#i still don't think i can write it

[frosted-woods]

autumn time to be gay and totally fine and not miserable at all

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

[teaboot]

you're so like. inspiring. or i wish i could be inspired. you reblog that post with the blue critter and you're like "im glad i was born on this planet". how do i manage to get that mindset. how do i manage to not want the pain to stop at any cost and enjoy what's still possible to enjoy

It's my first time here and I'm never coming back

[poke-poke-poke]

Thinking about pkmn social media-- he's giving tips on how best to take care of pkmn that aren't too keen on water (goomy's there for enrichment)

...

his hoodie got soaked,,

[liauditore]

Equally Invalid

[seiwas]

sellllllll it's meeeeee. hehehehehehehehehhehe

so for ur writing exercises.... deku + light? please? pretty please?

:3c

heheh heheh hehe niku. this will be the death of me. me writing izuku for the first time 🥲 i will only do this for you </3

contains: established relationship, spoilers for the end of the manga, aged up deku but sometime in between the final outcome (he doesn't get the h*** s*** from bakugo yet), mentions of sex and scars

deku + light

izuku only sleeps with the lights off.

it isn't uncommon; many people you know can't sleep with even just a sliver of light turned on somewhere in the room. but the difference with izuku, you learn, is not that he's unable to stand the light―it's that he refuses to.

you quickly pick up on it the first few times he sleeps over.

he fidgets in bed, pretty badly, actually. the nightlight you sleep with glows a warm yellow, illuminating the side of your face and coating him in its afterglow. you chalk it up to nerves, how he pulls at his sleeves and adjusts his position constantly; he is, after all, one of the most anxious people you know.

and this relationship―it's new. heck, even you feel a little jittery with his arm wrapped around you.

the rhythmic tapping on your hip only increases pace. you don't think he realizes it, so your hand gently reaches for his, intertwining your fingers as you turn around in his arms.

he's close, nearly touching you nose-to-nose; the proximity leaves you fuzzy, a little ticklish, so you giggle, a soft "oops," as the freckles dusting his face almost glisten under the warm light.

"hi," you whisper, meeting his eyes; they stare back at you wide in surprise, "can't sleep?"

he looks almost guilty at your question, as if you’ve caught him with the one thing he's been trying to keep from you.

"just—" his voice comes out louder than intended, prompting him to chuckle nervously as he readjusts his volume, "just winding down, sorry."

you inch closer, nuzzling his nose lightly, "it's okay."

"did i wake you?" he asks, cheeks flushing pink as his eyebrows furrow in immediate concern. his expression is something caught between stifling a grin and feeling sorry.

you shake your head against the pillow you share, strands of your hair tangling with his. "just winding down," you tease, watching as his gaze turns softer, eyelids drooping heavier.

sometimes, you think, izuku holds the world in his eyes―a deep, dark green, the color of life. most times, they look at you with wonderment, bright and alive; photos from inko tell you they're the eyes of his inner child.

on nights like this one, however, they hide a depth in them weighted by what you can only assume is time, and all that has happened to him in such a short span of it.

you try your best to understand what lies beneath them, knowing full well he'll never tell you outright what truly bothers him.

"is it the light?" you bring up, some time after laying in silence.

"hm?" he clarifies.

"do you have a hard time sleeping with the nightlight?"

his eyes widen briefly once more, as if shocked that you've caught him again. these split second reactions are ones you've learned to be attentive to when it comes to izuku.

"no," he tries to lie, but you know better as you turn to your nightstand and reach for its switch, "you don't–"

"it was hurting my eyes," you quickly make up an excuse, tucking yourself closer under his chin as you cut off his attempt to deny it again.

finding out that the light was the problem was the easy part—

you'd begun to notice much earlier on that izuku was barely rested on the nights he'd spend at your place. it was only when your old nightlight broke that you began to notice him waking up much later than you did, groggily rousing from a deep sleep.

—what was hard, was figuring out why.

at first, you suspected it was his scars.

"s-sorry, it's not—" he'd warned you, right as your hands gripped the hem of his shirt the first time you were about to have sex, "—it's not nice."

you didn't care though; you still don't care, and you've made that abundantly clear to him since. you love izuku and all his parts―all the nicks and jaggedy pieces of skin that make up who he is.

when you eventually ask him about it, with a request that he be honest with you for once, he tells you that it is and it isn't―the reason why he exclusively sleeps with the lights off, that is.

it's an odd, comforting relationship he has with his body—that he is simultaneously grateful and sorry for how its become a canvas, both painted and marred to symbolize japan’s historic last stand.

you find out the real reason when you catch him staring at his hands.

he does it often, when he thinks you aren't looking—his fists bunched up in the same way he used to watch the power of one for all course through his fingertips; the same way he used to prepare them in battle.

there’s a faraway look in his eyes that lingers, you notice—a little wistful if anything.

“do you miss it?” you finally ask. he gives you the same shocked look he does every time, as if he’s been caught with a secret he’s been trying to hide.

he’s learned a fair bit about you now, too, though—lying to you is futile when you’ve perfected reading his truth. he stares at his fists again as you take a seat beside him, moving to give you space. you rest your head on his shoulder gently, waiting.

“sometimes,” he admits, but you know it’s an understatement.

“i think about the vestiges a lot. i miss them the most, i think,” he continues, clenching his fists tightly, “i always try to reach out to them, but i guess it doesn’t work that way.”

“i… i try to replicate the right conditions every night, but…” then he lets go, stretching his fingers out wide. the scars on the surface ripple through his skin, telling its own story.

you hum, acknowledging what he means. silence sits with the two of you as you take his hand in yours, slowly unfurling his fingers until his palm reveals itself to you. it’s rough to the touch, seasoned with hard work and all that he’s been through.

“is that why you prefer the dark?” you ask softly, after some time.

it's not often that you stay up later than izuku does. when you do though, you catch him shifting in bed, moving from side-to-side. you pretend you aren't awake, but you hear him mumble their names, dwindling in volume as he dozes off to sleep.

he stares at his palm for a moment before he admits quietly, "yeah." his brows furrow as if contemplating whether to say more, but he shakes his head, dark green strands swaying to the beat of his embarrassed chuckle, "nevermind, it's silly."

"it's not."

you intertwine your fingers, sandwiching his hand between yours. a slight sheen glosses over his eyes as he tilts his head up to look at you. he draws in a breath, before it spills over.

"it's..." he finds the words, and you squeeze his hand in comfort, "it's easier to believe it was all real when the lights are out, and that maybe it can happen again."

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[arttsuka]

I LOVE Teen Stan and Ford, it’s sad they don’t get drawn enough, so thank you so much!

Does Ford ever help Stan when he gets overstimulated? Or maybe when he has a rage response and suddenly starts crying and calls himself stupid?

Here's the other post with Ford

[scourgeofmyownbrain]

I was spinning the TFO Characters around in my head and this happened. I am an enjoyer of "TFO Bee is older than OP and Elita and D" so I went a little nutso about it. I really hope this makes an ounce of sense bc this was very stream of conscious.

Optimus is digging though some ex-miners data files. Partially to ensure everything is updated but mostly to see if Sentinel did anything else to them... aaaaaand OP just wants to snoop a bit; sue him. "Huh, I wonder if I can find B's file," OP thought. And he could, because he dug through nearly every cabinet twice before he found it. Bee must have pissed Sentinel off something fierce bc he buried his file in with the old bot's so no one could find it. Surrounded by haphazard piles of data pads, Optimus gets comfy and starts snooping.

Bee has a very long list of infractions: 30 counts of talking back to superiors (D would hate him for that), 158 counts of ignoring protocol (Elita would have his head on a pike), 29 counts of breaking and entering (A bot after OP's own spark), 8 counts of theft (damn), 2 counts of arson (Damn), 4 counts for participating in a riot (DAmn), 2 counts of assaulting a superior (DAMN), 1 count for conspiracy against the government (HUH?), 1 count for bot-slaughter ((⊙_⊙)). How did OP not hear about any of this, this sounds like something every miner would know about? A miner assaulting a superior? The rumour mill would have had a field day with that alone. OP moves on to Bee's assignments, maybe there's a reason this news never got to OP's mining sector. Damn, that's a lot of sectors: 3, 7, 10, 11, 14, 19, 23, 26, 27, 30, 35- wait, that was OP's sector, when was Bee there? OP doesn't remember any yellow bots running around committing arson? Field medic, tool repair, tool fabrication, Prototype jetpack testing- Testing? Those things were older than OP; why would Bee be testing them? It doesn't even mention his assignment to sub level 50!! The questions continue to gather as OP reads on, confusing him more and more.

Elita interrupts his confused scrolling by walking into the room to tell OP something. OP ignores her words and franticly shoves Bee's file in her face. Elita is older than OP (Not by much), maybe she knows something about Bee. She doesn't, and now both of them are confused. Was there another guy named B-127 in the past? Was current Bee a clone? Wtf is going on?? The two of them begin going down a rabbit hole. They dig through every wayward file they can find. They get so desperate that, during a skirmish with the Decepticons, they ask Megatron if he knows anything. They get a data pad with Bee's info and glue a magnet to the back. During the fight, OP gets into a one on one with Meggy and slaps the datapad onto his back before the cons retreat. Yes this is the dumbest thing they've ever done, hopefully Meg doesn't ignore them. Also what did you want to tell me before, I completely forgot to ask-

Megatron is ignoring the datapad that OP stuck to his back. It's been stuck to the wall of his room since he threw it there. He glares at it a lot. Eventually, he gets curious and reads it, maybe OP apologized for being a backstabbing bitch. He did not; it's a copy of B-127's personal file with a lot of question marks and circles drawn on everything. Meg gives it a read, curious about his frie-EX Friend. He's taken aback by how long the infraction list is (conspiracy against the government? Bot-Slaughter? Sounds like Meg's kinda bot) and how extensive OP's notes are. He taps at the screen a few times before turning the pad off and stowing it in his subspace.

During their next fight, Megatron returns the data pad by shoving the magnet against Optimus's face.

After returning, Optimus turns on the data pad. There are three things added by Megatron. 1: A circle around a line of fine print at the end of the Assignments tab, "Permanently reassigned to Waste Management on Sub-level 50." Optimus's own frantic writing is just above it "SUB-LEVEL 50????" (that is the smuggest circle known to Cybertron). 2: A sentence next to Bee's medical records "What is his listed Spark Date?" and 3: A sentence at the top of the first page, "Have you asked B-127 about this?"

OP and Elita did not ask Bee about any of this. The thought never crossed their minds. Bee even helped them sort through old data pads! They feel incredibly stupid. Elita is too proud to go and ask so OP slips it into his and Bee's next one-on-one convo.

OP: Hey Bee, I found your data file in the Miner records.

B: Oh cool! Let me see, I want to see what's on it.

OP: *gives data pad*

B: Oh wow, this thing is long. They really wrote down everything- Oh, I've got a funny story about sector 23, there was this bot I knew, cool guy you would like him, and he had this thing-

OP: Actually, Bee... can I ask you a few questions? About your file?

B: Shoot, big guy.

OP: ...Arson? Assault? Conspiracy?

B: What about that?

OP: They're in your file, it says you've done them.

B: Oh yeah, no, I've done them. I mean, who hasn't? Wait, is it bad that I've worked against the government now that I'm a government employee?

OP: So you've actually done all this??

B: Yeah, why? I thought you guys knew this stuff.

OP: What?

Bee then explains how he was apart of a rebel organization that wanted better lives for the cogless. He had joined pretty early on and was pretty good at talking loud enough without a loudspeaker that he became the face of the org. Things were going pretty well; bots were listening, and changes were getting implemented, all that good stuff. Sure there were a few riots but you can't make a space omelette without breaking a few space eggs (tf is a space egg...). Eventually, Sentinel got sick of them so he ordered them to be rounded up and thrown in jail. Bee was the first to get caught, but he didn't snitch on the rest of his group, so he was sent down to Sub-level 50. Never heard what happened to everyone else after that.

Optimus hears all this and immediately drags Bee to the file room to find more info. It takes a hot minute but they find the record of the org Bee was a part of. It got dissolved before OP was sparked. Flabbergasted, OP asks Bee when he got sparked.

B: *Holding pad with poster of Bee's face* Oh, this brings back memories. I actually knew the bot who made these. I wonder if she's still doing these...

OP: Bee, how old are you, exactly. When did you get sparked?

B: uhhh, let me get back to you on that one.

OP: Bee, you got put in Sub-level 50 before I was born, how old are you?

B: I'm gonna be real, I do not know how long I was down there. Time kinda blurs after a while. Ho-How old are you?

OP: 16 cycles.

B: I was down there for over 16 cycles?? Primus below, is anyone still alive? Oh, right, age. uuuuuuhhhh, 48? Cycles? I think? Around there. Hey, did you see any files for a bot named Knockout? I would like to see it for no personal reasons whatsoever-

OP: Bee you were sparked right after the primes died wtF-

Chaos ensues. OP comms Elita and she immediately stops whatever she was doing to join the two in the file room. OP is freaking out bc he thought Bee was around his age, what do you mean you're actually double my age. You should be running the government, not me, I'M A BABY COMPARED TO YOU. Elita is pacing around trying to make sense of Bee's past, what do you mean you were the face of an organization, what do you mean you successfully implemented the miners right to clean energon, what do yoU MEAN. Bee is ignoring both of them and franticly looking for his friends' files, hoping at least a few of them are still alive. Or just one, specifically a red one that was a field medic oh please let him still be around at least-

Eventually everyone calms down and they talk about it. Optimus and Elita get to learn about the other time the miners tried to rise up and get better treatment. Gotta love a impromptu history lesson. Bee's best guess as to why the org was wiped from history was bc Sentinel didn't want any other miners getting any ideas and doing it again. They figure out Bee was actually down in Sub-level 50 for about 20 cycles, give or take, which spurs an actual search for anyone he knew before (B: pls pls pls pls pls living bf pls pls pls pls). Primus must have been smiling up at them because they do find several bots Bee knew from before. Good time is had all around. Reunions and meet ups, parties and get togethers, everything a bunch of old bots do after not seeing each other for a long time. They get to reminisce on all the old crimes they committed together (OP and E1 are v concerned bc is this normal? Are we going to turn into this?) They have a lot of shit to catch up on and everything is pretty great actually.

During their next fight, Megatron gets another data pad stuck onto his back. When he turns it on, the only thing on it is a selfie Bee took at his Spark day party, with the "Happy 49th Spark Day!" sign in the background. The photo's caption says, "(Yes, It's correct) Miss you lots! Hope you're less of an angry glitch the next time I see you!"

If anyone wants to take this idea and do it better, please do, I am not very good at this. Proper formatting is not my specialty.

[pmpwbrrs]

Yeah no I'm not done with them yeaah no

I hate them so much these two fudkers they're NOT gonna be happy . No. Right now they are maybe(not really), but later? No

[summerongrand]

ao3 is down again and people are coming to tumblr to check if, indeed, ao3 is down for everyone else (it is)

[petitepatateuwu]

It's way too hot and I am way too tired to do any more efforts, so excuse the critical lack of quality here.

If you didn't know, Cole is my favourite Power Ranger :D

And while I was binge watching Ninjago I had the pleasant surprise to see him physically and mentally traumatized in season 5 😈

And since I'm a huge sucker for angst, my brain immediately thought of developing that idea in order to hurt my beautiful baby boy some more. That and also the fact that my brain immediately looks for logic in the laws of cartoon physics (I really shouldn't do that...)

So I bring you the "Cole is a Ghost Kind-of-Saga". I still have a few more ideas to exploit, notably adressing the ways the other ninjas will help him cope with his new condition :3

And maaaaybeeeee a small comic too 😇

Anyways, I will let my brain rest a bit for now and sleep.

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[s1lv3rp4w3dc4t]

shout out object shows with canon queer ships. I'm talking on screen kiss or even just verbal confirmation. all things considered it's a bit strange you don't really see them that much when you think about how gay everyone here is. I love you ii but c2bc did what you didn't and I think that's actually really nice.

[crookedfivefingers]

3.13 | ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅꜱ

link to the post I accidentally wound up prattling endlessly about in the tags 💀

[katsuki-king-of-twinks]

Pierce Brown's ability to believably write from Virginia's perspective will always amaze me.