#it's part of gifted kid syndrome i think bc i read a lot of books and just kinda figured out a lot of complicated grammar rules on my own

[teenagefeeling]

my paper is done! now i just need to write another by friday!

[quartzalynlove]

Dating Johnny Cage Would Include

Pairing: Johnny Cage (mk1) x reader

Summary: hcs about dating our favorite movie star

Warnings: none

A/N: I've got so many Johnny ideas running around this head

Alright let's cut to the chase

This man's love language is gift giving

Jewelry, clothing, shoes he's buying it all for you

You know in Iron Man 3 when Tony bought the giant Christmas bunny for Pepper? Yeah expect something like that from time to time

But he's also very sentimental and will buy you things he knows you love/will make you happy

That book you've been talking about reading all year? He'll surprise you with it on a random Tuesday just to see you smile

And don't be a collector or something

You like mugs? Funko pops? Magic the Gathering?? He's the sole sponsor of your collection

His net worth may be in the millions but nothing he owns is worth more than pure joy on your face

Speaking of your face he's constantly trying to get you on the screen

Whether you think you have talent or not Johnny just wants your perfect being captured on film

"C'mon, doll, I found auditions for a lead in a rom-com. You'd steal hearts on the big screen!"

Lord knows you've already stolen his

The man's a huge kid and nerd at heart so if you're also a movie buff he'll be on cloud nine

He hasn't had many people to talk to about the magic of entertainment since his mom when he was younger

The two of you would lose track of time talking about the good, the bad, and the cheesy of movie history

This also means he will talk and flirt with you almost exclusively in movie quotes

And if at any point you start thinking they're cheesy he'll switch it up with an expression bc he knows they always make you laugh

While he is silly, nerdy, and impulsive Johnny also values quality time with you

He wouldn't trade his job for anything in the world but sometimes it's a lot

Sometimes he just needs a movie night you

Nothing but the two of you cuddled on the couch, a bottle of wine, and the entire Star Wars saga

He could never thank you enough for supporting him and in turn he fully supports you in all of your passions

Imposter syndrome and insecurity are not allowed in the house

For every flaw you see in your work he will list 10 things he loves about it

"I know it's hard not to feel like this, but even when you can't believe in yourself, I'll always be your cheerleader."

Where's his favorite place to kiss you? Where isn't

It all depends on which part of you looks most kissable at any given moment

He'll kiss your lips, cheek, forehead. He'll even kiss your stomach totally unprompted.

Got freckles or beauty spots? He's abt to become a problem

In his eyes, you're walking cinema that he can touch, taste, and love. He wouldn't miss a second of you.

Bottom line: Johnny's happiness in life is bringing joy to the world and you're no exception

The smiles of millions of his fans at Cage Con is only equal to one of yours

[night-dark-woods]

YESSS another person out there who reads Mara Sov as autistic!

YES YES YES hope its ok i answer this publically if not not ill delete it as an ask and just post it BUT she is sooooo very much autistic to me like. i love her sooooo much and thats a huge huge part of it ESPECIALLY bc she gets to be SO delightfully complex and morally gray and a deeply sympathetic character who still is a bit of a horrible person sometimes which just ISNT something we GET a lot as autistic ppl like. augh!!! mara sov was constructed in a lab for me to care about.

anyway im not citing stuff bc im on mobile and copypasting to the tumblr app is Hell but i have fully read the marasenna like 4 times in the last 2 months so this is going to be rambly as all hell but:

-talk about fucking black and white morality. going back to earth is the Right Thing To Do and she will absolutely condemn* her entire colony ship to mortality for that.

-her conviction that she knows secrets and things no one else knows, that she is always in control in a way others arent, and her Need for that to be true, and her sense of herself as separate/better/other/above the rest and having a connection to a deeper knowledge. i feel like theory of mind gets tossed around as a dsm checkbox without people like. fully understanding the nuances of it.

-relatedly her... mercenary? approach to the social interactions and relationships she has (and her utter panic and confusion when she cannot use her models that she has, eg sjur). like she may not be able to Feel what other people feel but she can certainly pattern-match and manipulate.

-her absolutely oversized eldest daughter & gifted kid syndrome taken to absolutely absurd extremes (thanks osana and alis li!) bc of what authority figures told her to be true about herself at 19. (one of the times she had to dramatically readjust her model of How Social Interactions Work- the concept that how she is perceived is Her Responsibility which she immediately internalizes as Law). ALSO osana saying that mara never wanted to be her daughter like. ok we get it ur kid is strange and acts "older than her age" and is more self-possessed than a child her age should be except when shes not.

-god just. honestly everything about how shes written. idr if u have read seth dickinson's published books (the traitor baru cormorant) but baru from those books is SO SO SO similar like. ruthless in that the ends justify absolutely any means, self-centered, brilliant with a massive blindspot where it comes to emotions, manipulative bc she relies on a carefully constructed understanding of how social interactions work, most importantly disastrously world-shatteringly gay.

also i feel like part of it is that a lot of the traits and things that make me read mara as autistic are like... internal experience traits that arent easily recognizable by allistic ppl bc they dont Have a recognizably autistic-specific external manifestation and instead come off as like. being a bitch or selfish or stuck up or cold or Whatever. but are like immediately viscerally recognizable if u experience things the same way.

maybe at some point ill make an Actual Post abt mara sov, the travelers most autistic creature. but so much of it is Unexplainable Vibes. if u kno u kno. also thank u for sending this ask and giving me a chance to talk abt mara i love her SO much.

*i dont believe immortality is inherently good, so i dont think it was condemning is like, the right word, but in context of how characters see it.

[boficionado-a2]

SO THIS RANT WAS SMTH I PUT ON DIS.CORD YESTERDAY. I’m gonna put it here now because my feelings are all over the place right now and I wanna talk Donnie. HERE WE GO.

I’ve always strongly hc’d that Donnie has severe issues with anxiety, depression, and self-esteem/imposter syndrome, and a lot of it stems from a simple inability to connect with his siblings. There's signs of it from super early on that Donnie does just about everything he can to maximize his chances of acceptance. His brothers, while they fight and have issues, all seem better socialized.

But per my (ongoing) theory, he has always been a world apart from them. He was leaps and bounds ahead of them intellectually, and save for a few precious early years where that didn't matter as much, he's ended up alone for a lot of his life, spending more time in his lab than with his brothers. They could all feel comfortable talking, playing games, training, but Donnie just... has this insatiable need to learn to do everything and do it well. It's the gifted kid problem... once that's identified, it becomes your identity, and he's built himself around that.

He's a genius. He really is genuinely gifted. He learns things on the fly, picks up scientific studies as easily as he does languages as easy as he does engineering. But on the same side of the coin as that being his true calling, it also meant that he got called to do a lot more than he should've from a young age. Because you know Splinter's not doing HVAC work.

(Note: we're gonna get into Jay is pissed off about the healing mantras bullshit in short order so buckle up.)

So as soon as he started showing that he could take apart and put together toasters at age six without electrocuting himself AND putting them back together better than before, it unfortunately came with... certain expectations. If it broke, or was found broken, Donnie was expected to fix it. When they got sick, Donnie could usually figure out how to treat it with a few hours and some books... so that's what he did. He set broken bones, learned to stitch cuts... he became a sort of family multitool. As a result, he never learned a healthy respect for his own self and autonomy outside of people needing him... and never needing him for just being Donnie. Needing him for being a mechanic. Needing him to be an engineer. Needing him to be a plumber, a doctor, tech support.

So when they finally started branching out past the lair the idea of people who didn't know he was a genius and might like the person he was under all that was probably more than a little seductive (this is also why I tend to hc he wanted April's friendship and wasn't so hard on the crush side). Problem is he's not sure who he is if he's not the smart guy. (I generally handwave a lot of stuff out of canon and have him not act like an asshat in regards to April... just kinda picking out the bits I don’t care for there, but. The initial desperation for that attention made perfect sense.)

The worst part about the crush, as much as I hated that they kept pushing it well after the joke stopped being funny, is it reveals part of that core insecurity. April's new. She's a friend. She doesn't have the background that's judging him purely on his genius. So of course he wanted desperately for her to like him. He wanted to have that stability that his brothers had. Someone who liked him for him.

He's a shy, awkward kid who likes to read, likes skateboarding, and is perfectly at home playing video games like any other kid his age. He's got diastema and an overbite, both of which he's pretty self-conscious about. Gets in trouble for not training hard enough, but then can't train because something new broke. He's got a temper, but tends to get sad before he loses it. When he's scared, he rambles off random facts about some minor detail regarding the situation they're in. He's attached to his big brothers, but afraid that he just exists as a roommate and not a sibling. And when left to his own devices, he's a quirky, sweet boy with a wicked sense of humor, biting sarcasm, and just a want to be loved and treated as an equal to his brothers without anything else driving that.

So he just... keeps relying on that. If he's useful, if he makes things for their friends and his family then they'll like him more, obviously. And then he messes up and they make fun and the cycle starts all over again. And then.

AND THEN.

THE HEALING MANTRAS GET TROTTED OUT. AT PROBABLY SIXTEEN YEARS OLD AFTER HOW LONG OF BEING THE ONE HIS BROTHERS GO TO WHEN THEY'RE HURT OR SICK.

All that's handed to Leo and he's got one less thing he's needed for, and that is crippling. He's a child, he's built his whole life and self around being needed just so he can feel wanted by his family... and now they need him for one less thing.

Then of course there's the space arc, and he's barely even present. He's a footnote, because Fugitoid is there to solve all those problems for them. It's even a minor plot point in an episode.

“I'm not as smart as the professor. I just build things out of junk.”

To say Donnie has near crippling issues with anxiety and depression and deeply rooted imposter syndrome and miserably poor self esteem is probably understating it a lot.

I honestly think it's also why I'm so attached to my Wheels au. Because the boys had to spend almost six whole months learning just how hard it was to keep things functioning. (Four months of Donnie's coma, and the initial two months after he woke up being mostly bedridden bc he was still really weak.)

So it wasn't just the joking "I wish Donnie were here." It was four months of "Everything is on the verge of breaking constantly" and realizing that he'd been keeping them alive far more than they knew. And then he wakes up and suddenly he can't do a lot of what he did before, and it's clear he's getting mired in a depressive spiral. Because now he feels like he's lost that one thing he had a tenuous grip on: being needed.

Obviously he’s still needed, and he improves with some time and help, but. Yeah. That verse is very near and dear to me for a lot of reasons.

AND THERE YOU GO. YEAH.