#no but really the older i get the more i look back and my frontal lobe fumes

[possiblyunhinged]

Lmfao, well... ain't that the truth.

[sparklingcid3r]

hey ive been seeing this hc on other blogs but what is ur hc on pony having to go to the doctor? like darry in waiting room with him, then pony forcing him to come into the exam room and silently looks to darry to answer every question the doctor asks of him. do you think darrel gets frusturated by pony or is he in full overprotective guardian mode of "he said his stomach hurts!" at the doctor.

I’ve seen a few of these too and I love what everyone’s come up with so I have no idea if I’m gonna be original but I wanna talk abt this soooo🫶

Pony HATES going to the doctor. That shit scares him so bad. His parents had to drag him kicking and screaming out the door and as a freshly turned 14 yr old, nothing’s changed. He still hates it. Sure, Darry’s not pulling his legs while Pony holds onto the door extreme, but he’s moping all the way over there.

Darry’s never wanted a frontal lobotomy more than during his first time taking Pony into the doctor’s office.

After he’s finished filling out the insurance part of the paperwork in the waiting room, he passes it off to Pony to answer the rest seeing as it’s his appointment. Pony ends up reading every question out to Darry like he’s supposed to answer it for him.

“It’s asking if I have any stomach pain.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then write no.”

“Oh, okay.”

…

“It’s asking if I have any joint pain.”

Darry’s head is in his hands.

They finally get into the exam room and when the nurse tries to get him to follow her to measure his height, weight, blood pressure, vision, he just looks at Darry like he expects him to come with. Darry just gestures for him to go with the nurse like literally every other time he’s had to do this.

The nurse brings him back after an incredible series of “You want me to take my shoes off🤨” and “Am I supposed to get on that😐” (the scale). When she closes the door, Pony collapses back into the chair like he’s just been through an ordeal. He’s giving Darry the nastiest side eye and Darry’s just like “Do you really have to make this so complicated, all you have to do is sit there and let them look at you” but Pony hits him with the “You weren’t even there bro”

The doctor comes in and tries to make friendly small talk, just asking what grade he’s in and what kinds of school activities he does.

“So, what kind of physical activities do you partake in?”

Pony looks at Darry.

“He does track.”

“Alright, good. What would you say your diet is made up of, Ponyboy?”

Silence.

“He eats his vegetables. Lots of chocolate cake, though, nearly every day. I’m sure you want him to cut back on that.”

“Every day? Ha! Yes, I would advise that a young track star like you should limit your sugar intake.”

Darry has no intention of following through on that, but he’s satisfied with the heat Pony glares at him with. Darry is a shithead of an older brother when he’s taking Pony to the doctor. If Pony gives him the reigns he’s gonna fuck with him so hard. Like yeah he’s pretty sure it’ll help Pony to speak up for himself more, but Darry’s absolutely doing it more for his own entertainment.

And also they find out that Pony’s reflexes are garbage. The doctor gets his little hammer out and knocks on Pony’s knee. That shit doesn’t move until he’s about to move onto the other knee. Darry is in shock.

Overall a great day out for two-thirds of the Curtis brothers, 0/10 wouldn’t recommend

[envy-of-the-apple]

NO BUT LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN TO ME POLY OMG SDKHFGLSDHG THE FIC,

satoru clinging to you like velcro. obliviously asking you to hang out in places only college kids would go to. like, HIS DORM?? probably a rave or two or a frat event or some crap. he doesn't even register it as weird because it's not weird for HIM so how could it be weird for YOU when he wants you there?

being his designated driver... his secret keeper... "He'd told you things he'd never told anyone before." omggg imagine he told you about suguru. imagine hearing about it, thinking he's gay, and satoru lets you think that for a while so you see his advances in a platonic light and don't turn him down right away

telling you he's so happy he feels like he's dreaming... interrupting you to ask you how it felt, probably knowing full well you were too drunk to remember...

interrupting you even MORE to tell you that it was his first time (you DEFLOWERED him you MONSTER)...

and then pulling out the puppy dog heartbreak eyes (and i'll bet it's REAL heartbreak, too!) when he says you totally returned his feelings when he confessed last night 100% honest no cap.

Satoru is smart. He's a physics major, he's got to be smart. You just need to pretend to date him for a while before he realizes that you're too old for him. Then, he'll leave you for someone his age.

narrator: "he did not, in fact, leave her for someone his age"

skjdfhglhdsg honestly satoru has ALWAYS had that "likes older women" vibe to him, you know?

even if you ever managed to break up with him you'd just watch him fall into the arms of a 40 year old mei mei who's just using him for his money, humiliating him publicly, cheating on him, breaking his heart and won't you save him from his self-destructive ways, you know he'll always take you back-

god this is the REAL manipulator shit. make them choose to come to you. yandere gojo has nothing on this cougar hunter gojo, his TRUE final form

kfhgsldhg sorry if it sounds like i'm throwing more prompts at you, this really is just me squealing about what a fun read it was. awesome job! thank you for writing it!

im so glad you liked it!

COUGAR HUNTER GOJO OH NO-

"you totally returned his feelings when he confessed last night 100% honest no cap" yayaya no totally, you def said 'omg toru ily 2 lets get married'. honestly he got a bit too egotistical in the last part, and it might be his downfall if the mc ever looked too deeply into the story.

(I imagine the night went the exact opposite how gojo described. He did confess, but by then, you had lost much of your tact. Instead of letting him down gently, you just started likening him to your little brother-no wait-you're more like my son-actually no-you're more like my puppy that keeps peeing the floor. Cant blame him for thinking he needed to kick it up a notch)

i just love the idea of the mc going to friends for advice and instead of being sympathetic/horrified they give high-fives and joke about robbing the cradle because no one really cares that you're 'dating' someone who's pre-frontal cortex isnt developed because the patriarchy

If i ever do make a pt2 (which i will not be doing), it'll probably be seven years into the future where gojo has successfully corralled you into marrying him. and the reason why you (reluctantly) say yes is akin to the reasons a man in the 1930s will marry a woman he slept with to preserve his and hers dignity.

[daandyli0n]

(warnings: blood/mild gore, implied child death (and murder in Cassidy's case), eye contact. maybe also bright colors/eyestrain)

Some Updated Refs For The Afton Family In The Rewrite

(you know the drill, click the images to see details better and whatnot)

hooo boy. give me a minute to ramble about the designs and stuff below -

William:

so. tried to give him both "Eccentric, Goofy Restaurant Owner" and "REALLY Off-Putting" Vibes. hope i succeeded

yes he's hiding a knife behind his back.

bunny features. i Love William with bunny features. if you draw William with Bunny Features ily (platonically)

this man has not gotten a good night's sleep in Years.

now...you may be wondering: Why Do His Kids Get Refs For When They're Older, But Not Him? well...that's because, physically, he doesn't change much besides getting some more gray hairs and worse eye bags in the over a decade between his original murders and his death. and i've already done a ref for what O'Hare/Springtrap looks like in my design

yes, the Unhinged look in his eyes is intentional.

Alex:

gave his younger self a pose that was meant to give off "rebellious teenager" vibes, and his older self a pose that gives off "bitter and anxious" vibes.

gave him long hair. because Yes.

tallest of his siblings.

Michael:

looks like his father, but with a few minor changes: skin is mildly more tanned than his father, hair is a lighter shade of brown, etc.

William based the 1987 uniforms for the guards/employees off of his own usual outfit (Purple. which Backfired).

Mike tried to change his hair a bit to distinguish himself from his father, mostly by dying it a bright red and trying to cut the Bunny Ear-Shaped parts on the top of his hair to be more jagged and less Bunny-Like.

scars on his arm are from where Springtrap grabbed onto him.

Evan:

not much to say. bookworm, sad guy, probably needs to go to therapy for what happened in his childhood.

Elizabeth:

Bunny Features :]

she's basically somewhere between blonde and ginger hair color wise. i'd describe her as a strawberry blonde.

constantly has a wide-eyed look. like a hare.

mismatched socks, just because she could.

ghosts are typically either desaturated or transparent, with the only bright colors on them are usually their eyes or the bloody wounds from their death.

so while it's not shown here, "fun" fact! Liz died from where Harriet (Circus Baby) hugged her hard enough to break not just her spine, but her neck as well. (the hug was so strong due to Harriet malfunctioning that day)

all ghosts who have their souls tied to an animatronic have a mask of that animatronic that they can wear if they wish. Liz's mask is of Harriet.

Cassidy:

my baby boy. my beloved <3

those pants are pajama pants. he wore them everywhere.

while not visible, Cassidy also wears mismatched socks like Liz.

the Fredbear plush was a gift from Henry, given to Cassidy by Charlie.

was blind in one eye after The Bite.

The Bite wasn't as horrible as people think it was. what basically happened was that the teeth bit slightly into his head, which caused the bleeding, as well as some cracking in the skull and brain damage in his frontal lobe. due to the mechanisms in Fredbear being Very hot as well, it caused some burns. nothing that couldn't heal, but...it Was still pretty serious.

while The Bite itself didn't kill Cassidy, he still, as a ghost, appears to have a bleeding section of his head.

the strangulation marks on his neck are more visible as a ghost.

Cassidy, as a spirit, can occasionally leak a mysterious black fluid from his eyes and mouth, which is reflected on his Mask.

Cassidy is transparent as a ghost.

anyway!! here's the guys!!

@that-darn-clown @hello-there-world

[coldflasher]

still thinking about my post from the other day about eobard making barry the flash about a decade earlier, when he's still a teenager, so he'd be easier to manipulate. and then obviously i started thinking about where len would be in this scenario because i'm unwell and i have permanent leonard snart brainrot :)

assuming barry's 13 in this AU and we're sticking with the same age gap, len would be around 30... so then i started thinking about how different the dynamic would be, with a lonely barry who's being increasingly isolated by eobard, right in the thick of the most tumultous time in his relationship with joe, because he's always sneaking off and coming back all busted up and lying his head off and acting all cagey and exploding with temper every five minutes---except while joe thinks he's just a traumatized kid acting out and having a hard time at school, really he's off every night being "trained" by eobard and then being pitted against fully grown adult metas... though i do think i'd make at least some of them the same age as barry if only because imagine the ANGST of barry getting his powers, thinking he finally has one up on his bullies, and then the other kids at school start turning into metas as well.

i'm thinking specifically of tony woodward—all the pain and frustration and humiliation that twenty-five-year-old barry felt facing up against his childhood bully, now with powers... imagine that, except he's still at school, still stuck in the thick of it with this kid who's made his life hell, except now his bully has superpowers, and so any fantasies barry might have had about kicking his ass now he's the flash and is more powerful than any of the kids at school could imagine? well, forget it, because tony's STILL bigger and stronger than him and now he's now kicking barry's ass outside of school too

anyway i'm getting sidetracked. my point is i was thinking about moody teenage barry and an older len who's faced up against the flash, thinking there's a new player in town, only to discover that the flash is some scrawny punk kid with no one in his corner, and all the adults in his life are failing him, ESPECIALLY this creep eobard thawne who's "mentoring" him. len takes a very dim view of anyone who's getting a kid mixed up in the criminal world, considering his own father did it to him, AND he's just getting skeevy vibes off eobard anyway because he's an adult and better equipped to see through eobard's manipulations, unlike barry, who's doing the infuriating teenage thing of thinking he's sooo mature for his age and knows what he's doing and is not gonna listen to anyone who's trying to warn him that this whole thing is super sketchy and he's falling victim to a predator, but unfortunately he's not gonna realize it until he's a decade or so older and his frontal lobe develops---

and so we have this (platonic bc barry's like 13/14, though barry probably has a lil unrequited crush) coldflash dynamic with them kinda being friends bc len's somehow inadvertently ended up a mentor/support system for this fucked up, scrappy, little meta kid because god knows no one else is looking out for him, and anyway here's a small snippet of what my brain's doing (unedited but whatever we're just having fun and god knows i can't start another insane sprawling AU right now as much as i've been violently chewing on this idea all day, soooo)

Barry picked at the splintered wood on the table. “Eobard makes me feel kinda weird sometimes.”

Len watched him out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Weird how?”

Barry shrugged his birdlike shoulders.

For a moment, Len focused on the map laid out in front of him, considering his next move. When it came to locks, carefully getting them to open up was his specialty. When it came to people, not so much.

He decided to be blunt. “He touch you?”

Barry’s mouth popped open, outrage and disgust mingling together. “No!” he protested, his voice cracking a little. Immediately, his mouth snapped shut, jaw jutting out mulishly, and he glared at Len. “Not like that.”

Len scrutinized him. He was pretty satisfied it was an honest answer. The kid wasn’t a bad liar, given time to prepare, but he sucked at improv; put him on the spot and he crumbled in seconds.

“He’s just… intense, that’s all. About my powers.”

Somehow Len doubted that was all he was intense about. Clearly something about this Eobard creep was making the kid’s spidey senses tingle, and probably for good reason. Len knew his type—there were plenty like him in prison, doing time for their proclivities. And plenty more on the outside who were better at hiding it. Just because the guy hadn’t put his hands on the kid so far didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it.

“You thought about talking to someone?” Len asked. “An adult?”

Barry gave him a withering look like only a teenager could, then looked him insolently up and down, like he was missing something very obvious. Len gave him a similarly derisive look right back, one with over a decade of extra power behind it, just to show him how it was done. “I meant an authority figure.”

“You mean like a shrink?” Barry scoffed—which was pretty similar to what Len’s response would have been if anyone had made that suggestion to him. “Pretty sure Joe’s insurance wouldn’t cover another one. And we’d have to go out of state. I’ve seen every shrink in the city and they all think I’m crazy.”

“Your Dad, then.” Not that Len believed a guy who murdered his wife was exactly a stellar role model, and clearly Henry Allen was no stranger to manipulation himself, to have the kid so staunchly convinced he hadn’t done it when it had happened right in front of him—but having a father in prison had its perks. Len’s own father wasn’t exactly father of the year, but even he’d have called in a few favours from Iron Heights if he caught wind of some creep sniffing around his kid, if only on principle.

“I’m not allowed to see him,” Barry muttered.

The dark look in his eye told Len that there was little use in suggesting he told Joe. Clearly, they still weren’t getting along.

[master-jarrus]

So this au is kind of floating in my head (I want to name it something a little better than Happy Family Au because it's not all going to be happy it feels deceptive)

But I was thinking about it and this post

So stuff I am reconsidering for the au along with plot points that would get it rolling and possibly be spoilers for the fanfic:

So biggest one Garmdon has brain damage to his frontal lobe and it gets caught

He is willing to seek treatment (mainly therapy, checks up to make sure it doesn't get worse, specifically things like occupational therapy and behavioral therapy)

And he is willing to stop attacking the city in the moment so Misako and Lloyd move back with him

He does have "fits"

The frontal lobe controls a lot including your impulse control, ability to tell right and wrong and your memories

Garmadon's episodes are typically triggered by intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and ptsd episodes (technically the whole episode would be a ptsd episode but it triggers a spiral)

There are a few ways these episodes manifest

The trigger effects the manifestation

Ptsd, ptsd can look like a few different things (ask me how I know 🫠)

Most severe would be fully immersed in the memory, in his head he is in the middle of it and is trying to survive

Less severe would be he's aware that he'a not really there but he keeps seeing images in the corner of his eyes and/or the sounds, he also may be having sensations of touches he experienced during that trauma (anything from a touch on the shoulder to getting stabbed)

^ this one can be variety of severities and he is often staring off into space trying to think through it because he knows it's not what is actually happening but he doesn't make the most moral or rational decisions

Intrusive thoughts triggering an episode he acts on the thoughts, this can be very dangerous but usually he can be talked out of it

If he can't be talked out of it then he has to be restrained until he can be reasoned with

Anxiety especially anxiety attacks leads to him acting irrationally and lashing out

Lloyd is never left alone with Garmadon for his safety, Garmadon was upset at first with this but then had a minor episode in front of Lloyd and saw how much it scared him

When Lloyd is older and capable of defending himself from Garmadon he is allowed to be alone with him

.

Lloyd is the best kept secret

Everyone knows Garmadon has a wife but no one knows who she is or what she looks like

Only the scientists who sign ndas, Misako, Mystaké, Wu, and Garmadon know that Lloyd is his son and lives with them

Lloyd is allowed out of the volcano chaperoned but he goes by Lloyd Montgomery

.

Because they regularly go to Mystaké for calming teas and healing teas (can't get rid of the damage but it lessens the effects) for Garmadon they are much more aware and comfortable with their oni heritage

Garmadon had gotten comfortable in his oni form (has less headaches and and he feels like he can think clearer also four hands are handy) and his human form feels itchy like clothes that just don't quite fit anymore

Lloyd is really comfortable in his human form but he can access his oni form and a form that is a mix of dragon traits and oni traits

Lloyd doesn't like how aware he is of his powers in his other forms, they are muffled in his human form even though they are still accessible

.

Misako is glad to have her family together

She knows Lloyd is the prophesied Green Ninja but feels like this may be the best prevention to the prophecy, she is still studying it to be safe and recognize signs if they happen

Sometimes she's worried she didn't make the best decision by going back to Garmadon, she sees his struggles and sees the fear and trauma Lloyd has gained from seeing some of his father's episodes

But she's more worried of the damage will be done if she tries to take Lloyd and leave again

She has no sense of normal anymore, her son has wings today? That's probably fine, oh her husband and kid want to destroy things? Well everyone has those days it can be quite cathartic, the start of puberty comes with sneezes that shake the whole island? She's dealt with weirder

.

The scientist stick around but now the volcano is more of a research facility

A lot of them were actually marine biologists and switched over to engineering when they saw the perfect opportunity for study and extra funding they just needed engineering and a small sacrifice of morals

Those that actually wanted to destroy the city left

Some planned on playing Garmadon and the city by creating weapons and the selling the defense to the weapons and just building off it (it's called job security)

One of those scientist is Cyrus Borg, no one knows the tech lord works for Garmadon

Borg built Pixal as a defense for Lloyd if something happened where it was just Lloyd and Garmadon

Pixal is like an older sister/cousin to Lloyd and is often his chaperone

She does tend to stick around Borg more at first but soon became comfortable with doing her own thing and just keeping an ear or eye out

.

At 17 Nya gets a marine biologist internship

But they are super sketchy about the location and stuff

But it's a paid internship and it would help her and Kai out a lot

So she omits the red flags when talking to him about it

Besides she can take care of herself

The warehouse was clean

The nda is odd but if they are doing anything illegal it's void so...

Is that Lord Garmadon's volcano?

Was that a child!?

.

Anyways that's what I got

[tabithatwo]

Do you believe Jackie and Shauna have a codependent relationship in canon? and if you do, who do you think is who in the relationship ("giver"/"taker") dynamic?

i think this is a very interesting and difficult question to parse out, mostly due to the fact that they're teenagers when we see them together. being 18/19 really does mean heightened emotion, less frontal lobe development and therefore less impulse control and ability to moderate our interactions with others, more hormonal imbalance, just a perfect storm of codependency. i say this lovingly, as a lesbian who experienced what its like to be a teenage lesbian and did her fair share of insane shit lol, the type of crazy you can attain as a teenage sapphic is fucking unmatched. there is this deep and unyielding attachment that forms between girls in general at that age and when you add romantic love that spark of crazy easily transitions to a wildfire. i think so many people see themselves in jackie and shauna because it is a more shared experience than we like to admit and the show fucking nails it.

when you're in it, you think that you're the only one feeling that sort of intense obsessive consuming need for a person. often you don't see that the other person wants and needs you just as deeply, because we all do our best to hide what we know isn't acceptable. and its true. that sort of desperation isn't healthy at all. we should all strive to be more comfortable in ourselves and to stop putting all our happiness (not just happiness really, because when you're consumed by someone like that every emotion hinges on them) into external factors, especially one person. but learning to do that is a process. we don't come out ready to do that. it takes time and development and independence that you can't achieve when you're that young.

then we get older and we're embarrassed when we look back on those behaviors. we shove them down and pretend they didn't happen as best we can and we definitely avoid talking about them with other people. i can't tell you the amount of times a rush of just total abject horror at how obsessed i was with my high school best friend, turned homoerotic nightmare, turned girlfriend, turned ex hit me in my mid twenties. like your brain starts kicking in and you just go GOOD GOD!!! what was i THINKING??? but more years pass and time makes the sting of things lighter and now i can talk to her and sometimes (sometimes!) we can broach the really fucking deranged things we did and thought and its weirdly healing and horrifying all at once.

now, idk if you're still with me because that was a long intro that didn't even touch on the topic yet, but i promise i'm getting somewhere:

i think that jackie and shauna are fully and completely dependent on each other. i don't think that there is one giver and one taker. i think that they are a beautiful and tragic example of the crazy obsessive entangled love that happens between young sapphics. for me, watching them and discussing them and writing them is so freeing, because it allows me to actually face the harsh realities of unhealthy dependence.

neither of them could ever be whole without the other. and i don't mean that in a romantic hyperbole-fueled manner. i mean that in a truly horrifying way. i mean that to them functionally, they are girls who have body parts as real as any other, that are unattached from their nervous system. jackie's arms are shauna's arms and shauna's arms are jackie's arms. each girl has two hands that touch and do and create and destroy, without her brain giving the okay. each girl has to watch, as an extension of herself does something that she would never ever allow. when they're apart, when they're fighting and hurting, when shauna goes to sleep in the attic, its as though their lungs and their hearts are in another room.

who gives and who takes is hard to answer in specifics, though the simple answer is both for each. but the best way i can put it is that jackie gives more and more in the tangible real world. she tries to anticipate shauna's every need. she gives her the last bite of food. she gives her everything she has and then some, because jackie's biggest fear is shauna taking a seam-cutter to all the parts of them that are sewn together and becoming a separate entity. jackie squeezes shauna tight in her hands and shauna gives more pieces of her body and soul to their shared cache than she wants to.

shauna has an image of freeing herself from the dependency, but she doesn't like to reckon with herself and she doesn't like to see all the places that she expects jackie to be an extension of herself. so when she tries to make space, shauna doesn't even realize that she's not separating them at all. she's touching where jackie touches and kissing where jackie kisses. she is trying to be jackie, but not truly in a jealously way. not in a way that undermines their romantic love. shauna is trying to be jackie in a way that intensifies their dependence, because even if consciously shauna is aging and trying to forge a path for herself with a new school and a new life, like most of us tend to try and do at that age, shauna is still subconsciously trying to fuse them into one being.

and when jackie dies, shauna absorbs her. because she can be both. she's been practicing for this her entire life.

[hyperfixingfr]

I just had a 2 x Cree shipper try to follow me on main so I'm gonna say this bullshit again since grown ass adults can't get the damn point. Content warning for some mentions of weird proshipping stuff. Not in depth.

2 x Cree is a proship/comship. Aside from the disgusting age gap and role Cree has over Hoagie (most likely having babysat him and/or kids his age), she ASSAULTS him. With no reasoning behind it or comedy/playfulness to it. That's two different types of proship: abusive x abused, and authority x controlled. If you wanna say it for what it really is, much younger x much older.

I. Do. Not. Care. What. You. Change. NO ONE WITH A BRAIN DOES. You can't say, "but I made them adults", "but I made Cree nice" and expect people to take you seriously. The fact that you go as far as to change the canon character just to attempt to justify a disgusting ship should make you stop and think. If you need to change an aspect of canon to make it look better, your ship is disgusting and probably wrong. I don't know why you 2 x Cree shippers keep insinuating this makes it okay, because it doesn't. You don't look at siblings and decide, "how about we make them just really close friends so I can ship them!".

Cree is, as far as the canon has told, unwilling to change. She has no intention of it. She has "nice moments" with her sister, but that means nothing when you think about how people who act like that irl do it. They can't be all evil, or else no one would let them into their lives. It's completely unreasonable to change the very key villain aspect just for some stupid ship. If something were to happen in canon where she has a change of heart, then I would retract my statement. But she hasn't. And it doesn't seem like that will EVER happen, because Cree is supposed to be the villain of the Lincoln family. Her tendency to assault him alone makes it weird, but him being a very obvious abuse victim almost seems like a sort of non con justification/abuser support message. He has been hit and berated by his grandmother for at least since Tommy was a baby... His "feelings" for her in the show are most likely a trauma response at most (similarly to how S/A victims suffer from hypersexuality) and at least, they're just because he's confusing his feelings for Abby with Cree.

And that's just one reason why it's a disgusting ship. What makes it even more concerning is the gap. Look, if they met as adults with fully developed frontal lobes (aka 25+), I'd raise an eyebrow but I'd let 4 years slide. But they didn't. They met as little kids. Hoagie had been in the KND for a long while and most likely knew Cree ever since first grade - when she would've been in fifth grade. She has been there to watch him grow four years behind her ever since he was 7 (estimate). Not only that but the one episode implies that Cree frequently babysits for children of Hoagie's age, if not for Hoagie himself. Betty seemed to be extremely familiar with Cree and extremely trusting in her capabilities to babysit, implying it wouldn't have been her first time. Yes... I get that it was a dream. But the dream was also rooted in reality at the beginning. Hoagie thinking of her as someone to babysit him alone should make you feel weird about the pairing being together, even when they're adults. Because even as adults, they'll still have the same connection they had back then. Those connections don't go away. Normal people tend to always think of their babysitter as, well... Their babysitter. They would remember feeling that sort of connection with their babysitter, and vise versa. But even if she wasn't babysitting him, it would still feel weird. They have four years between them (for all we know, it could be closer to five due to uncounted months). That would make Cree in 9th grade (high school) while Hoagie is still in 5th grade (elementary school). That's such a big gap that Hoagie isn't even in the school level behind Cree, which would be middle school. He's so young, he'd still be in elementary school by the time Cree finally goes to high school. And to remind you once more... They know each other very well during this period. I'm sure they see each other frequently due to teens clashing with the KND. That, or visiting Abby and seeing Cree there.

I'm just gonna say it... It's ridiculous to ship them and try to justify it. If you're just proship and like pedo ships go ahead and just say it. I'm not gonna think of you any differently, but saying it out right is better than trying to hide it. There is NO REASON to want to ship them unless you like the problems the ship has. Abby is right fucking there, and she isn't abusive nor too old for him. It's the same family too - come on! If you personally don't ship 2/5 that's fine. But trying to ship 2/Cree instead is almost blatantly saying, "I wish 2/5 was more problematic". Cree is the older, more malicious counterpart of Abby. Aside from that, they're very similar. Cree is literally Abby's foil. There is no reason to think 2/5 isn't your flow, but 2/Cree is... Unless, once again, you like disgusting ships. And none of you hit me with the "but I ship Abby with someone else" because I don't recall anyone in this fandom bashing multishipping or polyamorous relationships. A matter of fact, most people in this fandom think of Sector V as polyamorous. Don't you dare use the fear of a harmless thing such as multishipping to excuse a creepy ship.

The maturity of you 2/Cree supporters/neutrals is shown very clearly through the amount of bashing and hatemail I've gotten from grown ass adults. None of you have acted any more mature than me and that says a lot.

To sum it up... I'm not a shipping wars person. I'm someone who has very reasonable evidence to support my feelings of disgust towards this ship. There's no reason to want to ship it unless you're proship with the existence of a near identical, canon, within normal age range, much more kind and loving character.

[roodles03]

Buncha Personal Huntlow Refs I Made.

All of these are for future drawings.

I based their poses off their official model PNGs. For Willow I turned her to a 3/4's view because I HATE how her model is like the only one from a direct frontal view. Like WHY? It makes her model png look out of place somepared to everyone else's who are are 3/4's. But hey, maybe that's just a me thing.

You can really see just how off model I draw Willow here. This is on purpose. Body rep is very important.

Yes, I know I drew her hair clips on the wrong side. This is just because I needed to draw the clip for the reference and it wouldn't work if I put it on the other side.

Why does Willow's casual keep getting repeated? Because I needed more Hunter outfit refs then Willow refs and it'd be dumb to just take her out of the drawing for his extra refs.

Beileve it or not there is NO key frame or clear shot of the simplified design of Hunter's sigil in a daytime color pallete in the entire show (As of FtF). Beileve me, I have a folder on my phone completely dedicated to Hunter screenshots, and I have 2,019 screenshots of him from season 3 alone. (which is the only season the simplified sigil is ever shown). And no, that number isn't a joke or an exaggeration. That number isn't even half the amount of screenshots I have of him either. The total is 5,032. (Does it look like I have a problem? /s) Now tou'd think his model PNG would have the simplified design, but, no, it has the fully detailed sigil design. So the best I could do was use a clear shot of his simplified sigil in the wrong color pallete and try to guess the colors based off the fully detailed sigil. Was it fun? No. Was it annoying? Fuck yes.

I realized I might draw my Hunter summer design and the gender norms middle finger designs again sometime so that's why I decided to make refs of them despite them not being actual outfits in the show.

Also somehow this might be the best Willow I've ever drawn-

The improvement from the last two times I did personal ref drawings of these two is fucking crazy. Like if you bother to go back and look out the older two especially the first one just...wow.

[mikelogan]

apologies in advance for the following rant that you really don't have to read if you don't want to.

my parents have been raising my nephew since he was just over a year old and he'll be 7 in march. i had to move back in with them in early 2023 bc of my medical and financial issues. as he gets older, the more violent, disobedient, mean he gets, and his outbursts and tantrums are nightmarish at home and at school.

a couple weeks ago, they were finally able to meet with a doctor (he already has a good pcp and has recently established with a psychiatrist) and he had a full day of testing. he's already been diagnosed with ADHD. they got the results today, which confirmed that. in addition, he's also on the autism spectrum, though i don't really know to what degree yet. but he also has dmdd and after checking it out on nimh, it fits him to a t. but jesus christ, don't read the treatment section unless you want to feel hopeless.

it's a newer disorder, first in the dsm in 2013, and listed is cbt or medications, none of which are specifically for dmdd. i looked at a few reddit posts from parents of children with the disorder and it's exactly what we're dealing with and the outlook feels so bleak. his frontal lobe is underdeveloped, so he's unable to regulate emotions the same way other kids of his age are.

and the real kicker? my sister tricked her boyfriend of 3 months at the time into getting her pregnant, telling him she was taking her birth control when she wasn't. she has borderline personality disorder but won't seek treatment for it and every direct result of her actions is always someone else's fault in her eyes, so she refuses to take accountability for anything. and she smoked pot for the entire duration of her pregnancy, claiming that it HELPS brain development 🙃

in summary, if i 1) wasn't dealing with multiple chronic illnesses, 2) wasn't so close with my parents and grandparents, and 3) didn't have severe anxiety, i would pick up and move so far away from all of this. i'm sure a lot of this sounds insensitive from the outside, but i don't mean it to. i know none of this is his fault, but the fact of the matter is that his behavior takes a massive toll on my own mental health because it's quite literally constant. loud, violent outbursts, one right after another over the most miniscule triggers. yelling, screaming, swearing, hitting, throwing, kicking, etc. if he doesn't get precisely his way. and my parents are trying and they love him dearly, but they're also not very consistent, which makes me fucking nuts.

i just. i don't know what to do and it doesn't look like there's a ton that can be done. he's tried so many meds already and the one that seemed to help for a while is starting not to and he's gotten even worse. i dread him coming home from school each day and literally count down the hours until bed time. and even then, he'll get up multiple times after they put him to bed for no reason and then throws a tantrum when they tell him to go back to bed.

however bad you think it might be, i can guarantee you it's worse living with it. i'm not being dramatic. he's a nightmare to be around and he's hurt teachers and other students, not to mention how rough he is with my parents. he has an iep and hopefully this testing and results will open more doors for help at school, but apart from math, he couldn't be less interested. all he wants to do is play on the playground and then disrupts the classroom when he doesn't get his way. he's thrown chairs, hit other children, made them bleed, etc. and again, i feel like i have to state that i know this isn't his fault, that he's not doing these things on purpose, but something's gotta give, right? i'm exhausted and miserable and i can only spend so much time holed up in my bedroom, and even then, my door has to stay open enough for my cats to get in and out, and you can hear everything downstairs even at a normal volume, let alone screaming. we only have one vehicle because mine got repo-ed after i lost my job and before my long-term disability got approved, so i can't just leave the house any time i want, plus that'll be even less of an option once winter comes.

i hate it here, basically.

[thesoupinursocks]

Part Two

stupid little things that i hc for hjp

-his favorite kind of music is 90s R&B bc thats what he grew up with, he absolutely cannot stand wixen music no matter how hard he trys

-he HATES pizza. hates it.

-he got bullied into getting a new pair of glasses when he got older bc his old one finally got broken beyond repair and when he got the new prescription he just kept stairing at trees and saying "oh my godric mione theres like actual leaves on the trees. like i can see every individual one."

-his favorite icecream is strawberry cheesecake, but a close second is cookie dough

-he has this really big sweatshirt he shrinks to carry around in his pocket werever he goes bc its so usefull when he gets cold

-talking abt getting cold, this mf is FREEZING 24/7. not a warm bone in his body. his teeth r chattering in 40° weather and his fingers turn blue if hes outside too long.

-he is slightly deaf in his right ear, partially from the killing curse messing with him, and also bc he fell down the stairs when he was like 4 and smashed his frontal lobe on the linoleum floor, and it never healed right.

-his favorite animals are snakes (obvi) and sometimes he goes to muggle pet shops to go talk to them bc he gets so sad that there locked in a glass cage and cant get out

-he has really bad blood circulation and when he sits criss cross his legs will go numb and when he trys to walk it off he looks like an idiot and his friends laugh at him

-pravati and padma and still friends with him and will invite him to hang out so they can paint his nails and try to fix his hair

-he was always tanner then alot of the kids at privit drive, bc he wasnt white, but he never got out much in the summers bc he wasn't allowed to so he always looked more pasty than he should have. the summer after the war he spent so much time outside and he tanned so much that when get went back for 8th year minerva thought he was james for a second

-he loves making friendship bracelets for people but hes so bad at them because of how shaky his hands are but everyone he gifts one too never complains.

-he has a necklace with the sirius star constellation

-he bought a magic ring that shows the moon and what phase it is the moment he looks at it, because he can never seem to keep track of it for the life of him and he wants to be able to for remus

-sometimes when he wakes up his hair does weird things so he grabs a pair of sissors and hacks off the bits that stick out bc "it will grow back hermione it really doesnt matter that much"

-he helped the twins pull a prank on ron so that every cup he drank out of for two weeks would flip itself upside down into his lap. ron eventually just started drinking with a straw though

-he and hermione lie to ron about muggle things all the time because its fucking hilarious to see him believe anything they say.

-he stole a street cat that was wandering around his flat one time bc it bothered him that it didnt have a home, and he named it "shitass" because it was the loudest and most annoying cat harry had ever met.

-he is expected to be late to class by most of his teachers. when he shows up on time it's like an actual surprise

-his full name is actually Haris James Potter and he had no clue until when remus was repremanding him and said his full name and he was like "..who?"

-harry has extensive knowledge on periods because of how much hermione complains about hers

-he only drinks his coffee black but he puts a shit load of honey into his tea

-he has a hard time differentiating his left from his right

-he sucks at spelling. actually once spelt his own name wrong on a assignments and snape graded him down for it.

[sinsandsweetness]

hey t, 🍒 here!!! i’ve seen 🧸 and bby’s messages and it’s kinda made me feel a bit braver to let this out. i recently turned 18 (like 3 months ago) and my further geography teacher has been kinda perving on me 😭 like don’t get me wrong he’s not bad looking and i’d def SMASH but i feel like it’s a bit off since he’s taught me since i was 16. and it’s not just normal ish stuff like he calls me baby and babygirl (tbf tho he calls everyone nicknames, never that though), and he was helping me out with something the other day and his hand was on my thigh. i feel kinda grossed out but i kinda want him uhhh what do i do??? ts so wrong but like sorta hot ughhh do you have any advice because i feel super objectified but i really want his attention because his subject is important to me and also it does seem like he really cares abt me but i’m still really unsureeee

Hi sweetie <3

I want to be super super clear about this and I don’t want you to think I’m being mean in any way. I just have really strong feelings about your situation.

He’s grooming you.

The fact that he’s your teacher, while the situation might be hot in your mind, would be abusing his power over you. It’s beyond creepy that he has known you since 16 and now that you’re of legal age, is making uncomfortable moves on you. He’s an authority figure and he knows better than to be talking to you that way and touching you that way. I assume he’s in his 30s or 40s and when it comes to maturity, there is a HUGE difference between 18 and 30. Even between 18 and 21, I myself am an entirely different person than I was at 18. Your frontal lobe isn’t even fully developed by 25. I know that might not feel good to hear but it’s true.

To put it blunt, your teacher is a creep. If you were 30 and doing your masters or your phd, I might feel differently. But you’re not. You’re freshly 18 and he’s your teacher.

Don’t go for this. Don’t do it. Don’t romanticize it. Don’t convince yourself that you need to sleep with an older guy just because anyone else is. Or even just because you have convinced yourself that you want to. You said yourself that it grosses you out and makes you feel objectified. That is enough for me to see you don’t actually want this. You just want some form of attention and validation that sleeping with him would bring.

Spoiler alert, it won’t. In fact, it’ll probably make you feel worse. It will make you feel even more objectified.

I slept with guys back at 18 for the sole purpose of attention. Looking back now, there are things I did that I definitely wish I hadn’t. And they weren’t even any older than me.

And sweetie… you’re still a kid. Like you said, you can’t even drink yet. There’s no way for me to look at this situation and feel that sleeping with him or pursuing him is a good idea.

It’s not.

Next time he makes an uncomfortable comment or touches you like that, you should probably bring it up with your principle or some other trusted staff member.

I say all of this with immense kindness and concern in my heart.

Be safe my love <3

[andiwriteordie]

ANDI CONGRATS ON 1500 FOLLOWERS!

I’ve been slightly obsessed with Byler and dorothea/ttds (as anyone who’s seen my awful edits can tell lmao) so maybe something with that idea of coming back for a Christmas break situationship but not being able to stay? Super angsty which I know you’ll love ❤️

LIV AHHH!!! thank you so so much!!! also, i love this prompt, so thank you thank you for sending it to me! i hope you enjoyed this modern au based on ttds/dorothea (also tbh i was listening to the very first night as well bc it felt right hahaha).

—

and it always leads to you 

The sun is shining today.

The sun is shining today, and for some reason, Mike is awake much earlier than he’s ever awake nowadays. The old alarm clock sitting on the side table in his childhood bedroom reads 7:14 AM, which means Mike has been asleep for less than five hours now. It’s Sunday. There’s no reason for Mike to be awake right now, and really, he should just go back to sleep.

But Mike can’t.

He can’t, because the sun is shining today, and because his bed feels warmer than it has in years, and because Will Byers is fast asleep beside him, his brown hair messily sprawled out onto the pillow. 

Will looks younger when he’s asleep. He looks a lot more like the Will Byers that Mike has known since he was just five years old—the Will Byers whom Mike has laughed with and cried with and spent so much of his life with. He looks like the Will Byers that Mike fell in love with and tentatively held the hand of when they were just sixteen and falling into something so much bigger and grander and more beautiful than they could’ve ever imagined.

Will looks younger when he’s asleep, and in this quiet moment before the rest of the world wakes up and begins its day, Mike feels a lot younger too. 

He feels like he’s eighteen again—wide-eyed and bushy-tailed with his entire life in front of him. For a moment, he’s eighteen again and like the world is his oyster and like there’s nothing in the damn world that could ever break up the Party. The last seven years fade away into nothing, until Mike is eighteen years old again and waking up nearly every morning to the sight of his boyfriend’s face and thinking one thing to himself.

I want to spend forever with you.

How quickly things fall apart.

It’s not Will’s fault… honestly, it isn’t. The thing is, right before the two of them were supposed to start school together at the same university—the one at the top of both of their lists and the one that the two of them had been talking about going to with each other since they were fourteen—something completely and entirely unexpected had happened. 

Will had been contacted by some fancy, renowned art school all the way over in Europe and offered a full ride scholarship. Apparently, some higher up at the school had gotten ahold of his art portfolio and was willing to move heaven and hell to get Will Byers to attend the university. It was the chance of a lifetime, and the choice was clear.

Will had to go. 

And really, Mike can’t blame him. He can’t blame Will, because for the first year, they tried. God, they tried so hard, but between an eight hour time difference and busy schedules and life simply just getting in the way, they hadn’t been able to do it. For the first time in their lives, they weren’t in close proximity to each other, and they just… they fell apart.

When they broke up at first, Mike was angry. He won’t even pretend that he wasn’t. He was angry, but more importantly, he was hurt. And in the midst of all that anger and hurt, he’d said things he regrets now and had done things like delete Will’s phone number and block him on any forms of social media—desperate to just escape the feeling of rejection and of being left behind.

That was nearly six years ago. They’re older now—like actual, full grown adults with fully developed frontal lobes and everything. And for the first time, both of them are back in Hawkins, and Mike hadn’t even been able to avoid El and Max’s threats to come to dinner with the entire Party. The last thing he wants to do is make an enemy out of two people who most definitely know where he lives and who are also the self-proclaimed godmother’s of his dog, Maisie.

Seeing Will in person for the first time in literal years had been… interesting. And Mike, now being an adult with a fully formed frontal lobe, had been so, so incredibly normal about his high school ex-boyfriend, who had somehow gotten even more fucking beautiful over the past several years and who somehow still had a way of making Mike’s heart skip a beat and the butterflies in his stomach go absolutely wild. 

Most surprisingly, being around Will had felt… normal. It’d been a little bit awkward at first, like neither one of them knew what to say to each other, but as much as Mike knew that he wanted to just bury their messy past and actually try to be friends, he could tell Will wanted to do the same.

So, that’s exactly what they did. You know… because they’re two adults, with full-time jobs and 401k’s and fully formed frontal lobes, who most definitely are unconcerned about their two-year long high school romance. Whatever romance they’d had when they were kids was long gone—a fond little relic of the past that they, as adults, could now look back on and smile about.

…

…

…

(Or… at least that’s what Mike will tell anyone who asks.)

“Why’re you up already?” Will mumbles, and Mike flinches, startled out of his thoughts. To his surprise, his… best friend? ex-boyfriend? current fling? is awake now, blinking sleepily and looking at Mike with half-lidded eyes. 

“I dunno,” Mike admits, rolling over so he and Will are face to face now. “I’m usually up this early for school, so I guess I’m just used to it.”

Will narrows his eyes, still a bit sleepy and suspicious. “It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” he says with a yawn. “You get up at… 7 am on Sundays?”

“God, no,” Mike laughs, and when Will smiles back at him, Mike’s stupid stomach does a little somersault. “I don’t know. I haven’t been up for very long.”

Mike pauses, then he gives Will a curious look. “Why are you up?” he asks suspiciously. “Wouldn’t it be like… sometime in the afternoon where you live? I figured you’d be all jet-lagged and shit.”

“I came right from the airport to dinner yesterday,” Will says, yawning once more. He shifts a bit closer to Mike now, so their lips are barely inches apart, and Mike’s breath catches. “Must’ve been too tired to get jet-lagged.”

“You can go back to sleep if you want to,” Mike suggests, his voice quiet. “I… I doubt my parents will come knocking on my door, so if you’re still tired, you can—”

He never gets to finish his sentence, because oh.

Oh, okay.

It’s early in the morning. The sun is shining. And Will Byers is kissing him.

Will Byers is kissing him.

Will Byers is kissing him.

…

Again.

“I’m okay,” Will murmurs, his voice low. “I’d rather just… stay up with you. If that’s okay.”

There’s a look in his eyes that makes Mike’s breath catch again, and Mike can’t help the smile that forms on his face. “Yeah… yeah, of course, it’s okay, Will,” he whispers, reaching up to cup Will’s cheek gently. “Whatever you want.”

A slow smile forms on Will’s face, and he leans close, kissing Mike soft and sweet. “I just want you,” he whispers back. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

For a moment, the two of them are eighteen again. For a moment, they have their entire lives ahead of them, and the world is their oyster. For a moment, neither Mike nor Will knows anything about the world, but they do know one thing. 

I want to spend forever with you.

“Me too,” Mike murmurs, and he gently runs his thumb across Will’s cheek. “Me too, Will.”

And after another shared smile, Mike closes the gap between them.

When this moment is over, they’ll go back to being twenty-five again. When this moment is over, they’ll be forced to remember the fact that they have their own lives—lives which have long since been separate from each other. When this moment is over, both Will and Mike will have to return to their own worlds, where “forever” with each other simply isn’t an option and hasn’t been in years.

But for right now, it’s just the two of them.

Mike and Will.

Will and Mike.

The way it always has been.

[omegasmileyface]

Don't kids have privilege though? Like up there with white or straight privilege

if you mean that kids can generally get away with more things than that is somewhat true, but unlike the groups you listed which are given purposeless advantages, kids have more leeway because they are less capable of understanding situations and theyre consequences. theyre still learning, and the expectation is that when they grow older and gain experience, that extra leeway will go away because they can be expected to have a better understanding of their actions

its like being a student! if youre in a driver's ed class and you speed a little or miss a stop sign, your instructor will go "hey, you missed that. please pay more attention next time, ok?" rather than getting a ticket like you would if you were a licensed driver, since driving is a very difficult activity requiring you to get a lot of practicebwith a lot of new inputs. yes, even in a driver's ed class a mistake like that COULD have dire consequences, but (a) there are signals in place for other drivers to understand that this driver isnt as practiced in the rules of the road as they are (in this scenario, its "student driver" markers. for kids, its recognizing what kids look like) and (b) we expect people with a driver's license to know the rules better because they were able to get that license, which requires testing. we expect adults to know the rules of life better because they made the decision for themself, typically, to interact with others. children dont get to make that decision for themselves, so it wasnt them saying "yes, im ready for this" like an adult or a licensed driver. not my best analogy, but...

really, it's less of a "privilege", which implies an unfair advantage that others in your situation aren't getting because of systemic inequality. it is more of... an adjustment? it's like... oh my god whats the word. i forgot the word but those changes that are made available to disabled people so they can experience situations equitably with abled people. those. the same way someone might be more lenient with a person with narcolepsy for not being able to make a prior appointment because they were less able than an abled person to predict their ability to get there, someone might be more lenient with a 13 year old for lashing out during a social event because they were less able than an adult to regulate their emotions and judge their options. and they are less able! their hormones are working differently than an adult's, their brain is working differently, they have less practice with existing in the outside world. theyre a student; theyre new.

and then, similarly, a narcoleptic person may not be able to get a driver's license (woo back to driver's licenses lets go) because the same thing that gave them more leniency earlier makes them less able to hold responsibility over controlling a car. its unfortunate, but thats why we accomodate (thats the word!!) people when they just cant hold the same responsibilities because differences in their bodies (and brains, which are part of bodies) make it so they cant do the necessary tasks reliably. we try to give them other options. similarly, a child's natural issues with emotional regulation and decision making, discussed above, would give them *less* leeway in something like holding a political position or owning a credit card.

its not like racism or sexism where people say "oh, [marginalized group] is uncapable of being responsible, so we wont let them have any positions of power! [group that we prefer] will be able to do whatever they want." we're talking actual, scientific "their frontal cortexes aren't functioning the same way we expect participants in the adult social world to", and then saying "so let's provide equity however we can"

and you know what! kids (and very much, disabled people too) dont get nearly enough say in their lives in our current society! theyre not the ones saying "im not responsible enough to drive", its other people (who dont trust them to be responsible enough to make that decision) saying it for them. and its ALSO not them saying "well, i cant be trusted to know how to act in social situations, so you have to be softer on me." Its adults making THAT choice too.

long story short, kids, while being the same species as adults, and while we never truly stop maturing and we cant put hard lines on when agency and accountability come in full force, they CANNOT be expected to have the same mental patterns as adults. an 8 year old DOES NOT have as much practice with life and expectation and consequence and the world outside them as a 16 year old, and the 16 year old doesnt have as much as a 24 year old, etc. our hard lines on accountability and agency coming at the age of 18 are arbitrary, but someone playing their third game of basketball can't be expected to have all the rules memorized, and someone reading a book for the third time can't be expected to know how to pronounce all the words, and a kid going to the grocery store for the third time can't be expected to know that you have to pay for something before taking it. children come into this world without any preparation or being asked, and the best they can do is be a kid. thesis here bc im too wordy: punishing them for not knowing how to be an adult doesnt help anyone involved, so we try not to. its not a privilege to account for someone's uncontrollable lack of preparation for existing in the world. yknow?

anyway all that said i think youre responding to the post that said "hating humans who havent been alive for as long as you on principle isnt a good habit", and i feel like even if kids DID have some unfair advantage in life compared to older kids (sorry. i mean adults.) that shouldnt be an excuse to hate them? theyre literally just adults that havent been at it as long and thus have less practice and more hornones lol

[readingwithchristie]

Helloooooo all

I just decided to do this as a way to track the vair vair many books I’ll be reading this year. Gonna kick it off soon with a dual summary/response to Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging; and It’s Okay, I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers (AKA On The Bright Sode, I’m Now The Girlfriend of a Sex God in the US). I was hit with a giant wave of nostalgia as of late, and to combat that, decided to reread some books I haven’t touched in about a decade. Possibly closer to 2 decades. A lady never reveals her age, but I can for certain say all those partying in your 30s memes are absobloodylutely accurate.

Some responses to look forward to:

Little House on the Prairie series

Little Women

The Bell Jar

Witch Child/Sorceress

And many many more.

Why am I doing this? Well for starters, the nostalgia is a big thing. Secondly, when the ol pandemo aka Rona lockdown happened, I purchased a Kindle and started reading just about everything I could get my hands on to fill up the time. I worked 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, in to work at 6 am, out by 11 am. So I would have a lot of hours to kill, and only some of the could be spent stopping at the grocery store to marvel at how apocalyptic everything was and to see about getting some fresh damn fruit while making a supplies run for my lovely elderly neighbors. Then I would walk to my favorite local brewery, grab a couple to-gos and if I was lucky, it would be about noon by the time I got home. If I was unlucky, it would only be 11:30 and I’d have EVEN MORE TIME TO KILL.

During the entirety of 2020, I read over 200 books. Some of these are just a blur now, unfortunately, but never fear, it’s time for a reread of some, and I started thinking about why I spent so much time reading. I have a huge family, money was/is tight, I had a high reading proficiency (hellllloooo and much love and support to all my fellow gifted and talenteds who were reading at a college level in third grade, we’ll get through), books are plentiful, can be passed around to a family, cable was expensive and let’s face it, my older siblings just wanted to watch MTV.

I’ve ALWAYS read. I once was married to a reallllllll winner of a man from 2014-2015, who thought it was uncool and weird and that reading was dumb and because I was a reader who spent valuable funds on bits of paper, I didn’t reflect the image of “ultimate rockstar party person” that he wanted to exude. He would call me lame when I would want to just hang out and read versus hang out and watch him play guitar terribly, or watch a movie, or watch his friend play a video game. It angered him that I can multitask and tune things out when I wanted to focus on my book. There were a lot of other things but when we broke up, he ripped up a book I had from my late grandpa about Shoeless Joe that Field of Dreams was based on, and I realized how awful he was. Ah, how great is it to look back on poor life choices.

I was also a lonely and strange child, and books gave me something to do, to immerse myself in them. I read my first chapter book at 6, The Boxcar Children. I read wild weird wonderful stories while my parents worked, my older sibs did homework, and also because reading wasn’t something I had to share with my tyrant of a little sister. I had friends, but nothing deep. I would go to the library a couple times a week for books. Overall, I like to think I’m on the path to being a lovely old lady who reads with her cats in front of a cozy fire on a rainy evening. (On a serious note, I do have a boyfriend and he’s wonderful)

Anywhooooooos sorry this is so rambly and odd. I’ve never done anything like this before, so let’s get to it.

I’ll update as soon as I’m finished with It’s Okay, I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers (gotta love double books! It’s 2 books for the price of 1!) with an update.

Until then, pip-pip, toodle oooh.

Xoxo, Christie

P.S. Did anyone else reread the Gossip Girl series and that other spinoff with Jenny Humphrey going to boarding school? I think I may add those to the list. If we start getting into manga, I’ll be screwed financially. Sailor Moon mangas have gotten suuuuuper expensive. Inuyasha as well.

P.P.S. I think I’m going to like this a lot.

[balanceoflightanddark]

Prehistoric Combat

One of the oldest stereotypes when it comes to dinosaurs is the notion that they are essentially violent monsters. That they're always looking to pick a fight and have a habit of getting into bloody death matches. Now to be fair, this is understandable with earlier depictions since very little was known about them, and the sheer wow factor inherent with seeing two or more gigantic animals fighting each other. There's nothing inherently wrong with it alone.

The problem comes when people assume that's all they do. That's when people forget that dinosaurs were...well, animals at the end of the day. And bloody death matches shouldn't be what defines them as a whole.

And this scene from Prehistoric Planet shows that a hunt doesn't need to be bloody to showcase how powerful these animals are.

Basically, a pack of Nanuqsauruses hunt down and eventually encircle a herd of Pachyrhinosaurus up in the far north. Rather than go on the attack though, the Nanuqsauruses hang back, well out of the ceratopsians' range. They know that a frontal assault is suicide since the Pachyrhinosaurs are clearly bigger and a lot stronger together. One is even shown knocking down one Nanuqsaur when it gets too close. And their strength is shown when the leader of the herd makes a mock charge, and the hunters give him a wide berth.

On the other hand, the same goes the other way. That Pachy that knocked over the Nanuqsaurus? It immediately turns and retreats to the safety of the herd. And the Nanuqs aren't idle either. They make probing attacks and mock charges of their own to psyche out the herd and try to cause panic, and they do manage to rattle the herd several times. Both sides are shown to be evenly matched, and the behavior shown by hunter and prey reflects that.

It's less about violence and more about the two sides trying to break the other. And it gets pretty grueling since the standoff lasts days. Not helping matters is that a blizzard comes roaring in, forcing the dinosaurs into a stand off as they hunker down and weather the storm. A battle of endurance essentially.

Eventually though, the blizzard breaks and the battle continues. However, days of a tense stand off and plummeting temperatures have wrecked havoc on the dinosaurs' nerves, where eventually a Pachy snaps and makes a break for it, causing a stampede. As a result, an older and weakened bull is left behind to face off the Nanuqs by himself. Tough as he is, he's surrounded, outnumbered, and weakened by the standoff, allowing the predators to take him down.

Personally, this is one of my favorite examples of dinosaur on dinosaur action cause it finds a happy medium. All the dinosaurs look powerful without becoming mindless brutes and they still deliver a pretty intense sequence. I hope in the coming years we get more depictions like this where dinosaurs are depicted as less monsters and more the animals they really were.