#idk if chronic pain needs a tag but - just in case.

[dissociacrip]

this is okay to rb i think, especially if you have anything to add or any insight. idk. i'm tagging this the way that i am because i'm seeking community/connection(tm) or something

hypotonia is not like. a rare thing. not really. but i do remember my OT googling what it was.

low muscle tone/hypotonia may technically be a symptom rather than a diagnosis (barring benign congenital hypotonia, which afaik is controversial) but it's the closest thing to a "diagnosis" i've been given for some of this stuff because the potential cause of it hasn't been investigated and i guess it's not exactly urgent since my particular case isn't severe and doesn't seem progressive (hypotonia can be progressive & is involved in some progressive and degenerative conditions.)

but i wish it was talked about more and i wish more was known about it works and how it affects bodily function and i wish what we DO know about it was more accessible to the public when it comes to those who suffer from it. it's also kinda hard whether to KNOW you have it or not since its "signs" have so much overlap with other conditions that aren't related to muscle tone. it ranges a lot in severity too. and there's two different types (central and peripheral.) it's linked to dozens of diagnoses too which is why i say it's not uncommon.

but also i guess due to the complexity of how it affects the body and its lack of distinctiveness with most of its symptoms makes it kinda...hard to talk about? and i imagine w/ some people it's hard to distinguish the effects of hypotonia vs. their other problems. issues with chewing, writing, breathing, speaking, posture, coordination, etc. can be due to so many different things ranging from mental to physical. but it's not always something that can be lumped together w/ those other things because there's "my muscles don't work" in a terms of chronic muscular pain vs. "my muscles don't work" in terms of, like, they lack the ability to adequately support the body and bodily movement. if that makes any sense.

which ranges from someone like me where having to hold myself up sucks + mild motor skill/coordination impairments and mild developmental milestone delays, but others never meet those milestones or need assistance with things like breathing and ingesting food.

it's not a diagnosis but it can affect the body in complex ways like muscle shortening and stiffness due to our bodies having to compensate in weird ways for the lack of adequate tone (esp those of us who grew up with it), tibial torsion and femoral anteversion, flatfoot and knock-knees, reduced cervical lordosis sometimes leading to bruxism and occipital headaches, etc. PT centered around muscle strengthening to correct my "improper" movement and stuff.

and there's other stuff that can come with it that people like to consider """gross""" like drooling, constipation and other gastric, and pelvic floor dysfunction which can result in incontinence/problems with bladder control. muscles are involved in a lot of things. wild.

i'm rambling but i just wish more people talked about it. all i really have is that one interview that surestep did with meagan veracha, who has hypotonic cerebral palsy, about living with hypotonia as an adult.

maybe i wouldn't care all that much if i had a diagnosis that would "explain it" but "i might have gHSD/hEDS" doesn't rly do that for me because ppl in those communities obviously focus a lot on the joint dysfunction aspect (because those 2 conditions center around hypermobile joints so that's just natural, it's not a bad thing per-se, barring other problems that those communities have) but for me my case of symptomatic generalized hypermobility is secondary in how it impacts me vs. my muscles being bad at their job and my hypermobility might even be secondary to my hypotonia anyway.

dyspraxia/DCD (some people with it have hypotonia but not all - i thought i had it before i was told i was identified as having hypotonia when i was a kid...over two decades late) is another guess but again that centers more around coordination than things like "anything other than lying in bed is hard on me because my muscles don't support my body like they're supposed to."

maybe muscle tone is a complex medical concept that shouldn't really enter the public lexicon but i have no other language for it.

[angstyaches]

If you’re still taking prompts, would you write something with Donnacha looking after Henry? Maybe since Henry doesn’t want to go out and hasn’t been shopping, he eats something that’s gone off and it makes him really sick

CW: depression, anxiety around social cues, idk how to tag this but Henry is repeatedly triggered by things he knows are unreasonable but is triggered nonetheless, food mention, food poisoning, chronic pain mentioned, spicy times (hinted at; happening in another room), stomach ache, nausea, emeto, platonic cuddling, platonic kissing, platonic caretaking, brief mention of break-up (Donnacha and Autumn).

Word Count: 4,500 (yeah)

___ 

Henry slowly moved the fork towards his mouth, barely able to convince his lips to come apart long enough to place a scrap of spaghetti Bolognese inside. Then, it was just a case of convincing his jaws to work so that he could chew. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work, he reckoned.

He’d cooked this three days ago, when he’d been hit by a sudden wave of inspiration regarding taking care of his own basic needs. (Bolognese was one of the only things he knew how to make.) He’d also had an exceptionally long shower and shaved his neck that night. Stubble had already found its way back to him, and he hadn’t felt the urge to cook anything else.

He made a face as he chewed. Had his cooking always been this bland, or were his tastebuds checking out as punishment for the lack of variety he’d been offering them? Or maybe he’d blasted them to hell with the microwaved leftovers without realising it? It wasn’t unheard of for Henry to accidentally damage himself and not realise it until hours later.

Still, the food itself couldn’t be too bad, since he hadn’t automatically retched after taking the first bite. His body just liked to complain.

He glimpsed over a couple of pages of The Catcher in the Rye while he ate. The book was one of the oldest things he still owned, gifted to (stolen for?) him by his secondary school English teacher when the school had downsized their library. It still had a list of names glued to the title page, all of them students who had graduated long before he’d even started at the school.

He looked up as he heard the front door click, eyeing the space in the hall that was visible from the living room table.

A low, tittering giggle made his ears tingle. It didn’t match up with the sounds of anybody who usually came through here.

“Don’t worry!” Lucy. “I would’ve tripped, too, but I’m weirdly well-coordinated. I’m like a mountain goat.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, for no one’s benefit in particular. Lucy was so loud when she was tipsy. And such a liar, too. He’d seen her trip over empty air more times than he could count.

She popped into view, tipping her pink-haired head forward and looking into the living room out of habit. All of the flatmates usually did this, sussing out who was already home and occupying the common space.

She had a ‘friend’ with her. The giggler. She was a good half-foot taller than Lucy, helped by a pair of patent black platform sandals.

“Hi, Henry.” Lucy stood with her shoulders pulled back further than normal, with her hands held behind her back. It always amused Henry, just how differently she acted while she was in the middle of seducing someone. Like him, she was a bit of a social shapeshifter. “This is Cassidy.”

“Hi, Cassidy.” Henry was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was a) wearing a tattered wool sweater on top of yet another wool sweater and b) holding a steaming spoonful of spaghetti Bolognese halfway up to his mouth. “Nice shoes.”

“Thanks,” Cassidy grinned. “They tripped me up on the stairs.”

Henry had guessed as much. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Cassidy took hold of Lucy’s arm. “Ooh, what are you reading there?”

Henry lifted his book to show her the cover.

“Salinger, nice,” Cassidy smiled. Henry didn’t have a good enough grasp on her personality to know if she was being sarcastic or genuine, but what he did know was that she’d just pronounced the ‘g’ in ‘Salinger’ as though it should made a ‘guh’ sound.

He opened his mouth to correct her. “Actually, it’s –”

“We’re going to my room now,” Lucy interrupted. She sounded like a six-year-old bragging about their action figure collection.

Henry nodded sardonically. “Happy for you, hon.”

This was… partly true. He was about five percent happy for his bestie, while ninety percent of his emotional capacity was leaning towards envy and self-hatred. Henry hadn’t brought anyone home in so long that, out of sheer pity, Lucy had stopped outwardly teasing him about it.

The remaining five percent? It was burning with dissatisfaction at not being able to correct Cassidy’s pronunciation of ‘Salinger’.

The two girls continued down the hall, and Henry finally finished bringing his fork to his mouth. His chewing grew a bit more aggressive, and he scooped up some more Bolognese before he’d even swallowed.

His last attempted hook-up had spooked him a little bit, but that had been months ago. Maybe it was time to get back on the apps. Maybe he’d do it tonight. Maybe he’d stay up late, make himself look pretty, take a few new selfies to post –

No. Henry scowled, taking another flavourless bite. No procrastinating. He had a few pretty big commissions on his plate right now, and one of them in particular needed at least a few hours of his attention tonight. And it was already nearing 11pm, as the cat-shaped pendulum clock on the wall informed him.

Shit. Where is the name of all that was holy had the evening gone?

With his stomach relatively full, and his deadline anxiety spiking, Henry started to get up from the table. He grabbed his plate with one hand and his cane with the other, and brought his leftovers (left-leftovers?) to the kitchen.

___

As he settled into his desk chair, Henry pulled on some noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the sounds of t.A.T.u. that were drifting through the wall he shared with Lucy’s room. He didn’t object to Lucy’s music choices in the slightest, but he preferred to block everything out with white noise when he had work to do.

“It’s Salinger,” he grumbled under his breath, knowing Cassidy wouldn’t hear him, but needing to say it in order to move on to the next tasks at hand.

Less than two minutes after he’d pulled up his most pressing project, Henry could feel a steady stream of vibrations beginning just below his ribcage. He briefly pressed a hand against his side, feeling a ripple under his fingers. He didn’t think much of the mild discomfort. Besides a banana and a cup of tea, the leftover Bolognese had been the only thing he’d eaten all day.

He’d have to order groceries soon. He hated how much he dreaded it; he knew he was privileged to live in an age where he didn’t have to drag himself out to the supermarket, but somehow, the mental toll of shopping online was almost as hefty as the physical toll of leaving the apartment.

Maybe he should open a new internet tab and get it over with right now, while he had a vague sort of motivation to do it –

No. Henry gritted his teeth. That was just the urge to procrastinate again. And it was far too late in the day for that.

A streak of light sat across his computer screen, drifting in from the hallway. He always left the door ajar unless he was sleeping. The light hitting the screen swelled now, indicating that someone was opening the door further.

Henry almost screamed at the sudden interruption. Sure, not everybody in the world knew he had just sat down to get some work done, but… they should have!

“What?” he snapped, a little harsher than intended. He spun his chair to face the door as it opened the rest of the way, pulling off his headphones.

Donnacha’s hair was sticking up in the back and sides as he stood there, in light grey tracksuit pants and a Rick and Morty hoodie. He grimaced at Henry’s tone.

“Do you have any spare headphones?”

Henry frowned, his brain still struggling to switch gears. “Uh… yes? My old ones. Why?”

“Well, I left my ear buds at the gym, and… Lucy’s got her ‘getting lucky’ playlist on.” Donnacha grimaced widely and pointed in the general direction of Lucy’s room. “And I’d rather not be hearing it, to be honest.”

“Oh. Well, they’re not noise-cancelling –”

“That’s absolutely grand. I would go and hang out in the living room instead, but it’s freezing out there.” Donnacha pointedly rubbed at his arms, despite looking like a big, comfy marshmallow in his hoodie. “I’d rather be in bed.”

“Mmm.” Henry unplugged his extra set of headphones and extended them towards Donnacha.  

“You’re a lifesaver, Hen.”

“Don’t get the cord tangled,” Henry said, eyeing the way Donnacha immediately began to twirl said cord around his fingers.

“Who, me?” Donnacha grinned pointedly. His eyes flicked towards Henry’s computer screen. “What are you working on?”

“Just… work.” Henry had no desire to elaborate further. One of the most unfair things about social interaction, he’d always thought, was that there was no such thing as a neutral, concise answer. Concise answers were always misinterpreted, either as annoyed, disinterested, or simply rude.

“It’s kinda late to still be working.”

“I suppose it is.”

“’Kay,” Donnacha mumbled. He held the headphones up a little higher, as though waving goodbye with them. “’Night, then. Thanks.”

“Night.”

Henry turned back to his computer, pulled his headphones back on, and slipped back into his work.

___

The stomach ache crept up on him while he was in a fog of concentration, brows in a semi-permanent frown and eyes straining to keep digital lines and text from blurring. It only occurred to him that he should take a short break when a soft belch rumbled up from the pit of his belly and he tasted the tomato and basil from his dinner – much more clearly now than he had when he was actually eating it.

With his headphones blocking all outside noise, he wondered just how loud the belch had just been. Perhaps Lucy and Cassidy had just had their good time interrupted by an eruption from the depths of Henry’s stomach, and he was none the wiser.

He only worried about that for a nanosecond, though.

“Oh – Jesus, really?” Henry whispered to himself as he sat back in his desk chair.

He cradled his belly lightly with one hand. The pain seemed to slam into him all at once. As someone whose body tended to let him down at the most inopportune moments, Henry wasn’t all that surprised or concerned about the appearance of a stomach ache – but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel severely inconvenienced.

Henry snatched his glasses from his face and rubbed at his forehead, too. He wasn’t sure how massaging his head would help his stomach, but it comforted him a little bit. He glanced up in time to see the streak of light spreading across his computer screen again.

He groaned and ripped off his headphones. “Yeah, what?”

“Uh, thanks for the headphones, but they aren’t enough,” Donnacha declared. “I’m enacting Plan B. Retreating to the living room. Do you want to come watch something, seeing as you’re up, too?”

“Donnacha, I’m working, hon.”

“It’s almost one in the morning!” Donnacha chuckled. He tossed the borrowed headphones onto the bed; Henry couldn’t help but glare at the way the cord was wrapped around the top of the headset, and dread the thought of prising it off. “Come on. We can cuddle for warmth.”

“You want to cuddle me for warmth?” While they were roughly of the same height and general build, Donnacha had considerably more padding for combatting the elements than Henry did.

“Offer’s there,” Donnacha shrugged, shivering openly. “I’ll be out here, turning to ice, if you decide to take me up on it.”

Henry sighed. Why not? Lucy was getting some action; a little bit of human contact – even platonic – might ease the sting of jealousy a bit.

Besides, his stomach was bothering him enough that he knew getting back into any kind of flow would be almost impossible. And getting to sleep with Rita Ora lyrics rumbling through the wall didn’t seem very likely, either.

“Fine,” he mumbled, slipping his glasses back on and reaching for his cane. “But not Top Gun.”

“No?” Donnacha exclaimed unceremoniously. “What about Top Gun: Maverick?”

Henry groaned as the effort of standing up not only made his hip protest, but also sent a vice-grip pain through his abdomen.

Donnacha took the noise as one of protest, though. “Hey, I sat through three of your gibbly films –”

“Ghibli,” Henry murmured. What was up with the people in this household refusing to uphold the sanctity of guhs and juhs? How would Donnacha have liked it if Henry had started calling him precious Tom Hanks movie ‘Top Jun’?

“– So, now, you can whisht up and watch something I like.”

“Okay.” Henry didn’t have the capacity to argue, or to make his Top Jun remark. He was barely even sure he had enough energy to get to the living room without needing to stop and curl up in a ball on the floor. His stomach felt like it’d twisted itself up like Donnacha twisted up headphone cords.

He wasn’t getting up any slower than he usually did when his hip flared up, which meant that Donnacha didn’t notice anything was off. Henry was confused at the mild feeling of disappointment this brought on.

“I’m going to make us some tea,” Donnacha decided, turning to make his way towards the kitchen.

___

Henry declined the tea when Donnacha offered to make him some, unsure of how well it would settle in his stomach at this point. The effort of walking from his desk to the living room sofa had shoved the taste of his dinner back up into his mouth again.

He also decided to forgo any further protest regarding Donnacha’s choice of movie; the boy had made a fair (albeit poorly pronounced) point about allowing Henry to choose the movie three times in a row. Plus, maybe Top Gun would finally help Henry understand the appeal that Donnacha saw in piloting.

Three minutes in, Henry knew he’d made the right decision. (Not regarding the movie; it was already as pompous and self-indulgent as he’d predicted it would be.)

But he’d almost... forgotten how nice it was to cuddle, and he wanted to kick himself for not availing of Donnacha’s company more often during the winter months.

Playing rugby and working out meant that his muscles were taut, but his penchant for comfort foods and snacks kept him somewhat soft. His body was in a perfect state of balance. Just like his ability to juggle his career and his hobbies. His city life and his country soul. His athletic side and his intellectual side.

His willingness to watch Studio Ghibli (subbed, not dubbed, as it should be), and his insistence on making Henry sit through Top Gun.

Henry paid as much attention as he could, but it was hard not to let his mind wander in opposite-extreme directions; he was either distracted by the spate of unfinished work that was still waiting for him in his room, or by the fabric-softener scent of Donnacha’s hoodie.

Donnacha was sitting somewhat crookedly with his back against the arm of the couch, with Henry slotted into the space between the cushions and Donnacha’s torso. One arm was locked all the way around Henry’s shoulders, hand resting near Henry’s elbow. Henry had tentatively rested his hand on Donnacha’s stomach at first, but as he curled in closer, he’d reached across and held him by the waist.

With his free arm, Donnacha sipped on his tea, and Henry was almost convinced his stomach was giving off more and more warmth as he drank, even though he knew that was physically impossible.

He had rubbed Donnacha’s stomach once, when it’d been hurting. Looking back, it was definitely one of those times where Henry’s straightforwardness had, perhaps, made the situation more awkward than it needed to be, but Donnacha had seemed to be okay with it.

Would he do the same for Henry now, if he asked?

His closest – scratch that, only – friend growing up had been Lucy, and while they were always there for one another, she had never exactly been the touchy-feely type. They hugged on occasion, but never spontaneously or for an extended amount of time. And as a kid, Henry had had too many experiences of getting something ‘wrong’ – like taking something they weren’t using right out of someone’s hand, or trying to kiss his friends the way his aunts would kiss him on his cheek, or telling someone he loved them… Doing these things meant that he was rude, weird, creepy.

Since last year, it felt like they had started rewriting all of those ‘rules’, just between the two of them.

Henry swallowed and looked up at Donnacha’s clean-shaven jawline. A familiar, yet unpredictable, pang of guilt rippled through his belly. Since he’d been part of the reason for Donnacha ending his previous relationship, Henry couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility towards him. He wondered if that was all this was. Duty. Compensation. Here I am, a consolation prize.

“You okay?” Donnacha asked, noticing his gaze as he took a slurp of his tea.

Henry held his breath and considered telling Donnacha about feeling sick to his stomach. His mouth made a decision before his brain could.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Donnacha smiled, “Good!” and turned his attention back to the movie.

Henry shifted a couple of times during the next hour, adjusting the pressure on his stomach. There was less of a pain there now, which was a small relief until he forced himself to watch the TV screen. The rotating planes and whizzing backgrounds became a little much for Henry’s eyes to cope with.

Henry turned his head as far into Donnacha’s chest as he could without knocking his glasses from his face. Maybe – maybe he could just fall asleep? He found himself wondering if Donnacha would try to carry him back to bed if that happened. The image of his own lanky form being scooped into a bridal carry should have made him snort in derision, but it actually made a lump rise in his throat.

A lump, or... something a little more acidic.

Henry’s eyes shot open. His head felt like it was being swallowed up by the stinging, mouth-watering certainty that things were not okay. A knot of pressure sank to the bottom of his stomach and then took a sharp, upward turn – like water trying to flow down a drain and finding itself being forced back to the surface.

“Donnacha.”

“Yep?”

“I’m going to be sick?”

Henry must have sounded extremely surprised and confused himself, because Donnacha didn’t seem to understand what he’d said at first.

“Something… something I ate is not – hmrph.” Henry shot forward and gagged, almost puking straight onto his pyjama bottoms.

“Shite, where’s the bin?” Donnacha stood up and idly glanced around, clicking his tongue in annoyance. Through teeth that suddenly ground together in annoyance, he muttered, “Payton’s always taking it into their room –”

Henry whimpered as his belly cramped, sending a surge of gurgling, bubbling heat towards his throat. The sound seemed to fill in for the urgency missing in his tone, since it was then that Donnacha truly sprang into action.

“Right – here. Aim onto the blanket for now,” he instructed, grabbing the couch throw and tossing it towards Henry’s lap. He chuckled nervously. “That can go in the washing machine more easily than the carpet.”

Henry nodded, though he had no intention of letting himself vomit onto something that was communal property. Other people used this blanket. He was fairly sure Lucy had paid for it, along with the other random assortment of IKEA pieces in the living room.

Donnacha ran off to the kitchen and immediately started clattering around under the sink. By the time he emerged – mere seconds later – Henry’s chin was streaked with drool from fighting the urge to puke on the throw.

“Here you –”

Henry was already gagging while still in the process of taking the bucket into his hands. He belched forcefully, eyes watering as his pathetic dinner splattered all along the inside of the bucket. There were still lumps of meat, strands of spaghetti, none of it digested beyond Henry’s disinterested chewing.

He tried to draw a ragged breath in between retches, and almost choked for having the audacity. This bucket was used on the rare occasion that someone decided to mop the kitchen and bathroom floors, and it reeked like a pile of old, musty towels.

Henry heaved again.

He was certain his eyes rolled back in his head and that he moaned at one point, as his body curled further and further forward on the edge of the sofa. Like a toothpaste tube being squeezed within an inch of its existence.

And then it stopped, as suddenly as it had started. The relief was so intense that it was almost its own form of pleasure. Henry grimaced at the tickle of laughter that crept up through his chest and throat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been that violently ill before, and he was so, so glad that it seemed to be over.

For now.

“Hen,” Donnacha said in disbelief, as though he had been waiting for Henry to stop puking before scolding him about it. He handed Henry a tissue that he’d apparently been holding in anticipation. “Your poor belly. What’d you eat?”

Henry dabbed his chin clean, hand trembling horribly. His stomach muscles burned as though he’d just attempted a hundred push-ups. “Just some leftovers.”

“Left over from when? The Last Supper?”

Henry groaned in a feeble attempt to show his dislike for the joke.

“Anyway.” Donnacha rubbed a hand over the bumps in Henry’s spine with one hand, and took hold of the bucket with the other. “We can talk about your bad life choices another time. Try to catch your breath, yeah?”

“Um,” said a voice that wasn’t Lucy’s or Payton’s. “Hi?”

Henry glanced up to see Cassidy standing in the hallway and peering in. She was wearing a plaid shirt of Lucy’s which was not long enough for someone of Cassidy’s height to wear as a nightie.

Shit. Lucy.

Guilt sank its teeth into Henry’s nerve endings. He’d been so distracted, and feeling so god-damn sorry for himself, that he’d almost forgotten Lucy was only a few doors down, likely hearing him purge his guts.

He knew what Cassidy was going to say before she even tried.

“Um,” she mumbled again, tugging the shirt down at the front as though she’d suddenly become conscious of its length. “Lucy is very distressed, and she sent me to ask you if someone is… vomiting?”

From the way she scrunched up her nose and eyed the mop bucket, it seemed as though Cassidy already had her answer.

“Food poisoning!” Donnacha sounded like he was shouting out an answer on Family Fortune. “Tell her it’s – it’s food poisoning. Not contagious in the slightest. That’ll make her feel… well, a smidge better about it.”

Cassidy nodded slowly, as though she understood but… didn’t fully understand.

“Donnacha, by the way. My pronouns are he/him.”

“Hi. Cassidy. She/her.” Cassidy shook herself. “Anyway. Bye, guys.”

“Bye, Cassidy,” Henry and Donnacha both droned, Henry mumbling it miserably through a mouthful of watery spit, Donnacha furrowing his brow and returning to rubbing Henry’s back.

“Are ya alright?”

Henry shrugged. He slowly began to sit back. The thought of letting himself sink into the sofa cushions was pure bliss. How food poisoning managed to affect every inch of the human body – not just the digestive tract, as predicted – he would never know.  

“Your poor belly,” Donnacha said again, though his tone wasn’t as interrogative this time. He clicked his tongue sympathetically, and slid a little closer.

He then seemed to realise that Top Gun was still playing on the screen, and he reached for his phone to turn it off.

“Sorry,” he laughed softly.

 Henry’s heart skipped a beat when a warm hand slid across his stomach, rubbing back and forth over his bubbling insides. The gesture was so sudden and so casual that Henry barely registered the shift in Donnacha’s actions. It was as natural as a hug, seemingly.

“’Glad you got some of it up,” Donnacha said. “'Least it’s a little bit emptier in there now.”

Henry nodded weakly, entranced by the warmth that Donnacha’s hand seemed to be injecting directly into his organs as he massaged his stomach. He found himself desperately wondering what was going through Donnacha’s head right now, but unable to find the words to find out.

“So…” Donnacha cleared his throat. “Please don’t tell me you ate that dodgy-looking pasta that was sitting in the fridge earlier? Because I swear to the Lord and back, Henry – if you thought that was okay to eat, you are taking the piss, and you need to go back to the optician’s and demand a refund on those new lenses.”

“I was just being lazy,” Henry murmured. “That’s all. Won’t…” He winced, feeling Donnacha’s hand automatically shift across his stomach in response to a sharp cramp. “Won’t happen again. Believe me.”

Donnacha made a noise in his throat – a hum of concern, perhaps, with a healthy dose of scepticism thrown in. He seemed to hesitate for a second before moving his face closer to Henry’s head and pressing a loud kiss into a clump of his hair.

“Hey, listen,” he whispered, stilling his hand on Henry’s belly.

Henry did, holding his breath.

Donnacha raised his free hand to point. “Since they’re not… playing music anymore,” he said, “I guess it means you and me can get some sleep now.”

While Henry had to admit that sleeping off the stomach cramps in his own bed sounded like heaven, ruining his best friend’s night and causing her to have a mild-to-severe panic response seemed like an unfair cost.

“You’re an awful human,” he muttered.

“What?” Donnacha exclaimed. “They’ve had their fun. Hours of it. It’s bed time now.”

Henry reluctantly nodded. His arm automatically lifted as Donnacha shifted his weight and made to put his arm around Henry’s back and help him up. It was a rare feeling, for him to relinquish control of his limbs, even for just a few seconds until he was on his feet and his cane was within reaching distance.

“I’ll give the bucket a rinse-out in the bath,” Donnacha said as soon as Henry was upright and established.

“Hopefully I won’t need it again.” It was a hollow hope, given the rumbling feeling that pressed against the base of Henry’s ribcage. He took a few measured steps in the direction of his bedroom, conscious of the fact that his posture was more curved than usual.

“If you do, I’ll bring Lucy your noise-cancelling headphones.”

A shudder rippled up Henry’s spine at the thought of Donnacha getting his twisty, wrap-happy hands on his good headphones.

“I know you’re joking,” he huffed, “but please don’t touch those. Ever.”

[stitchthesewords]

Here's some fun, non-to-lightly spoilery Rift AU thoughts for everyone!

So Ren in Rift AU is inspired by the faon interpretation [maybe closer to canon? I havent watched s7] of Mayor Scar mixed w the Red King from 3rd Life - Specifically, Ren is inspired by @mochiwrites's Scar in her Good Crimes AU [Which if you haven't read you ABSOLUTELY should]. I just love how she wrote Scar to be publicly one way and Privately another, and while I certainly don't imagine that Ren the King is quite as beloved, the inspiration is there.

Originally, Rift AU was tagged w Watcher Grian but I changed that because I want to mess with the Rift as it's own separate force and leave the Watchers for something else. I think the Watchers [And Listeners! *looks at Martyn*] function more as an ancient, ANCIENT religion, maybe even older than the ancient cities.

Also another original idea that's been put to the side for now is that the Warden was a watcher - I don't know where I was originally going with that idea, but it was my first pivot after deciding Grian wasn't going to be the watcher.

For anyone curious, and because I don't know if I'll name it directly in the stories or just leave it more ambiguous, I'm basing Scar's mobility issues and chronic pain off my own experiences with Cerebral Palsy, among other things. I have a very mild for of Cerebral Palsy that left me with a weaker right side and mobility issues and I absolutely wanted to make sure Scar was still disabled even if he isn't wheelchair bound. I imagine that he certainly has a wheelchair for bad days, but those would be like. Really bad days. The staff - to - cane that he has, made out of the same magical wood as his tree, is probably good for most of the sort of bad days.

Rift AU actually started as a way for me to explore sculk and ancient cities in fiction, which is funny given that we are now 17k in and counting with no mention of either. I have plans for it, but the story needed more work up than I was originally anticipating, which is great! I'm really enjoying returning to my roots with fanfiction, which is the whole reason I started writing Rift AU in the first place

Obviously I'm sort of picking and choosing what elements from hermitcraft [and the life series] I want to include in Rift AU but I am a little bit grumpy that I started writing it before I really fully understood the king plot [When I started, I had only watched Grian and Etho. Now I've caught up on Ren, Impulse, Mumbo, and Cleo, with plans to watch Pearl, Tango, Zedaph, and Doc next. I also really want to watch Beef and Iskall lol] because now I really wanna jam the whole royal council shenanigans in there and I'm not gonna be able to without probably retconning Scar and Ren's relationship which I refuse to do!

Obviously, Mumscarian and Treebark are in the story, and there's also going to be platonic Soup Group and platonic Team ZITS [bc. Skizz deserves to be here. I love him]. I won't tell you ALL of the pairings that end up in the story because a. I feel like we're be here all day but b. some of them are spoilers but I AM planning on having Solidaritek [Apparently team ranchers is only for platonic or something???] and ZedBeef and also Ethubs all make their own appearances. There might even be some like short stories following a few of the other couples in the story because I have attachments to Ethubs in particular. IDK if you can tell but Etho is my favorite hermit and I used to watch him all the way back in 2011 on his singleplayer world. I remember the boat dispenser. My baby girl.

One of these days I will genuinely type up an essay about my latent energy theory but in case anyone else is interested here's a very short tldr version: Redstone, Glowstone, End Rods, debatably sculk [I havent decided if it falls into the same category yet tbh], etc etc all power themselves via latent energy. That latent energy is compatible with electricity in some way, as evidenced by the fact that lightning rods can be used to power redstone machines, but it's different. More in between electricity and magic - either because it actually is or because it's not as understood by the people who work it. That same latent energy is the stuff magic feeds off, like is seen in Changing of the Season to help rejuvenate Scar. Whatever it is is old. Older than the Ancient Cities since they knew to build redstone machines to distract the Warden. It's older than the end cities, too, since end rods exist. Arguably it has always been and will always be around in some way.

Also this might not interest anyone else but thoughts on vampires and elves. Vampires are more closely related to Zombies, whereas Elves [Who are Fae, which means the Vex are included here] are more closely related to Endermen than anything [<- that will come up again] - and then the Warden and sculk are like. Very distant cousins of vampires. Sort of. Their trees connect somewhere.

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

soothe our aches

by Introvertedfangirl

Another steddyhands fic from your resident depressed and anxious college gally😌

Excerpt: “He hopes that Stede can discern the tone of humor he’s going for with that last sentence. That he’s not gone too far.

He brushes his lips against Stede’s forehead just in case, asking for forgiveness. Stede let’s put a soft moan of gratitude.”

Words: 1649, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Characters: Stede Bonnet, Israel Hands, Blackbeard | Edward Teach

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet/Israel Hands, Stede Bonnet/Israel Hands

Additional Tags: Tenderness, Chronic Pain, Hurt/Comfort, Soft Israel Hands, Stede Bonnet Needs a Hug, steddyhands, stizzy, Author is an Israel Hands Apologist, I dedicate this to the mentally ill gays, 🤣, me being 1 of them, wellll established steddyhands, Timeline What Timeline, Idk if hot water bottles existed in the 1700s💀

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/42409020

[piraticalwit]

Let’s talk about Hook’s chronic phantom limb pain (PLP). I’ve mentioned before that it’s really something he only suffers from in ‘non-modern’ verses and this is due to both the fact that he a) doesn’t really have access to modern pain killers and b) plp is more likely when you suffer from a traumatic amputation (tbh i’d find them all traumatic but hey.) and given that he had his hand sawed off the rest of the way by his ship’s cook, I mean ... that’s pretty fucking traumatic mate (his amputation was actually right before the start of his wrist. maybe an inch? i broke ulna bad so i have a bone lump on the outside and it’d be right before this. but i can’t find a medical term for the area. maybe the ulna head?? idk idk)  . This particular situation, though necessary given the situation, wasn’t exactly a medically sound procedure. It was not a clean cut. There are sharp shards of bone left at the site that dig into internal scar tissue and the wound also formed a neuroma which, while treatable now a days with meds and invasive surgery ... he’s pretty much just fucked.

He is always in pain. It never stops. He gets minor relief if he takes off his gauntlet and being in a constant state of mildly intoxicated helps a lot as well. He will never be without rum and when he is, he’s irritable. Because rum is an addiction? yes. but any feeling of withdrawal is compounded by the pain he’s unable to temper. it’s a shitty situation. Rum is one of the only things that helps and he’s learned to lean heavily on it. 

Weather doesn’t really affect his level of pain unless it’s a situation in which he’s miserable (think overly hot, wet and cold, etc) ... the pain doesn’t necessarily get worse in those situations, but it feels worse because he’s already irritated and it’s hard to keep it locked away in his mind without that mental block. he always hides when he’s in pain. you can’t stay a captain of a crew of pirates without their respect and being ‘weak’ (his choice of words not mine) so he learned to push through stuff and put up a wall and that carries with him. obviously as people get closer they learn the little tells and can appreciate them but he will never tell someone he hurts. don’t care if its god himself. he won’t. If it’s an extremely bad day (think flare up), he will get irrationally angry. His men give him a wide berth because he’s known for severely injuring/killing anyone who knocks into that wrist - a scenario much more prevalent in the beginning, but it’s still possible. Rather than yell or let anyone know how much it hurt, he tries to cover it up by harming the offending person somehow. On a ‘good day’, the pain still wears at his patience level so he is often impatient and more easily annoyed/frustrated. He can be incredibly moody if his ‘walls’ aren’t up and he’s not currently playing the role of devil may care, charming pirate captain.

He does not believe in listening to his limits. He takes it as a personal affront if something seems to painful or if he feels incapable of doing a certain thing. He will always push himself (ego can really be a painful thing) and can’t be talked off something once he puts his mind to it. There might be some reasons he can’t accomplish something solely due to the mechanics of it (he’s very angry about this) but he will never stay away from something because of pain. He is very much a “this will not change me or rob me of who i was” kind of dude.

[wild-strawberry-fields]

Chronic illness/pain rant

I haven't had a flair-up this bad in months, I'm so exhausted I've slept nearly 14 hours straight, I woke up once to take my pain meds and went right back to sleep. I've had to get up twice to get water and go to the bathroom and both times it's taken everything out of me just to stand up without falling over. I need to eat, and shower, and get my ice packs but the thought of doing any of that plus the physical requirements are keeping me from doing it. My body quite literally feels like it's been ripped apart. 

[cacoetheswriting]

champagne problems, ch.8

Spencer is in love with you, but you’re engaged to someone else.

Chapter Eight: Wild Love: Spencer gets something off his chest while you’re stuck in a hotel room. A/N: chapter is titled after this song if you want to listen while reading.     Word Count: 1.6k Warnings: cursing, mentions of alcohol consumption, heartbreak, unrequited / unreciprocated love, very angsty, this whole series is a real slow burn babyyy

series masterlist

A/N: y’all are killing me with all the love on this story so far omg. i am so appreciative of every single comment, like, reblog, all the sweet things you say in the tags etc. etc. thank you and i hope you like this chapter (this one turned out to be more conversation than descriptions of feelings/thoughts just fyi) ! x

-

“Since we’re stuck here for the night, how about one more drink?” Luke asked, glancing between the team. “You buying?” Matt teased making everyone else chuckle. Luke rolled his eyes. “If that’s what it takes.”

All flights were grounded due to a heavy snowstorm. This meant that after solving their most recent case, the team were forced to remain on location. At a small bed and breakfast right in the middle of nowhere.

“I’ll have another drink.” Emily stated with a smile. “Sure, why the hell not. It’s not often I get a night away from my boys.” JJ added. Tara also raised her hand, indicating she'll have one more.

All heads turned to you and Spencer. The brunette doctor sat quietly in the corner. Clearly a lot on his mind. You were right by his side, gently resting your head against his shoulder.

A small yawn escaped your lips. “I think I’m gonna call it a night guys.” You said, slowly sitting up. “It’s been a heck of a day, and the bed is calling my name.” The group groaned, but didn't protest. Instead, they all looked to Spencer who seemed to be debating his options.

“What about you Reid?” Luke asked. “Care for another one?”

“Sure. Uh, I’ll walk Y/N to her room and I’ll be right back.” “It’s okay Spencer, stay. I’ll be fine.” You countered while getting up to your feet however, the handsome doctor wasn’t taking no for answer.

Unknown to you, unknown to everyone apart from Penelope, Spencer’s been trying to find the right moment to tell you how he really felt. He spent the last two months debating whether it was a good idea. The idea of telling you he was still in love with you scared the shit out of him because it could go one of two ways:

1. You feel the same way and call off the engagement. The two of you get back together and he spends the rest of his living breathing days making you the happiest woman on earth.

2. You don’t feel the same way and you end up resenting him for lying to you, his confession ruining your friendship.

Either way, someone will end up getting hurt.

“You really didn't have to come with me doctor.” You said stopping outside the door. Spencer shrugged his shoulders, his nose twitching simultaneously. “I wanted to. Plus sitting too long causes a number of health issues. Your leg muscles weaken. Your hip flexors shorten, and it can cause compression on the discs in your spine which can lead to premature degeneration, which results in chronic pain.”

You arched a brow. “So what you’re saying is that you’re really just looking out for yourself?”

“No, I-I, well...” He flustered and you couldn't help but chuckle. “We’ve been friends long enough for you to know when I’m just messing around.” Friends. The word stung. “Right. Sorry.” He glanced down at his shoes.

Sudden concern flooded through you. Gently, you placed a hand on the side of his face, and slowly lifted it back up. “Are you okay honey? You seem a little off, and I hope you don't mind me saying but it’s not just tonight.”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Mind racing a million miles an hour. Of course you recognised his odd behaviour. He thought he did a good job at hiding his inner turmoil. Honestly, sometimes he forgets just how well you can read him. He forgets that you know him better than he knows himself.

“I hope you know you can talk to me.” You whispered, tenderly brushing loose strands of his hair away from his face.

The gleam in your eyes was so kindhearted. It was exactly that look that made Spencer think he truly didn't deserve you and that you were better off without him. It was also that look that made Spencer love you even more. The look that made him want to fight for you.

“Do ehm, do you think I could come in?” He asked after a moment of silence.

“Of course.” You let your hand fall back to your side. “Of course you can.”

Soon enough the two of you were sat at the edge of your bed. A noticeably tense atmosphere filled the air. Your eyes were glued to the side of his head, wondering what the hell was going on in that big brain of his, while Spencer looked down at his hands. Which at this point were trembling uncontrollably.

It didn’t take you long to notice, you could practically feel them vibrating against your leg. You reached out, giving them a little squeeze before intertwining your fingers with his.

“What’s going on Spencer? You’re starting to scare me.”

The hazel-eyed man took a deep breath before finally meeting your gaze. His features broken, as if he was about to burst into tears.

“I’ve been lying to you Y/N.” He stated quietly.

You furrowed your brows confused, taken aback by his admission. “W-what? What are you talking about? You’re the most honest man I’ve ever met.” You expressed, but he shook his head. His light curls bouncing perfectly. “I’m not. I’m really not.”

“Spencer.” “Please Y/N, please just… I… I haven’t been honest with you and it’s eating me alive. Usually you would be the person I turn to for advice on these things, but since it involves you… I-I really don’t know what to do.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s not that simple.”

You nodded your head slowly and swallowed your breath. “O-okay. Okay well, uhm… let me ask you this. If you don’t tell me, are you going to continue lying to me?” It was a weighted question which Spencer knew there was no right answer to. “Unfortunately.” He mumbled.

“Then I think, I think it is that simple.”

You were right. Every inch of him screamed you were right. Fuck. How the hell did it come to this? He had no trouble hiding his love for you these last few years.  He couldn’t understand why was it so difficult all of a sudden.

Abruptly, Spencer got to his feet and ran his fingers through his hair. A deep frustrated sigh escaping his lips as he loosened his tie. Your uneasy gaze locked onto him, following his every move. And as he closed his eyes, cracking his neck, you suddenly remembered that the last time he seemed this frazzled was the day the two of you broke up. Your stomach dropped.

“Oh no.” You whispered standing up. “Ohh Spencer.”

He turned on his heel to look at you once again. Your fingers were pressed to your chin, mouth slightly parted. You couldn’t possibly have figured it out?

“You’re breaking up with me.” It seemed like a silly statement considering you weren’t a couple. “I mean, you’re ending our friendship. That’s what this is, right? You don’t want to be my friend anymore and you’ve been lying to me by pretending that you do.” There were noticeable tears in your eyes.

“What? No, no, no. It’s completely the opposite of that.”

“I don’t think I understand. The opposite of-”

“I love you.”

“Well of course, I love you too. You’re my best friend. You’re family.”

“No.” He took a step towards you and cupped your cheeks with his hands. “I’m in love with you Y/N.”

You blinked. Eyelashes fluttering as the realisation of what Spencer just declared washed over you. He saw your lips quaver and your eyes widen. The dots connecting in your mind. All the moments you spent together, the conversations you shared. Everything was running through your mind like a homemade movie, making it impossible it collect your thoughts.

“I know I said I moved on, and that’s where I lied.” Spencer continued as you stared at him, unable to move. “I never moved on Y/N. I tried, believe me I tried. But you are a part of me, a part of my soul. You are the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Seeing you, your smile. Hearing your laughter. Being able to talk to you, and just be around you. Your aura. Everything about you is so intoxicating and I messed up big time letting you go all those years ago.”

Tears began to trail down your cheeks as you bit down on your bottom lip to stop it from trembling. Tiny salty droplets that Spencer slowly wiped away using his thumbs.

“I never said anything because I wanted to be there for you, first and foremost, in whatever way you needed me. I wanted to remain in your life after we broke up because your friendship means the world to me. I guess I thought-t, I hoped that maybe one day we’d get back together. And I know it’s unfair for me to lay all of this on you now, I know. And I’m sorry, I can’t keep it to myself anymore. You, I think you deserve to know.”

Quiet sobs filled the room. Your whole body was now shaking under his touch. Heart aching. It felt like you couldn't breathe.

All you ever wanted was for Spencer to love you. All you ever wanted was for him to tell you that he made a mistake all those years ago and that the two of you belong together. 

“P-please say something.” His plea was barely a whisper.

All you ever wanted.

“I-I.. Spencer, I...”

You finally got all you ever wanted. The brunette doctor was standing in front of you professing his love, and yet it felt like he just stabbed you in the back. His declaration, those three cursed words you dreamt so long ago to hear come out of his lips again. It felt like the ultimate betrayal.

Don't know what to say to you now Standing right in front of you

-

A/N: FINALLY A LOVE CONFESSION ! honestly this chapter was a little hard for me to write... it took me a while to actually sit down to it and actually be happy with what i wrote idk BUT i hope you liked it and as always i’d love to hear your feedback! if you would like to be added to a taglist, please let me know. thank you for your continuous support. with love, mal. x

masterlist | series masterlist | series playlist

story taglist: @girloncorneliastreet, @haylaansmi, @rexorangecouny, @l0ve-0f-my-life, @obsssedwithjustaboutanything, @aperrywilliams, @sassy-hades, @rainsong01, @reverdevivre, @dracomikaelson, @softieekayy, @lunaofcrows, @andrewhoezierbyrne​, @blameitonthenight21, @lyl-26, @do-yr-research, @nazifa94, @stepsofthefbi, @chatterbug2-0

spencer reid taglist: @no-honey-no​, @calm-and-doctor​, @idroppedmygourd​​, @averyhotchner​

[cherry-gemz]

Healing Hands: Chapter One

Summary: You find yourself abroad in London as the Chief of Pediatrics. Everything has been running smoothly until you are faced with an undiagnosed case and the doctor assigned is anything but willing to face defeat. Will you be able treat the child's unknown disease in time, along while facing uncharted waters with love in the workplace?

Parings: Henry Cavill {Dr. Cavill} x Y/N {F!Reader}

Rating: Overall series 18+ only, Chapter is PG

Word count: 2200 +/-

Tags:  @evansamericanass @meowpurrbooks​ @lilithpaijiee @pterodactylterrace 

A/N: Trying something new at writing Henry fanfic. IDK if it’s any good, but either way wanted to start writing. LMK if you're interested, comments and tags welcomed! 💜

P.S. I am no means in any medical field or sorts, so if I get something incorrect on a term or process, bear with me xo.

----------------------------------------------------

You knew that it was a gamble moving to the UK for the Chief of Pediatrics position. But it was time for a change. You needed to leave Eugene, Oregon. Start fresh. There was too much pain there and you had to get away. So when your cousin, who was a nurse from Brighton informed you that there was a need at her hospital for the highly-visible role, you thought why the hell not? You'd score a free round-trip to England of anything and actually see some family you've never met if it didn't pan out. 

Little did you know that you'd fall in love with London: the weather, the people, the imagery of it all. Oregon weather wasn't all too different, so you acclimated well. It had been a few months of you settling in: understanding more of the language barriers despite it still being English. Knackered, cuppa, trollied. 

That is until you had a run in with the division chief of Pediatrics, Dr. Cavill. The staff adored the renowned and painstakingly handsome doctor. And while you could appreciate the view as well, you never were on the same page with his ideals. His defiant behavior of undermining your direction of the unit was becoming a thorn in your side. 

But this time, this time you'd had enough. He mentioned to a patient's parents, while with the speciality case, the hospital could take on their son's situation as priority and receive around the clock care. You threw down the patient's file on your desk and pinched the bridge of your nose. It was a lost cause, you had looked into the patient ever since you started the role.

The child seemed perfectly healthy and lab tests may show no signs of illness. But the chronic pain and fatigue were unexplainable. You empathized, but the poor child has undergone so many tests that at this point it was about providing facts to the parents. And right now, there was no cause of alarm. You weren’t a Dr. House, this wasn’t television. You didn't have the staff to dive into any research or clinical studies. You had a hospital to run, employees to pay, other lives needed saving. 

You picked up the phone to the case nurse on the pediatric floor. 

"Hello? Yes, this is Dr. Y/LN. Can you please remind Dr. Cavill of our 5pm? He's late. Thank you." 

Slowly hanging up on the phone, you turn back to the patient's file. The boy, Jon Foulger, was just shy of his ninth birthday. No positive results for Lupus or Guillain-Barré syndrome. But This case had been bothering you, poor Jon had been in the hospital for three months and still no progress on a diagnosis. While you were never known to give up on a patient, you knew giving false hope to the parents was detrimental not only to the family, but to the same of the hospital's integrity. You were in a high esteemed role now, you knew that you had to discuss further with Henry on his actions. 

Twenty more minutes passed by and you checked your watch. Fuming, you stood up from your desk and headed down to the pediatric floor by the lift. 

As you briskly walk down the hall corridors you can't wait to give Cavill a piece of your mind. You turn the corner and ram right into a brick wall, or so you thought.  Your hands instinctively pick up and see placed on the doctor's firm chest. You immediately flush and lose composure. 

You knew he was a good-looking man, but this up close and personal was a whole other level. His dark hair and curls were fluffy and good enough to touch. His piercing steel blue eyes looked at yours and made immediate contact. His bone structure made the Michaelangelo's David blush. 

"My apologies, Dr. Y/LN. Didn't see you there," his voice was like butter. 

You straightened out your white coat, "Ahem, yes. Well I seemed to have been lost in thought. My apologies as well."

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, almost an hour ago…" you shifted your weight to stand a bit taller. He towered over you with his muscular frame and height. 

"Patient...Jon Foulger. We must discuss the repercussions of your current actions."

"Jon-Jon," he replied stoic. 

"Excuse me?"

"He likes to be called Jon-Jon."

"Well yes, let's go to my office and discuss further, please Dr. Cavill."

"As you wish," he replied and pivoted his heel to the nearby lift.

The rise up to the 12th floor was a quiet one, awkward overall as you knew you had to give a coaching and hated the notion. You missed practicing medicine; while you enjoyed the administration of your position, the thrill of helping others and using your hands were erased with cases of employee performance reviews, reports, budgets. 

He coughed into his fist and then held his strong hands in place in a clasp. 

He finally broke the silence, "Enjoying London?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Have you had any time to take a holiday?"

"Um, no. Been too busy."

"It might do you some good," he replies as he looks to check his watch. 

You huff, "Somewhere you need to be, Doctor?"

"No, just checking the time."

His arrogance irritated you and now you weren't feeling as badly to give him his coaching. 

The lift opened as you arrived at the floor and he held out the door for you to exit first. You nod and walk to your office, your kitten heels clicked on the hospital's linoleum floor and the sound echoed through your ears. 

As you both enter your office you stride quickly to your desk to assume dominance of the room. 

Henry stood near the doorway, admiring your photos and certificates on the wall. 

"I knew you were American, but Stanford Medical? Interesting, thought you were from Oregon. When will you be returning?" You can't read him if that was a compliment or sarcasm. 

"Dr. Cavill, would you be so kind to shut the door," you state firmly and sit down, ignoring his comment about your return to the states.

His brow peaks and he nods, turning to close the door. 

"Please, have a seat," you say. 

"I'd rather stand, thank you," he replies and you know this is going to be a difficult conversation. 

"Well this will only take a moment then. Your recent behavior with the Foulger family, while I commend you for your dedication, has been slight askew with the hospital's protocols."

"Is that so?" His voice dropped and his brow arched. "In what way, Dr. Y/LN?"

You cough as the drawl of his mouth turns upward and you can swear there's a smug smirk across his face. 

"Well...for one...you've promised around the care of the child. Now simply put, we've exhausted all efforts for a diagnosis and until Jon...Jon-Jon…shows any new symptoms, we are at liberty to provide him comfort care for the remainder of the evening, but he will need to be discharged in the morning. We've exhausted him enough with MRIs, blood tests. I'm at a rock in a hard place, Dr. Cavill."

"The rock or the hard place where you give up on a child's well-being simply because you haven't thought to see him as a person? Rather as a number on your statistical analysis of how functioning this hospital is?"

His eyes pierce through you and make your knees grow weak. The nurse staff usually talks about him being a cuddly bear, always making the children laugh and smile. But this man before you, why he's no cuddly bear. He was a beast of a man. A grizzly in fact. 

"Now see here, I will let you know that this case is very important to me. All the children are. But what you fail to see is that for whatever reason you've gravitated to this particular case, you're chasing something that doesn't exist." 

His broad shoulders and strong neck tense at your words. He blinks methodically, as if he's scoping out his prey. No, don't let his charm and rugged good looks distract you. This is a man who is used to getting what he wants and you are a woman who knows perfectly what to do with that.

"And I believe you're blind, Doctor."

"Excuse me?" Your voice was shrill and short. "This is borderline insubordination. I'd be careful with your next words, Cavill."

"Pardon my frankness, Dr. Y/LN, but I've been here longer and know these patients in and out," his voice raised and you could see the hint of a vein showing on his thick neck. "Some of the children come from very poor and debilitating environments. We can't just cast them off once a diagnosis doesn't stick simply because we need the bed or we're done trying!"

"DR. CAVILL," you exclaim and let out an exasperated sigh. His demeanor changed and his upper lip curved slightly. 

“Dr. Y/LN. With all due respect, I think you’re making the wrong judgement call here. Things are not adding up with Jon-Jon, if we just give it a few more days...I feel like we’re making progress and I’ve labored enough research into it-”

"Again, while I appreciate your passion...”

“Passion which you need to show for the patient-”

You raise your hand to silence him, “This is not up to you, Dr. Cavill. As Chief of Pediatrics, this is my call. We will discharge Jon tomorrow if he does not show any new symptoms. If you disobey any further protocols, I will have no other choice but resort to disciplinary action. Do I make myself clear, Doctor?"

You press your hands on your desk and lean inward, portraying your stance. 

"Perfectly," he responded. 

"And another thing, I -" you start, but he turns and abruptly walks out of your office, leaving your door open. 

The nerve! Did he really just do that? Where does he think he's going? Didn't I just tell him I'd resort to disciplinary action?!

You rush out of your office and you see him striding through the hall. His strong posture, shoulders back eluded to years of boarding school perhaps or military. You noticed his fists were clenched and it gave you slight satisfaction that you chipped away ever so slightly at his ego.

It was going to take a lot more than that to send you packing, you thought. 

----------------

The next day came and went. You had confirmed that Jon-Jon was discharged with the floor nurse and while you were relieved to have handled that quite professionally, you knew it did not bear well with the rest of the staff.

You were still getting your feet wet and learning more about your team. It was solid overall, many years of expertise collectively, but they treated you like the outsider you were. No requests to meet for lunch or drinks after work. No camaraderie birthday cards seeking your signature or date night advice. Just the normal days in and out, pulling many late nights in your office, up to the point of exhaustion. You'd collapse in your double bed after work, stare at the ceiling of the small room you rented from your cousin, Laura, and try to drown out all the bustle of seven people in the same 3 bedroom flat. 

Just like any other day, You sat alone during lunch. But that never really was ever a bother being used to it now. You were excited about an audiobook you were meaning to dive into and right when you were about to use your airpods, that's when you noticed him enter the cafeteria. 

His presteen, crisp white lab coat was tight around his build. You could tell he took fitness seriously and wondered what he was hiding underneath it all. You unknowingly licked your lips as you watched him search for a fruit out of the bowl off the commons counter. Curious to know what he fancied: was he into a sweet apple or something more tart like cherries. 

He picked up a peach and squeezed it with his massive hand, making it look quite comical considering his size. His eyes met yours and you quickly looked away, trying to now draw any attention to yourself. You fumbled with your phone as you connected to the audiobook and heart his footsteps approached your empty table. 

"Good afternoon," he said. His voice was deep, smooth, and inviting. Not at all like the day before in your office. 

You play coy and don't bother to look up, fidgeting with your sandwich. 

"Hello," you reply distantly. He made you nervous. Would he bring up yesterday's conversation? Will he continue to look that delectable each day?

He smirked and took a bite of the fuzzy peach. There was a slight crunch as he dug his pearly whites into the rounded fruit. The velvet and thin layer of skin eased off and entered his mouth; he chewed slightly and let the piece swirl around with his thick tongue. 

You peered to look at him and his stare hadn't relented. He took another bite. This time the luscious juice slips out of the white-yellow fleshed fruit and down slightly on his chin. Oh, to be that piece of fruit and have him ravish you that way.  How he’d expertly use his hands over you and taste you with those lips.

He can tell you're still distant, however he notices you're unable to tear your eyes away from him. 

He walks over, closer to you now, and you can smell his cologne: a woody aromatic scent tied with a hint of suede. It's downright delicious and with the mix of the peach, your senses are in overdrive. 

What is it with this man and his ability to excite and anger you all at once? You not only want to put him into his place, you want to do so right here on the cafeteria table and have your way with him.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" He smiles devilishly and places the half eaten fruit on the table next to your phone and walks away. 

Your cringe and use all your might to not look back at him. He's going to make this very hard for you, very hard indeed. 

[shook-snatched-and-sad]

so i binged a show called ‘the owl house’...

and to say the least, i am OBSESSED! 

(this contains spoilers so don’t read if you haven’t finished the show yet!!)

aside from the fact that i’m a big old lesbian simp for Eda the Owl Lady, i really loved her storyline. it reminds me a lot of my day to day life as someone with a chronic illness. I want to focus on episode 4 ,“The Intruder,” where we learn of Eda’s curse and later episodes where it’s a prevalent point.

in the beginning of the episode eda’s exhausted to the point where king and luz end up carrying her to her bed (nest). she was already tired, but tried to show luz more magic bc she wanted luz to be happy and let her sleep. sometimes when you’re tired and want to lay down you still try to make others happy, and that can be too much for your already sick body. i am guilty of this 10 times over!

she has her elixir, which is almost like pain meds for me and others with chronic pain (or other meds for others in the chronic illness gang). her elixir has a tag reading, “an elixir a day keeps the curse at bay.” if she doesn’t take it, she transforms into something she doesn’t like. and i mean,,,, yeah, it REALLY DO BE LIKE THAT. even tho i’m still trying to find the right medicine for me, i feel like total GARBAGE when i forget to take my meds. i get snappy and irritable and anxious and everything hurts beyond comprehension; that’s all part of my “curse.”

she also took a little while to reveal her curse to luz, and king didn’t even know but has lived with her for a while. some people i’ve known most of my life don’t even know that i sometimes need a cane or that i even have a chronic pain disorder! you don’t want that judgement or others feeling like your condition is too much for them to handle (which is shitty, but people do say this); you can see that eda has had this happen to her time and time again and that it really left a mark on how she feels about trusting others. 

she also doesn’t remember who cursed her, and this fleshes out in my mind a few different ways:

1. it adds to her trust issues. she doesn’t consciously know who did it, so it could be anyone she interacts with and that’s scary. to her it’s traumatic, and she lives with the aftermath of the event everyday

2. not remembering? mega brain fog! sometimes you just have bad days where your brain is so cloudy that you low key forget someone’s name or a simple word to something (i once forgot the word “tv” and it’s technically not even a word). it’s almost like a tip of the tongue type thing. also, the figure kinda looks like fog

3. sometimes you don’t know what causes your illness. i have fibromyalgia and it’s just one of those complicated medical conditions where there is no determined cause for it. trauma? yeah, maybe. a few people in the fam with rheumatic stuff? could play a part. god spun the wheel and had to add whatever wacky thing it landed on? hell yeah, baby! 

later in the season eda needs some more of her elixir (her meds) and the guy at her usual place doesn’t have it in stock for another 2 weeks. she has to go to the boiling isles’s version of the black market to get it. when she gets to the black market guy, the price is outrageous and he just proves that this show is TOO SELF AWARE FOR ITS OWN GOOD. IDK WHO GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO SPIT SUCH FACTS ABOUT CAPITALISM BUT GODDAMMIT SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT!! sometimes you can’t get the name brand version of your meds bc insurance doesn’t cover it (even if that’s usually what you get) and you have to get the generic version but IT’S STILL WILDLY EXPENSIVE. and it’s worse if you don’t have insurance. i know other chronically ill people who just ended up smoking w**d for their symptoms until the insurance company stopped playing games, and honestly that says something about the wack ass healthcare system of america *sips tea*  luckily the rude mf that wouldn’t give eda her meds got his stand destroyed and that’s on performing magick without parental supervison

and what i especially like about this show is that they gave this character a curse (illness) and didn’t make it her entire identity for the show. any other time there’s a chronically ill/disabled character, it’s their only personality trait and exhaustively used throughout as a lazy ploy too add diversity. yes, eda has this curse and she lives each day treating it, but she has so much more substance to who she is: she’s a businesswoman, a friend, a mentor, a goofball, a badass, a powerful woman in her craft. eda had said her self at the end of “the intruder,” “no one likes having a curse, but if you take the right steps, it’s manageable.” and that’s exactly what it’s like being a chronically ill person who is able to manage their symptoms with medication and still do certain things that bring them joy. without her elixir eda wouldn’t be able to perform magick and have her business; without my meds and some physical therapy i wouldn’t be able to go to school full time for my photography degree and have a job as a photographer. 

could i possibly be projecting this metaphor onto a character that makes my little gay heart go uwu? maybe but that’s none of your business (unless you feel it too. in that case it’s our business <3). but i seriously cannot wait to see what else is in store for our #1 bad girl in the rest of the series!

(my attention deficit ass wrote this while being distracted from one of my final papers thank you for attending my TEDTalk)

[seeminglyseph]

I wanna draw something today but I’ve also gotten myself stuck scrolling so we’ll see who wins. but it might just be art of unnamed mads mikkelsen supervillain and kyle the superhero who actually is one of my huge major OCs but he was in an RP and that RP was such a toxic environment I developed vomiting as a psychosomatic stress response so like I’m working on it. (but most of the friends I made in that RP are still super cool and I wanna tell more stories but also like my life spiraled out of control recently so whatever.)

I’m thinking lots about Kyle because of it and like he was definitely a case of accidental self insert. like when you create a character that represents the way you want to be or be seen as? He is very very far from perfect. He comes from a superhero universe where he can like cause skin afflictions when he touches someone. because the line between ‘useless annoyance’ and ‘horrifying in all ways’ is very very small he didn’t use his powers very much... (also like the period of not controling his powers led him to causing harm to a great deal of people. some of which deserved it some of which didn’t. (his mom has baby shaped hand print burns on her arms from when he was a baby and lost control. but she also was the crazy kind of christian who tried to have her child exorcised and then basically abused the shit out of him because she thought he was was physically evil so... it’s complicated.)) but he was also like... beyond dirt poor. he lived in a like pay by the month one bedroom unfinished basement with a mattress on the floor and an old laptop for entertainment purposes. The building ultimately burned down because the heating and wiring was so bad. He worked full time at a gas station making like no money mostly working night shifts, spent all his money on rent and internet and ended up eating little to nothing healthy presenting a very underweight body with severe chronic pain issues. He started a big training regime and moved in to the superhero HQ where he kind of became team manager? He just has a natural inclination towards taking care of people and the team leader had some clear anxiety issues and like..... was an abusive shithead but I’m pretty sure that was accidental (incidentally the person playing that character was the one responsible for the tension and my anxiety and like... was possessive of my characters in a way that left me rather isolated from other people... there was. A lot. To unpack. just some incidental, accidental abusive friendships that I don’t really blame her for because I did not have boundaries and was in the first stages of trying to understand my trauma, so like. idk. she did like seriously hurt a lot of the people in the RP though so like it’s not just a case of me casting blame but it was a really complicated situation that nobody really understood until like.... this year when they got together to comfort me when my dad died and I explained how things were and they realised I wasn’t avoiding them but avoiding getting in trouble for not dedicating my time more to her?

honestly it all gets really confusing but most of it all happened after Kyle got kidnapped by some supervillains one of which..... was the kagicalbinch, but she left pretty much immediately despite starting the rp because she fucking did that. the other grew flowers that had like.... a superhero comic equivalent to the mind control drug? idk. we ended up altering the tone of the RP from like ‘kinda trashy smut’ to ‘basically a soap opera and sometimes a mission happens’ so afterward it was kinda half brushed under the table unless we needed to pull up some hard angst.

but I am thinking of going back to the trash and just creating a scenario that’s allowed to be fully indulgent because it’s not a group RP where I have to worry about everyone’s comfort levels. It’s indulgent trash that I can make up and tag and just.... come what may. So pheromones ‘cause I like the ideas of different scents influencing certain behavior. Thinking stuff like ‘obedience’ ‘lust’ ‘sleep’ ‘sickness’ ‘high’ that sort of effect. combined with a character in his like 50′s - 60′s who functions as a supervillain and is skilled in using his abilities to break down people’s behavior even when he isn’t using pheromones to influence them. (either pavlovian or by fear or placebo or that ‘mind break’ kind of behavior that only really makes sense in fiction where you can just go ‘this person “broke” and now they do whatever the story needs them to do’ you know? idk.) in the RP we pretty much immediately realised the creepy rape storyline was too uncomfortable for a group setting but..... honestly I just wanna make a weird fetish story about my character whose initial inspiration was ‘the shittiest guy you know’

(I didn’t know all the memes about the name Kyle when I named him Kyle, but he was already addicted to caffeine, high school dropout, worst dead end job, insomnia, mattress on the floor stoner type. but because in a way this was all inspired by me especially in my mid twenties only a cis dude who was a fictional character so I had the benefit of forethought before making him speak. (with a metaphor exaggeration bullshit backstory that I made up to justify traits more than like.... to mirror anything. Or because I wanted other OCs to find out about it and go ‘oh shit wait Kyle has depth.’ literally don’t read into it that much that I accidentally made Kyle myself in a way. He was also a creative exercise and a fun way to write dialogue I liked. it did give me a rush that my peers liked him in the game. (his reaction to being kidnapped in the RP, when he regained his wits, was to be so annoying that his basically the same age flighty impulsive kidnapper would just give up on him and let him go. also Kyle’s fear went so hard it turned off and he just started mouthing off instead. I was pretty sure it was a fun trait but I got hit with the ‘you never shut up about yourself’ by the leader in the end and it caused a doubt spiral..... lol being a dialogue heavy writer in an RP that wanted a larger wordcount on posts lead to very talkative characters. I struggled a bit haha)

I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore I’m really quite stoned but I really wanna do something and talk about Kyle more because he’s a very beloved oc

this is my dumb trash boy and I’m going to torture him for fetishistic catharsis

[lilhawkeye3]

Mini Tea Time with Hawk☕️🦅

Can you all stop... romanticizing concussions?

I read sooo many fanfics where a character will get a concussion (usually to further the emotional plot) but boom! They’re magically healed in a few days. Even if they blacked out from the blow.

Yeah. That shit don’t happen. A traumatic head injury can have repercussions that last your whole life. It can change a person’s personality, it can cause long term memory, balance, and/or speech issues, it can lead to chronic pain issues.

[If you want to see what long term repeated head injuries can lead to, I suggest you look up Aaron Hernandez. He’s a worst case scenario, but a very real one.]

If you’re getting hit in the head hard enough that you go unconscious, you will be feeling that for days. You will be healing from it for much longer.

Idk unless you’re healing your character with magic or potions or some really advanced tech, just maybe cut back on how often you use a concussion as a dramatic injury to push along the plot. I understand that most of us are writing fiction and that it doesn’t need to be real, but when you’re the one suffering from the permanent consequences from a concussion... it really sucks seeing characters miraculously heal from it all the time.

This was just a mini cup of tea so I’m sorry for not tagging anyone. I’m tired and my head hurts very badly so I can’t look up my list on my laptop.

[mortuarybees]

mr. Bees i sprained my ankle and am bedridden until further notice, please rec me ur fav fics under 8k (that adhd attention span is fun)

I’m so sorry to hear about your ankle!! I’d be happy to rec some fics. i’m only tagging authors if they have their urls listed with the fic! if you want me to add your url, just lmk :). also if my mutuals have posted fics feel free to put them in the replies bc yall have Taste:

salinity and other measurements of brackish water by drawlight / @drawlight - 3.5k - if you haven’t read salinity yet, drop absolutely everything and do it right now because it’s phenomenal and atmospheric and it absolutely aches!!! “It's an odd thing, getting on after the End of the World. Crowley takes to sea-watching.”

quiet light and ad astra (explicit) by drawlight @drawlight - the first clocks in at around 2k and the second at 8k. it’s the shortest and most effective slowburn i have ever read. quiet light is unconfessed love; ad astra is a love confession and first time and they’re beautiful

everything just stops by witching - 4.5k - idk how long you’ve been following me but when i first read it i FULLY had a meltdown and took all of you with me. it’s that “i love you deep, angel” shit “I love your silly aziraphale things” shit! they have the tenderest fucking conversation in literary history while crowley is drunk in a bath it’s wonderful

a culmination of miracles by prettydizzeed / @genderqueercrowley - 1.3k - an absolutely beautifully written fic about crowley having chronic pain and informing aziraphale about it six thousand years later

i keep a window for you (it’s always open) by prettydizzeed / @genderqueercrowley - 2.4k - a complete fkcing war crime of a fic of crowley getting emotional about romeo and juliet and continuing to be emotional about it for centuries and then, even worse, quoting r+j in a love confession.

such surpassing brightness by handful_of_silence - 7.7k - one of my favorite fics of all time! aziraphale is the patron of queer people and has been for thousands of years! fuck!

it’s the light (it’s the obstacle that casts it) by handful_of_silence - 5.7k - “The Patron Saint of London's LGBT Community is real, and he lives in Soho.” aziraphale and crowley speak polari. literally so up my alley i melted when i saw it

your hair was long when we first met by aziraphvle / @aziraphvle - 1.4k - crowley asks aziraphale to cut his hair and we are taken on a thousand-word journey about how aziraphale loves his hair and loves him and it’s. a whole lot. bringing samson by regina spektor into it was entirely uncalled for. again i am Weak for aziraphale loving and caring for crowley.

and then i will kneel down (explicit) - 5.4k - f. fleabag omens. it’s the confession scene but it’s aziraphale and crowley. it is More than you could ever possibly imagine

hard feelings/loveless by witching - 2.3k - "Aziraphale said it was like the opposite of the feeling you’re having when you say things like “this feels spooky.” Crowley didn’t know what to make of that, but he expected it was something like the opposite of the feeling you get when the only person who truly knows you makes a cryptic remark suggesting that you can’t understand love. Crowley understood love all too well.”

the saddest part of my day by witching - 3k - "crowley is preparing to leave on a demonic assignment, and he's very nervous about leaving aziraphale in charge in his absence.” they have a very open and honest and loving and very adult conversation about their feelings and tbh? That’s My Kink

summer and his pleasures by witching (explicit) - 7.2k - “absence makes the heart grow fonder, and crowley and aziraphale’s hearts were plenty fond to begin with. a story told through phone calls while they are separated for work-related reasons.”

penance by blissymbolics / @blissymbolics (explicit) - 5.9k - praise kink/crowley finally gets off after six thousand years of trying

like a prayer for which no words exist by lipsstainedbloodred - 8.1k - “In which Crowley and Aziraphale do not dine at the Ritz after that nasty business with Heaven and Hell, and Crowley has an existential crisis instead.”

men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that by mercuryhatter - 713 words - Robbie Ross’ funeral. “Aziraphale finds an age slipping away from him.”

where you stay i will stay by mercuryhatter - 866 words - men at the Hundred Guineas Club went by women’s names. aziraphale chose naomi and paid to keep the name ruth available in case crowley woke up. aaaaa

the hour/the spot/the look/the words by planethunter - 2.5k - “Crowley watches Pride and Prejudice (2005) and it spurs a realisation.” you can imagine what a trial it is to read p+p 2005 being brought into good omens but life is nothing but suffering apparently, i’ve learned that this summer through this fandom

and the punchline to the joke is asking SOMEONE SAVE US by princex_N / @princex-n - 5.8k - “The fact of the matter is that Crowley was the first bitter cripple to limp across the face of this planet. It's been 6000 years and things don't seem to have gotten much better.”

birds of a feather by idiopathicsmile - 3.6k - idiopathicsmile of world ain’t ready fame. if your life can be divided into Before Les Mis and After Les Mis, you understand. “Aziraphale nests. Crowley relearns some crucial facts about angelic courtship rituals.”

covet by mirawonderfulstar / @mirawonderfulstar - 2.4k - “Aziraphale, little good though it did him, wanted desperately. He wanted with an urgency that scared him. He wanted wine, and cocoa, and the occasional tea. He wanted gravlax with dill sauce, and Pappardelle Bolognese, and those awful little iced biscuits they had at Tesco at Christmastime. He wanted dinners at the Ritz and long walks in the park and late nights in the back room of his shop. He wanted Crowley. Fervently, achingly, he wanted Crowley.”

indellible by greased_lightning_rod / @aziraphallist (explicit) - “It turns out glitter is miracle-proof and, also, that it itches. Crowley needs some help preening. He gets a bit more than he bargained for.” Wing kink. yall know i’m weak for aziraphale taking care of crowley sue me

get religion quick (cause you’re looking divine) by brinnanza - 4.2k - “So it was fine. Even if Crowley couldn’t love him, he clearly liked him well enough, and that was almost the same thing. It no doubt would have continued to be fine, or at least fine-adjacent, were it not for a narrowly averted apocalypse and several bottles of a really quite nice Riesling Aziraphale had found in the back room of his newly restored bookshop.”

the nuances of “together” by mirawonderfulstar @mirawonderfulstar  2.8k - “Everybody in the whole world can tell Aziraphale and Crowley are a couple. Everyone except, apparently, Crowley.”

listen (he’s already told you five times) by darcylindbergh / @forineffablereasons - 1.8k - “Not everything Crowley says is said out loud. Aziraphale doesn't always hear him at first, but he's learning to stop being surprised.” Love!!! Languages!

sudden and surprising moments of overwhelming affection by darcylindbergh @forineffablereasons - 2.7k - “Aziraphale has not shut up in thirty-four minutes. Crowley’s been counting.” O More I Love Your Silly Aziraphale Things Shit. if you’re a neurotic talkative gay and insecure about it that particular genre of good omens fic is ruinous.

things truly terrible by darcylindbergh / @forineffablereasons - 1.2k - “Crowley has said some truly terrible things over the years, but this was the worst.” tooth-rotting-sweet love song-fueled confession.

tell me all the ways by tinsnip - 1.6k - “Crowley was out in the garden. Aziraphale was in his study, most definitely not looking out the window. Really. Really. One little speck of sentiment: was it so much to ask?” More! Love! Languages!

a name for earth by regencysnuffboxes - 1.1k - “Demons can’t say holy names, and Aziraphael accommodates his new friend accordingly.”

a home at the beginning of the world by stereobone / @stereobone - 5.8k - crowley just kind of. moves in with aziraphale. Meaningful Interior Decorating! Couch Metaphor! yall know what i’m weak for

[lunerbean]

Witch Tips 22

Don't forget to checkout the #10tips tag on my blog for previous and future witch tips posts! I post 10 tips for every 100 followers I get, so these all happen because of witches like you!! Thank you so much for your continued support. I really do appreciate all of you dearly.

1. Get to know the planets

Even if you're not a cosmowitch/space witch, planets can have an impact on your craft. They are powerful, beautiful forces of nature. Love them and connect with them. Learn a little about them. There are even websites that track which plants are currently visible in the night sky in your location! I just love those mysterious spinning orbs.

2. Two crystals of the same type can have different energies

Just like people, each crystal has gone through a different life and has been effected by the energies around it. You may feel more power coming from one than the other. Or, for example, one amythest crystal may be waaaaay better at fueling creative energies than another of the same kind is. Get to know your crystals can help them work to the strengths.

3. Don't allow witchcraft to negatively impact your health

I know this sounds crazy like, "how could this possibly happen?" But there are some things I've noticed that could be taken to dangerous places if used incorrectly. Be sure you're putting your physical health and your mental health above all else. Witchcraft doesn't have to be a chore and it certainly shouldn't be something you dread doing everyday.

4. Treat shields like the lock your house - don't give away the key. And change the locks when you break up with someone.

I recently went through a really messy breakup. He told me yesterday that he was excited for the full moon because he had some spells he had been wanting to do. I'm worried, not because I think he's going to do anything intentionally malicious but because he's new to magick and may try something to coerce me into forgiving him for the shitty things he's done to me. Of course, I can't know for sure if that's the case, but it inspired me to be more cautious and put some extra protection spells and sigils up. Even if someone's intentions are pure, they may perform spells on you that are unwanted or dangerous to your thoughts and mind.

5. Charge your perfumes/cologne with your intentions

This can be a great way to enhance confidence, attract love, repel negative energy, and so much more! It's also a super easy way to include witchcraft in your everyday life! If you don't wear any body sprays, this can also be used with lotion, hair care products, or anything else that you put on your body every day.

6. You can do witchcraft in your sleep!

Sticking a Lapis Lazuli under your pillow can help with prophetic dreams or just good dreams in general. Using a lavender spray on your pillow can help with getting to sleep quickly and feeling relaxed. Sigils under your pillow can help draw in positive dreams or make you remember your dreams better. Amethyst and Angel Aura can help with lucid dreaming. If you have any intentions while sleeping, I highly suggest you look into other crystals or oils or herbs that can help get you accomplish these goals!

7. Witchcraft is about working with the universe -not defying it!

Witchcraft is about a connection, a oneness with the universe. Every person, every animal, every plant, every speck of dirt is a part of this universe. Witchcraft is about willing the universe to assist your needs/desires and having a mutual understanding with it. Don't get angry at the universe, because when you're angry at the universe you're angry at yourself. And you need to love yourself; to work with yourself. Be mindful of this when practicing any type of witchcraft.

8. If you can, get yourself a selenite bowl!

I saw one awhile back when I was traveling and I'm still kicking myself for not buying it. Selenite is great for charging other crystals and it never needs to be charged, because it charges itself naturally! If you get a selenite bowl to place your smaller crystals in, you've always got a charge not matter what phase the moon is in.

9. Your body needs charging, too

This is extremely subjective to you as a person. Your mind is your main tool in witchcraft. Sometimes it loses it's charge and sometimes your body feels really bad for no reason. (Quick note: I'm not claiming that anything I'm about to say will cure mental illness or chronic pain or anything of the sort. I'm talking about something else entirely but that also isn't to say that people with those types of conditions won't benefit from a nice charge. I have clinical depression and this still benefits me, yet doesn't change the fact that I have a mental illness. Just wanted to put that out there) I'm a pisces, so I'm a water sign. I've also just always been extremely drawn to water. When I was a kid, I'd always take long showers when i wasn't feeling well. Even as an adult, that's always my first step when something is wrong with me. When I moved from the desert to the PNW and started experiencing way more cloudy days and rain than I was used to, it helped me drastically. I always was happier when it was raining. I think that rain and water are the best way for me to charge myself. Explore your own ways of self charging. It doesn't even have to have anything to do with the elements, or the element of your sign. Maybe food charges you, or sitting in grass, or star gazing, or chugging water, or exercise, or any number of other things. Explore it. Charge yourself. Take care of yourself.

10. Your spiritual teachers do not need to be other witches. Or even people.

Sure, you'll want to ask other witches about certain things like spells or crystals or anything else. But that's not to say that they're the only people you can learn from. I already went on my Oneness with the Universe Ramble earlier in this post, so I'll spare you from having to read it again. You can learn about witchcraft and spells and magick from everyone around you. And every thing! Let the rain teach you how to cleanse. Let the earth teach you how to nurture. Let the little kid in your neighborhood teach you how to free your mind. Let the animals teach you how to care for yourself and love yourself. Everyone in the universe, be them human or otherwise, has something to teach you. And you've always got something to learn.

Thank you so much for reading my latest #10tips. Check out my blog for previous Witch Tip posts, or for answers to any questions you may have, or just for some random witchy things. Sometimes nonwitchy things too, idk I get in social moods sometimes and really like interacting with my Little Beans. I hope you found this helpful and have a magickal day!

[jawnjendes]

it came back for more | shawn mendes

university au, shawn x goth gf

AN: let me know if i should give the goth gf a name bc like,,,,,,,,,,, idk just let me know,, also does anyone actually like this series lmao

masterlist | series playlist

"You're leaving me?" Shawn asked in mock disbelief.

I knew he was joking, but the fact that he said it as we were walking through campus, in the view of many passing students was a little embarrassing. There was just no getting used to that, like he couldn’t get used to my emotional distance sometimes. I just kept my eyes on the ground and continued walking next to him. No hand holding today. Doesn’t mean I don’t adore him any less.

"I made plans with Stella weeks ago," I told him. "We already bought tickets."

Shawn smiled, letting go of his pretend hurt. "It's cool. I understand, and I hope you have fun."

"Shit, me too. I feel like this movie is going to destroy me."

Yes, this is about the most anticipated movie of the year. Yes, I was more hyped than I have been in months. No, there will not be any spoilers.

"You're welcome to tag along," I added. "I mean, if there's still seats available at the theatre."

He shrugged off the invite, which I knew he would do. Shawn wasn't into this particular franchise, claiming he was tired of this type of movie. Can't say I blame him, plenty of people felt the same way. It was just hard to ramble at him about it because he didn't know jack shit. That was why I was going to the movie with Stella.

"I'll just stay home and watch Grey's without you." He smirked.

"First of all, that's mean and I would never do that to you. Secondly, Grey's comes back next week!"

"Oh yeah."

“Besides,” I added, “I’m gonna spend the night at your place anyway. Just like every Thursday.”

“Yeah, but instead of twenty four uninterrupted hours, we’ll get…” Shawn counted on his fingers. “...Less than that?”

We made it back to my dorm to find Stella lying facedown on the couch. Shawn and I shared a look as we entered the vicinity. Not that this wasn’t unusual, it was just hard to pinpoint her reasoning for this. I mean, I shouldn’t talk. Sometimes I lie on the floor without explanation wherever I please. Stella was used to that, but Shawn would ask if I “wanted to talk” or something.

"Did you get spoiled?" I asked her.

"No," she replied, her voice muffled by the cushions. "I'm trying to kill time. There's five hours left before the movie!"

I sighed and went to sit on her legs. "I know. I made Shawn take my phone because I don't wanna go online and see something I don't wanna see."

Stella picked her head up. "That's a good idea." She reached for her phone on the table, extending her arm towards my boyfriend. "Can you take mine too?"

Shawn chuckled, back and forth between the two of us. But he took Stella's phone. "You're both crazy."

"And what about it?" I said back. Then I reached for his hand. "Anyway, I need you to keep me busy for at least three hours." I smiled and batted my lashes in an exaggerated manner.

"Only three hours?" he replied with a cheeky grin as he took my hand and got me to my feet again.

"Ugh!" Stella interjected as she rolled off the couch. "I'm going to the library! And I'm leaving my phone so I don't go online! If I'm not back before we have to leave, just assume I killed myself because I got spoiled!"

"That's valid," I told her, "but I like you better alive."

~

Two of the three hours went by before Shawn practically tired himself out. He tapped out and rolled onto his back, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t blame him for pulling out (in every aspect) because it was close to finals season. Tensions were rising, he was finally feeling the consequences of missing assignments and poor exam grades. I knew that because I was going through the same thing. The semester was going to be over in a month, then I would be going back to California.

And Shawn was coming with me… for a week.

It got awfully cramped on my single size bed by the time Shawn was out like a light, so I got up and decided to get ready. I got dressed in the appropriate attire for this movie, a black t-shirt with the franchise logo and black leggings. Then I grabbed my makeup bag and sat down on the floor in front of my mirror. Halfway through my routine, Shawn awoke with a start.

"I'm up! Let's go again!" he said, sitting up.

I looked at him through the mirror, still blending concealer under my eyes with a sponge. "You're like, twenty minutes too late, my dear. I'm already getting ready."

He rubbed his eyes and yawned, nodding in response. "Okay…"

As he lied down again, I couldn't help but smile. Shawn was really fucking cute, and he had no right to be. I don't want to sound like that girl, because I’m rarely that girl, but how was I expected to spend three whole hours away from him tonight? Thursdays were usually our night, since neither of us worked or had class after four o'clock. I mean, nothing was going to stop me from going to this movie, let alone a cute guy with curly hair and a charming smile. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t miss him.

"You're still welcome to join us," I told him from where I was sitting.

"You really want me to go, eh?" he replied, shifting to his side so he was looking at me.

"I'm just saying, it's probably the only time you'll see me cry."

Shawn picked his head up, eyes wide. "Seriously?"

Between the two of us, he was the crier. Are we surprised at this point? I had my exceptions, like watching a new movie I was very passionate about, or when my chronic GI issues would flare up and give me a panic attack. However, I haven't gotten sick in a while, so technically only one thing was going to make me weep.

"Well," Shawn spoke after a while, "guess I'm going."

~

I knew I was expecting tear jerkers, but I still sported my inner and outer wings to the movie. Half of it smudged onto my eyelids and half was under my eyes. On top of that, I got a dehydration headache, because I refused to drink water during a three hour long movie. I did eat popcorn, even though it was well after the time I cut off food for the day. That sounds concerning, but it's a thing I go through. If I eat after 8PM I will spend the night barfing.

Shawn, Stella, and I left the theatre practically buzzing. The mood of the film and the other moviegoers kept our spirits high, despite the fact that Stella and I had visible mascara tracks on our faces. I cried at things you wouldn’t normally cry at in a movie, like when your favorite character breathes, or makes a dramatic entrance.

"Okay," Shawn said, "that was actually a really good movie."

"Good enough to convert into a stan?" I asked, holding his hand.

"Mm, probably not."

I quickly let go of his hand. "Fine."

Walking towards the parking lot was when I started to feel something. My abdomen felt a little sore, and it made me slow down my steps a little bit. I placed my hand on my stomach; It wasn’t excruciating, but it was noticeable.

"You okay, honey?" Shawn asked, looking at me.

I nodded quickly and got back into step with him. However, the soreness was persisting by the time we got back to my car. I unlocked the doors to let Stella and Shawn in, but I stood where I was and focused on this pain. Maybe I cried too hard at the movie. Maybe the popcorn I had was giving me a warning.

Either way, there go my late night plans.

"So, I don't think I should stay at your place tonight," I told Shawn when I got in the car.

"Aw, why?" he asked.

"My stomach is, uh, acting up a little. Not feeling too good."

"You're gonna let your stomach stop you?" Stella piped up from the backseat. She wasn't one to normally say things like that. She knew how serious I got when I got sick.

I looked at her through the rear view mirror. "You got plans tonight?"

She picked at her nails and stayed quiet for a minute. "I have a friend visiting."

"Just stay at mine anyway," Shawn said to me. "I have the tea you like, and medicine, and a shit ton of blankets to keep you cozy. I'll be there to take care of you."

"I don't know, I wouldn’t wanna put that on you."

"I really don't mind."

We’ve been together five and a half months. In those months, I have gotten flare ups a handful of times, and all of those times had to do with trying new foods that ended up disagreeing with me. Each time I was with Shawn, and I had to tell him to leave me to deal with my illness. He did so, reluctantly. He really wanted to nurse me back to health, though.

Sickness is just so ugly. I didn't want to burden him with my physically unstable ass sleeping on the bathroom floor. I didn't want him to hear me puking in his bathroom. We just got to a place where things were Love sick, not Sick sick. Everything was so soft and sweet between us. For once nothing was grey, it was soft blend of black and pink. I didn’t want to taint it with my stupid gastrointestinal crap.

On the other hand, Stella is my roommate. She offers to look after me when I get sick, to which I always say no. I know how to handle it. Still, she goes to the extent of cancelling plans and breaking dates just in case I needed help. She was my safe person when went out. She was the extrovert who wanted and deserved to have a good time.

I had to stop by campus to drop Stella off, anyway. She got out of the car, reminding me once again that she'll have somebody over very soon.

Shawn turned to me once we were alone. "Please stay with me tonight."

"I don't need you to deal with my sickness," I said firmly. "It's nothing personal-"

"Okay, stop for a second," he told me. Then he placed his hand on the shoulder of my seat. "I know you know how to handle yourself when you get sick. It's like, a plan you've had to make and adjust over time, and you know it like the back of your hand. I get that, you know how to take care of yourself. I just don't want you to do this plan alone."

"I won't be alone, I have Stella." By that I mean, she's on standby only if things go really wrong... which is never. I’m not that sick.

This time, though… I’ve only felt actual pain one time before this.

Shawn gave me a look. "She's gonna be busy tonight. She wants to be busy tonight."

We stared at each other for a while. My stomach was flipping for reasons unrelated to illness. My boyfriend had stupidly kind, gentle intentions, and stupidly pretty eyes. He also had a very comfy bed.

I sighed. "Fine."

~

After some tea and rest, I felt a little better. I felt good enough to hop into bed with my boyfriend for about twenty minutes. It was fine until he was on top of me...

"Fuck, I'm sorry," Shawn frantically said, moving off of me. "Oh god, I'm so sorry."

My face was scrunched with pain, and I tried to control my breathing. The soreness from earlier turned into a sharp pain in my abdomen that made me push Shawn away from me. It was kind of a mood killer to say the least, since it made him panic.

"Are you okay?" he asked, voice trembling. "How bad is it? What do you need?"

"Shh!" It wasn't intended to sound mean, but I was trying to focus on what my body was doing.

I struggled to sit up, so Shawn held my lower back to support me. He kept asking questions, but I was rapidly tuning him out. The pain didn't get any better or worse, but I was feeling something in my guts. I got up and dashed into the bathroom.

We're going to get just a little TMI. I wanted use the bathroom, but my bowels weren't having it. Then, I wanted to puke but my stomach wasn't having it. I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed on the floor in front of the toilet and let my body try to figure things out for itself.

I shouldn't have had popcorn at the movies. Sure, popcorn is light on the stomach, but Stella wanted extra butter, and I hadn’t eaten for hours. I knew what I was getting myself into, and now I was paying for it. Add popcorn to the list of foods that were now forever tainted with a bad memory.

Shawn came knocking on the door, his voice full of concern. "Honey, are you okay? Can I come in?"

I didn’t say anything but he let himself in anyway. He sat next to me on the floor, next to where I was leaning over the toilet. Delicately, he moved my hair from my face and held it back.

"I don't think I'm gonna puke," I told him, resting my forehead on the seat. My mouth was watering inexplicably, and I felt a tingle in my feet.

"Okay, then let's get you back to bed," he said gently, placing his hands on my waist to help me up.

Then, I actually puked. Yup, no more popcorn for me.

~

It goes without saying that I was up for most of the night. I only threw up that one time, but I felt nauseous until the sun peeked through the window. Not only that, I always got a bout of anxiety whenever things with my stomach got bad, and it intensified knowing that I wasn’t home at my dorm. I wasn’t in the comfort of my squeaky single size bed. I didn’t have my phone charging next to me here because the only other outlet was on the other side of the room. I felt so out of place and I wanted to run, but I knew I couldn’t because traveling would only upset my stomach more.

Shawn fell asleep when I reassured him that I wouldn’t spend anymore time in the bathroom. He was on his side facing me practically the whole night. When I felt okay enough to lay down, I put one of the extra pillows between us and faced away from him. He started stirring by the time I was finally sleepy.

When I woke up in the late afternoon, I was just grateful I didn’t have class on Fridays. I couldn’t get up even if I wanted to.

I rolled onto my back, only to find that I was alone. I rubbed my eyes, then quickly remembered that I fell asleep with smudged eyeliner, and I just made it worse. I sighed and looked out the window from where I lied. It had gotten cloudy throughout the day. Thank god, today was not a sunshine kinda day for me.

If only I had the energy to get off my ass and go back home where I wanted to be.

My eyes blankly stared at the ceiling. Whatever spirit I had left in me was slowly floating away. My incorporeal being was rising out of my physical being, until voices outside the bedroom caused me to come back to earth.

“Oh, let me just see her! Maybe I can help!”

A woman. I slowly moved onto my side, curling up under the blanket and trying to focus on the window. Then, I heard Shawn’s voice.

“No! Ah - I mean…” He was suddenly outside the door. “Let me see if she’s awake.”

Shit.

The door opened, but I didn’t move from my position. Shawn came up in my peripherals, and then he sat down on the empty side of the bed. His eyes met mine, and he smiled.

“Hey, you. How ya feeling?”

I blinked. “Tired… Not sick. Just tired.”

“As long as you’re not sick.” He brought a hand up to my head and stroked my hair. “Listen, my mom is here.”

“Why?” Seemingly innocent question, but it did make me feel some kinda way, and it certainly sounded like it.

“She comes every so often,” Shawn explained. “She’ll clean and do my laundry.”

Must be nice.

“I told her you were here,” he continued. “I told her you were sick, and she just wants to check on you.”

We had talked about me meeting his family. I joked about wearing a high ponytail with a pink scrunchie the way Meredith did in Grey’s Anatomy. Shawn replied by saying I’d be wearing a black scrunchie, duh. Clearly, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, the day after a particularly nasty flare up. I was severely unprepared and it was a couple of months too early. But how the hell am I supposed to turn his mother away when she was already here?

“I’ll go out there,” I told him. “Let me just wash my face first.”

Shawn looked pleasantly surprised. “Okay, great. We’ll be in the living room.” He kissed my forehead and got to his feet.

As I pushed myself out of bed, I noticed the persisting pain in my abdomen yet again. Not as bad as last night, but it was still there. I already knew how to handle this.

[bigbluebarns-blog]

ABLEISM REDUX

Well… There are so many different dimensions of disability that people can be ableist toward those with different disabilities than their own. …And it’s only in the last couple of generations (within my lifetime, at least) that Disability Rights groups have banded together in a common cause (Rather than, say: Rights groups for the blind working only for the blind, Rights groups for Cerebral Palsy working only for Cerebral Palsy, etc.).  Matter of fact, based on my own recollections, I think working together for universal access rights only really got any steam in the 1970s – when I was already a teenager.

Confession time: until relatively recently (like, the last 10 years, or so), as a physically disabled person, I was biased against those with intellectual disabilities, and would get quite insulted if anyone mistakenly thought I was “R

—–ed.”

@theborkplanet IDK HOW TO SEPARATE MY COMMENTS FROM YOURS AND COMMENTS FROM YOURS. HENCE THE CAPS. 

I WAS ALSO BIASED AND PROBABLY STILL AM SOMEWHAT, TOWARD PPL WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES(ID). I TOO USED THE R WORD. GROWING UP MY EXP WITH PPL W/ ID WERE NEGATIVE OR GROSS, AND NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO EXPLAIN SOMEONE’S ID TO ME, SO ALL I KNEW WAS NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS EG JO GRABS STUFF AND SCREAMS; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINED HER AUTISM. MOE HAS DOWNS SYNDROME, IS OBSESSED WITH SAYING “BOOBIES” LOVES THE EFFING BEACH BOYS AND FARTS A LOT AND NEVER SHUTS UP; HOW ANNOYING; NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT PERSEVERATING, OR THAT DS CAN CAUSE GI PROBS SOMETIMES. AL MUTTERS, HE STINKS, AND HE KNOCKED OUT HIS AIDE SO I’M AFRAID THAT AL WILL GET ANGRY WITH ME AND KNOCK ME OUT; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS HIS CONDITION, SO I GLEAN MY INFO FROM EAVESDROPPING and RUMORS. THE ABLE-BODIED ADULTS DIDN’T BOTHER TO PROMOTE UNDERSTANDING EVEN THO WE WERE ALL TRAPPED ON THE SAME SPECIAL ED BUS, SO THE PASSENGERS WITHOUT ID TALK SMACK ABOUT THE ONES WITH ID. THE ONE TIME I ASK, “WHAT’S AL HAVE?” ABLEBODIED ADULT SHAMES ME FOR ASKING AND BLATHERS ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY. NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY MY PREJUDICE; JUST RELATING EXP. I’M ALSO WORKING THRU IT BUT U R RIGHT; NEVER 100% DONE. 

I’m working through it, and like to think I’m getting better (and one huge part of that is learning just how deep and intertwined institutionalized ableism really is, in our societies). But as with being a White woman dealing with racism, I have to remember that it’s a case of continuing recovery, and not something I will ever be 100% over and done with.

Thanks for sharing, @aegipan-omnicorn. You’re lovely.

@bigbluebarns, I don’t personally know anything about suffering racism, being a white american myself. However, I do know a thing or two about suffering ableism, both at the hands of able-bodied people, and disabled people.

People are incredibly social animals and will band together in groups with other similar people. This is natural, and it is good. It can be healing and cathartic to hang out with people who “get it.” But this tendency can also have an extremely dark side, as we see with “isms.” This is going to get long, so I’m going to break it here in consideration of people’s dashboards. Again, I can only speak to ableism and sexism so please keep that in mind.

OMG, I LOVE THESE NAMES AND TRADEMARKS. DID U INVENT THEM?

Ableisms I have suffered at the hands of disabled people:

The Cripple Police™: These are the people who, in an overzealous bid for limited access available, arbitrarily decide who is disabled enough to use a mobility aid, bathroom stall, parking spot, and even sometimes the label of “disabled.” If you are not Crippled Enough, you can be subject to any form of social punishment they deem to be necessary.

I HATE THE CP AND I’M CONSTANTLY REMINDING PPL THAT U DO NOT HAVE TO APPEAR DISABLED IN ORDER TO USE HANDICAP PARKING. IT’S LIKE THEY WANT U TO WEAR A TAG STATING U R DISABLED SO THEN THEY CAN ASSESS IF U MEET THEIR RANDOM CRITERIA.

Example: I used to be able to walk longer distances with a service dog, but was still a high fall risk. My doctor (a licensed neurologist) prescribed me a parking placard so that none of us had to worry (as much) about me passing out in a parking lot where no one could see me, and getting run over. A lovely woman in a wheelchair, who just happened to park in the accessible spot next to me, proceeded to scream at me and my service dog all the way into the store. A manager rescued me by going along with my ruse of knowing him, and invited me into the back were I fucking hid away until they told me she had left the store. It. Was. Scary.

EGAD SOUNDS HORRIBLE. BUT YEAH THERE IS A DISABILITY HIERARCHY

The Born This Ways™ : The experience between people who were born disabled, and who acquired disability later in life, vary a great deal from one another. BTW ableist types actively minimize the experiences of other disabled people, simply because they hadn’t been baptized since birth by xyz. In other words, the suffering was not identical to their own, thus must be invalid.

Example: I became disabled after adulthood, and tried to find solace after being subjected to ableist responses from friends and family members who were unable to cope with the “broken me.” I found lots of great disabled people who helped me, but I also found people who routinely scoffed at my experiences, again informing me that I was not “disabled enough,” and suggested I was being deliberately weak, or histrionic. Sometimes it was almost eerily word for word what my ableist friends/family said. How strange…

I’VE SEEN THE ACQUIRED DISABILITY IS BETTER. TM ADIBS MIGHT IMPLY, “WELL I’M A QUAD, BUT AT LEAST I GOT TO EXP BEING ABLEBODIED; I’LL HAVE EXP U SADSACK LOSER BTWS WILL NEVER HAVE. I GOT TO BE NORMAL FOR A WHILE” MOST OFTEN I SAW IT COME FROM PARALYZED PPL WHO WISHED THEY COULD WALK AGAIN. I WAS BORN WITH CP AND AB PPL ACTUALLY ASKED ME “WOULD U RATHER BE BTW OR AD?” BEFORE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT, I SAID “BTW, CUZ THATS ALL I KNOW AND I’VE HAD IT FROM DAY1 FALSE EQUIVALENCY WHEREAS ADIBS HAVE TO ADJUST” NOW THO I KNOW THAT EVEN I AS BTW HAVE HAD TO ADJUST TO CHANGING SYMPTOMS. DO U WANT 2 BE A TREE OR A MOUSE...UHHH...FALSE EQUIVALENCY ALERT, CAN’T COMPAPARE APPLE N ORANGE.

The Faker Police™: I think anyone with an invisible illness has experience with this one. This is when people who “look disabled” refuse to believe someone who “does not look disabled,” and proceed to treat them as hysterical attention seekers instead of…well, anyone else. These people often practice double ableisms–I have noticed that many also tend to judge Disabled Enough based on mobility aids. Then, they try to chase the “fakers” out of the community, because everyone knows “fakers” are why we have additional burdens added (like further hurdles to access, government aid, etc).

ALSO IF U HAVE AN INVISIBLE DISABILITY LIKE YOURS AND ME ALSO, I SEE THE “WELL EVERYONE GETS DEPRESSED/SAD/TIRED.” I END UP FEELING LIKE I HAVE JUSTIFY THE DISABLING NATURE OF MY DEPRESSION/ANXIETY TO A WEG. 

Example: Before my condition had progressed to me needing a mobility aid, I was already facing discrimination in the workplace. I requested an accommodation to have the crappy fluorescent lights removed from above my desk, as they provoke bad neurological symptoms. You’d think it was a little thing, but when I asked for advice on dealing with skeptical and belligerent management, I met the same reactions in some disabled people, followed immediately by “Fakers like you are why we see knee-jerk reactions like the word ‘no!’ Come complain when you’re actually disabled and need to have a ramp installed! Until then suck it up!”

The Totally Qualified Disability Judges™: This one seems to arise from the natural tendency of people to compare their situations to the situations of others. If they arbitrarily judge another person’s situation to be better or more favorable, then that person is not As Disabled, or Disabled Enough, or Disabled At All. Then, based on that judgment, they try to socially punish the condemned, or to excommunicate them.

Example: Some conditions are really straightforward and don’t vary widely. People with the condition all seem to have similar limitations. My condition is the exact opposite of that. I have the chronic form of migraine disease. Lots of people get migraines, but not all of them have more than 15 a month, and migraines can last anywhere from a few hours to three days. To some people, pain is the most disabling feature of a migraine, to others, the accompanying neurological weirdness is. (Migraines are often proceeded by cortical spreading depression, a phenomenon also exhibited in epilepsy. Just for an example).

So, when people hear what my condition is, they remember that one lady they used to know who had to lay in the dark for a couple days each month, and wonder why the hell I’m in a wheelchair. It doesn’t make sense to them (who cares that migraines don’t make sense to the most brilliant neurologists in the world), so they decide that I just must not be disabled. Or, if I am, it’s hypochondria. 

 I’VE SEEN: YEAH HAVE U TRIED XYZ CURE? IT REALLY HELPED THAT 1 LADY. IF U DON’T TRY XYZ WELL THEN UR LAZY N ALSO PROBABLY FAKING THE EXTENT OF UR DISABILITY?

Fun fact: Internalizing ableism from medical doctors, and from some close friends and family, and THEN the disabled people I came into contact with later, and from whom I seeked guidance, prompted so much self doubt that I had a licensed psychologist work me up for hypochondria and other related psychological conditions. It…turns out that I am not a hypochondriac. I could not find relief from all of these experiences until I encountered a neurologist familiar with my condition, and fellow disabled people who have been around the block, and who are not so embittered by their experiences that they deigned to expose others to the same.

For that reason, I will always be vocally critical of ableism within our community. I will not sugar coat it, nor will I flatter ableist disableds by giving them another name. That goes for my own ableism, too. Now that I have worked through a lot of my own, I can use my aids with confidence and obtain a freedom that is at least emotionally similar to the one I had when I first formed my adult identity (which was as an abled person).

AH YES, IN MY CASE, INTERNALIZED ABLEISM=ANXIETY N DEPRESSION. STILL NOT SURE IF DISABLED PPL CAN BE TECHNICALLY DISABLED BUT THAT’S JUST LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS.

CLEAERLY WE BOTH KNOW DISABLED PPL ARE CAPABLE OF ASSHOLERY.

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO BOLD TEXT IN POSTS? #TUMBLR NOOB

For an example of sexism from women, see my post Never Underestimate Old Women, in which an old lady cashier schools us for self-righteous activism.

Thanks for the discussion!

[ohsoethical]

September Exposé: Louis Vuitton

Hey guys! Another exposé and this time it’s slightly different.

Generally, there is a wide assumption that, due to the hugely excessive price tags luxury brands place on their products, more money is invested in fair wages, safe work conditions, ethically sourced materials etc.

NAH B.

This month, I’m going to prove that this is not the case, by exposing a rather well known luxury brand…

LOUIS VUITTON

We see our faves wearing their attire, the A list models stunting on the catwalk in all LV everything, their over the top blockbuster-esque adverts that make me think wow is it really that deep. But don’t be fooled by the glitz and glam of it all. 

From torturing animals, to poor working conditions, to refusing to disclose any information regarding their supply chain, its time we digged a lil deeper into why we need to be wary of luxury brands such as this one.

P.S. I really struggled to get the line ‘Louis Vuitton under her underarm’ out of my head during this whole process #pray4yisha

ANIMAL CRUELTY

Firstly, I disagree with the murder of animals for the sake of fashion. It literally makes no sense to me, is messed up, and cannot be justified. 

Obviously then, I was absolutely horrified when I read and watched the extent of the torture animals are enduring to provide the materials LV use for their products. I’ve linked the videos, but be warned, they are extremely graphic and hard to watch.

Rabbit farms: 

In 2014, the animal welfare campaigning group Last Chance for Animals released research they had been conducting for two years on 70 rabbit farms in Spain, from which high end brands including LV had sourced from. Rabbits were found confined to tiny cages with unstable flooring for their entire two year lives and workers were found “callously bashing sick rabbits to death.” The crippled, diseased and severely wounded rabbits were left to suffer with no medical treatment. Sometimes farmers strangled baby rabbits and left them to die. Honestly, the video is absolutely heartbreaking, I literally cannot understand how such behaviour can be normalised and practiced so carelessly. https://vimeo.com/105515629

Crocodile farms: 

(I actually made the decision to make a post on LV after reading about this particular case in Tansy Hoskins’ ‘The Anticapitalist Book of Fashion’- a great book!)

Earlier this year, PETA bought a stake in Louis Vuitton’s owner LVMH, to pressure them to stop using crocodile skin, and giving them the right to attend shareholder meetings and question the board. 

This comes after an investigation in crocodile farms in Vietnam, where tens of thousands of them are raised and killed to make ‘luxury’ leather bags. They found crocodiles living in crammed filthy pits, hacked apart and left to die. Workers electroshocked crocodiles then attempted to kill them by cutting into their necks and ramming metal rods down their spines. The animals shake vigorously when this happens, and can still be alive after having been cut open and left to bleed out. Indeed, experts have found that crocodiles remain conscious for over an hour after their spinal cord has been severed and their blood vessels cut. Can you imagine that kind of pain!? The investigators also witnessed the skin being cut off crocodiles, observing one crocodile that continued to move after being skinned, clearly still alive.  In just one farm, 1,500 crocodiles were slaughtered every three months. About 5,000 were kept in concrete enclosures, some narrower than the length of their bodies, and kept in these conditions for 15 months before being killed. https://investigations.peta.org/vietnam-crocodile-skin-farm/

POOR WORKING CONDITIONS IN ITALY

Researchers have found poor working conditions among workers producing shoes for big brands, including Louis Vuitton, in Italy. For example, while a family requires at least €1600 to afford a decent standard of living, workers at entry level were found receiving wages that wouldn't go any higher than €1200, with home workers receiving just €850. The illegal industry is also growing, with subcontracting firms secretly hiring workers at lower prices, and workers receiving contracts requiring them to work excessive hours, or work on day rates which severely cut their wages. This move towards insecure and flexible labour and thus the overall reduction of social protection is the result of Italy competing with countries such as Bangladesh to provide cheap labour to brands.

POTENTIAL RIGHTS ABUSES IN BANGLADESH

In Bangladesh, two mobile telephone systems have been set up, allowing garment workers to anonymously report signs of human trafficking, delayed wages and child labour. From Jan-June 2016, there were responses from 85 factories (about 3% of sector), and Louis Vuitton was found to be among many brands who sourced from these factories. Altogether, 5200 workers dialled into the system, reporting at least 500 incidents of child labour. The data found that 20% of the sample were at an elevated or high risk of child labour, while 60% were at an elevated or high risk of fire safety violations.

In particular, one article has reported on workers toiling in leather tanneries in Bangladesh, which provide the leather used to make products for brands including Louis Vuitton. Those working in these tanneries in Bangladesh take high health risks and frequently fall ill, due to the chemicals they are required to use without protective equipment and the laborious tasks required of them. Workers are found suffering from chronic skin diseases, respiratory illnesses and gastric problems, however continue to work in these conditions, due to their desperate financial situation. There is also concerns regarding the number of young people found working in these tanneries, including a 13 year old who was found working 10-hour days.

“Every month I am ill. Any time I can get sick because this environment is so bad, but I don’t have any other employment options.” Mohammed Belal- a 30 year old tannery worker who has worked in leather tanneries since he was 10, he suffers from gastric problems and headaches

HIDING THEIR ABUSE

You may notice that this exposé is shorter than previous ones. That’s because Louis Vuitton is hiding pretty much EVERYTHING. They refuse to disclose information regarding their supplies, their main production countries, nor do they disclose the names and addresses of their supplier factories. Indeed, Louis Vuitton and many other luxury brands are rated very low in terms of transparency, at just 15%.  This allows them to get away with much more than is probably mentioned in this post. We are even told to assume the worst, considering there is literally no information on their website regarding sourcing or labour standards policies.

In fact, this was highlighted in an attempted investigation by The Guardian. They found that many of LV’s shoes that were stamped as ‘Made in Italy’ were actually made in Transylvania, in secret, hidden factories. Management apparently make great efforts to avoid LV factories turning up on a Google Search. The factory they attempted to investigate had no mention of LV, just a shadow of the Louis Vuitton checkerboard print on the factory walls. 

While these shoes were made in Transylvania, they were ‘finished’ in France and Italy (soles are added). This is because, according to European parliament laws,  the country of origin for a product is the one where the items underwent “the last, substantial, economically justified processing”.This means that, by having the soles added in Italy or France, LV can have that prestige ‘made in Italy/France’ title on their products, while exploiting the low-wage labour in Romania, where a worker’s earnings for six months is equal to a single pair of mid-priced Louis Vuitton leather court shoes (idk what they are either).

As the Guardian researchers came across a big glass window overlooking the factory floor, with hundreds of workers inside, they were quickly ushered away from the glass and the factory visit was then abruptly ended.

So there you go. It’s important to note that most of these criticisms apply to the majority of luxury brands, so please don’t exempt them from criticism because they are equally as clapped.

 What pisses me off the most about these luxury brands is that they continue to exploit workers and torture animals, while being held in high esteem by society and the media, as though to possess anything by these criminals, or be associated with them in anyway is a sign that you have ‘made it’ or have safely secured a spot in the upper echelons of life. There is nothing prestige or distinguished about skinning crocodiles alive or hiding your workers so no one knows about the abuses you’re committing just for you to become one of the most profitable brands in the world.

Once again, we need to get our voices heard and call them out on their bullshit. Below are ways in which you can contact Louis Vuitton and let them know we are fully aware of their corruption.

Twitter: @LouisVuitton_UK @LouisVuitton

https://www.lvmh.com/contact/

Insta: @lmvh

Sources:

https://www.fashionunited.com/fashion-news/fashion/fashion-labels-deny-sourcing-from-horror-fur-farms-in-spain-20141709497081

https://investigations.peta.org/vietnam-crocodile-skin-farm/

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/10/early-warning-systems-reveals-child-labor-bangladeshs-garment-industry/

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/17/revealed-the-romanian-site-where-louis-vuitton-makes-its-italian-shoes

https://issuu.com/fashionrevolution/docs/fr_fashiontransparencyindex2017

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/peta-buys-louis-vuitton-fashion-moet-hennessey-shares-stocks-lvmh-crocodile-skin-products-exotic-a7525631.html

https://cleanclothes.org/news/2015/01/23/italian-factory-conditions-deteriorate

http://www.ucanews.com/news/the-extremely-unhealthy-life-of-the-bangladesh-tannery-worker/70421