#if you don't know what this is about just google

[inkskinned]

i'm a little afraid to go to pride this year. many of us are, a little. sitting around our tapas and video games, the silence that hangs over the discord server. it feels different, we say.

we're privileged. the community that came before us laid the groundwork so i could be raised in a different world, and i will never forget their sacrifices and dedication. they gave us this: a pride that feels like community and celebration and joy. i remember the first few times i went to a queer event - i'd been raised so catholic. feeling safe like that, for the first time... it saved my life. i go to pride to celebrate that feeling - my people, laughing. out in the sun, the way we couldn't have been even 25 years ago. that feeling: no wonder we call it "pride."

who am i to be afraid anyway. there are parts of the world where people are doing much better work than i am. but it's just: i felt at home there, you know? and this year feels different. we are waiting on the dam to break. last year, at boston pride, there was a whole gaggle of sign-holders shouting about jesus. you walk around them and try not to let it get to you.

this year, i'm going to DC's pride with my girlfriend. google sends me concerns about if it's safe to exist in trump's america, if World Pride is a bigass target on all of us. every article uses the words "safety concerns" many, many times. three days ago i witnessed a shooting.

even straight people keep telling me - people are weird lately. sometimes we blame it on Covid and sometimes we blame it on the full moon. but i do remember a time before this, right. it's not just that people are more comfortable being rude. it's this strange, outwards violence. a comfort in being cruel.

it's a big hole to fall down anyway. it's not like they're going to do anything to make pride safe, not really. i don't want a police presence as the solution. and what if this is just fearmongering! what if this is just to get us to stop attending our own events! what if everything is actually fine, and i'm just freaked out by the stated intentions of our president!

and what if i'm just listening to things that are being said. what if i'm weighing the shape and size of this america accurately.

my mother calls me. she's been getting the articles too. i assure her i'll be careful, but i put the phone down and stare at it. i'm going to go to pride. other people made it safe for me, it is my duty and my honor to show up for my community. the only thing we've ever had was each other. it was always an act of bravery. being ourselves is brave.

but i am afraid. i lay out my outfit and i kiss my girlfriend. i cut my nails and clean up my undercut. i hold her hand and hang the sunset flag. the sound of this america feels different. like a volcano trembling. i will love her and i will love being queer and i will sing over the noise of it.

but ... still. in the back of my mind. that feeling, like something terrible has been shifted. like somewhere in the night - they remembered we're different.

[ailurinae]

🤦‍♀️

Don't do that. At best you are just slowing things down, at worst some of these may be actively interfering with each other. AdGuard and uBlock Origin (uBO) is redundant, just use one. I use uBO, but AFAIK Adguard is ok too... Anyway, double classical browser adblockers is almost always a bad idea. (One classical and one DNS-based is fine)

Don't bother with the DDG extension for Firefox, just set DDG as your search engine. Delete Google and other unwanted search engines from the list if you want to make sure you don't accidentally select them. They claim to do other stuff, but it isn't doing anything you can't get with uBO and native FF features (set to Strict, etc). It might do stuff that you can't natively do on Chrome, but uh. Don't use Chrome.

The DDG app for Android mentioned above just links to the DDG Android browser. It does not make any claims to increase privacy or deal with ads in other apps. It is just a web browser. And it is just a Chrome/WebView wrapper as most non-FF browsers are. It isn't going to offer you anything you can't get with FF on Android and uBO.

Mullvad is a fine VPN (you can also use Mozilla, which is a branded version of Mullvad's infrastructure, and will help Mozilla survive), but there is very little to no reason to use a VPN for most day-to-day web browsing. Even more so now with encrypted DNS lookup options in the form of DoH (DNS over HTTPS) and DoT (DNS over TLS).

There could be some limited value to a VPN when on public WiFi (Starbucks etc), and a VPN is good to keep the MPAA off your back when torrenting. Or if you want to get around geo-blocks by selecting a VPN endpoint in another country.

Sponserblock is nice to skip the sponsor segments on YouTube, but do remember just regular uBlock Origin will block the YouTube-inserted ads, and Sponserblock has nothing to do with blocking trackers or the like.

For Android, start by using FF for Android (iOS situation is different), very many extensions work just fine on mobile now, including uBlock Origin. And then use mobile website (and PWAs, Progressive Web Apps) rather than Android apps where possible. "Apps" are always going to have more power to track you than websites (obviously there are "good" apps, especially many open source ones, that don't track you, but the possibilities are greater).

Since I use open source apps and websites wherever possible, and I use FF with uBlock Origin on Android, I haven't felt a need to use other ad/tracking blocking stuff on Android, but if you want to, the best bet is DNS based blocking with an open source app.

Some do it locally, like PersonalDNSfilter, DNS66, AdAway and Blokada 5, with a host file setup (either directly on rooted device, or with a fake VPN workaround for non-rooted). Others like AdGuard for Android, Blokada 6, RethinkDNS and NextDNS use external DNS servers on the internet and route your DNS requests through them. Some of those listed require subscriptions (though the clients are Open Source) or require varying amounts of manual setup. Also apparently some people are using the AdGuard DNS server without the app and therefore no subscription (presumably then needs more manual setup)? Don't know much about it. Can't recommend any one of these as I haven't used any of them, but plenty of discussion on Reddit etc.

Not sure what the Host File or alternate DNS situation is on iOS. And iOS browsers (ALL of them) are just skins over WebKit (the Safari engine), so not much they can do, and no extensions. The EU might force Apple to open that up though at some point...

i hate seeing people now making fun of those who care about privacy online. i've seen people saying things like "well they already have your data. what are companies going to do with it" and it's like, that's not the point. it's that companies /shouldn't/ be able to have my data and sell it. am i aware they probably already have my data? yes, absolutely. but i'm still going to try and keep them from monetizing it any further, why are we defending companies selling data they shouldn't have to begin with though?

[laterreurofficial]

what do the sentimonsters organ's actually look like? are they mostly normal or is there something weird going on. I mean besides the self-healing/kind of immortality thing. do estelle and ambre find out when they're exploring each other's bodies

Sometimes your organs can be flipped. Sometimes you don't have a gallbladder. Sometimes you have an extra pituitary gland glued to the outside of your stomach. Everything works properly because the organs are all technically for show. Like you can still eat and sweat (if your parents didn't remove that in the blueprints) and stuff but as with all sentimonsters it's never for the sake of it living so much so as it is for the sake of giving off the appearance of living.

Like I keep saying. Sentimonsters have custom appearances because they were made to be able to mimic things.

Duusu is kind of stupid and she was never given enough time to look over anatomy textbooks as she should've so there will always be little quirks that vary from senti to senti like hypermobility or missing "unimportant" organs (she knows about humans needing the heart, the brain & nerves, and the digestive tract, at least. sometimes she'll blank on adding in lymph nodes or a spleen tho) or an extra bone in the pinky.

Estelle and Ambre are bad at googling though so even if they did decide to spend an afternoon vivisecting each other, they'll hit dead ends when "i have no liver" just brings up information on liver failure. We shouldn't trust them to be able to figure out the true nature of themselves by themselves, honestly. They're pop stars.

[miyasmagnolias]

𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 ⋆˙⟡

miya atsumu x f!reader

atsumu apologizes to his brother for a years-old argument — only to get ambushed about his feelings for you.

part eight of the in close quarters series, a friends-to-lovers college AU featuring you, atsumu, and the ten months you spend living together senior year.

The night before Atsumu's first game of the season, you found him pacing outside of your open bedroom door.

"Tsumu?" you called out to him from your bed, eyes focused on the book of short stories you'd been annotating for the past twenty minutes. Your roommate's head popped in almost immediately.

"Yep?"

"I've seen flies more restless than you are right now," you joked, closing the book and pushing your hair back with your reading glasses. "Everything okay?"

His fingertips drummed against the doorframe in thought. "Are ya busy? Can I get yer advice on somethin'?"

"Sure," you replied, propping yourself up against your headboard. Meanwhile, Atsumu sat himself down backwards in your desk chair, his bleached hair still damp from a shower, a towel slung over his shoulders.

"So you know how my first game is tomorrow," he began.

"Yes," you drawled bemusedly. "I've only bought the tickets, put it on my Google calendar, and agreed to wear one of your old jerseys."

"Right," Atsumu breathed, glancing over to where the jersey in-question now hung on the door knob to the bathroom. You'd even steamed it for good measure. "Well, normally I'd be super pumped the night before. I'd blast music, hype myself up in the mirror — "

"Ogle yourself in the mirror," you corrected.

" — but I don't wanna do any of that right now." His tone was clipped. Confused, even. "All I feel is this growin' pit in my stomach. Like I'm about to yak at any second."

"Okay," you said with a nod, tracing your fingertips along the spine of your book in search of the right words to say. "Anything in particular you're worried about?"

Atsumu folded his arms across the back of your chair, brow furrowed in concentration. "Well, for one, it's my first game since my coach kicked me off the team for a month. So there's a lot at stake."

"That makes sense," you reassured him. You knew Atsumu had been putting in extra hours since his forced hiatus from volleyball, but he'd never really admitted to you how he felt about it. "Are you nervous that you might not play as well as you used to?"

"Kinda," he said, scrubbing his hair out in frustration. "I just, I feel really shitty about the way I used to treat my teammates when they were havin' an off-day. I mean, I was a complete ass. I just assumed they weren't workin' as hard as I was, or didn't care as much as I did, until..."

"...until it happened to you?"

"Right." Atsumu's throat bobbed. "There was this one time, back in high school, when I called Samu a piece of trash for not hittin' my serves the way I wanted him to. Told him if he couldn't score, he had no business bein' on the court."

"Well, I'm sure he took that very well," you drawled. Atsumu chuckled.

"It was by far the worst fight we'd ever gotten into," he admitted. He could still remember the way Osamu's foot had collided with his spine, the vitriol they'd spat at each other in the middle of the stuffy Inarizaki gymnasium.

"Does wittle Atsumu never make any mistakes?!" Osamu had hissed, fists clenching his t-shirt as he pummeled him to the ground in pure, unadulterated contempt.

"What's wrong with callin' a piece of trash a piece of trash?!" he'd sputtered back, fingernails digging into Osamu's wrists hard enough to draw blood.

Back then, Atsumu had never hesitated to berate his brother for playing like shit. Now, Atsumu didn't have much room to talk, and Osamu hadn't said a damn thing about it.

"I know we haven't played together since high school," he murmured, fiddling with the loose threads on his towel. "I just...I feel bad for givin' him so much grief, ya know?"

Your eyes softened at his confession. "Well, have you ever considered apologizing to him?"

"What? No," Atsumu scoffed, as if you'd just suggested he dive off a steep cliff. "We don't do that sorta thing."

You snorted. "Okay. What do you do after an argument, then?"

"I dunno. Avoid each other until it blows over. Play Winning Eleven once it does."

You rolled your eyes. "Well, maybe you should try talking to him about it for once."

"Because it'll clear my conscious?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," you snapped. "Seriously, have you always been this conflict-averse?"

Atsumu hummed in deep introspection. "Well, I'm sure if ya asked all the girls I've dated before — "

"Okay," you interrupted him before he could say anything else. It didn't stop the flicker of jealousy from unfurling in your chest. "Why don't you just stop by Onigiri Miya before it closes and talk to him then?"

"What, tonight?"

"Would you rather spend the entire night wanting to hurl?"

"Fair point," Atsumu said, standing from your desk chair. He glanced down at you — in your reading glasses and matching pajama set — and felt his lips tug into a slight smirk. "Have I ever told ya that ya look like a hot librarian when ya wear those?"

"Many times, Tsumu," you deadpanned. "Now go."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And get me a salmon onigiri while you're at it!"

He winked at you before closing your bedroom door, his teasing smile lingering in your mind long after he'd left.

"Thank ya, come again!"

Osamu waved goodbye to his last customer of the night, the door jingling behind them as they left. He shucked his gloves into the trash can and sighed, turning towards his employee with a weary smile.

"Why don't ya head out early? I got it from 'ere."

"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly, eyeing the front door like it might open again at any second.

"Positive. Ya got that test in the morning, right? Be sure to get plenty of rest — and take that bento box I made for ya in the fridge."

He wished her goodnight, making sure she got to her car safely before closing the back door to Onigiri Miya and bolting it shut. He hadn't even made it back to the dining room before the front door jingled again.

"Sorry, we're closed!" Osamu hollered from the kitchen, already grabbing the roller mop.

"But yer sign's still on!" a familiar voice called back. "False advertisin', much?"

Osamu poked his head out just in time to catch Atsumu crouching behind the display case like a street rat in search of its next meal.

"The hell ya doin' here?"

"Y/N wanted salmon onigiri," Atsumu said flatly.

Osamu tightened his grip on the mop, resisting the urge to smack his twin brother for the dozens of health codes he was violating right now.

"I'll make ya both a to-go box. Just — get yer grimy hands off the display case."

Ten minutes and two salmon onigiri later, Atsumu wiped his mouth with a paper napkin while Osamu balanced the cash register across the counter. Behind a mouthful of rice, Atsumu asked, "Do ya remember that big fight we got into back in high school?"

"Ya mean the one that got both of us suspended for two days?" Osamu scoffed. "What about it?"

"Well, I've been thinkin' about it lately, and I just wanted to say...ya had every right to kick my ass."

Osamu paused in the middle of counting bills. A second passed. Two.

"I'm sorry," Osamu managed, stifling his laugh. "Are ya tryin' to apologize to me right now?"

"Don't get used to it, jackass," Atsumu glowered. "I've been torn up about it ever since my coach put me on mental health leave. I thought, 'Well, shit. Now I really don't have the right to tell other people that they suck at volleyball.'"

Osamu blinked. "What a heartfelt apology. Thanks."

"No, that's not — " Atsumu cursed under his breath. He really was conflict-averse, wasn't he? He took a deep breath and tried again.

"What I meant to say was, I was way too hard on ya back then, and I'm sorry." After a moment, he added, "It only took me gettin' dumped and put on volleyball leave for me to realize I was kinda bein' an ass."

His brother's lips pulled into a slight smirk as he said, "Kinda?"

"Okay, a complete ass. There, ya happy now?"

A chuckle rumbled out of Osamu as he considered his brother's half-baked apology.

"For what it's worth, I shouldn't have kicked ya so hard. Ma thought I went and paralyzed ya."

"Please. Ya weren't that strong," Atsumu scoffed.

Osamu merely hummed, continuing to count. The sound of him parsing through the worn paper bills reminded Atsumu of you, flipping through a library book at the end of a long day. A small smile flickered across his face at the thought.

"Did Y/N put ya up to this? This whole attempt to clear yer conscience?"

"Why? Ya don’t think I would've come here myself?"

"Honestly? No."

He might as well have kicked Atsumu in the back all over again.

"Ya have been kinder ever since ya started livin' with her, though," Osamu admitted. "She makes ya better."

Atsumu shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Yeah, well, she tends to have that effect on people."

Osamu noticed his subtle change in demeanor and asked, "Somethin’ goin’ on between the two of ya?"

"What? No," Atsumu said, although the way his ears turned bright red revealed otherwise. "What makes ya think that?"

"I dunno. Maybe the fact that ya drove twenty-five minutes the night before a big game just to buy her food?"

"I came here to apologize!"

"Only because she sent ya here!” Osamu argued. "Seriously, Tsumu. Ya never liked goin' out of yer way for others. Not for me, and certainly not for yer previous girlfriends. But here comes Y/N, and suddenly, yer watchin' The Bachelor on Monday nights. Drivin' halfway across town to replace her book. Sayin' sorry for things I thought you'd never admit to!"

"So what if she makes me want to be a better person? That doesn't mean she'll like me back!" Atsumu snapped.

His words hung in the air, unable to be taken back. He hated how pathetic, how vulnerable, they sounded. Osamu blinked back in surprise.

"Besides," Atsumu grumbled, tearing the corners of his used napkin. "She's too smart for me."

Osamu's shoulders sank.

"Come on. Ya may be jack shit at apologies — " Atsumu cut his brother off with a glare. "But she seems to really care about ya. Didn't she plan a whole bar crawl for ya a while back?"

"Yeah, but she practically threw me at another girl," Atsumu lamented. “I think she wants one of those Timothée-Chalamet-type men. The kind that watches foreign films and is good at crossword puzzles. I'm shit at crossword puzzles."

"Well, maybe she just doesn't know yer into her like that. It wouldn't hurt to just ask her out and see what happens.”

Atsumu pressed his forehead against the countertop, wishing he could just melt into the floorboards and call it a day. After a while, though, he asked, "Do ya really think she'd say yes?"

Osamu smirked. He'd never seen Atsumu so worked up about someone other than himself before. It was strange. Refreshing, honestly.

"Couldn’t tell ya. Twin telepathy only goes so far.”

"I wanna yak just thinkin' about it," Atsumu groaned, raking a hand through his hair. Is this what healthy communication felt like? Endless nausea? "Ya comin' with her to the game tomorrow night?"

"Yep. Suna's comin', too."

"I swear to God, if either of y'all embarrass me in front of her — "

"I told him to leave the giant cardboard cutout of yer face at home."

Atsumu's face twisted in disgust. "Y'all still have that thing?"

"We may or may not have put it in our front window to scare off loiterers," Osamu said. Atsumu's jaw went slack. "What? It's technically my face, too."

"I hate that yer roommates," Atsumu drawled, tossing his trash away and retrieving the extra takeout bag for you. He lifted it in farewell before heading towards the front door. "Thanks for the food...and for hearin' me out."

"Don't mention it," Osamu replied in earnest. "And this goes without sayin', but yer secret's safe with me."

Atsumu merely nodded before pushing the door open, climbing into his car, and driving off in the direction of campus. Only when he was out of sight did Osamu release a long, exasperated sigh.

He didn't know if Atsumu would ever muster up the courage to ask you out. Hell, he didn't even know what you'd say. All he knew was that his brother had willingly apologized to him for the first time in twenty-two years — and you were the reason behind it.

Chuckling to himself, Osamu pushed the cash drawer shut, crossed the dining room, and locked the front door. He turned off the neon OPEN sign and got right to cleaning.

For his own sake, he hoped you'd stick around.

And for Atsumu's sake, he hoped you'd one day say yes.

a/n: eeek next chapter is college gameday, y'all! osamu, suna, y/n and the volleyball gang all in one place!

i have the rest of the story outlined as well, so many thanks for all of your patience as this slow burn keeps on burnin'. i do hope it'll be worth the wait! ‪‪♡

@miyasmagnolias, 2025

[xenosagaepisodeone]

this is entirely small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but there is a segment in The Dark Truth Behind the Gothic Anime Angel video where the youtuber speculates how the image got from JP to EN internet. in this segment, she says that what likely happened was that the image was uploaded to 2chan (also she mentions that the image was possibly ripped from a game beforehand which is...very obviously incorrect), a western otaku browsing 2chan uploaded it to 4chan followed by someone then uploading it to danbooru....which is such a bizarrely roundabout theory. if this was a piece of midres fan art I'd concede, but it obviously isn't the case. anime and manga may have been dripfed to the west in the aughts but a lot of the online fanfare around anime at this time was spearheaded by people who were independently pursuing their own interests (see: scanalation and doujin translators). while many of the uploads from the earlier years of danbooru aren't properly sourced, it had less to do with uploaders not knowing who the source was (though don't get me wrong, this was still a huge issue in this decade!) and more a product of proper artist sourcing practices not being as prominent of a thing on old internet. I was complaining a while back about a danbooru admin who more or less enabled poor sourcing practices by not doing it properly himself, but if you look through his upload history it's obvious when he was perusing a particular artist's site. the same applies to a lot of the people who had decided to make uploading high res anime girl fan art online a hobby in the aughts. like, hiro suzuhira wasn't obscure back then by any means. she was the artist for shuffle and yosuga no sora. you could easily find her website with a quick google search. the average tween weeb photobucket user probably wasn't culture savvy enough to know about her, but the average booruposter adult who played visual novels and had very strong opinions about english dubs likely did. it's unlikely that the uploader scanned the art himself, but it just makes more sense at the very least to assume that a highres image like Gothic Anime Angel was uploaded by someone who was a fan of her work (especially since his profile contains other scans of her art). I could easily be 100% wrong but the assumption that old internet = 4chan ignores the reality that the old internet wasn't quite that monolithic.

if you go to the original danbooru post that the image was likely scraped from on EN internet, this is the first comment

the moral of the story: girl you cannot be around my age and not knowing your #herstory if you are making youtube videos ‼️‼️‼️

[alex51324]

Do they expect that, though?

Or do they think that if they say something like, "Here in Mindanao* we do such-and-such," it's reasonable to expect people who don't know what Mindanao is, but who are reading this on a device fully capable of accessing Wikipedia, will be able to figure it out?

I mean, prev, maybe you've met a bunch of assholes who really do expect you to just know--I don't know your life--but it's also possible that sometimes people have heard anecdotes about the existence of assholes like that, and then whenever they encounter the second type of person--the one with the reasonable expectation that you can probably Google an unfamiliar proper noun--they get really defensive about it.

(*I didn't know either, but it took me about 10 seconds to find out.)

i will defend every nonamerican who doesnt know shit about the geography of the country because they hear about us too much anyways. you are not only allowed but encouraged to get everything wrong.

[fallenbratfiction]

constants & variables ~ reed richards x f!reader

a/n: don't come for me, I had to google terms and concepts, I'm in another field of science FAR, FAR AWAY FROM THIS. That's all I gotta say.

mentions: fluff, stressed out reader, imposter syndrome, reed reassures you, sweet lil fanfic. if i missed any mentions let me know!

minors dni with my blog or works!

do not copy, translate or claim any of my work as your own.

⟡──────────────⟡

You’ve been at it for days. Every path leads to a dead end. Every new equation collapses in on itself. The whiteboard is a battlefield of half-erased solutions, and your notebook is filled with coffee stains and frustration.

“Fuck!” you mutter, scrubbing another attempt off the board with your sleeve.

Across the lab, Reed glances up from his tablet, his brow creasing as he watches you. He’s been buried in his side of the mission just as intensely, but somehow… he still finds room to worry about you.

The whiteboard squeaks under the force of your marker. You’ve been staring at the same theoretical loop for hours now. Your hands are covered in ink smudges and half-erased formulas. Your coffee’s gone cold. Your chest is tight. You want to scream or cry or run.

Reed's voice is quiet behind you, "Sweetheart"

"Don't," you shake your head.

He stands up, walks over, and offers his hand. “Come on. Let’s take a pause, okay?" he says softly. "Come lie down with me.”

“No,” you snap, sharper than you mean to. “I can’t rest. Not until I solve this. I’m stuck.”

“You’re hitting a wall, love." he moves a strand of hair behind your ear. “And the harder you push right now, the worse it’s going to feel. You’re not going to break through it tonight. You need distance—fresh eyes, another perspective.”

You exhale shakily, grip loosening on the marker. Reed gently eases it from your hand. “You're brilliant, but you're not a machine.”

He’s not trying to be Mr. Fantastic right now. He’s not lecturing you. He’s right, and you hate that he’s right. But admitting that feels like defeat.

You take his hand and let him lead you over to the couch in the corner of the lab, pulling you into his lap like it’s second nature. Your cheek finds his shoulder, and you close your eyes. His arms wrap around you like a quiet shelter.

“You’re so brilliant,” Reed murmurs against your hair. “And I admire you for it. I’m so lucky. But I hate seeing you like this, sweetheart. It’s no use burning yourself out. You don’t deserve to run yourself into the ground just to prove you can.”

“I just worry...a lot,” you whisper.

“I know you do.”

“What if there’s no solution? What if I can’t figure it out? What if we can’t fix this?”

“Hey.” He tilts your chin up gently with two fingers until your eyes meet his. His voice is low and steady. “We always figure it out. There’s always a solution. Like Feynman said—‘There’s a pleasure in finding things out.’ And we will. Just… not like this.”

You look him in the eyes. His gaze is steady, warm, full of quiet love.

And it makes it worse somehow—because all you can feel is the weight of not being enough. Not fast enough. Not brilliant enough. Not worthy enough.

“I feel like a fraud,” you whisper, voice barely audible. “To all of you… especially to you. When I can’t get it right.”

Reed doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t brush it off or tell you you’re being dramatic. He just cups your cheek with that steady, ink-stained hand, and his thumb brushes against your skin like he’s holding something precious.

“You’re not a fraud,” he says gently. “You’re exhausted. There’s a difference.”

You shake your head, but he leans in closer.

“I know that voice in your head. The one that tells you you’re not enough, even when you’re doing the impossible. But let me tell you something—you are not failing anyone. Not me. Not the team. And especially not yourself.”

You close your eyes, leaning into his touch.

He softens even further. “You’re allowed to be stuck. You’re allowed to not have all the answers right now. That’s not failure. That’s just… being human. Being brilliant and human.”

You let out a breath that trembles at the edges, and your shoulders fall.

“The problem will still be here tomorrow,” he says, brushing your knuckles with his. “But right now? I just want to hold the woman I admire most in the universe.”

You sink into his warmth, letting yourself be held. His arms wrap around you with a tenderness that makes your chest ache, grounding you in a way nothing else can. His heartbeat is steady beneath your cheek, his fingers slowly brushing through your hair. You're curled up in his lap, legs folded beside him, your cheek resting against his shoulder. The lab is quiet now. The whiteboard is blank.

Reed's fingers move gently through your hair, slow and rhythmic. His head leans back against the couch cushion, eyes closed but not fully asleep—just resting.

Silence feels like a pause, a much-needed one.

You’re staring at the empty whiteboard, and something shifts. A gap clicks into place. Not a solution, not yet—but the shape of one. You blink, your breath hitching. You sit up slightly.

“Reed.”

He hums, not opening his eyes. “Mmm?”

“I—wait.”

You freeze, staring, running over it again. It fits. The answer doesn’t lie where you thought—it’s beside it. A pivot. You scramble to untangle yourself from his lap, jolting up so fast he startles.

“Wait—hold on, what—?”

You’re already sprinting across the lab. You grab the marker and take the cap off with your mouth. You hit the whiteboard and write. Fast. Lines, symbols, a theory folding into itself with every pass. Your wrist aches, but your mind is flooded.

Reed sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes. Watches you in a daze as you scrawl.

“Baby,” he calls, voice still thick with exhaustion. “Enough for tonight. You need—”

“No, no, no, I got it—” You barely glance at him. “Reed, I got it! It’s the derivative link between phase decay and the fluctuation threshold—that’s what was throwing it off—oh my god, it was right in front of me—”

His brows lift as he watches, stunned, the fatigue melting off him. You’re in a frenzy, hair wild, marker racing. He sees the full scope of your idea unfold on the board. Elegant. Bold. Just Right.

Reed mutters something under his breath. He doesn’t interrupt. Just walks over quietly, standing behind you.

You’re halfway through the final line when he slides his hands onto your waist. “You did it,” he says, breathless with pride. “You fucking did it.”

You turn, eyes glassy, heart pounding. “I knew it was in there. I just needed—god, I just needed to stop thinking so loud.”

He leans in, forehead pressed against yours, grinning like he hasn’t slept in days and doesn’t care anymore. “You’re a genius,” he laughs. "Brilliant!" He lifts you slightly off the ground, arms tight around your waist, spinning you in one small, giddy circle before pulling you against him again.

“You solved it!” he says, half in disbelief, half in reverence. “You actually solved it.”

You’re breathless, laughing through the rush of adrenaline, still stunned by the clarity that hit like lightning.

“I did,” you say, dizzy. “I really did.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, hands still on your waist. “You realize this changes everything.”

You nod, beaming, heart still racing. “I know.”

“God, I’m so proud of you.” His voice cracks slightly—just enough to show how deeply he means it. “I love your mind.”

You blink back the emotion threatening to rise, overwhelmed not just by the breakthrough, but by him—his joy, his belief in you, the way he sees you even when you can't see yourself.

Your fingers slip into his hair, grounding yourself in him. The marker falls somewhere behind him and clatters quietly to the floor.

You lean in, eyes fluttering shut, and kiss him—deep, steady, grateful. You break the kiss to look at him. "Thank you," you whisper, a smile tugging at your lips.

He exhales against your lips like the weight of the universe just shifted, and he pulls you impossibly closer, his hand cradling the side of your face, the other still clutching your waist.

You break the kiss, forehead pressing against his, and breathe in the silence between you—the hum of the lab, the soft glow of the whiteboard behind you, still filled with your handwriting, your solution.

“Now we can rest,” you say, voice light, tired.

He chuckles, brushing his lips gently against your temple. “Yeah, baby. Let’s get to bed.”

And this time, when he leads you back to bed, it’s not with worry in your chest or doubts in your mind. Tomorrow, you're telling the team how you'll move forward with the mission. For tonight, the work is done.

⟡──────────────⟡

likes, reblogs & comments are appreciated always!!!

[emeraldserenade]

Career Day ~ Joaquín Torres

synopsis: You're just a teacher's assistant but you were the girl of his dreams

tw: fem!reader, none?, barely edited

fic, ficlet, drabble, request

I don't know where this one came from, I found it finished in my google docs. Which means I probably wrote it at 3am.

➽──────────────❥

You worked with Joaquín’s mom, she was a teacher at the same middle school as your mom. It’s how you ended up as a teacher assistant there, an unofficial job that the school put on the payroll just for you. You were thankful, you loved working there and you spent time there anyway. 

“My son is coming for career day,” Mrs. Torres told you, you were helping her staple all her packets since the copier was out of staples. 

“That’s awfully nice of him,” you mused, you’ve heard about her son. How proud she was of him and how he’s following his dreams. 

“He’s so excited to see the children,” she swapped to Spanish for a moment and you had to just awkwardly smile at her. She did it occasionally when she got super excited or upset, you don’t think she even realized she swapped languages until you said something most times. “Oh, I’ve done it again,” she gently shook her head in amusement. 

“It’s ok, Mrs. Torres. I’ll have to learn Spanish eventually as you keep doing it,” you joked. You two fell into a silence, the movie you were playing for the kids the only noise in the background. 

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

Joaquín and Sam had both agreed to the career day, and you knew the students would be so excited. It was the morning of, and both of them were sitting in the empty classroom with you. Both Mrs. Torres and your mom were out helping with the buses, so you were put in charge of getting the classroom together. 

“Are you a teacher?” Sam had been asking you general questions the whole time. 

“No, I’m technically a teacher’s assistant. They put me on the payroll since I was here helping for free for a while,” you explained, balancing on one foot on a wobbly chair. The heels you wore didn’t help but they were a perfect color match to your shirt and had bows on the toe box. 

As if he could see into the future, Joaquín was grabbing your waist as you started to topple over. He gently helped you down and onto the floor, only removing his hold once you were securely on the floor. “Are you ok?”Joaquín looked you in the eyes and you nodded at him.

“Yeah, thank you,” you told him, a sheepish smile crossing your face. You stepped away from him fully when you heard kids walking towards the room, a more joyous smile spread across your face as you stepped to the door. “Good morning!” You called to the hoard of students who walked in.

“Is that Captain America?” One of the students whispered to you.

“It is, go sit down now,” you told her with a softer smile. You took a glance at Sam and Joaquín, both were sitting by the desk in the back you normally sat at.

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

“Are you excited to talk to them?” You made small talk while you filled in a coloring sheet from one of the parents. They were talking about their job in a marker facility and brough coloring sheets and markers for everyone. You glanced up at Joaquín, Sam was currently talking to the class.

“I am, but I’m a little nervous though,” he admitted and you reached to give his hand a small reassuring squeeze.

“They will love you,” you gave him what was supposed to be a calming smile, but the warmth from your hand, and his little crush on you, caused his heart to race a little.

“Say thank you to Mr. Wilson!” Your mom announced as Sam finished his Q and A portion of his talk. There was a chorus of thank yous and you gave Joaquín another reassuring look before your mom called him up. “Give Mr. Torres a nice welcome,” your mom announced as you smiled and gently clapped with the class as Joaquín walked up. 

You went back to your coloring sheet as Joaquín talked, occasionally peaking up to look at Joaquín with a smile. Sam and you were having nice small talk as well, Sam was effortless in the way he made small jokes and laughed at your less effortless jokes.

“He likes you,” Sam randomly said and you raised an eyebrow at him.

“Who?” You were playing dumb, your stupid little celebrity crush on Joaquín wasn’t something you were willing to focus on at the moment.

“Joaquín, he likes you,” Sam told you, a smile on his face that showed you that he knew you were playing dumb.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s just nice,” you told him, your practiced words from being a teacher being said to Sam.

“Sure,” Sam nodded slowly but dropped the topic.

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

Joaquín came by to visit a lot more after the career day, sometimes it was under the ruse of dropping by for lunch with his mom. Then he started bringing lunch for you and your mom, both of your mothers leaving you alone to eat together. 

“Thank you,” you thanked Joaquín with a smile as he gave you your lunch. Your moms had left the room to eat lunch elsewhere while you two settled into the seats at your desk.

“I, uh, I wanted to tell you something,”  Joaquín said. You could feel the nervousness that radiated off of him, which was unusual. But it was you, how could he not be nervous when the girl of his dreams was right there and smiling at him.

“Ok?” You urged him to continue, taking a sip of your drink.

“I like you,” he told you but continued to talk before you could say anything. “I like you a lot, and I get if you don’t like me but,” you cut Joaquín off with a small smile and a hand on his arm.

“I like you too, a lot,” you crinkled your nose at him as he relaxed.

“I really want to kiss you,” he told you and you laughed.

“Not at school, but if you’re here when I get off, I’ll kiss you,” you told him and he nodded, both of you settling into silence for a moment.

“Oh, do you want to be my girlfriend?” Joaquín asked you like he meant to but forgot.

“I would love to,” you replied, lacing your fingers with his for a moment.

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

Joaquín was there when you got off of work, you were walking out with your mom and his mom when you saw him. He was leaning against his truck with his arms crossed, his mom gently nudged you to him.

“I wasn’t sure if you were actually going to be here,” you called to him as you walked up. He smiled at you and pulled you into a kiss, you could hear the ‘ohhs” from the students.

“You promised me a kiss, why wouldn’t I be here?” Joaquín questioned and you laughed gently, you were still pressed into him. His hands were placed on your waist and yours locked behind his neck.

“She doesn’t have her car right now, offer her a ride!” You heard his mom call over to you two and you looked at him with wide eyes.

“Would you like a ride?” Joaquín offered with a small laugh.

“You really don’t have to,” you told him, not moving from his hold.

“I want to, I promise,” he assured you and you nodded.

“Then take me home, loverboy,” you gave him another quick kiss to his lips before pulling away. Joaquín rushed to open the passenger door for you and you have him one last quick kiss as you jumped in.

➽──────────────❥

Masterlist | Requests If you want to be added to the tag list, follow the directions on my masterlist

[kjiscrawlingbackformore]

Peace - Act I : Chapter nine

Lottie Matthews x fem!reader

Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: Reader comes back to her hometown and transfers to Wiskayok High School after getting expelled from her previous high school. Follows Junior year into Senior year, all the way up to the crash. (Eventual NSFW mdni)

Warnings: Deeper look into Lottie's mental health. Talks about medication, bipolar, and schizophrenia.

A/N: I am not an expert on mental health. I'm just a girl with Google and vibes. So please have grace reading this. I apologize in advance if I butchered this. 😭🙏🏼

You’d been there enough to know Lottie wasn’t kidding when she said no one was home. Her house is big, quiet, and a little too clean. You finally set aside your textbooks. You were fucking tired of studying for midterms. How French became so important was beyond you. You sat on the floor of Lottie’s room, her bed against your back.

She had what you thought was jazz music playing softly. Your eyebrows raise as you notice Lottie rifling through a drawer in a hurry.

“Are you okay?” You ask without thinking.

Lottie didn't look up from her hurried search. “Yeah. Just... trying to find something.”

You frown, shrugging and letting her somewhat exasperated tone roll off you. You turn your gaze to her nightstand. Your eyes spot a pill bottle.

Again, without thinking, you open your mouth. “What’s this?” You reach out to pick it up. “Risperidone?”

You look up to see Lottie freeze, and she rushes to snatch it from your hand. You widen your eyes at the sudden motion.

“It’s nothing. Just for sleep.” Lottie says almost too quickly.

You pause, your hands finding themselves at your side. You kept your eyes on her face. The vibe in the room took a complete 180 from the calm and sweetness it once had. You frown, you don't know much about medication, but you knew enough from living with your stubborn, untreated bipolar aunt that is not what that was for.

You soften your eyes and tilt your head to find her eyes that refuse to meet yours. “I know that’s not what it’s usually for.”

Lottie goes still. Her mask slips for a second, eyes tired, jaw tight. Lottie finally meets your gaze sharply. “Please don’t…don’t look it up.” She pleads quietly.

Your heart breaks at the brokenness in her tone. “I won’t. Just... talk to me.” You invite softly.

There’s a long pause as she stands towering over you still. She then, after a moment, sits in front of you. “It’s schizophrenia. I was diagnosed when I was eleven. I’m stable. I take my meds. I do everything I’m supposed to. No one at school knows.” She said it matter-of-factly, voice devoid of all emotion. Her face is hard, and her eyes stare at the bottle in her hand.

If Lottie had the power to, you imagine she would burn up the bottle with one glance. You felt a wave of shock but also almost understanding. Her off moments or “tired” moments clicked for you. You wondered how she made it this long, keeping that in. You felt awe for the girl.

You nod, “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

Lottie snaps her head to you. Eyes narrowed in what you can imagine is a bit of awe and suspicion. “That’s it? You’re not freaking out?”

You frown and give her a confused look. “Should I be?”

“Most people would be,” Lottie says, almost at a loss.

You shrug, “Well, I’m not like most people. I’m your friend.”

The room was quiet again. Not the tense, loaded quiet from earlier, just the kind that settles between people after something honest and hard has been shared. The kind that feels heavier and lighter at the same time.

Lottie placed the bottle back in her drawer and shut it softly, like it had a heartbeat she didn’t want to disturb. When she turned back, you hadn’t moved from your spot on the bed, cross-legged, eyes kind, waiting—not prying, not pitying. Just there.

Lottie didn't know what to do. Does she talk to you more about it? Does she pretend it never happened? But then you look at her with this small reassuring smile.

It felt like without words you were saying it was okay. That it wasn’t the end of the world. The world you had started to build with her. Like you...like you liked her. Like you liked Lottie enough to want to be here still.

Okay. Okay. It was okay. So she should be okay with it too.

“You ever watch Bonanza?” Lottie asked suddenly, flopping next to you and grabbing the remote like nothing earth-shattering had just happened.

You blinked, trying to rack your brain why it sounded familiar. “Is that the one with the brothers and horses?”

“Yep. And really, really questionable facial hair.”

You smiled, letting the moment follow Lottie’s lead. “Sounds like a classic.”

Lottie clicked through the channels until she found some local station replaying an old, grainy western. The volume was just loud enough to hear the bad dubbing and dramatic gunshots. Neither of you said much, just passed a half-eaten bag of pretzels back and forth and let the silence grow safe again.

At some point, your head dipped onto Lottie’s shoulder. Then down to her lap, curled up on her side, one hand still loosely wrapped around the hem of Lottie’s sweatshirt like you were tethering yourself there.

Lottie didn’t move. She barely breathed.

She sat with the weight of you against her, the warmth of you radiating through her jeans, and watched the flickering screen, not really seeing the cowboy standoff playing out in black and white.

Her mind was louder now, full of spirals and static and the sharp memory of how fast people leave when they find out what’s wrong with her. How she’d learned to cut people off before they got the chance. How her parents had made her swear — no one from school could know. Not after what happened in the last town. Not again.

And yet here you were. On her bed. Trusting her. Staying.

Lottie looked down at your sleeping face, peaceful, mouth parted slightly, a smudge of mascara under one eye. You looked young like this. And soft. But not fragile. No, never that.

Lottie brushed a bit of hair from your cheek, careful not to wake you.

“I’m your friend too,” she whispered, like a promise to the dark.

And then she just sat there, still, silent, watching the screen, holding you in that quiet, precious calm. The old western droned on in the background, all dramatic standoffs and dusty landscapes, but Lottie barely heard it now. The room had settled into a hush, the kind that only shows up in the dead of night when everything else has gone still, and someone you didn’t think would stay is still here, breathing easy beside you.

You were asleep, hand still holding the hem of Lottie’s sweatshirt like you didn’t even realize it. Like you trusted it to be there when you woke up. That thought made something burn in Lottie’s throat.

She watched your chest rise and fall, steady, rhythmic. She wondered if you always slept like that — so completely surrendered, like your body didn’t know how to be tense anymore. She wondered if it had always been this easy for you to curl up in a stranger’s bed. Or maybe it wasn’t easy at all. Maybe it was just her.

That made the ache worse.

Lottie leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for a second. Just one. But the moment she did, her brain flicked on like a static-filled TV channel, flickering images and noise she couldn’t shut off.

They always leave when they find out. Or worse — they stay until they can use it against you.

She rubbed her fingers together, a grounding technique her therapist had taught her. But it didn’t work the same now. Not when you were here, not when Lottie had let the words spill out of her mouth like water from a crack in the dam. She was usually so good at pretending.

But you looked at her like she wasn’t a broken thing. Not once did you flinch. You didn’t act like Lottie was a liability or a tragedy. You didn’t even ask a million questions. You just... stayed.

That was worse, somehow. It made her want to believe it could last.

Lottie looked down at you again, eyes tracing the soft curve of your cheek, the mess of your curls across Lottie’s thigh. Your hand was still there, thumb twitching slightly in sleep. Like you were dreaming something too big to hold.

Lottie let out the tiniest breath. She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want this to end. She pressed her back harder into the wall, trying to slow her pulse.

“I’m your friend too,” she repeated again, this time inside her own head. “I can be that. I am that.”

But even as she said it, that familiar weight crept up her spine, the one that whispered she’d mess this up somehow. That the meds wouldn’t keep working. That you would see a piece of her that couldn’t be hidden, and this beautiful, easy thing between them would crack down the middle.

Still. Right now, you are here. And you looked peaceful. And maybe, just maybe, Lottie could let herself believe that was enough for tonight. She let her eyes drift back to the TV. The cowboys were riding off into the sunset now. And with you sleeping soundly on her lap, Lottie let herself believe, for one quiet, impossible moment — it was going to be okay.

[jedisupernova]

important update about my next fic — please read

my next fic will be a love triangle (i'm keeping the other crucial detail under wraps for a little while longer . . . :D) but its long as fuck. like, google docs is telling me its 60k words long as fuck. it makes the length of i take, you give look like child's play fr. and i'm not even done yet! what does that say about me? idk. but what i do know is that what i'm cooking is worth ten michelin stars . . . so . . .

i've made the decision to release this fic in parts. because it is genuinely that long. and every detail matters. it'll be about either four or five parts, and all of them will be super fckn long 😀 i just don't want to accidentally overwhelm you all at once 😭 but don't worry about being fed. because you're getting a buffet. not even the buffet girl try a bustling summer block party's worth. i'm thinking part one will be up this friday. i'll let you know once i've decided <3 do let me know what you think about this

with sincerity, and deviousness cooking in my drafts,

honey ☕️

[tonycries]

Daddy toe knee,

I need your guidance and care.

I was in class and my professor gave us an assignment to write, and it was all essay questions so we had to submit it during the class time (about 1 hour) and I finished this shit in 20 minutes, so I decided to pull up google docs and continue writing my foursome fic w Sylus, Caleb, Zayne (hehe) and when the timer was up, I submitted it. i don't know why I did that last minute :(

So long story short I accidently submitted the foursome fic instead of the assignment, but innocent me didn't realize this fuckup so I packed my bags and went to eat.

2 hours later, I get an email from the professor, asking me to see him, and my dumb brain thought that ''holy shit, my assignment was soo good he is going to use it as reference for future classes (he does that)

So I was happily skipping towards his office and when I walked in, He had a small smile on his face and I was like Holy shit my assignment must've been AMAZING. (my ego is soo high, i need to be humbled)

I sit down, He looks at me, he slides a stack of papers towards me like we are in a freaking spy movie and tells me to open it which I did.

And to my horror, It's not my essay and its the freaking fic and this MOTHEFUCKER printed it out.

I was just horrified when he chuckled and said and I quote ''This is not what I expected but The writing in this is quite good'' (shortened ofc)

And I was even more horrified bcz what do u mean my professor read the fic and complimented it.

then he said ''though this is a good piece, I do not think I can grade it''

and I was nodding along, like a little bitch, because I was just too shocked.

long story short: he told me to apply for the university writing program (i didn't even know such thing existed)

and well it ended well but now every time I see the professor he just chuckles at me 🥴

I'M CRYINGGGGG YOU HAVE SUCH A W TEACHER NONNIE BAE 😭 Now me personally I would leave the country and fake a new identity but- BUT HEYYY IT ALL WORKED OUT, HE EVEN LIKED IT I LOVE THAT FOR YOU <33

[glasshalftrue]

are you still actively talking to/friends with people in this "Gender Fandom"? since you said ex, i'm assiming these people aren't currently your friends and you're not currently interacting with much.

anyways, regarding this:

We can see the group consensus of the people who back the Democrats is "the voters are to blame for this" because when you say that, you get a lot of Democrats agreeing with you and telling you you're right. When you say "the voters are not to blame for this," you get Democrats yelling at you and saying you're wrong and you voted for Trump and should be punished for it. The people who say "The voters are not at fault and we should change our behavior to earn their votes" are the marginal fringe wackos. Even when Democrats talk about getting more votes, it is exclusively about "repeat our same message to more people" (I read they were about to spend a bunch of money on appealing to men this way with things like "putting up ads in video games men play"), and never about "learn what it is they want from us so we can provide it," much less "change our behavior and positions because we have alienated people with our bad behavior and positions." Because saying that gets you attacked. If you talk about how the Democratic party needs to change its behavior and positions, the best you can hope for is that other Democrats don't hear it. Since the subject is what other Democrats do, this is a bad situation.

i don't agree with this, and again i think it's really important to clarify what exactly we mean when we say "Democrats" here. is it the supporters, or the party itself? based on context it seems you're primarily referring to members within the party itself, so let's just look at that for now. i think it's true that there's definitely disagreement amongst Democratic party members about the extent to which the loss was "their fault" vs. "the voters", and that the Left is generally more inclined towards believing the latter than Republicans (although i would say that e.g. Trump's belief that the elction was stolen in 2020, while not technically "blaming the voters", is essentially a worse manifestation of the same complex - the idea that one's own beliefs are so righteous that you cannot possibly be at fault for your loss).

i don't think it's obviously and necessarily the case that advocating for better messaging/strategy means you "get yelled at", though, at least not to more of an extent than any other statement of which people have differing opinions on. a cursory google search led me to this article, in which Nancy Pelosi primarily blames Joe Biden's late exit for their ultimate loss of the election, rather than "the voters":

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pelosi-blames-harris-loss-bidens-late-exit-open/story?id=115652125

"The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary," Pelosi said. "And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that. That didn't happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different," she added.

and i think you'd agree that Pelosi is a pretty prominent, powerful figure in the Democratic party.

brazenautomaton said: [...chopped for brevity...] was the entire post and all of its conclusions supposed to be a mocking joke? because you still concluded that the left was no worse at cognitive empathy than the right, that it wasn’t important to understand your opponents, and that you can “do a good job explaining your ideas” without knowing what their opponents think.

we've all been around this merry go round a thousand times over and I think we know how it goes at this point.

firstly it's always a bit of a waste of time to talk about "the left" and "the right" when it's hard enough to get consistent answers out of one person let alone a completely undefined random subset of historically contingent internet commenters, we know that.

secondly one "side" being better or worse at cognitive empathy makes little difference in practice to issues where interests are opposed: understanding where someone is coming from does not unlock a magic sequence of words that changes their mind (if anything it might reveal how difficult it is to shift their opinion).

it is obviously tempting to paint our favoured faction as being the ones who are sensitive and understanding while their opponents are blockheaded fools who just can't listen because if they just had some empathy they would immediately realise the rightness of our position just as we can so clearly see the wrongness of theirs but we can forgo that exercise I think.

framing the appeal to empathy in terms like "Trump would not have been elected if his opponents just understood what the people wanted" is facile because if you oppose Trump's policies then enacting those same policies to prevent his election would achieve nothing, in fact it would normalise the very ideas you don't want to spread, and even if you did attempt to out-Trump Trump he might still win on charisma anyway.

now you could say that people were upset about prices going up and that contributed to Trump's victory and so more decisive action on controlling inflation could have helped, but that is less about ideological empathy and more about basic polling and economic observation, I think.

ultimately this discussion would be a lot more interesting if someone, anyone, had an example of an ideological principle that people fail to understand, and that failure of understanding is an actual mistake that leads to genuine negative consequences that could have been corrected by improved cognitive empathy, because a lot of the time it reads like the standard evangelical approach where it's assumed that if someone just explains Jesus one more time they'll GET IT.

[quadrantadvisor]

DP x DC, revenant!Jason Todd

Shortly after meeting, Danny and Jason have a late night conversation about what it means to come back. 1281 words

On AO3

-

Danny woke groggily, in a dark place that he didn't recognize, and took a moment to get his bearings.

He felt the warning ache in his neck that came from being propped up against an arm rest. There were two sources of dim light in the room—the glow of city street lights, muffled behind a curtain, and the green eyes of the man whose lap Danny's feet were propped on.

Right. Danny hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the revenant’s—on Jason’s—couch, but they’d been talking for so long, he must’ve dozed off.

Jason had had so many questions, about ectoplasm, about the zone, about Danny’s own experiences. Danny had done his best to clear up everything he could. A revenant may not be quite the same as he was, but still, it made Danny happy to be able to pass on his hard won knowledge and maybe save someone else a bit of the hurt and confusion that he’d gone through. It was what he’d always wished someone would do for him.

Jason was slumped into the couch, but he didn’t look relaxed. Danny examined his still profile, cast in strange shadows by its own green glow, and wondered how long it had been since he’d moved.

Danny shifted slightly, purposefully producing the fabric sounds of a body against upholstery, to make sure Jason knew he was awake. No reaction. Danny gave him one more moment, then asked, “You okay?”

Jason didn’t look at him when he answered, “You told me I���m basically possessing my own corpse, and I’m supposed to not be upset about that?”

Really, Danny should’ve predicted something like that. How long had he spent, trying to pretend that death hadn’t really touched him? It wasn’t an easy thing to accept.

“What’s the difference between a body and a corpse?” Danny asked.

Jason’s eyes snapped to Danny, their glow intensifying. “I am not dealing with riddle bullshit right now, I swear to-”

“No, I’m being serious,” Danny interrupted, pulling his feet from Jason’s lap and sitting himself up. “There’s one difference between a corpse and a living body, and that’s that someone is living in it. Jason—” he reached out, gripping one of Jason’s hands in his “—you’re alive. That’s what matters. The rest is details.”

Jason’s shoulders bent inwards, his other hand raising to rub at his chest. “You don’t get it,” he said, quiet. “People don’t just come back from what they did to me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“However you died, it’s not-”

Jason huffed an ugly sound, a short and bitter laugh that Danny hurt to hear. “Is it crazy that that isn’t even what I was talking about? I meant after.” The motion on his chest was repetitive, like he was tracing something underneath his shirt, and Danny got the sinking feeling that he knew just what sort of scar it might be. “I was gone, okay? I was gone, and this body was still here. And they took it, and they cut it open and rummaged around inside to figure out what happened. Which is—” he cut off, sniffed, and Danny gripped his hand tighter “—which is stupid, right? It’s not like it wasn’t obvious.” His fingers twitched, and he continued, haltingly, “I mean, I’ve read the report. Pulled it off his stupid files. The smoke inhalation did me in. After everything that happened, it was the smoke.”

Jasons’ hand pulled out of Danny’s, and they both rose to cover his face, cutting off the glow while he curled in on himself even tighter. His voice was slightly muffled when he said, “And then they had to ship me home, right? So they bled me dry and pumped me full of formaldehyde, and they prettied me up so they could pretend I wasn’t just some empty thing, and Bruce held the tiniest most depressing little funeral known to man and put my ass in the ground, and I had to wake up down there.” His words and his breaths were coming too quick, and Danny didn’t know how to help. He didn’t want Jason to stop, not when it seemed like he needed to say all of this, but he could see just how badly the revenant was hurting.

“But you did wake up,” he whispered.

“Woke up in my own mutilated corpse!” Jason snarled. “Everything I’ve forgotten, and that memory is still crystal fucking clear! It stank in there, like death and vinegar and mud, and it was so small, and I couldn’t even try to scream for help because they sewed my fucking mouth shut—!” He broke off into a sob, and Danny couldn’t stand it anymore, had to lean into Jason’s side and wrap an arm around him as he shook with all the emotion he couldn’t reign in.

“Okay,” Danny said. Not you’re okay, just okay. “Okay, so that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard, and I regularly hang out with a guy who wants to skin me.”

Jason sniffed. “What?”

“Nevermind. It’s just-”

“No, I think we should go back to the skinning thing-”

“I just don’t want you to let it define you,” Danny interrupted. “I did that. I got into my head about it, the whole ‘being dead’ thing, feeling like I was…” Danny gave himself a second, swallowed, “like some sort of freak. A thing that didn’t belong anywhere. But I’m still alive, and you’re alive, and even if we weren’t, it wouldn’t matter, because we’re still here, and as long as you’re here you can find something that’s worth staying for.” Danny rubbed what he hoped was a soothing pattern into Jason’s admittedly impressive bicep.

Jason let out a sigh. “I must really be pathetic if you’ve gotta pep talk me like that, huh?” he said, and Danny pretended not to see him wiping at his eyes. “Sorry,” he added, “about all this. I’ve got some shit I haven’t dealt with, and this ‘revenant’ stuff brought it up pretty bad.”

“I get it,” Danny said, and hoped Jason could tell how much he meant it.

Jason sighed again, heavy, like he was trying to release something else with his breath, and said, “It still doesn’t make any sense. Logically, I can’t be alive. Where did my blood come from?”

Danny shrugged. “Do you have blood?”

“I definitely have blood. I’ve seen a lot of it.”

That gave Danny pause. “Just like, around?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said, deadpan. “I’ve got a surplus, so I like to leave some here and there, make sure everyone gets a chance to appreciate it.”

“I have no idea how much you’re joking and it frightens me,” Danny told him.

“Weak,” Jason replied.

“Anyways, you gotta not think about it too much. The interdimensional goop is already logic-defying, and you’re mixing magic with it with your special soul willpower or something. Your brain will explode if you try to make it make sense.”

Jason huffed a little laugh, bouncing Danny on his shoulder, and this time it made him feel lighter. “Can I just say that I hate that I’m full of interdimensional goop?”

“Valid,” Danny said.

Even without looking at Jason, Danny could tell that he just rolled his eyes by the way the soft green light moved.

Danny had his ear pressed to Jason’s shoulder, feeling his warmth, and if he focused, he could just make out the revenant’s pulse. Personally, Danny thought it was pretty cool to be full of magic and goop and blood. Much cooler than Danny, who was way more science goop than magic goop. They’d have to compare notes on that sometime.

Maybe Jason would come around to it.

[zenathezee]

I don't understand why everyone was so surprised Brennan and Katie studied without knowing they'd be doing it all again. If you just badly failed naming a basic thing on a competitive TV show, of course you'd go home and look up all the fucking pasta shapes you completely blanked on

[gideonisms]

"do it scared do it alone" no do it after sleeping 8 hours and coming up with a plan

[queenlucythevaliant]

Just to clarify my thoughts (since I've had a number of people ask me about it) re: Job and cursing God. There's a big difference between cursing God as used in Scripture and how we generally would think of cursing at God today.

Cursing someone, in the Bible, has a lot of depth to it. It's not just saying "screw you " in anger, it's got a sense of forsakenness to it. It's the opposite of a blessing, a removal of blessing. If the blessing is presence, your face shining on the person you're blessing, then a curse is absence. In some translations, Job's wife tells him to "renounce God and die," which I honestly think makes a lot more sense to modern ears.

Job says a lot of unpleasant things to and about God in his anger and grief. So do the Psalmists. A number of the Prophets. So can we. God can take it if we come to him with honest expressions of our emotion, including those not-so-nice ones directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting mad at God and saying, "How dare you, you bastard" when you suffer unjustly. You can say much worse, I think, without sinning, though I don't feel particularly inclined to give examples. But as long as it's an honest expression of your heart, I think you're doing exactly what prayer is for. You're presenting him your heart with an open hand. He can use that. Opposite of love is not hate but indifference, etc.

Job doesn't renounce God. Neither should we. But I think when you're truly suffering, you're gonna have those feelings toward God either way. He'd rather you address them with him directly than try to avoid them. Cursing at God in the modern sense is actually a great way to keep the relationship strong and not end up cursing/renouncing him in the Biblical sense.