you think? There isn’t even a need for HotGuy.”

“You never know.” Scar said in a sing-song voice. “Listen, just keep the shulker and the phone- if I really need a sideki- backup, I’ll call this phone, okay? Please?”

“Fine.” Grian said. “It’s a good thing you’re my friend, or I’d burn all of this.” He hung up the phone and set it down on top of the shulker box. He sighed, shaking his head at the bedazzled and pink nightmare that sat on and in the box before him. He picked the box up and moved it to a shadowy part of his basement. Grumbot looked down at him, lights twinkling in a way Grian took as laughter.

“Listen, Scar never said a thing about me actually picking up the phone, so by technicality, I’m off the hook.” Grian felt a need to explain himself. “If he really wants a CuteGuy so bad, he can get someone else to do it or something. I don’t do sidekick. PoultryMan is main character energy.”

Grumbot just flashed his lights, and Grian wondered if the robot had even been listening at all. He sighed, turning around and gazing out towards the now-dull rift on the other side of the basement.

“Now, to something that really matters, what on earth do I do about this?”

-seven months later-

Much like young Issac Newton theorizing about gravity from an apple falling onto his head, Joe Hills also had an odd series of events happen to him when something big and heavy fell onto his head. But he thought “ouch!” instead of conceptualizing gravity, but that’s besides the point.

“Who is messing with me? Guys, now is not a great time… huh?” Joe looked all around, and his gaze came to rest on a red shulker box on its side, spilling stacks upon stacks of tnt onto the ground. Joe went to pick it up and saw it labeled as Grian’s. “Grian?” There was no answer.

So, Joe did what any good person would do, and gathered up all of the tnt, put it back in the box, and set off for Grian’s megabase, which he had only an approximation of its location. He did manage to find it eventually, or, at least, the amalgamation of Grian and Mumbo’s bases, and he dithered on the spot for a while, trying to remember who’s was which. He eventually just gave up and dove down into what he knew to be Grian’s basement, with that weird robot and rift thing. Luckily, both oddities seemed inactive, and Joe put the shulker box down in the middle of the room, and took out a scrap of paper to leave as a note.

Suddenly, a phone rang, echoing through the basement. Joe looked at the rift, then the robot. Neither seemed to a source of the ringing. It was coming, Joe found out as he looked around, from a bedazzled pink flip phone on top of a pink and horribly dusty shulker box. On instinct, Joe picked it up and answered.

“Howdy, Joe Hills from Nashville, Tennessee here, how can I be of service?”

“Cuteguy, it’s time! The time is nye! I- wait, Joe?”

Joe recognized the dramatic voice on the other end at once. “Scar?”

“Joe?”

“Howdy, Scar!”

“Wait, I thought I gave this phone to Grian.”

“Well, I suppose you did. I just happened to be by, dropping off a shulker box of tnt that he must have dropped by accident onto my head, and I heard the phone-“

“Hold on, I’ll be right there.”

Scar hung up, and Joe pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it in confusion. He considered leaving, he really did, but after a rather arduous debate in his head of how much time he could be spending on his pinball machine instead of waiting on Scar, he ultimately determined that time spent with friends was always time well spent. He had just come to that conclusion, in fact, when Scar crash landed right in front of Joe.

“Ahh! One heart, Joe, one heart.” Scar said, while Joe helped him right his wheelchair. “Now, where’s CuteGuy?”

“Who?” Joe asked. He took stock of Scar’s outfit, which was a tight black unitard looking thing with blue and orange details. “And what on earth are you wearing?”

“Well, I’m HotGuy, of course!” Scar straightened up, taking out a deadly looking bow and pointing it, clearly posing, which Joe took as the cue to make appropriate awed noises. “But every good superhero needs his sidekick, and I was hoping CuteGuy would have gotten my message.” Scar looked around, like this CuteGuy guy would be hiding in a corner or something.

“Scar, there is no one on the server named ‘CuteGuy’- I feel like Xisuma would have told us if he’d whitelisted someone new.” Joe said very seriously.

“What? No! Okay, Joe, listen,” Scar lowered his voice conspiratorially, and Joe leaned in, keeping an eye on Grumbot as he did- who knows who could be listening. “CuteGuy is Grian’s alter ego. Like how I’m HotGuy.”

Joe put a hand to his mouth in shock, to be polite. “You mean it was actually you who terrorized me all those months ago while I was building a sign for King Ren?”

Scar clicked his tongue in an awkward kind of way. “No time for that, Joe! The point is, I need a sidekick right now, and Grian is nowhere to be found. So, Joe, what do you say- wanna come be CuteGuy for a little while?”

Joe considered this. He had many questions, but Scar had a sense of urgency in his tone. And Joe did like to say yes to new experiences…

“Well, I suppose I could help you out Scar- I mean, HotGuy. But shouldn’t I be called something else, as CuteGuy is kind of more of a Grian thing? I wouldn’t want to invade his creative space.”

Scar rubbed his chin, thinking hard “Maybe… are there other adjectives that are like hot and cute?”

“Oh! I was named the sexiest Minecraft youtuber via a set of tumblr polls!” Joe exclaimed. “Sexy… guy?”

“Tumblr? What’s that, like a disease or something?” Scar asked.

“I- okay, so I could explain this simply, but even that might take a few hours within itself… if I say the words ‘Ball Pit’, does that invoke emotions within you?”

“Joe, we don’t have time!” Scar put a hand over Joe’s mouth. “Listen, I think G will be fine if you borrow the CuteGuy name and outfit. But we really do need to go- crime does not sleep!” Scar opened the pink shulker box and pulled out a couple of sets of clothes, holding them up to Joe and squinting. Finally, he shoved a bundle at him. “Go put this on, and I’ll meet you on Grian and Mumbo’s bridge. Hurry!”

Scar flew up, and Joe quickly changed into the violently pink clothes without much thought. It wasn’t until he flew up to meet Scar did it occur to him what exactly he had on.

“Scar, HotGuy, I don’t mean to complain, but is it really all that sensible to be fighting crime in a crop top and booty shorts? Where is the padding? And the armor?” Joe asked, pulling down on the crop top slightly.

“CuteGuy, in this life, you gotta slay in every way. We’re hotter and cuter then our enemies.” Scar lowered his sunglasses, gave Joe a once-over, and tossed him a huge, glittery pink compound bow. “Now, let’s fly. I’ll explain our mission on the way.” He took off, leaving Joe to put the bow in his inventory and hastily take off after him.

The pink phone began to ring as soon as Joe was coasting in the air, and he fumbled to pull it out of the bag strapped to his thigh.

“Howdy!”

“Alright CuteGuy, are you hearing me alright?” Scar’s voice was cool and collected, if a bit hard to hear over the wind.

“Loud and clear, Scar- I mean, HotGuy.” Joe could see Scar up ahead, and kept pace behind him.

“Fantastic.” Scar turned to give him a thumbs up and a cheesy smile. “Now, for this mission, CuteGuy, we’re heading for the lair of the biggest threat to the server, the goat himself, DocM77. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

“I… yeah, Scar, sorry, HotGuy, we’ve both known Doc since season five, of course I know him.”

“Good, good. Recently, I, HotGuy, teamed up with two esteemed revolutionaries to form the Buttercups, an elite team set to take down the goat once and for all. The camp has been set, but we need to send a message to the goat that we mean business. Doc may have fancy redstone, but we have determination, grit, and most importantly, obsidian. Oh, and we’re here!”

“Obsidian?” Joe asked, landing beside Scar on the floor of the perimeter, hanging up the phone. “I thought you were gonna say, like, a pipe bomb or something.”

“No, no, CuteGuy.” Scar pulled out a shulker box and set it on the ground. “We just want to be annoying to good ol’ DocM, not actually kill him. So, we’re gonna cover every surface down here in obsidian.”

Joe looked at Scar, then around at the yawning expanse of the perimeter. “I- yeah, okay. And we are the good guys here, right?”

“Of course.” Scar replied, smiling.

——

It took about five hours of painstakingly placing obsidian, but every surface within the perimeter was eventually covered, which was an interesting sight to behold. Scar and Joe stood at the mouth of Doc’s house, looking down into the expanse.

“I think we did good, CuteGuy.” Scar said, patting Joe on the back.

“This bow was surprisingly effective against slimes.” Joe replied, hoisting up the big pink bow.

“That’s the power of the veloci-tay.” Scar said with an understanding nod. “Now, let’s get out of here before Doc gets back.”

He’d hardly uttered the words when there was the distinct sound of someone coming through Doc’s nether portal. Scar and Joe turned around just in time to see Doc emerge from the portal, and freeze at the sight of them.

“HotGuy?” Doc breathed. “What are you doing here? You and your… actually, I don’t believe I’ve met your… friend?”

“Oh, this is my sidekick, CuteGuy.” Scar waved his hand at Joe.

“Name suits you, CuteGuy.” Doc winked at Joe. “Pleasure to meet you. Now, what was I- oh, what are you both doing in my base? Why does CuteGuy look guilty? What…” Doc’s mechanical eye suddenly flew from the socket, whirring into the air with small but powerful blades. It flew behind the two superheroes and looked down into the perimeter. The room went silent, and Joe watched Doc’s face fall, first into surprise, then anger.

“What the- what did you do? Obsidian?” Doc’s eye flew back into socket, and he actually growled at them. “You annoying-”

“CuteGuy, shoot him!” Scar screeched, hiding behind Joe.

“I- what- okay!” Joe pulled back the bow and aimed it at Doc. The arrow missed. Then another missed. Then Doc was standing right in front of him, glowering.

“It’s a good thing you’re cute, because you’re a terrible shot.” Doc growled.

“Run!” Scar screamed, shooting into Doc’s face over Joe’s shoulder, and they both took off to the sky. Doc typed a bunch of angry and cryptic messages into the in-game chat, but didn’t pursue.

Joe and Scar landed on the bridge between Grian and Mumbo’s bases, breathing heavily.

“We did it! Our first mission as a duo!” Scar held out his hand for a high-five. “What do you say, Joe, want to take on the CuteGuy persona full time? HotGuy needs a good sidekick like you.”

Joe gazed into Scar’s grinning face, seeing his own, glittering pink reflection in Scar’s sunglasses.

“Absolutely not.”