#i swear it activated my fight or flight response

[liumilai]

why did i feel physically attacked by the magnus protocol intro outro music👨‍🦯👨‍🦯 come back to me soft violins the children miss you

[childotkw]

I have intense feelings about this fucker in particular.

[themuseofaphrodite]

can’t turn back now ✧ OB87

summary: ollie bearman may be the most popular boy in his year, but even he has trouble with asking his crush out on a date. 

trigger warnings: suggestive content, swearing

word count: 1.1k

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Only three more days remained until the winter formal, and Ollie Bearman still hadn’t asked his crush out. It was so embarrassing, how his throat dried up and his hands became extra clammy whenever he was around you. He’d tried at least seven times, but it was like a spell was cast every time he attempted to bring up the conversation. You were so beautiful, with cinnamon ringlets and bright green eyes, and a laugh that sounded like twinkling bells. It wasn’t just your beauty that made him dumbstruck; you were super smart and funny too. On top of that, you never hung on to him or made him feel as if he was being used for a leg up in the social pyramid of school. You were special, and he wanted you to know that.

How would he do that, though?

He didn’t want to be too sappy, because you’d told him before that grand romantic gestures repulsed you. “It’s too similar to a romcom. Cute, but it should stay on a telly screen.” That crossed out every idea he had so far: a big bouquet of flowers sent to your dorm, writing a puzzle in the school newspaper for you to solve…

“Hey, Ollie!” you called out, jarring him out of his thoughts. You jogged up to him with a big smile plastered on your face as you asked, “Are you ready for this weekend?”

Ollie blushed. “Yeah, kind of. All my friends have dates, so I’ll probably be seventh-wheeling if things don’t change soon.”

“Aw, Ol,” you mock-pouted. “Poor you, most popular boy in year twelve. And you can’t find a girl to ask out? I think I know at least ten who’d gladly accept your offer.”

The only girl I want to ask out is you, but I can’t fucking talk when I’m around you, he thought frustratedly. “Yeah, I have someone in mind. Just, um, waiting for the right moment.” He tilted his head to look down at you, a shy smile dancing on his lips. “What’s up, though, Y/N?”

“Oh, um, I was wondering if you knew whether we had an exam in literature today. Penny keeps telling me we are, but I think she’s tricking me.” Your best friend Penny loved making you panic over exams, since she knew how seriously you took them. This time, she’d roped all your other friends into her prank, so you weren’t sure if you should take her for her word or not. “Do you have any idea if she’s right? Or did she get to you too?”

Ollie shook his head. “No, I don’t think we do. Professor Gilliam would have told us for sure.” “Yeah, on that damn cursed blackboard,” you responded, nodding your head in agreement. “Fucking Penny keeps lying to me. I’m so annoyed.” “Sorry, Y/N,” Ollie said apologetically, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet. He curled his hands into fists, preparing himself for what he would do next. “Anyways, I had a question of my own to ask you. Um…”

You looked up at him, subconsciously leaning forward like Ollie was about to tell you a secret. “Don’t tell me you stole Gilliam’s planner and you want my help to hide it.”

Ollie laughed, but it sounded shrill and fake to his ears. “No, definitely not. Um, it’s something else.” He worried at his lower lip, thinking how best to phrase this. “The winter formal is coming up, and I was wondering…” 

You blinked up at him, still confused. 

This is the point of no return, Ollie mused internally. Please God, don’t let me fuck this up.

“I was wondering if you would do me the honors of being my date?” he finally spat out, the words clipped and almost indecipherable.

Your face froze in shock, jaw dropping a moment later as your brain processed what Ollie had said. “You…You want me to be your date?” you stammered out.

Ollie nodded, panic starting to well up in his gut, his fight-or-flight response activating the longer you didn’t say yes. He steeled himself, willing himself not to bolt or melt into a puddle of mush on the pathway where you stood. “Yeah. If you want. If you already have a date, I understand. It’s totally OK, Y/N, if you don’t want to go with me.”

“Oh…Ol…” You looked up at him through your eyelashes, clasping your hands behind your back. “Of course I’d like to be your date. I was wondering when you’d grow the balls to ask me out.”

A surge of relief flooded through Ollie and he let out a long sigh. “Thank God. I was worried I’d have to change my name and leave the country, that’s how mortified I’d be.”

“You think I’d really say no to you?” You questioned him, crinkling your nose. “That would be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and I once cut my own bangs.”

Ollie rubbed the back of his neck, still in shock. “Your bangs are beautiful, Y/N.”

“Yeah, now that I let a professional cut them,” you shot back, giggling. “Not all of us can have perfectly styled hair all the time, Bearman.”

“I might have perfectly styled hair, but you’re fully perfect in my eyes, L/N,” Ollie retorted, his chin jutting out defiantly. “I didn’t ask out those other girls because I knew I wanted to ask you.”

You put your hands on your hips, beaming like a beautiful ray of sunshine. “Yet it took you almost a fortnight to do so. Imagine.”

“You try asking your crush out to a dance, and then you’ll see.”

“I almost had to because you were such a scaredy cat!” you chortled, nudging Ollie playfully on the shoulder. “But it worked out. Guess I’m stuck with you for a while now, hm?”

Ollie elbowed you back. “Hey, Y/N! I’m not that much of a hassle. You know you adore me.”

“Sure, Bearman. Whatever lets you sleep easy at night,” you teased lightheartedly.

“Don’t even deny it. Why else would you stick by me? For my social status? You and I both know you don’t care about that. So, it has to be my charm and good looks.”

“Someone has an ego,” you chaffed. “But you’re not wrong. It’s something about that dopey face that really drew me in.” Thank you, God, for giving me the courage to ask this girl out and the charm to be approved by her, Ollie thought to himself, suppressing a smile as he listened to you talk.

He absolutely could not wait for Saturday to arrive.

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[crazylittlejester]

Me: *listening to Legend of Zelda music on shuffle*

The frickin Guardian Theme: :)

those things still give me anxiety I swear

- hero-of-the-wolf

I used to have the guardian theme as my alarm but the issue is nothing quite activates my fight or flight response like that music so I’d wake up ready to throw hands and it stressed me out way too much so i had to change it 😭

[raith-way]

Bex Barba for the 100 oc questions ask! #1, 36, 43, 78 annndd 85

my bex! my crazy assassin girl. i don't get to talk about her enough and she's one of my oldest ocs so thank you!!

1: what common traits do you share with your oc? what about them is the least like you?

i think most of my characters have little pieces of me in them, but bex was a challenge because i wanted to create a psychopath. i can't really think of any shared traits because bex is extreme, but she does occasionally have this kind of everything-is-gonna-be-okay attitude even when things obviously aren't at the time. that is something i try to do. least like me would be her murderous gleeful rage.

36: what is your oc’s fight or flight response like? what sorts of things provoke it the most?

bex is all fight. flight does not cross her mind, isn't an option. being touched without permission is the first thing that will set her off, she calls it a pet peeve, and being disrespected. woman is always ready to fight honestly.

43: how important are the rules to your oc? do they follow them to a t, or do they enjoy breaking them?

bex doesn't really believe in rules. she'll sometimes try to set rules for herself, but she's a bit unstable so she'll even break her own rules. if we're talking about laws or rules of society? she has her fun breaking those.

78: how socially skilled is your oc? are they good at understanding social cues? how charismatic are they?

it really depends on her mood, or current mental state. at times, she can be very observant and pick up on social cues easily. she can also be very charming. if a person gets too close, they can usually tell something is a little off about her even when she's in one of her better moods. other times, she can't pick up on social cues and can't understand why people act the way they do.

85: what would history remember your oc for? how would they become famous? or are they the sort that would really only be appreciated long after their death?

i'd say bex is more infamous, within gotham and the assassin underworld. at the beginning of the fic, she's known for taking out an extended mob family. (not just those actively in the mob either. she showed no mercy, to anyone, and didn't care about collateral damage.) among other gotham villains, she's famous for being the other half of the equally insane and terrifying victor zsasz.

(i swear, this fic has fluff and wholesome moments)

[ddarker-dreams]

Lock have you ever played Omori? I feel like that would be a game right up your alley.

i have played it!! i'm trying to remember exactly when i did... i believe it was around two years ago? it was an experience that'll stay with me forever. i've played a decent amount of video games and nothing has ever been quite like the time i had with omori. it was charming, devastating, tentatively hopeful, and i cried like nobodies business at the end.

the first time i entered the deeper well and this track started playing, i felt some surreal emotion that hasn't been drawn out of me since. i just sat in my chair and had a crisis. there are multiple memories that i made with this game but that one is the most visceral, idk why. that and fighting humphrey. the OST activates my fight or flight response i swear. fuck that whale. 😡😡

[tiredtreebranch1]

Poison Killed The Cat

Poison no.24 he read. The vial only sat on the second shelf. Hundreds of small crystal vials filled with different coloured liquids were meticulously arranged in the towering cupboard. Each one had a neat label either numbering them or naming the known ones; cyanide, hemlock, belladonna, and less known ones; strychnine, curare. The cupboard was ostentatiously labelled ‘POISON’. He had been looking for the bathroom when he had glanced at the cupboard through an ajar door. How could he not be interested in such a beautiful dangling carrot. He didn’t care that any normal person would have run. Run and left this house. But instead, he had slipped into the room and cautiously opened the door to the cupboard.

Now as he stood their beholding the terrifying (but impressive) sight. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t reasonably return to dinner with an obvious psycho, but he doubted he had it in him to confront the host. He could possibly call the police. But was it safe to do so inside the house? Maybe he should just backtrack to the common sense he had ignored earlier. The instinct that when you see something so obviously dangerous that you should run. Activate the flight response. He didn’t even have a fight response he was just curious. He was a cat, and he was about to be killed.

But yes, he would sneak out. It was the best option. As slowly as he could he closed the cupboard door, keeping an ear out in case he heard any footsteps.

“Adam, Adam, Adam,” came a mockingly disappointed voice from behind him. He whirled around, wincing as the cupboard door closed the rest of the way with a slam.

Standing in the doorway was the host of the night. Henry.

Adam tried to take up a defensive position, straightening his back and throwing back his shoulders.

“What are you doing in here? The bathroom is further down the hall,” Henry said with a further mocking undertone to his words. Adam felt like a fly stuck in a web with a taunting spider.

“Well, I was, uhm,” Adam scrambled for an excuse, “I was looking in here to see if this was it and noticed that the cupboard,” he gestured behind him, “was open and I figured that you probably didn’t want it to be, so I came in to close it,” he ended with a gasp for air.

“Oh, isn’t that odd? I would swear that I closed it last time I was in here,” Henry said with fake confusion as he strode closer.

“Yea. That is odd,” Adam said carefully as he started to edge his way away from what would end with him in his coffin.

Henry nodded emphatically, “just so I know, how much did you happen to see?”

He said it in a way that conveyed genuine curiosity, but his gaze conveyed a threat.

“Barely anything, almost as if it was empty,” Adam forced out a laugh and glanced at the door.

“Right, right,” Henry paused where he stood with his arms crossed over his chest as if he was considering something.

Adam took this as the perfect opportunity to make a dash for the door.

Quicker than Adam had expected, Henry had stepped back into the open door and closed it with his back.

“Tsk, tsk. Come on, you must know that by now I can’t let you leave.”

With a click of a lock Henry looked Adam in the eye and spread his mouth into a malicious smile.

“I can’t have you spilling my little secret, can I?”

Adam shook his head, not really in answer to the man, he was just shaking all over.

“I knew you’d get it!” Henry said gleefully as he stalked forwards.

Adam stumbled backwards, “I promise I won’t tell anyone!”

“Of course you won’t,” Henry pulled out a chair from the side of the room. It clanged against the cold stone floor as he placed it right in the middle of the room.

“Sit.”

Adam took a step back and away from the shadowed chair, “why?”

“Well, we have to make sure you keep your promise, don’t we?”

The rest of the night was a blur.

[crowscommunion]

You know, back in the day I used to spin elaborate tales to distract people from what I was actually doing in my real personal life. My theory was that if you give someone something to think they're spying on, they'll look where you're talking and not poke around in your real, everyday life.

Which I feel was true.

I did many things, gained, healed, worked on my life, behind closed doors, only to make any of it publicly known when I felt secure and comfortable in my accomplishments. Overall, I always waited until I secured my goal to make it known, I never let anyone know what my next step was, and I'm glad I was that way, and I continue to be that way.

I have many plans for the next few years, a lot of which I haven't told anyone but my fiancé about. I like my life to be private, aside from the little things, or my opinions or outlooks on people and life, nothing about our real goals or what we're doing to build ourselves.

The next few years are going to be a whirlwind of events, and I'm going to pull myself in and stay out of the public eye for a long time while I'm securing that happiness.

That's why I really don't post on Facebook, or most of my other social media. I keep things very simple, happy, and playful with my friends, and I mostly just allow them to vent and talk about their own lives, rather than focusing on what I'm doing in mine.

I've been practicing paying more attention to what they have to express about their own feelings and experiences, because I know they benefit from having a listening ear. And I just don't feel it necessary to talk about my own life, it's mostly work, sleep, and courses anyway.

At the end of the day, I just think I gain more from listening than speaking, unless I'm asked for advice. I don't ever want to be that person who listens only for their chance to speak next, that's something I'm very conscious of because I see it in others all the time.

Overall, I guess my life is pretty boring anyway, mostly because I've waited so long for my life to finally be boring and not full of stress and terrible things. The whole reason I've been building my life and creating my own world is because everywhere I've been has been high anxiety and constantly being on edge, I swear my fight or flight response was actively triggered for years.

My world is simple, what we're doing shouldn't be of interest to other people. I think it's weird when people go out of their way to peep potential information about us. That's why I used to completely fabricate all of it, and I'm glad I did.

As you can see, what I was creating for myself in the meantime, underneath the veil, was incredible. I have no regrets at all.

[art-of-manliness]

Does Yelling While Exercising Make You Stronger?

Every gym has that person. The person who loudly grunts and yells when he’s exercising. This guy is an extreme example of the phenomenon. While it seems like it’s dudes who are more likely to grunt while working out, women sometimes do it too. When I was in college at the University of Oklahoma, there was a girl who would grunt with abandon while she sprinted on the treadmill in the student gym. So as you did the elliptical machine while watching VH1’s Tool Academy (the pinnacle of the classical era of reality television), you could hear her carry on, making loud noises that sounded like she was giving birth.  When I’m lifting really heavy, I’ll do some subtle grunting. I don’t do it on purpose. It just sort of happens. Instead of a loud yell, it sounds like I’m straining to release a built-up bowel movement. When I’m doing Bulgarian squats, I’ll let out a fairly loud “AHHHHH!” as the lactic acid accumulates in my quads. It seems to help me finish those last few reps. The operative word here is seems. After I finished a recent set of yelly Bulgarian squats, I pondered, “Does yelling, moaning, and grunting actually do anything for my lifts? Does it help me hoist heavier weights, or is it just cathartic and/or theatrical? AoM investigates. The Science of Grunting, Yelling, and Moaning While Exercising Believe it or not, scientists have researched this very question.  In 2014, sports scientists Chris Rodolico and Sinclair Smith conducted an experiment involving 30 participants squeezing a handgrip in three ways: just squeezing, squeezing and exhaling, and squeezing while making a vocalization. The researchers found that more force was generated when exhaling compared to just squeezing, but the most significant increase in force (10%) was observed when the subjects vocalized while squeezing. So yelling and grunting does make people stronger, at least on grip tests. A similar 2014 study examined whether yelling and grunting helped tennis players hit the ball harder. Thirty-two athletes participated, and stroke velocities and isometric forces were measured while they grunted and while they didn’t. The results indicated that dynamic velocity and isometric force increased nearly 5% when the athletes grunted during both serves and forehand strokes.  This adds more affirmation to the idea that vocalizing while exercising does make you stronger.  But why does it have this effect? Sinclair Smith hypothesized that yelling could activate the autonomic nervous system, which controls the fight-or-flight response, resulting in an adrenaline rush that helps muscle contractions become more complete and forceful. It’s the same idea behind the research that’s shown that swearing can increase your tolerance to pain. When availing yourself of the force-generating power of yelling and grunting, you’ll of course need to exercise some discretion, especially when you decide to unleash your barbaric yawp while deadlifting in a public gym. It can be annoying and distracting to some people, so practice good gym etiquette. If you’re in a black iron powerlifting gym where such behavior is expected, then yell with abandon. If you’re in a more sedate, upscale gym where most of the clientele are retirees working the Nautilus machines, rein in your exercise noises. And if you’re in a Planet Fitness, you’ll have to decide if goosing your chances of hitting a bench press PR is worth activating the Lunk Alarm. The post Does Yelling While Exercising Make You Stronger? appeared first on The Art of Manliness. http://dlvr.it/SnXGwT

[thebluewritingbench]

my favourite hobby is being shocked and alarmed by timers that i set

[apotelesmaa]

@fxggotclown ohhh I’m envious of the iPad acquisition… I have an iPad mini lying around somewhere but it’s like 10 years old at this point I don’t think it’ll run pjsk very well. Also I’m used to playing with my phone on a pillow in my lap using this position

Which I don’t recommend (hand pain) but I doubt I’m the only person doing it.

Smthn that helped me escape lvl 25 hell was 1) doing ranked matches (forces you to play at a level slightly above your comfort zone and get good at it instead of relying on accuracy up characters) as well as 2) changing my speed to ~10.5. I swear to god I went from barely being able to clear tondemo wonderz hard mode to clearing expert lvl 26 songs immediately it was so funny. & then doing more ranked + forcing myself to play on master mode in co op (if it’s below lvl 30. I get my ass beat otherwise) eventually helped me improve on harder charts. I think going through and clearing all the lvl 25-26 I struggled with also helped me get better at note layouts I sucked at but as a drawback hearing “rin-chan now”activates my fight or flight response.

I think there was also a period where I was averaging playing like 6 hours a night on the week and playing all day over the weekend (now at a more reasonable 2-3 hours a night) (still too much). Did not solve whatever I was going through (made it worse actually) but man did I hit those notes.

+ as a tip for trickier songs sometimes it can be helpful to look up a video of someone playing the chart. Shoujo rei master was my own personal hell until I found out that you literally did not have to move your fingers at all during the fucked up hold notes.

If I full combo another master song without even trying before I fc ifuudoudou I’m going to fucking end it all

[satanourunholylord]

Are you a woman? or man?

Nah

[tornsuits]

the voice my mom uses when i have 12 missing assignments and the voice she uses when she's confused about tma is the Exact Same so she's like "[deadname] i need to talk to u about something" and its just. oh god did i forget to do my history homework or has my mom just forgotten who jude perry is again

[thingismyson]

Anime!Jake haunts my dreams.

[hwsameripan]

Dear Homestuck, adfkjhadg;lkh QAQ I heard about the update!!!  Tell me you’re ok, si? We got your back!!! Sincerely,  Hetalian. Ps - The hate speech in the picture is fake. There’s nobody hurting or mocking homestuck at the moment ( I think… ). This is just something to tickle the feels. 

[heyclickadee]

Thoughts on “Metamorphosis”:

1. Oooh! It’s spooky! I like spooky. I don’t handle it well, but I like it.

2. *distant disembodied screams in the background while equipment lights flicker* Yeah okay that’s pretty textbook, but it’s textbook because it works. I am heebied and jeebied. Also, that poor commando!!

3. Speaking of commandos…that’s…a lot of commandos. I really hope the bad batch doesn’t have to fight these guys. They had enough trouble with just Scorch in “War Mantle.” Now it’s Scorch and a whooole boatload of guys just as terrifyingly competent as he is. And it’s not really the commandos’ faults, either, so if (when) the bad batch ends up having to go to Mount Tantiss, I hope they’re able to find an alternative solution that doesn’t get them or anyone else killed.

4. Ooohhh…that’s what the tweet meant. It’s this guy. I already hate this guy. Someone kick this guy down a flight of stairs.

5. Nice to see Nala Se again. Also nice to see that she’s refusing to help the empire, but seeing as how she had noooo problems helping put it into place, I think this has less to do with any real moral objections and more to do with being surprised and hurt that it backfired so badly. I don’t particularly like Nala Se. I might actively dislike her. That said, I do feel bad for her. Nobody deserves to lose their people like that. Also…I really want to know how she and Dr. Hemlock know each other, and how closely Dr. Hemlock was involved with the development of the inhibitor chips.

6. Lama Su’s alive??

7. Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and especially Omega telling Cid off yyyeeeeessssss

8. Okay, I like Cid. She’s fun. She’s shady and self-serving, but she’s fun. And I think she has more of a soft spot for the gang than she lets on, especially for Omega. But she does still take advantage of them as much as she can, because I think without the jedi around, she doesn’t have a steady source of income, and she has a tendency to get in way over her head with some pretty dangerous people. And with the Empire now on the lookout for Omega and the batch on the outs with Cid, I’m nervous for everyone. I’m not sure if she’d sell them out, if she’s already sold them out, if she’ll sell them out and then regret it and try to help them, or what.

9. “How hard could retrieving cargo be?” Oh…oh sweetie….

10. Tech what are you doing DO NOT go off by yourself listen to the kid please and get your beautiful ass back with the others I KNOW you’ve probably never seen a horror movie but this is EXACTLY how people in horror movies die what are you DOING Tech I swear—

11. I don’t think I breathed the whole time Tech was off powering the ship up. I kept expecting him to get snatched like the commando from the beginning did. (Also, I do appreciate that he was a bit visibly spooked.)

12. Gonna be honest, baby Zillo beast was not on my Bad Batch Season Two bingo card. I’m not complaining, though.

13. Ohhh I think we’re getting some answers about Omega this season. Loved that she recognized the cloning equipment. Also hated that she recognized the cloning equipment. Let this kid have a normal childhood.

14. “Fascinating.” I’m. Okay. You know what? That’s the correct response.

15. Wrecker knowing exactly what Tech was about to do and immediately pulling Omega away from the scene.

16. “And we’re the ones who let it out!” It’s cute you think that, Hunter, but that thing was getting off the ship eventually no matter what (you did maybe speed up the timeline, though).

17. Omega going to help Tech find some information because she knows how to interface with Kaminoan equipment! Tech pulling Omega out of the way of the explosion! I love them!

18. …yeeaaahhh those villagers are never going home again, are they?

19. I sort of wonder if this is going to be the kind of role the bad batch ends up playing if they do join forces with Rex and Echo. Not fighting on the ground, but reconnaissance.

20. I’m going to punt Lama Su into the sun.

21. So…this is another one of those episodes that makes me pretty certain we’re definitely getting at least a third season. At least. Besides the fact that they would have said by now if this was the last season and started labelling the finale as the series finale, there are so many things that have been set up and so many plates in the air, and even though there was a bit of pay-off here, this episode sort of introduced at least one more plate to the mix, and they don’t have time to deal with it all in just five episodes.

22. There were too many little character moments with all four of them in this episode I just. I love them, your honor.