#so many people see medic's as just tools

[0sbrain]

i need people to understand that when there's a medic on your team, there's a person behind it. you wouldn't go around demanding other classes to change their loadouts, pay full attention to you or stop going around with their friends.

medic players are people too and we deserve to have as much fun as any other player

[kowabungadoodles]

How to spot a (heart wrenching sad cat) Charity Scam

So I've been get a lot of requests for money in my askbox lately, from users I have never seen before! Usually sad cats, sometimes gender affirming medical bills, a queer person being made homeless etc etc... and guess what? None of them are real! It's scammers who have learned how to work tumblr's userbase and prey on our general sense of community and charity.

Here it is, so sad! So tragic! But let's note a few things:

It's generic. They don't know me, I don't know them. it's addressed to 'friend', no use of nicknames or usernames.

Even the cat and the problem are generic 'little kitty' who has 'urgent needs'. This is not how real people talk, this is because this scam is being used over and over with different accounts a different 'cats'.

Praying (uh huh.)

Asking you to reply privately- This is so people don't spot the scam and point it out the mark and because if too many people posted replies to the same message it would beome really obvious that this is a scam. If they're looking for 'boosts' so badly, then why do they need you to reply privately?

Now that I'm suspicious, let's investigate.

Sent me an ask and then followed me! Sounds like they're just hitting up anyone and everyone, but even more likely they have a list they're working from.

(I get so many, I'm probably on a mail-out list a mile long, just being hit up for cash. Likely I fell for one of these once and got my name added to every scam list for miles, but oh well.)

So let's see if they're a bot or a real person!

The blog looks genuine enough, they've got a bio, a fandom etc. And it says they're an artist!

And of course there's that sad cat post, pinned right to the top, so I don't have to look any further through the blog for verification... Looks super legit, pics of the cat, pics of the bill... of course anyone can print out a bill and take a picture of it...

As I do scroll futher, it's full of reblogs making this look like an active user. So how can I tell it's not genuine?

Well, if they're an artist they probably post right? Doodles? Pictures? Let's have a look at their origional posts.

The fastest way to do this is by using an outside tool like Original Post Finder.

just type in the suspicious username and go...

Voila! As suspected, the only post this bot account has ever made is Sad Cat Post.

Confirmed: Scam. Do not give your money to these guys, it looks so real but they're just here to make you feel like a bad person for not handing over everything you can. Charity is wonderful, supporting friends is wonderful, but tbh save it for people you actually know irl/ mutuals you have an actual relationship with. Don't believe any rando who comes knocking!

Love and kisses, stay safe out there.

[thedisablednaturalist]

Literally all the shit rich people have turned into luxuries are stuff many disabled people need (or would need to manage their pain but can't afford it)

Comfy ergonomic chairs

Indoor pool/hot tub (therapy bath)

Massages on the regular

Aides (rich people call them servants)

Yea even a cook who makes you special meals (perfect for people with special dietary needs and for those with severe allergies, as well as people who are in too much pain or are otherwise unable to cook)

Elevators in your house (even small ones just for groceries, my rich aunt has one in her beach house!)

Rich people don't buy these for fun I hope but custom powerchairs are obscenely expensive. It pisses me off when I see another person invent "the wheelchair of the future!" Which then is literally never fucking used because none of us can afford it (and insurance definitely won't pay)

Indoor gyms or even personal exercise equipment. Hard to go out to a gym somewhere else when you're disabled, especially if you are immunocompromised

Outdoor spaces to relax in. It's literally vital for your mental health to at least see the outdoors. I'd rather be bedridden in a sunroom (with retractable blinds) than a shitty apartment with one tiny window.

There's even freaking health retreats these people go to regularly. There's a fibromyalgia retreat in new york where they basically take care of all your needs while trying different treatments and seeing which ones help. Either it's heaven or making money off of scamming desperate people who are able to scrape the money together to go.

Private planes, which I honestly think shouldn't exist, but one that specifically catered to people with disabilities (spaces for wheelchairs/other mobility devices, accessible handicapped airplane bathroom, anxiety reducing tools, trained medical personnel and care team)

Also customized cars, except instead of making gas guzzling racecars to joyride in while everyone else is trying to get to work, cars with electric ramps, lifts, doors, cars customized for someone with limb differences. Those cars where you can roll your wheelchair right up to the wheel. Fuck even self driving cars once they are no longer deathtraps.

Skincare products that are safe for sensitive skin like eczema but also actually work

Nice-looking clothes customized to fit limb differences, access points, look good in wheelchairs, colostomy bags, etc. while also being comfortable and not fast fashion.

Dental care!!! What the fuck why is this shit so expensive!! I don't want my teeth to fall out!! (Disabled people usually need more dental care bc we have a harder time keeping up maintenance)

Rich people go and splurge on all of these even though they don't need them while calling disabled people selfish for begging their insurance for even one of these.

[help-itrappedmyself]

Danny Punches a Clown Part 6

Masterpost

Danny, after many promises and assurances, lets Red Robin take him to the batcave. They travel by car, and as fancy as it was, Danny was almost scared to touch anything inside it. Red was a much better driver than his father though, so he just closed his eyes and focused on trying to keep his healing up.

The Batcave turned out to be an actual cave, underground, with actual bats in it. He was whisked to a medical area too quickly to see much of anything else besides some other vehicles and a giant computer set up. 

Someone was waiting in the medical space with a tray of tools and bandages ready next to the bed, Red introduced him as Agent A. They were quick to lie him down on a cot and set him up to a heart monitor and that had Red and the A frowning immediately.

“It’s a medical condition.” Danny blurted, and both pairs of eyes shot to him. “My heartrate is naturally very slow, temperature runs cold, pale skin, slow circulation so I can't have a lot of different medications." Not that any medications would really work, but better safe than sorry. Them not working would be suspicious, and Danny does not have the energy or focus for trying to keep straight any real explanations right now.  "It’s fine, I promise.”

Agent A nodded slowly. “Is there anything else we should know before we start treatment?”

“Just can't give me any medicines, I think that's the only relevant bit.”

“Alright, I will keep that in mind. Please lift your shirt so I can see the wound.”

Danny does, and they manage their expressions quite well on seeing it. Agent A goes immediately for creams and bandages.

“What burned you like that?” Red asked.

“Gun.” Danny was starting to slur. He did not want to sleep right now, with these people here.

“A gun? What kind of gun causes burns?”

“New blaster, parents made it special.”

“Your parents make guns?”

Danny shrugs, turning his head to look at Red instead of the far off ceiling of the cave. “My parents make lots of things. They're scientists, inventors." Danny waves his arm around vaguely. "The gun was new though, hadn’t been shot with that one before. The earlier versions were much less powerful.”

“Are you saying that your parents are the ones that shot you?” Red asked gently, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. “It wasn’t just their gun that was used?”

Danny frowns. “Well yeah.”

Tim is very concerned at the tone he just used, like getting shot at by your parents was normal. “Do they shoot at you a lot?”

“Fair amount I suppose.” Red could see Danny thinking really hard about something. Dany’s head was really starting to hurt. His brain was fuzzy and he knew he should be concerned about something, but couldn’t figure out what. His parents shooting at him was nothing new, considering. “Like, they did it more than Vlad but I don’t see him as often, and they’ve done it longer than the GIW, but since the GIW has started they’ve been about equal I guess. I mean, sometimes all the defense systems in the house target me but that wasn’t technically intentional. Took forever for us to figure out how to get them to stop that.”

“Danny, when was the last time you slept?” Red asked gently.

Danny wasn’t sure if his blip earlier this morning counted. He didn’t think it lasted more than an hour, but the last time he slept before that was before his fight in Amity, escaping through the ghost zone and running around in this dimension.

“It’s been awhile.” Danny landed on. True enough for medical history he supposed.

“Right.” A finished the last of the bandages and tugged Danny’s shirt back down. “Well, why don’t you do that now, while we go and find you something to eat.”

“I’m too tired to fight food right now.”

Tim shared a look with Alfred before turning back to Danny. “Okay then. Maybe sleep first and then eat?”

“I will go start making something now that you’re all set up here Mister Danny.” Agent A states, walking past the medical curtains and shutting them behind him. Red pulled out a tablet and started tapping on it. He noticed Danny’s eyes on him after a moment.

“You going to sleep?”

“Strange place, strange people. Not sure that’s the best decision here.”

Red looked up from his tablet.

“You trusted me enough to come here. Trust me enough to sleep. I will make sure no one but me or A comes in before you’re ready.”

[kunaigirl]

Happy Disability Pride and awareness month! Let's talk about Epilepsy!

Hi there! I got tired of seeing my condition (that impacts my literal every day life) being left out or forgotten about during discussions about disabilities, so I made my own post about it! Let's go!

First Off! What the heck is epilepsy? Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world, and it's a chronic medical condition. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes recurring, frequent, triggered, and unprovoked seizures to occur.

The official Epilepsy Foundation describes seizures as follows: "Seizures are sudden surges of abnormal and excessive electrical activity in your brain, and can affect how you appear or act. Where and how the seizure presents itself can have profound effects...Seizures involve sudden, temporary, bursts of electrical activity in the brain that change or disrupt the way messages are sent between brain cells. These electrical bursts can cause involuntary changes in body movement or function, sensation, behavior or awareness." (Source link)

Sounds like a lot of fun right? This is our life. Even with medication, we can be VERY limited to what can be safe for us. Seizure medications are NOT a cure, they only exist (at least as of now) as a tool to help have your seizures less often, or be triggered less intensely. Even on medication, seizures can still happen.

If you have epilepsy as a child like I did, it impacts your entire growing and developing experience. I spent MANY times as a child in and out of hospitals, neurologist and specialist offices, an getting so many EEG tests done. The pain of scrubbing the glue out of your hair for DAYS is horrible.

At a young age my seizures were so frequent and serious, it impacted my brain's ability to retain information. I had to re-learn the names of things at age 8 and 9. I had to re-learn HOW TO READ at age 10. I had to be home schooled because the public school system of my state at the time refused to work with me. I have VERY distinct and vivid memories of crying over my little baby ABC's book that I needed as a 4th and 5th grader. I knew I should've known this by this age. I knew that at one point I already did, and it was TAKEN FROM ME.

As an adult, I'M NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE A CAR. And I can NEVER go to see a movie in theaters or go to see concerts or live music. There are entire TV shows I don't get to see. I can't go to clubs, arcades, dances, or raves. I miss out on A LOT of fun things. I always do, and I'm WELL AWARE of the fun I'm missing out on. The social, casual, and fun life experiences I'll never get to have. That WE'LL never get to have. And oh yeah! Seizures can KILL SOME OF US. Yep.

And the list goes on, and every person with epilepsy experiences it differently. There are multiple different types of seizures you can have, they're NOT always convulsing on the floor. For example, I have complex-partial-myoclonic-seizures. Meaning my muscles DO twitch when I have seizures, but I'm not always completely unconscious and sometimes I'm even able to stay sitting up. However, I'm still very "off" and can't focus or remember much for a good while after the fact. I can't talk or communicate during one, even with my slight bit of consciousness.

My experiences are not universal, I just wanted to talk about it and bring it up. It helps to talk about it even a little bit. Here's more about different kinds of seizures. Here's more about common seizure triggers. Here's more about CORRECT seizure first aid. And here's more general information/resources.

Please stop leaving us out of disability awareness. Please stop ignoring us or saying we're "not really disabled" or anything else like that. Please. Why does it always feel like the only people who care about epilepsy, are people WITH epilepsy? We're so tired of being ignored by others who don't have our condition.

If you're an epileptic person reading this, I see you. I love you. You're so strong, we all are. I believe in you, I believe in us. We're so much stronger than we get credit for, and it's going to be ok. Your anger and frustration are valid. Your emotions and struggles are real. You're valid, and I see you. Hang in there, we got this.

[random-fandom1984]

Can I have some g1 soundwave x reader please😅😅😅😅😅

Being the only femme Cybertronian on the Ark can be... something. Especially when some of them try hitting on you without getting to know you; quite annoying really, but you keep it pushed down; but some people can tell because of your alt-mode.

You stayed in the Ark because of your job as a medic. Your alt-mode is a heartbeat monitor, which also corresponds with your sparkbeats, which is how some people, very few, can tell what you're feeling.

You made your own little base of operations under an abandoned amusement park. You'd bring in people who were injured and left behind in the ruckus of the battlefield between the two factions. Human or Decepticon.

Whenever it's a human, you'd ask them to promise to not tell your Autobot friends about your place of escape, and they do. But with Decepticons, you make sure that they are knocked out, and you just give them a few amounts of anesthesia because they would break in, destroy the place, kidnap you and hold you for ransom against your friends.

One day, when looking through one of the many aftermaths of a battle, you found a minicon in the rubble, Soundwave's minicon: Frenzy. When you took him back to your base, you realized you've forgotten to stock up on more anesthesia, so now you have to worry with the fact that he might wake up soon as you did the procedure of fix-and-repair.

As you were putting your tools away, he woke up with a fright, and you quickly explained the situation to him, which slightly calmed him down. Key word: Slightly. He was suspicious of you but is slowly diminished as you continued to work on the minor injuries that just need a new paint job and be buffed. The last bit disappeared in an instant when you gave him an Energon Goodie.

When he came by again, to your surprise that he remembered the way here, you gave a tour of the place above, he somehow managed to get the place up and running again; thank Primus that your location was miles away from the nearest civilization.

As time went by, Rumble found out, then Ravage, then Laserbeak. When they come to visit, it would be like as if there was no war, they're having a good time in the amusement park.

Sooner or later, Soundwave got suspicious. Where were his kids minicons going late at night?

Being the best spy he is, he followed them, and was surprised that they were hanging out with an Autobot, weren't fighting like there was a war, stopping a fight between Rumble and Frenzy as calm as possible- and somehow easily get them to make up?! He couldn't do that without them continuing to squabble with each other.

He used his telepathy powers to look into your thoughts to see if you secretly had ill intentions with his sons minicons, but there wasn't any!

When his minicons return back to base, it's an instant interrogation the moment they step foot back in the habsuite: How long has this been going on? How did this happen in the first place? What do she always do with them? The only questions that were about you were answered back with positivity.

Curious, he decided to look more into your file when the Decepticons fight the Autobots near the Ark. When he does, all he finds is all good things.

When it was the next time they decided to visit, he wanted to meet her in person. And so he did, and by Primus were you nervous. You were worried he might blow your helm up. You, Soundwave, and his minicons walked through the park, watching the minicons play games, ride the rides; he began to trust you.

The more you all hang out in private, at your secret location, the more you begin to bond closer together, mainly you and Soundwave; the minicons noticed it as clear as day.

So, being mischievous little ones they are, Rumble and Frenzy decided to stage a lil' something. In private, the minicons would call Soundwave Sire, or dad in human terms. So, when the next time you and they met up, they would unexpectedly drop Carrier, mom, at random times in the night. When they first did it, they'd put on an act like as if they didn't mean to say it and it just slip. You fell for their act, so did Soundwave because it was unexpected.

They see you? An Autobot medic? As a parental figure? I mean, sure, you heal up their injuries, you give them Energon sweets if they be good and behave, calmly deal with their fights, gives them sweet head pats, have the most caring optics he's seen, the most beautiful smile- Oh, scrap! He's in love.

He would lie awake at night, questioning why he found you attractive. For starters, your gently touch that he felt when you repaired him, your smiles seem to shine brighter than any star, and sound from your vocalizer was like a siren's call and he was the sailor that was lured by its enchanting melody, your optics the prettiest shade of blue that rivals with this hunk of rock's sky, have the spirit of a Carrier with his kids- Primus, he was hooked, lined and had sunk deep.

After he came to terms with his newfound emotions, he started noticing something about you. Every single time he was close to you, he'd see the screen of your alt-mode, on your chassis, start getting taller. One time, he danced with you as music played in the park, and he saw that the big spikes became frequent, and a subtle blush would be on your cheek plates that you try to hide with your servo and turning your helm to the side. He found this adorable, so much that he became addicted to having that cute blush on your face.

When back on the Ark, you would get pings from an unknown comm-link number, only to realize it's Soundwave, and he's sending you something. When you are finally alone in your habsuite, you would take a look to see that they were poems; they were so sweet, you reread them, laying on your berth, kicking your feet as you excitedly giggle from how nice, sweet, and adorable they are that they might as well be invitations for Cupid to continue to shoot arrows into your spark, making you fall harder for the Con.

When they spent the night in your secret base, you all had fun doing any activity that comes to mind: pillow/blanket forts, teaching the little ones the steps on how you make your glorious Energon Goodies, etc. The last activity was a horror movie marathon. Every time a jump scare would pop up on the screen, you would hug the closest bot, and it just so happened to be Soundwave. During the horror movie marathon, you, Soundwave, and his kids ended up in a cuddle pile, scared, all but Soundwave, Ravage, and Laserbeak.

They decided to spend the night here before returning to the Decepticon base at the break of dawn. You decided to put the little ones to sleep. He decided to start cleaning up the mess that was made, and when he finished, he came back to you telling the ending of an old Cybertron bedtime story.

To him, it looked so nice and peaceful, and you looked so motherly that he just wanted to confess right there, right now. What sealed the deal was you placing a goodnight kiss on the top of their helms, tucking them to sleep before leaving the room they were occupying, only to be dragged off to somewhere by Soundwave, into the place you slept in from time-to-time.

You wondered what was happening, until Soundwave got on one knee plate, servos holding your own, visor looking up into your optics, glistening as he let out a very poetic, charming, delightful, exquisite of him telling you about his feelings, everything about you that made his spark soar: your voice, your optics, your touch, everything.

He carefully watched the screen on you chassis to see if there was any indication of making you uncomfortable or not. And by the end of his heartfelt confession, he watched the heart monitor didn't make any giant spikes. Oh, no. It made a heart at the center of the monitor as blush covers your entire faceplate.

Part 2 coming soon!

[pigfacedbitch]

Let's Break Up (II)

summary : you try to do the break up prank on your boyfriend.

word count : 0.5k

type : headcanons

pairing/s involved : Leo Valdez / Frank Zhang / Will Solace x Reader

warning/s : none

here is my masterlist! Part I is composed of Jason, Percy, and Nico.

Leo Valdez

"I don't love you anymore. I want to end this."

He will think it's joke but when the 'I'm kidding!' never comes, he tries not to make a big deal out of it.

Just chill and shrug like he was expecting it to happen.

"Oh well, if that's what you want."

He will overthink every situation where you acted suspicious; rejecting his affections, flirting with other guys— you know... signs of possible cheating or interest in other people?

Not that he doubts your loyalty but Leo's sense of inferiority can cloud his judgement; it's himself he is unsure of.

I'm not enough for her. There are better guys out there. I'm supposed to understand. Thoughts like that.

You better say it's a prank right away! Because once you let him go, he will probably cry and lock himself in Bunker 9.

You had to knock continuously on the metal door and sing like Anna in "Do You Wanna Buid A Snowman?" for Leo to get out.

"It's just a prank, love. I'm sorry."

He lets out quiet sobs when your eyes meet, but he's obviously relieved.

COMFORT HIM AND NEVER DO IT AGAIN.

Frank Zhang

"Listen, this relationship is not working out anymore. I want to break up."

Now, if you've watched the part in American Psycho where Patrick Batman breaks up with his fiancee then you'll be able to picture this.

Frank will cry, loudly at that. It will catch the attention of anyone nearby, embarassing you.

He won't hold back. No, no, no, my friend. There will be whining and any other loud noises any human in pain is possible of letting out.

Did you instantly think you are an idiot for doing this? Yes, sir! 😊😙

"Frank, quiet down!"

"Oh gods, (Y/N) doesn't love me anymore!"

"I do, it's just a prank!"

Stops immediately, dramatically wiping his tears with a smug look on his face. With your mouth agape, he walks away from you like an action star in a explosion movie scene.

"Next time you try to prank me, don't tell anyone beforehand!"

"...Damn it, Hazel!"

Will Solace

This lovely son of Apollo is always busy due to his medical duties in Camp Half Blood so he truly cherishes the short moments he gets to spend with you.

In other words? Don't fucking waste his time.

"Will, I think we should break up."

He had encountered many campers pretend sickness for various of reasons— wanting to escape cleaning duties, skip training, and many more.

He will see through your lie. He always does.

If you decided to pull this prank AFTER he got to rest from the infirmary, he will just give you the don't-try-me-bitch look.

If you picked BEFORE he got to rest, you're dead. Expect him to throw medical tools at you.

Don't worry, not sharp ones. Just the scabs, cotton balls, and such.

It can be annoying though, not mention the scolding Chiron will give you later for wasting inventory materials.

"Will, stop it!"

"Take it back!"

"Sorry, it was just a joke."

The man very tired, okay? Stop with the nonsense and just cuddle with him. The gods know he desperately needs it.

[ethereallyjade]

Pick a Song: How to Build your Confidence

Choose a photo that calls to you and the cards will tell you a message. As always, this is just for fun. Do not take anything seriously or above legal or medical advice. If you're interested in personal tarot readings and want to support me, check out my Paid Readings! Masterlist

1 - 3

Images are not mine

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

ℙ𝕚𝕝𝕖 𝟙

the boy is mine

I'm feeling hesitancy. "Take some time and you'll get there."

Be more spontaneous and outgoing. Say yes more often (when comfortable ofc) and a whole new you could very well emerge.

I'm seeing painting or writing, some sort of creative hobby that involves a tool of some kind or maybe ink.

You have talents and you should be using them in competitions, or at the very least putting your work out there for others to see.

Be an artist, and more importantly, own it.

Your work should be filling you with excitement, not dragging you down. Do something that makes you happy, it's been too long. Or maybe travel a little. Do something that actually excites you and fills you with ideas and passion, then you'll be that much closer to a feeling of fulfillment.

Channeled Song: Kissland - The Weeknd (Yo, as I was looking for the song, I saw the show 'You' pop up. Maybe you should go watch it on Netflix or something, especially considering the pic you chose lol)

ℙ𝕚𝕝𝕖 𝟚

MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Okay, I'm already getting that you're pretty smooth with it.

"Just keep being you, baby"

I feel a cocky sort of energy, a smirk, something flirtatious. Maybe you're good at flirting or you should allow yourself to be more flirty.

Okay, after pulling the cards I'm seeing two different ways to interpret this pile.

One. You are holding yourself back from your own happiness. You are already everything you want to be, but you hold yourself back and put on a face for everyone. You act so mature and independent that you don't allow yourself to have fun, and in order to feel more happy, you need to ease your control over yourself and just allow yourself to feel in the moment and have fun. Worry later. Allow yourself to be excited again!

Or two, you're the complete opposite and you need to get more control over yourself. Maybe you have a bit of an ego, or trust too much, or have ridiculously high expectations. Sometimes you go too hard and end up embarrassed or people start talking about you and you're inability to stop. If this resonates, then you need to have a little more independence and maturity. This will grant you the freedoms and money that you need in order to thrive and glow in the future. Your hard work will bring you abundance right now, then in the future you'll look back and realize all the things you thought you had were actually really fake and how much better things are for you now. You are already great, but you could be more. Create some stability and realness in your life, honey.

Channeled Song: Burning Down the House - Talking Heads

ℙ𝕚𝕝𝕖 𝟛

BOA

"Take it slow" "It's okay to make mistakes"

Are you a perfectionist? A little hard on yourself when you mess up? Allow yourself to make mistakes.

Girly, you are already great. Don't let your spirits die. Don't let your talents die.

I'm feeling that you've been really down lately; loss of faith and hope, loss of optimism.

I know it's hard to just get more optimistic, especially when you've been let down so many times, but I'm seeing that you just need to hang on a little longer, push a little harder, because something great is about to happen just around the corner.

Don't fool yourself. You hold all the power that you need. I know you're tired, but you still gotta be the one that gets up and makes a difference in your life. Just trust yourself, and trust your talents. You will get there.

You've been through more than enough challenges lately, but I'm seeing that the answer to your problems is actually very simple: Just step away for a moment. The reason you can't overcome is because you're not allowing yourself to use you talents or creativity to their fullest potential. You put too much stress and pressure of yourself and it's not allowing you to be at your best. Take some time, de-stress, don't think about the issue at all, then come back and you'll be more than ready. Pressure only boils you down. Take time to flourish and you'll be everything you need to be.

You are already everything. Just let yourself breath and you'll realize nothing ever needed to change about you, because you already have it.

Channeled Song: Disturbia - Rihanna

[sky-scribbles]

There are a lot of things to love about the SSV Normandy. It’s a symbol of cooperation between two species historically at odds. It’s a miracle of engineering, a technological masterpiece that could alter every pattern of space warfare. Its crew is the highest calibre that the Alliance has to offer, bolstered by multispecies allies: an emblem of flying hope.

It also has far, far too many flashing lights. Everywhere.

One hand pressed to the wall to keep himself steady, the other pressed against his forehead as if that’s going to do any good, Kaidan shuffles down the hall toward the med bay. Every light panel and display interface feels like a laser drill boring directly through his eyes, sounds reverberate against the inside of his skull, and his sense of balance is a distant, pleasant memory. Kaidan sucks in a tight breath between his teeth. It’s going to be okay. He can do this. He’s done it before.

He drags himself the last few feet, and the med bay doors slide open. Kaidan opens up his omni-tool – god, why are those so bright, too? – and does what he’s done a hundred times, scanning the medical interface so that the med system logs him. Doctor Chakwas isn’t here, which means she’s on her rest shift, but that’s fine. The med system will alert her if there’s a problem.  

Kaidan, turns, so ready to collapse into the nearest med bed – except he can’t. Because there’s someone already in it.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hey, Tali.’

‘Hey, Lieutenant.’ She still seems shy about using his first name. Maybe it’s a habit from being raised on board ships, or maybe she’s just not sure if she’s allowed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I will be once the pain meds kick in.’ Kaidan makes it to the next bed along and finally, finally lies down and shuts his eyes. ‘Doctor Chakwas is just… pretty strict about me coming here whenever a migraine kicks in. Just in case it’s a sign of something going wrong with my implant.’

Through the fog of everything hurts, it finally surfaces in his brain that Tali in the med bay is… that’s bad, right? ‘What about you? Are you, you know –?’

Okay, he’s not sure how to finish that sentence. There’s probably not a polite way to say hey, are you here because you’ve picked up a fatal illness?

He cracks one eye open, just enough to see her looking glumly at him. He’s not sure how he can tell that she’s glum when all he can see is her eyes, but yeah. She’s glum. ‘You know how I took a hit on Feros?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And how I disinfected it, and used my patch kit on the suit breach, and told Shepard I was fine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was not fine.’ She slumps down miserably. ‘My throat is full of painful slime, my sinuses are on fire, and my halesh –’ Okay, that’s obviously some piece of quarian anatomy – ‘is more gummed up than I can describe.’

Kaidan shuts his eyes again. ‘Well, my skull feels like it’s slowly contracting and crushing my brain, so… I sort of feel you.’

She laughs weakly. ‘I should have run an extra med scan once I got back to the Normandy. I just – I wanted to help with the engine maintenance today. And there’s this combat drone design I’m working on. And now…’ There’s a sound of movement; Kaidan gets the impression that she’s gesturing at the med bay in angry helplessness.

‘I feel that too.’ And he does. He really does. This isn’t the worst migraine he’s ever had – he can actually hold a conversation, which some days would be beyond him. But it’s… it’s not great. And he had things to do. Ash was running a drill and wanted him to look over her plans. He had a cleaning shift at fourteen hours. Shepard wanted to talk strategy for Noveria.  And yes, he knows he has a right to take time off for a medical issue. He knows he’s no use to Ash or Shepard or anyone when he can’t even walk in a straight line. But knowing that doesn’t quite get rid of the squirm in his belly, the one that feels like letting people down.

Tali’s quiet for a minute, aside from the ever-present, barely-audible hum of her suit systems, and the occasional sniff from behind her helmet. Then she says, unexpectedly, ‘I’m just… I’m so tired. You know what I mean?’

Kaidan’s head throbs. He swallows. ‘Oh, yeah.’

The constant vigilance. Always having to be careful about where he goes – is this room too bright? Is this one too loud? – in case something triggers another bad spell. Taking hits to the head in a fight that anyone else could just shrug off, but that for him mean another trip to the med bay to make sure his implant isn’t damaged. Trying to do his job and suddenly finding, no, he can’t, because his body has decided that today’s the day he just doesn’t get to function.

Tali… she must go through the same awful deal, just in a different flavour. Always being careful, so careful. Someone else’s minor injury being her okay, let’s get a med check to make sure I won’t die. It’s not the same, of course: Kaidan can eat food without filtering it, touch people without protective layers, see people’s faces without a tinted mask. Still… there’s a tone in her voice that he knows from his own.

There’s a heavy silence. Then Tali says, ‘You know what’s really stupid? I left my datapad in my cabin, so I can’t even watch vids.’

Kaidan smiles. He’s seen her down in Engineering, a few times, hands flying around over the machinery, rocking back and forth on her heels. Idleness obviously doesn’t suit her. ‘You can borrow mine, if you like.’

‘Really?’ Her voice is already brighter. ‘I mean – won’t the noise will make you feel worse?’

‘Nah, I’ll be good.’ He’s not just saying it; there’s a blissful numbness creeping through his head which means that his meds are finally getting to work. He fishes the datapad from his pocket, taps in his passcode, and hands it over. ‘What kind of vids do you like?’

Her whole being perks up – tone, body, everything. ‘Oh, all of them.Any genre, any species. I mean… asari vids can be a bit long. I mean, they’re made by people who can spend a decade making a vid and a whole day watching it. Turians… their vids can be a bit depressing. There’s a lot of ‘this war ended with almost everyone dead, but one turian is still standing, so it’s a victory!”

‘What about quarians? What kinds of stories do your people tell?’

A small laugh echoes inside the helmet. ‘Quarian vids are pretty limited by environment. We don’t have a lot of varied sets to work with. So we tell the best long-running dramas. There’s one ship in the Flotilla that’s been hosting the same series for over eighty standard years now. Following the crew as they change over time, that sort of thing.’ She taps the base of her helmet. ‘It’s pretty good, but… I think if you watched it, you’d think there were a lot more explosions, murders and shipwide romantic entanglements in the Flotilla than there actually are.’

‘Human dramas are like that too.’

Tali laughs. ‘Quarian dramas make human dramas look relaxed.’

Kaidan finds he’s actually able to grin. ‘So what do human vids tell you about us?’

Her helmet tilts as she considers. ‘That you’re very individualistic. I mean, not every human culture. But you put a lot of focus onto characters and personal journeys.’ She scrolls down the datapad screen – looking through vid lists, presumably – then stops. It’s hard to tell, but Kaidan thinks she might be frowning. ‘I did notice… in a lot of human media, the biotics are…’

Another insistent pulse of pain through his temples. Kaidan sighs. ‘Crazy extremists?’

‘Yes. Do you… do you mind if I ask why that is?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Kaidan turns onto his back and stares up at the dim ceiling. ‘A lot of the early generation of biotics, the ones who got the same implants as me… let’s just say I got off lightly. Most ended up with much more serious medical conditions. And when people found out about the side effects of the L2 implants, the media got the bit between its teeth and –’ Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to translate. ‘Sorry. Human saying. They got a certain impression, and they ran with it.’

Tali’s quiet for several seconds. Kaidan twists his head to face her, and sees the pale eyes behind the mask giving him a long, steady look.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. And then, after a moment, ‘They tell lies about us, too.’

Kaidan holds her gaze, and feels terribly, achingly sad. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I bet they do.’

 The way people look at Tali as she walks through the Presidium… it’s familiar. Not quite the same. There’s a note of scorn in the looks they give to Tali – but there’s suspicion, too, and that’s something he knows. All the times back on Earth, after he got back from Jump Zero, when he shook someone’s hand or opened a door, and their eyes found the implants. They way they stared at him like he was a loaded gun. All the documents he had to fill out to do anything, the knowledge that any government he lived under would always be hovering a few steps away, keeping tabs, making sure.

Remembering Rahna – remembering that obvious, instinctive fear in her eyes – is an old memory now, the kind that’s a faded scar. But he remembers the shock of it, back when he was seventeen. When no one had looked at him like that before, and it was dizzying and new and felt like a hole in his gut.

He bets Tali has that hole in her gut all the time.

Kaidan pushes himself up a little – which makes his brain spin, but he manages it – and gives Tali a smile. ‘Well. Let’s look for something that gets us both right.’

‘Definitely.’ She flicks through the options for a minute more, then pauses. ‘Have you ever seen Fleet and Flotilla?’

‘I think I’ve heard of it.’ There’s a faint memory of seeing an ad for it, maybe, and thinking it was the kind of thing he’d have loved as a kid. Space exploration. Justice. Love. ‘The… war romance, right?’

‘Yes!’ Tali’s legs bounce. ‘It’s – keelah, it’s so good, it’s – it’s about this girl, Shalei, who’s on her pilgrimage. And she’s interested in the geth, because she’s got this dream of finding a way to defeat them and take back the Homeworld, right? And when she finds something, she goes to the Citadel for help, but no one will listen except this one turian called Bellicus –’

‘Hold up. Wasn’t that… exactly what you were doing when we met you? Minus the turian, I mean.’

Tali ducks her head, suddenly shy. ‘I… I really, really like the vid.’

No kidding. Kaidan smiles. ‘So let’s watch it.’

His head still feels like a bombsite, and when he thinks about all the things he wants to be doing for his crew and isn’t, the rest of him hurts too. But maybe he’s still doing something for his crew, sitting in the med bay with his sick squadmate – his sick friend – and sharing her favourite vid with her. Maybe he’s doing something for him, too. He doesn’t do that too often.

Tali props the datapad up on the table between their beds, her whole body one big smile. ‘You’re going to love this,’ she promises, and presses play.

[maniacwatchestheworld]

Things to do with Jack and Maddie without them being abusive

As someone who actually likes Jack and Maddie as characters (I'm a fervent shipper of Maddie/Jack/Vlad), it's a real bummer to see so many people out there deciding that for their DPxDC AUs that Jack and Maddie are abusive, when that really doesn't represent how they are in canon. Now I fully acknowledge that doing this can be a very useful tool for telling certain types of stories, and if you want to make a story about recovering from abuse and finding a new found family, all the more power to you for that! But for any other type of story where them being abusive isn't necessary for the backstory of the story you want to tell... It's just a bummer to do that, y'know? If you don't want to tell a story with Jack and Maddie in it, that's entirely fine! I'm not asking you to. But there are ways to get rid of them without making them abusive or dying. Of the two, I personally would prefer them dying (I just like the story potential of that, especially as far as Vlad is concerned). But there are plenty of easy things to do with them to keep them out of the story that don't require them being abusive or dead! So I'm here to give a list of things that can happen to them (that have precedent within either Danny Phantom itself or the DC universe) that keep them out of the story that don't require much explanation as well as some other ideas for what you can do with them if you have no idea what to do with them otherwise.

Lots of ideas under the cut! (Feel free to take what you want. As always, credit is appreciated, but not necessary. But I would love to see what you do with it!)

If you need them permanently absent so that Danny can get adopted

Fell into the Ghost Zone and cannot be found.

They are gone for whatever reason and Jazz is currently Danny's legal guardian (she's 18 or older and is therefore a legal adult).

While in the Ghost Zone, they accidentally traveled through time/got transported somewhere where they can't get home easily.

They got severely Joker gassed and are in medical care. (This is actually what happened to Duke's parents!)

They got severely Scarecrow gassed and are in medical care.

Went insane for some supervillain-related reason and are now missing/in medical care.

They were kidnapped by a villain for some reason.

They were kidnapped by a villain and are currently in a lotus-eaters simulation and therefore don't even know that they've gone missing.

Abducted by aliens.

They got wrapped up in some supervillain bullshit and now have amnesia and are unable to recognize Danny and Jazz.

They got magicked into something that can't take care of Danny and Jazz.

They were experimented on and are now incapable of taking care of Danny and Jazz.

Some cosmic entity did a whoopsie that effected Jack and Maddie and now they're in a condition/situation where they cannot take care of Danny and Jazz.

Got arrested and are in jail for some reason.

Were arrested and sent to jail for a long time. Have since joined Task Force X/the Suicide Squad for lienency.

Got hit by a stray Zeta-Beam and are now on some alien planet.

They got teleported somehow. We aren't certain about the details.

They fell into a hole to another world.

They no-clipped out of their normal reality.

Stranded with no way home.

They somehow ended up on a different planet. They are just hanging out with Space Cabbie now, who is just having a ROUGH day and can't find Earth for whatever reason.

Inducted into a Lantern Corps and are VERY busy because of it!

Coma.

Effected by a debilitating illness/disease/condition that makes them incapable of taking care of others.

They were forced to go undercover for some reason and therefore vanished. (Letting their kids know is optional)

They were forced to go undercover for some reason and were forced to fake their deaths.

They died, but came back to life. Danny has not been informed of this.

They got possessed by a superhero or supervillain who just wandered off with their bodies.

They got separated following a disaster and haven't been able to find each other again.

They've been retconned to hell and back again to the point where no one is entirely certain where they are, what they're doing, or even if they're alive anymore. Don't worry about it! Only mention them when it's relevant and the rest of the time we aren't going to bother explaining what's going on with them. If they are mentioned, accounts of where they are and what's going on with them are contradictory.

They're around, but will go unseen throughout this story

Any of the situations in the previous section, but it only happened to one of the parents, and the other is just too busy working and taking care of the kids by themselves.

The same as previous, but they also moved to Gotham.

Retcon things so that the events of Danny Phantom actually happened in Gotham City all along. (Maybe Amity Park is like... A suburb in the greater Gotham area.)

They went on vacation/were hired for a job that would take them away from home. They left Danny and Jazz to be taken care of by Vlad. Vlad is an asshole, so they ran away from him.

They went on vacation/were hired for a job that would take them away from home, but now that Jazz is over 18, she's been left in charge.

Put into Witness Protection by the government/the Guys in White.

Danny and friends have graduated from high school and are now legal adults, perhaps in college.

Danny's whole family moved to Gotham City. They're just at home/working during the events of this story.

Jack and Maddie have been hired to do some work with the Justice League and need to be away from home for an extended period of time. They have left a member of the Justice League to take care of Danny and Jazz in the meantime.

Fieldtrip/school trip to Gotham City.

Danny is old and responsible enough that Jack and Maddie trust Danny (and/or Jazz) to travel on their own. His parents are just a call away if he needs help.

Jack and Maddie are separated for whatever reason (one went missing/one is working abroad/they are divorced/one died) and the other moved to Gotham and is taking care of the kids in the meantime, but is busy and so will not appear.

Something happened to Fenton Works and the family needs to temporarily stay somewhere else while the problem with Fenton Works is sorted.

The family was driven out of town and they ran off to Gotham to escape the angry mob. (Or at least to wait until things cool down again.)

Jack or Maddie are able to work remotely and so they've moved to Gotham to do so. The kids came along/are visiting.

Jack and/or Maddie were hired for temporary work in Gotham and decided to bring the kids along.

One family member was taken to Arkham Asylum. They moved to Gotham to be closer.

Jazz went to Gotham for college. Danny is visiting.

Danny is sent to Gotham/Arkham for specialized health reasons.

Jack and Maddie have gotten in contact with a specialist that lives in Gotham and are visiting for work-related reasons.

They are on vacation in Gotham and brought the kids along. Danny and Jazz have been let off the leash to go where they want while Jack and Maddie do touristy stuff.

Visiting family/family friends living in Gotham.

They were passing through but are now unable to leave. (Bonus points if it's a No Man's Land situation.)

They were passing through, but were robbed. Jack and Maddie are dealing with the robbery stuff where Danny is off somewhere else.

They were just passing through, but Maddie and Jack got SEVERELY distracted by something and have run off to who knows where!

They are traveling with Vlad and expected Vlad to take care of and watch the kids!

Danny was abducted to Gotham.

Danny accidently ended up in Gotham somehow.

Danny somehow got transported/teleported to Gotham.

Doing an educational trip/apprenticeship/internship over in Gotham.

Danny ran away impulsively.

Some villain threatened Danny's family and forced him to run away from home.

Danny has revealed his secret to his parents, and while they might worry about Danny being a vigilante, believe in and trust Danny to do the right thing and allow him to do what he feels that he must to protect people.

The same as above, but Vlad also came out and is supervising.

They died.

I cannot understate the sheer JUICY storytelling potential that you can have by killing Jack and Maddie off! We already know how it might effect people and events from what we see in The Ultimate Enemy, but there really is limitless potential in terms of ways to twist, turn, and play with things to have different outcomes! Additionally, Jack and Maddie being genuinely good parents that die protecting Danny and Jazz offers lots of ways for Bruce to relate to Danny and Jazz! (He decided to become Batman so that no one would have to face what he did ever again... And he failed...) And the way that they die can offer some lovely different flavors of angst, coping mechanisms, motovations, and learning to deal with their loss. So here are some ideas for how to kill them off!

The universe exploded again, and when it was put back together, Jack and Maddie ceased to exist in current canon continuity. (This happens more often than you'd think.)

Vlad Wins.

They were killed in an apocalypse-level event.

They were killed in the crossfire of some superhero/supervillain fight.

They were taken by some villain. They were killed before the heroes could arrive.

They were killed in a random act of violence/crime. (Much like Batman's backstory. Do this to gain extra points from Bruce.)

Died in prison/after joining the Suicide Squad.

Gang violence.

Any of the previous but Gotham is just THAT dangerous!

Same as any gassing or supervillain plan, but they died instead of being missing or in medical care.

Got transported to a place where they died very far away from home.

They just died suddenly or because of an accident. It happens sometimes.

Things to note

Believe it or not, but your parents can still be in your life AND you can join the Batfamily AT THE SAME TIME! :D

Examples:

Barbra Gordon is very much in the Batfamily and both of her parents are alive and well. She's a very important part of the family, and in the comics, it is not uncommon to see her calling up her dad and talking to him! They'll even call each other if they need help with something. This does not take away from the fatherly role Bruce often has in her life. (She can have 2 dads and good for her for that!)

When Tim initially became Robin, his parents were alive and well. They would later die because comic writers are just like that, but being an orphan without loving parents in your life is not a prerequisite to being Robin.

Duke's parents are also alive! They are under the effects of Joker toxin, but they are alive, and if they ever find a cure for it, I imagine that they would be more than happy to have Duke back in their lives!

Terry from Batman Beyond is not an orphan and was taken under Bruce's wing to be the next Batman! Terry is even going to inherit a fair amount of Bruce's wealth for deciding to take on the responsibility of being Batman. But while his dad did die, his mom is still alive and well over the course of the series! And he has a little brother too! Terry may still be a teenager, but he is a bit of a breadwinner for his household while also still being an important part of Bruce's family. (He is often someone who helps Bruce take care of himself.)

But if the story you truly want to explore requires being adopted specifically... Well... You don't have to be a kid to be adopted! Jack and Maddie can still raise Danny and Jazz into adults and Bruce is able to adopt them later if he wants, once they have been well and established in his family! Hell, you don't even have to wait! As long as Bruce asks permission from Jack and Maddie, they can be alive AND he can adopt Danny! There is more than one way to be in a family, you know! And sometimes it takes a village! And really, would Jack and Maddie really object to Danny being adopted by billionaire Bruce Wayne, especially if Danny really is enjoying his time being a part of his family and if Bruce has been an absolutely lovely person to them whenever he visits?

So I hope that you're able to take some inspiration from all of this for your own stories! If you need some elaboration on what I mean with some of these, or want to ask who could be responsible for some of these and how, feel free to drop on by and send me an ask! I would be more than happy to go into some more detail about these! Happy writing!

[screeching-bunny]

Yandere priest or religious higher up x witch reader?

Yandere! Priest pt. 2

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Thoughts, Bad Writing, Stalking, Possessive Behavior, Reader is Referred as ‘You’

Pt.1

In a small, picturesque village nestled amidst towering mountains and lush greenery, there existed a quiet and humble priest. He was revered for his kind heart, unwavering devotion to his faith, and his desire to help others. Yandere! Priest had dedicated his life to serving his community, finding solace in his duties and the tranquility of the church. He could only be described as compassionate and fair with the gentlest heart. He was very well loved by the community around him and highly respected. However, there was a small group of people who hated him and preyed on his downfall. One these people managed to gravely injure him and drag his body far away from civilization to make sure he doesn’t have a chance at living. They wanted a slow and painful death for him.

On the outskirts desolated from the village, was an enchanted forest, that was rumored by the townspeople to be cursed and filled with many horrors. That so-called haunted and enchanted forest held your lovely house which you had been living in for decades. Now the question arises, why exactly were you living in such a dangerous and isolated forest in the first place? Well, an easy explanation to this question was the fact that you were a witch. On that possessed extraordinary magic, to be more specific you were a witch doctor. One who was dedicated to healing and creating new medicinal spells.

Currently, you were outside in that forest collecting herbs when you came across a severely injured person. They had grave injuries all over their body and had a nasty head wound across their skull. Whenever you came across an injured animal you would always heal them immediately in order to ensure their survival. This time it was different because they were human. You had to be extra cautious about using your powers in order to not be exposed as a witch. You start to carefully and swiftly carry them towards your cabin.

By the time that you got home, your patient had already lost a liter of blood. You honestly were not sure if they were even gonna survive the night but you quickly got to work on them. Although it took several hours, you managed to stabilize him with the help of your magic and medical tools. Using a spell to clean up the blood, you decide to retire for the night. The operation was a success but you had to heal him little by little to avoid suspicion. Anyways, he should be up by tomorrow, it’s time to get some well deserved rest.

When morning arrived, Yandere! Priest started to stir from his bed. He was currently in a daze, “Where was he? The last thing he remembered was getting beat up. How did he end up here?” A few minutes later, the door opened to reveal you. “Nice to see you awake. I hope you feel better now.” He looks at you with confusion and you quickly explain the situation and how you found him.

“Ah, I see. I can’t exactly remember who attacked me. Is it alright if I stay here for a while until I get better?” Just like that you earned yourself a new servant. He was extremely respectful towards you but had the tendency to linger extremely close to you while you were out in public looking for supplies. While you worked on your medicine, Yandere! Priest took care of all the household chores and acted like your househusband. He was supposed to be devoted to God and live his life in celibacy but here was little by little falling in love with you. No matter what he did, his mind was filled with just thoughts of you and the need to please your every desire. It wasn’t right but it felt so natural. If God was out there listening and witnessing all the deeds he had done for him in his name, then he wouldn’t mind if he fell in love with you right?

As the days went on, you both were living in complete harmony, that was until one day while shopping in town, someone from Yandere! Priest’s village recognized him. This person ended up being Yandere! Priest’s childhood friend who had a crush on him. She was extremely shocked that he was here and she stalked him all the way back to your house. While there she got jealous, the way that he looked and treated you made her green with envy. All her life she had a crush on him and when she finally had the courage to ask him out, he simply stated that he devoured his life to God. Devoted my ass, what kind of priest looks at a person with such tender love and care? She honestly could not believe this. She loved him so much that if she couldn’t have him, then no one could. Which is why she hired a hitman to kill him and why she was so surprised to see him alive. If only that person she hired wasn’t so incompetent.

After some more days of observation, she discovers a disturbing secret from you. It was the fact that you were a WITCH. She could not believe her eyes as she watched you take out your spell book to make a potion. As she was about to go town to tell everyone about this, she ended up tripping which alerted you that she was there. You quickly realized that she discovered your identity and was about to go tell the townspeople. In a flash you immediately took action and teleported to the other end of the forest and rushed to the town.

There, you immediately screamed, “WITCH, EVERYONE I HAVE DISCOVERED A WITCH.” This immediately caught the attention of everyone around and they all started to ask you questions about their appearance. Yandere! Priest was shopping and heard the sound of your voice. He immediately rushed over to you. After you finish giving the description of the girl, she immediately rushes over to the people and starts accusing you. Which you respond with, “She tells lies! I saw her reading and writing! She must be a witch, burn her at the stake!” Okay, so you knew this was morally wrong but it was either you or her. Thanks to your gaslighting and the brain deadness of the people, everyone took your side. It honestly was not that hard to convince them, they do witch burning of people every week because they had the ability to read.

Right now, you are currently watching a woman burn at the stake while she shouts profanities at you. You honestly could not believe that had worked, well at least your butt was saved. However, the more that Yandere! Priest thought about it, the more it made sense that you might actually be a witch. From your mannerism to your way of life, it was all odd. I mean normal people don’t just live in the middle of some random woods. Wait, no, that couldn’t be, you were something greater. For the remainder of his time he made sure to heavily observe you and anything you did. He kept these thoughts to himself until he fully recovered and was expected to leave your house. That was fine, he was willing to leave but not without you by his side. On this day, he hid your spell book to guarantee that you wouldn’t run away. With that he made his way back to his former village to start making preparations for your arrival.

You were frantically searching for your book. Where was it? You definitely couldn’t have misplaced, right? Just then, you hear a knock on the door and Yandere! Priest steps in. “I’m so grateful to see you again, I could bear being away from you. Even if it had only been two hours.” What? Now you were confused, what was he doing here again and what was he talking about? Seeing the confused look on your face he explains, “I’ve come to take you back with me. You see I am a priest and I now know that I was created in order to worship you.” With that he holds up your spell book. “I know what you are, a divine being greater than God. I’ll spend the rest of my day following your every demand. Come, I have already ordered the other priest to prepare your arrival. Let us worship you. You are the only one that can save us from this wretched world, please indulge us with your presence. We’ll make sure your word is law.”

You had such a look of disbelief written on your face. Holy crap did you just accidentally start up a cult?!?! Fuck.

[lawqual1ty]

Heart drawings (Trafalgar Law x GN!Reader)

Pov: After finishing your duties you end up hanging out with Law during his work but end up getting bored which results in you adding a little something to your captain's skin.

Warning: too much fluff (go get some insulin), reader has (implied) ADHD symptoms

You had never been known to be a person that could sit still for long, whether it was moving your leg around or playing with something in your hand you had to always be doing something or else your brain would go insane, which got you to offer your helping hand in a lot of situations once you joined the Heart pirates.

However there would always be days, like today, that there was not much you could do even if you asked to, so you had to stick to reading or studying for the most part after you finished your daily duties.

You were in your room reading a few of the medicine books that your Captain , Trafalgar Law, had generously lent you for your free time, however well... You were struggling... And a lot.

"Wait... What was I reading...?" You grunted, this was the third time in a row you had read the words on the book only to forget seconds later what exactly you had read with great speed. You were getting irritated. You wanted to learn more about how to create different types of medicine so that you could help your crew but your brain was having a hard time concentrating, you rubbed the bridge of your nose with annoyance.

"I need a break..." You muttered as you softly closed the book, a light tap from the cover giving you the signal that you could head off.

You wandered around for a while looking for something to do, many of your crewmates were already hanging out with each other, chatting, drinking and some even helping out to clean the medical bay, you wanted to offer a helping hand in hopes of entertaining your inevitable boredom.

"hey, what are you guys doing?" You asked softly approaching Sachi and Bepo who were cleaning a few medical supplements, the latter turning to look at you.

"Oh, we were just cleaning and sharpening some of our usual tools in case we get an emergency" Bepo tilted his head slightly "Did you need anything Y/N?"

You smiled at the sweet gesture of Bepo, shaking your head slightly at his question "Nope, I was just wondering if you guys needed any help"

Bepo looked over at the different tools placed in display, seeming to think about your question a bit too much before turning to look at you with an apologetic look on his face "Not really... I'm so sorry"

He apologized as usual, his tone shifting to a more melancholic one making you chuckle nervously, you never enjoyed seeing him like this but he was just so sweet that you understood where this attitude of his came from, you shook your hands in front of you in a way of excusing yourself, almost as if the one that had to be apologizing should be you "No no it's okay, no need to apologize Bepo..." His eyes lit up with relief as you didn't seem mad at him for rejecting your help, it made you feel relieved yourself.

You sighed deeply with a soft smile "Anyway, good luck you too" Sachi smiled at you warmly as well as Bepo

"Thank you! We'll make sure that everything is right! Oh..." You were about to leave when Sachi's words seemed to try and stop you in your tracks "If you go see the captain tell him we are lacking some oxygen tanks".

Your eyes widened at his words, why did he think you were going to see the captain? Out of shock you just nodded with a soft but shy smile "Sure thing, I'll make sure to inform him once I see him" with those last words you waved at the duo and walked away.

A sigh escaped your lips as you kept walking, you didn't originally intend to see your Captain but now thanks to Sachi and Bepo you sort of had an excuse... Right? You made your way through the cold but oddly comforting halls of the Polar Tang, you had not been here for long but these halls had definitely grown on you... Maybe they weren't the best looking but the people around them made it feel like a home to you.

You finally arrived at the office door of your captain, you were a tad bit nervous to interrupt him but... You had a job to do so you might as well shake that nervousness off and knock, which you did.

"Come in..." A light husky voice invited you inside, you breathed softly.

"Please excuse me..." You muttered before placing your hand in the door handle and opened it, a light creak welcoming you inside to the sight of your captain with big eyebags under his eyes as he drowned in paperwork, he didn't even raise his eyesight to acknowledge you "Yes? What is it Y/N-ya?".

You took a deep breath before speaking.

"Sachi informed me that we are short of oxygen tanks"

"Oh right... Write it down on the paper list and we'll get some more on the next island..."

He didn't even budge, and honestly neither did you... You knew that after this interaction you wouldn't have much to do later which made you a bit sad... So you just stood there, staring at your captain for a bit. He seemed to notice it, after all an exasperated sigh escaped his lips, his grey eyes slowly rising to look at you with a piercing cold gaze "Anything else?" He spoke, cold and firmly, questioning why you were still there in the first place... That should have been the end of your interaction, informing him was the only reason you came in there after all, right? Then why didn't you respond...? Your mind started racing...

"Captain..." Before you were fully aware of your actions you took a step forward and spoke "Do you... Mind if I stay for a bit?"

You caught a glimpse of surprise in your Captain's eyes, those grey spheres seeming to warm up for a moment at your offer. But just as quickly as it appeared it went away only for his attention to shift back to his paperwork.

"I... I'm sorry..." You were quick to apologize, your voice wavering ever so slightly

"I didn't mean to--"

"Go on."

You froze "What...?"

"I said you can stay..."

His words snapped you back to reality, he was... Allowing you to stay, you had no space for words, you just nodded and moved a chair over next to his desk taking a seat politely next to him as he kept on working.

He didn't budge at all, if anything it seemed like his concentration increased thanks to your presence, the mere idea made you happy as you sat there next to him.

Unfortunately you started getting bored once more, as thrilling as it was watching your captain work through his paperwork with graze, not budging at all, it had gotten boring after a few minutes.

You started looking around finding yourself with a pen, you softly took it into your hands and started fiddling with it... Suddenly, an idea sparked in your brain. You took the cap off it and started scribbling in your hand, trying to see if the pen was smooth enough to draw on your soft skin, you smiled brightly once you confirmed your suspicions: it was a good pen and it drew a perfect black ray on your skin with ease.

Once you discovered this you started drawing on your hands, starting off with a skeletal hand to practice the location of different bones in the hand to less professional stuff like hearts and small animals. You were entertained by your own scribbles when all of a sudden you were interrupted by Law grunting and leaning backwards on his chair.

He had his left arm laid across the chair, his tattooed hand dangling in the air, while his right arm stroked his face with obvious frustration. You stared at him then back at the pen you were holding, slowly but steadily a smirk formed on your lips.

Without a warning you scooted closer to your Captain, he didn't even realize you were closer to him until he felt your hands take a hold of his left arm, he flinched but didn't move his arm at all... They say curiosity killed the cat ... And curiosity had definitely gotten to him as he looked at you take his arm with your hand and start passing the pen around his skin in delicate but firm traces.

"What are you doing?" He questioned with a furrowed expression

"Drawing" you spoke bluntly as you focused on the piece of art that you were doing in his arm "I got bored..."

Your response caught him off guard, his eyes wide as he stared at you for a bit. A small smile formed on his lips "I need to check your medical record..."

His soft tone was like a way of signaling you something...of what he really meant: he didn't mind you drawing on him... You looked over at him for a moment only to smile and return to your drawing, you didn't know much what you were doing you just followed your heart as you scribbled. Slowly but steadily the drawing took form into a star surrounded by wavy lines that formed what almost looked like a tattoo design, you even went out of your way to draw small hearts, a secret confession of your feelings to your Captain (not that he would notice... Right?) You leaned back with a satisfied smile as you looked at your work, you looked over at Law who seemed entranced into one of his books, he hadn't budged during your whole art process. Once you leaned back he hummed softly, his eyes never leaving his book at all "You done?" He asked politely, you nodded.

"Yeah I did!"

"Good... My arm was starting to fall asleep..."

You couldn't help but laugh at his snarky comment "At least you now got another cool tattoo"

He huffed with a slight smirk "Doubt it..." You acted offended at his words giving him a light push on his shoulder winning a soft laugh from him.

"You haven't even seen it!"

"I don't need to..."

"Oh come on... You have seen my drawings!"

A soft chuckle was the only response you got, it made you smile, although he acted as if he probably didn't like it you knew that he did... Or that's what you'd like to believe...

And trust me he did...

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

A few days after the drawing incident you were wandering around the Polar Tang heading to the kitchen to get something to eat as you were pretty hungry.

You waltzed around when a characteristic husky voice caught your attention in an instant, it came from the kitchen. Following the voice you peaked through the door finding your captain talking with Penguin about something you didn't quite catch, all you knew was that it was something serious judging by Law's and Penguin's expression.

You stood there for a bit waiting for the right moment to enter when all of a sudden you noticed a small detail on your Captain's left arm, your eyes widened and your cheeks flushed a light pink...

What did you see?

Well, you saw your drawing tattooed onto his arm... That was the only reasonable explanation as to why it still looked so bright and vivid, after all a few days had passed since you did it and unless Law had taken extreme care of it it should have already been at least a little bit vanished, just like the drawings you did on your own skin from that same day.

Penguin was walking away once he had finished speaking to Law, which was your signal to pounce.

You slowly made your way towards Law catching his attention once you were hovering behind him, he glanced at him over his shoulder "Y/N-ya...?"

His question was left in the air once you took his left arm rising it to your face, much to his surprise, you scanned the drawing carefully confirming your suspicions: he had indeed tattooed it onto his skin. You turned to look to a flustered Law with a bright smile.

"You actually tattooed my drawing?!" You asked in both surprise and excitement, Law covered his face with his hand, a blush creeping its way to his cheeks in an instant

"Shut up..."

You laughed.

Maybe you should draw on him more often when you get bored...

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-free version

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, what began as a fringe experiment has quickly become central to the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness. To Justin Tyler Jr., it is home.

Mr. Tyler, 41, lives in Community First! Village, which aims to be a model of permanent affordable housing for people who are chronically homeless. In the fall of 2022, he joined nearly 400 residents of the village, moving into one of its typical digs: a 200-square-foot, one-room tiny house furnished with a kitchenette, a bed and a recliner.

The village is a self-contained, 51-acre community in a sparsely populated area just outside Austin. Stepping onto its grounds feels like entering another realm.

Eclectic tiny homes are clustered around shared outdoor kitchens, and neat rows of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes line looping cul-de-sacs.

There are chicken coops, two vegetable gardens, a convenience store, art and jewelry studios, a medical clinic and a chapel.

Roads run throughout, but residents mainly get around on foot or on an eight-passenger golf cart that makes regular stops around the property.

Mr. Tyler chose a home with a cobalt-blue door and a small patio in the oldest part of the village, where residents’ cactus and rock gardens created a “funky, hippie vibe” that appealed to him. He arrived in rough shape, struggling with alcoholism, his feet inflamed by gout, with severe back pain from nearly 10 years of sleeping in public parks, in vehicles and on street benches.

At first, he kept to himself. He locked his door and slept. He visited the clinic and started taking medication. After a month or so, he ventured out to meet his neighbors.

“For a while there, I just didn’t want to be seen and known,” he said. “Now I prefer it.”

Between communal meals and movie screenings, Mr. Tyler also works at the village, preparing homes for the dozen or more people who move there each month.

In the next few years, Community First is poised to grow to nearly 2,000 homes across three locations, which would make it by far the nation’s largest project of this kind, big enough to permanently house about half of Austin’s chronically homeless population.

Tiny-home villages for people who have been homeless have existed on a small scale for several decades, but have recently become a popular approach to addressing surging homelessness. Since 2019, the number of these villages across the country has nearly quadrupled, to 124 from 34, with dozens more coming, according to a census by Yetimoni Kpeebi, a researcher at Missouri State University.

Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant who has helped cities like Houston transform their homelessness systems, said the growth of these villages reflects a need to replace inexpensive housing that was once widely available in the form of mobile home parks and single room occupancy units, and is rapidly being lost. But she said they are a highly imperfect solution.

“I think where we’re challenged is that ‘tiny home’ has taken on a spectrum of definitions,” said Chapman Semple. Many of those definitions fall short of housing standards, often lacking basic amenities like heat and indoor plumbing, which she said limits their ability to meet the needs of the population they intend to serve.

But Community First is pushing the tiny home model to a much larger scale. While most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens, its leaders see that as a necessary trade-off to be able to creatively and affordably house the growing number of people living on Austin’s streets. And unlike most other villages, many of which provide temporary emergency shelter in structures that can resemble tool sheds, Community First has been thoughtfully designed with homey spaces where people with some of the highest needs can stay for good. No other tiny home village has attempted to permanently house as many people.

Austin’s homelessness rate has been rapidly worsening, and the city’s response has whipped back and forth... In October [2023], the official estimate put the number of people living without shelter at 5,530, a 125 percent increase from two years earlier. Some of that rise is the result of better outreach, but officials acknowledged that more people have become homeless. City leaders vowed to build more housing, but that effort has been slowed by construction delays and resistance from residents.

Meanwhile, outside the city limits, Community First has been building fast. [Note from below the read more: It's outside city limits because the lack of zoning laws keeps more well-off Austin residents from blocking the project, as they did earlier attempts to build inside the city.] In a mere eight years, this once-modest project has grown into a sprawling community that the city is turning to as a desperately needed source of affordable housing. The village has now drawn hundreds of millions of dollars from public and private sources and given rise to similar initiatives across the country.

This rapid growth has come despite significant challenges. And some question whether a community on the outskirts of town with relaxed housing standards is a suitable way to meet the needs of people coming out of chronic homelessness. The next few years will be a test of whether these issues will be addressed or amplified as the village expands to five times its current size.

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024. Article continues below (at length!)

The community versus Community First

For Alan Graham, the expansion of Community First is just the latest stage in a long-evolving project. In the late 1990s, Mr. Graham, then a real estate developer, attended a Catholic men’s retreat that deepened his faith and inspired him to get more involved with his church. Soon after, he began delivering meals as a church volunteer to people living on Austin’s streets.

In 1998, Mr. Graham, now 67, became a founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that has since amassed a fleet of vehicles that make daily rounds to deliver food and clothing to Austin’s homeless...

Talking to people like Mr. Johnston [a homeless Austin resident who Graham had befriended], Mr. Graham came to feel that housing alone was not enough for people who had been chronically homeless, the official term for those who have been homeless for years or repeatedly and have physical or mental disabilities, including substance-use disorders. About a third of the homeless population fits this description, and they are often estranged from family and other networks.

In 2006, Mr. Graham pitched an idea to Austin’s mayor: Create an R.V. park for people coming out of chronic homelessness. It would have about 150 homes, supportive services and easy access to public transportation. Most importantly, it would help to replace the “profound, catastrophic loss of family” he believed was at the root of the problem with a close-knit and supportive community.

The City Council voted unanimously in 2008 to lease Mr. Graham a 17-acre plot of city-owned land to make his vision a reality. Getting the council members on board, he said, turned out to be the easy part.

When residents near the intended site learned of the plan, they were outraged. They feared the development would reduce their property values and invite crime. One meeting to discuss the plan with the neighborhood grew so heated that Mr. Graham was escorted to his car by the police. Not a single one of the 52 community members in attendance voted in favor of the project.

After plans for the city-owned lot fell apart and other proposed locations faced similar resistance, Mr. Graham gave up on trying to build the development within city limits.

In 2012, he instead acquired a plot of land in a part of Travis County just northeast of Austin. It was far from public transportation and other services, but it had one big advantage: The county’s lack of zoning laws limited the power of neighbors to stop it.

Mr. Graham raised $20 million and began to build. In late 2015, Mr. Johnston left the R.V. park he had been living in and became the second person to move into the new village. It grew rapidly. In just two years, Mr. Graham bought an adjacent property, nearly doubling the village’s size to 51 acres and making room for hundreds more residents.

And then in the fall of 2022, he broke ground on the largest expansion yet: Adding two more sites to the village, expanding it by 127 acres to include nearly 2,000 homes.

“No one ever really did what they first did, and no one’s ever done what they’re about to do,” said Mark Hilbelink, the director of Sunrise Navigation Center, Austin’s largest homeless-services provider. “So there’s a little bit of excitement but also probably a little bit of trepidation about, ‘How do we do this right?’”

What it takes to make a village

Since he moved into Community First eight years ago, Mr. Johnston has found the stability that eluded him for so long. Most mornings, he wakes up early in his R.V., feeds his scruffy adopted terrier, Amos, and walks a few minutes down a quiet road to the village garden, where neat rows of carrots, leeks, beets and arugula await his attention.

Mr. Johnston worked in fast-food restaurants for most of his life, but he learned how to garden at the village. He now works full time cultivating produce for a weekly market that is free to residents.

“Once I got here, I said, This is where I’m going to spend pretty much my entire life now,” Mr. Johnston said.

Everyone at the village pays rent, which averages about $385 a month. The tiny homes that make up two-thirds of the dwellings go for slightly lower, but have no indoor plumbing; their residents use communal bathhouses and kitchens. The rest of the units are R.V.s and manufactured homes with their own bathrooms and kitchens.

Like Mr. Johnston, many residents have jobs in the village, created to offer residents flexible opportunities to earn some income. Last year, they earned a combined $1.5 million working as gardeners, landscapers, custodians, artists, jewelry makers and more, paid out by Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Ute Dittemer, 66, faced a daily struggle for survival during a decade on the streets before moving into Community First five years ago with her husband. Now she supports herself by painting and molding figures out of clay at the village art house, augmented by her husband’s $800 monthly retirement income. A few years ago, a clay chess set she made sold for $10,000 at an auction. She used the money to buy her first car.

“I’m glad that we are not in a low-income-housing apartment complex,” she said. “We’ve got all this green out here, air to breathe.”

A small number of residents have jobs off-site, and a city bus makes hourly stops at the village 13 times a day to help people commute into town.

But about four out of five residents live on government benefits like disability or Social Security. Their incomes average $900 a month, making even tiny homes impossible to afford without help, Mr. Graham said.

“Essentially 100 percent of the people that move into this village will have to be subsidized for the rest of their lives,” he said.

For about $25,000 a year, Mr. Graham’s organization subsidizes one person’s housing at the village. (Services like primary health care and addiction counseling are provided by other organizations.) So far, that has been paid for entirely by private donations and in small part from collecting rent.

This would not be possible, Mr. Graham said, without a highly successful fund-raising operation that taps big Austin philanthropists. To build the next two expansions, Mr. Graham set a $225 million fund-raising goal, about $150 million of which has already been obtained from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the founder of the Patrón Spirits Company, Hill Country Bible Church and others.

Support goes beyond monetary donations. A large land grant came from the philanthropic arm of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Alamo Drafthouse, an Austin-based cinema chain, donated an outdoor amphitheater for movie screenings. Top architectural firms competed for the chance to design energy-efficient tiny homes free of charge. And every week, hundreds of volunteers come to help with landscaping and gardening or to serve free meals.

Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as “missionals” — unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community.

All missionals undergo a monthslong “discernment process” before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an “M” in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.

“Missionals are our guardian angels,” said Blair Racine, a 69-year-old resident with a white beard that hangs to his chest. “They’re people we can always call. They’re always there for us.”

After moving into the village in 2018, Mr. Racine spent two years isolated in his R.V. because of a painful eye condition. But after an effective treatment, he became so social that he was nicknamed the Mayor. Missional residents drive him to get his medication once a week, he said. To their children he is Uncle Blair.

Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of “core values” that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.

Mr. Graham lives in a 399-square-foot manufactured home in the middle of the village with his wife, Tricia Graham, who works as the community’s “head of neighbor care.” He said they do not have any illusions about solving the underlying mental-health and substance-use problems many residents live with, and that is not their goal.

“This is absolutely not nirvana,” Mr. Graham said. “And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.” ...

From an experiment to a model

Community First has already inspired spinoffs, with some tweaks. In 2018, Nate Schlueter, who previously worked with the village’s jobs program, opened Eden Village in his hometown, Springfield, Mo. Unlike in Community First, every home in Eden Village is identical and has its own bathroom and kitchen. Mr. Schlueter’s model has spread to 12 different cities with every village limited to 50 homes or fewer.

“Not every city is Austin, Texas,” Mr. Schlueter said. “We don’t want to build a large-scale village. And if the root cause of homelessness is a loss of family, and community is something that can duplicate that safety net to some extent, to have smaller villages to me seemed like a stronger community safety net. Everybody would know each other.”

The rapid growth of Community First has challenged that ideal. In recent years, some of the original missional residents and staff members have left, finding it harder to support the number of people moving into the village. Steven Hebbard, who lived and worked at the village since its inception, left in 2019 when he said it shifted from a “tiny-town dynamic” where he knew everyone’s name to something that felt more like a city, straining the supportive culture that helped people succeed.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes said more staff members had recently been hired to help new residents adjust, but Mr. Graham noted that there was a limit to what any housing provider could do without violating people’s privacy and autonomy.

Despite these concerns, the organization, which had been run entirely on private money, has recently drawn public support. In January 2023, Travis County gave Mobile Loaves and Fishes $35 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build 640 units as part of its expansion.

Then four months later came a significant surprise: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes. This will make running the village much more financially sustainable, Mr. Graham said, and may make it a more replicable blueprint for other places.

“That’s a big deal for us, and it’s a big deal on a national basis,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s a recognition that this model, managed the way that this model is, has a role in the system.”

Usually, the government considers homes without indoor plumbing to be substandard, but, in this case, it made an exception by applying the housing standards it uses for single-room-occupancy units. The village still did not meet the required ratio of bathrooms per person, but at the request of Travis County and the City of Austin’s housing officials, who cited Austin’s “severe lack of affordable housing” that made it impossible for some homeless people with vouchers to find anywhere else to live, HUD waived its usual requirements.

In the waiver, a HUD staffer wrote that Mr. Graham told HUD officials over the phone that the proportion of in-unit bathrooms “has not been an issue.” But in conversations with The Times, other homeless-service providers in Austin and some village residents said the lack of in-unit bathrooms is one of the biggest problems people have with living there. It also makes the villages less accessible to people with certain disabilities and health issues that are relatively common among the chronically homeless....

Mr. Graham said that with a doctor’s note, people could secure an R.V. or manufactured home at the village, although those are in short supply and have a long waiting list. He said the village’s use of tiny homes allowed them to build at a fraction of the usual cost when few other options existed, and helps ensure residents aren’t isolated in their units, reinforcing the village’s communal ethos.

“If somebody wants to live in a tiny home they ought to have the choice,” Mr. Graham said, “and if they are poor we ought to respect their civil right to live in that place and be subsidized to live there.” But he conceded that for some people, “this might not be the model.”

“Nobody can be everything for everyone,” he said.

By the spring of 2025, Mr. Graham hopes to begin moving people into the next phase of the village, across the street from the current property. The darker visions some once predicted of an impoverished community on the outskirts of town overtaken by drugs and violence have not come to pass. Instead, the village has permanently housed hundreds of people and earned the approval and financial backing of the city, the county and the federal government. But for the model to truly meet the scale of the challenge in Austin and beyond, Chapman Semple said, the compromises that led to Community First in its current incarnation will have to be reckoned with.

“We can build smaller villages that can be fully integrated into the community, that can have access to amenities within the community that we all need to live, including jobs and groceries,” Chapman Semple said. “If it’s a wonderful model then we should be embracing and fighting for its inclusion within our community.”

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024

[kalki-tarot]

Guidance from the universe you need right now. 🪷

Timeless pick a pile reading. ✨️

Disclaimer : tarot is not 100% accurate. This reading is just of entertainment purposes. I'm not responsible for any decision(s) you make on behalf of my readings. Your life is in your own hands. Tarot is just a tool for guidance and doesn't replace medical or professional treatment. It's not set in stone, you are the creator of your own destiny.

Reading will be specific so take what resonates and leave the rest ✨️

Pile 1

If you are feeling stuck or stagnant, go meet your friends. Get out of your house and try to have new experiences.

Your life would be in this unstable and juggling energy until you make a strong decision. Leave behind your indecisiveness and be practical.

Let go of control, be like a river, flowing freely and accepting whatever comes it's way, good or bad. This is how life works. You fears are self imposed. They don't exist in reality, break the wall you surround yourself with.

Don't worry about losing anything. You're going to be blessed with abundance and clarity soon. You're delaying and blocking your own happiness by doing so.

Divine wants to play their role in your life. Let divine intervention take place, be receptive emotionally. That ultimate wish of yours will get fulfilled. You're gonna meet someone new. You'll have an emotional connection with them, most probably a romantic connection.

For some of you, your divine union is about to take place. You'll meet your divine counterpart. Cycles have ended. Libra sign may be significant. This union will bring balance into your life. Everything will feel at their right place. Trust divine timing. Your life will be just like you've imagined.

Please leave feedback in the comments 🙏🏽

Pile 2

Someone in your friend group or workplace is probably lying to you. Beware of them and don't believe their lies, don't get manipulated by them.

Many new opportunities are coming your way, overseas travel and new job opportunities may be significant.

Universe is telling you that your hardwork will pay off. You'll reap the fruits of your hard work soon.

A female can mess up your love relationship. This female can be a clingy water sign who needs constant reassurance from people. You need not focus on her. Just focus on your relationship and don't let her get into this. They can appear sweet and caring from outside but they are heartbroken and wants to ruin things.

If you're looking for a job, or if you're facing unstablity in career then things will start to get into proper alignment. Just do your work without thinking of the results.

Things are about to change! You are expanding yourself through study, business enterprise or travel. The energy is that You are becoming more aware of the opportunities that surround you. So grab them on time! It's a great chance for you.

Please leave feedback in the comments 🙏🏽

Pile 3

It'll end. The situation that you're going through will end. It's over, you've had enough. Now peace and prosperity will come into your life. All the things you've given to others will come back to you. Your inner conflict will come to peace. Things are calming down for you. Some of you may get anxious thinking about these things. But trust me, now things are changing.

If someone robbed you or took away your money, karma is working in your favour. They'll get punished for what they did.

I see a traditional couple here. Some of you could be married or into a relationship. If yes, then I see a negative energy affecting your relationship. Can be a third party, addiction or toxic personality etc. That will affect this.

The message is clear, if things get out of hands, move forward. That is human nature, to change. Those who stay stuck eventually experience the consequences of not adapting. You have a lot of new options in love. Look around.

There can be a masculine energy near you who wants things to turn out great romantically with you. They can be an influential and strong individual. They can be from your childhood or a place from childhood.

Don't forget your power. You are really powerful and self sufficient. You can earn bread and money for yourself. You are highly intuitive and wise. Use your gifts, pile 3. You are blessed from the universe. You can be an empath or someone who reads other's emotions perfectly. You are a star. Don't forget that!

Please leave feedback in the comments 🙏🏽

[ecoterrorist-katara]

I have been thinking a lot about blood bending lately and why the writers decided to go with the storyline of it being banned. I personally do not think it should have been. Like any bending form it can be used for awful things or it could be used for great things (my first thought is always in a medical sense but I’m sure there are other uses). And then I started to wonder if part of why they did that is bc that storyline was connected to Katara more than anyone else, and maybe this was a way to sideline her/focus more on Korra and the new gang instead of exploring with the older characters along with the new ones. But I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it!

hi anon! Sorry for getting to your ask a little late. I was at music camp (okay it’s a professional development program for musicians but I think of it as music camp in an effort to remind myself to have fun) and it was a big challenge since I’m chronically ill and needed a whole apothecary of meds to get through it. (I’m fine now! But needed to pace very carefully before & after and therefore stayed away from Tumblr)

It’s absolutely weird to me that bloodbending is singled out in a world where people can literally steal breath from one’s lungs, but it’s even weirder to me that they had a whole “ban bloodbending” storyline and sidelined Katara, because like…in what world would Katara feel strongly enough about bloodbending to ban it, yet do nothing to enforce the ban? The only explanation that makes sense is that she banned it because she was so ashamed, and stayed away from all the stuff around Yakone et al because she couldn’t bear to be reminded of what she’d done. And like all interpretations of canon Katara in LOK, that is just horribly heartbreaking.

I don’t begrudge the creators for wanting LOK to be about the new generation and I don’t mind seeing the Gaang play second fiddle. But I do object to the creators putting Katara in these situations where she could something in her wheelhouse, that’s in-character with her skills and ambitions, that is in line with her cultural impact as a role model for girls…and then sidelining her. Yakone is a big example, obviously, but so is Katara’s lack of involvement in the Civil War, the Red Lotus kidnapping, etc.

Like you said, bloodbending is useful in terms of the medical implications, but I also think it’s a humane tool in battle as long as it’s only used to incapacitate and not control. I can’t think of many better ways of incapacitating an enemy without causing serious damage (it’s even more efficient than chi-blocking!). If a bloodbender can stop encroaching enemies in their tracks with a flick of their wrist — well, that actually seems more humane than freezing them into ice cubes, which is the go-to waterbender move. I mean, Katara stops Hama with bloodbending in The Puppetmaster; she doesn’t actually control Hama with it. It’s terrible to override people’s bodily autonomy and make them do things they don’t want to do, but that is a very specific use of bloodbending.

I do think, though, that Katara is not the type of person to recognize all the other potential uses of bloodbending unless someone prompts her, and unfortunately that person is not going to be Aang. It doesn’t help that Katara’s first experience with bloodbending is being stripped of her own agency; similarly, it becomes her go-to weapon when she encounters (she thinks) the person who made her feel the most powerless in her life. To Katara, bloodbending is about taking power from someone else…and on her own, she’s not likely to see other applications. Katara is an excellent fighter with a lot of raw power, finesse, and creativity, but she’s not actually all that in-tune with her element, and I think that’s another reason she was never very interested in healing in canon (Katara and waterbending could be a whole other meta). Katara would’ve been an equally excellent bender no matter which element she wields, unlike Toph and Aang, who are uniquely suited to their elements. Katara borrows a lot from the more aggressive forms of bending (fire and earth): grabs people with water tentacles, hits them with ice disks, overwhelms them with big waves. For all that waterbending is about going with the flow and using the opponent’s strengths against them, Katara doesn’t exactly exemplify that philosophy (unlike Aang, btw, who is more intuitive as a waterbender than she is; that is why he picked it up more quickly at the beginning). She addresses all her problems head-on and is more likely to meet them with raw power than anything else. If I were to guess her astrological placements, she’d be an Aries Mars, minimum, if not an Aries Sun as well (she’d be a Cancer Moon though…I have Thoughts on ATLA astrology lmao).

Anyway, all this to say: I don’t think Katara would’ve thought of the healing implications of bloodbending on her own, when she’s already been traumatized by it, and that’s pretty tragic tbh. I like the Zutara interpretation of Zuko inspiring Katara to think there are other uses for bloodbending (as a wielder of a potentially destructive element), but I think Toph could’ve had a conversation with her about other uses for bloodbending as well, since Toph is really creative with earth. Actually, I think Zuko or Toph or Sokka could’ve all had a conversation with Katara about coming to terms about doing things that one is not proud of & moving past them, but I guess Katara can only follow the rigid moral code of her Do No Wrong boyfriend. Anyway, LOK’s despicable treatment of ATLA’s female characters is nothing new, but Katara’s is the most obvious and egregious because she’s actually there. We have no idea what happened to Suki or Azula or Mai or Ty Lee, and what we do see from Toph is not great either (in what world would she retire to be lonely in a swamp when having her friends meant the world to her…). All the boys got to have cool fulfilling lives and all the girls who aren’t lost to history are sad sacks, thanks Bryke! On a non-sarcastic note, thank you anon for such an interesting question!

[nsharks]

bleeding blue | apocalypse au

part nine —other parts

pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader words: 3.2k tags: death. blood. zombies of course. reader menstruates. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn't here yet. slow burn!!! enemies to lovers. summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival. a/n: no comment

The beam gave a nasty cut to your hand.

Tetanus, blood, infections— more threats.

You sit on a rock by the river to fix it up. Before you can dab on the hydrogen peroxide from your new med kit, Blue insists on doing it for you— soft fingertips against your broken skin. She is by far a gentler nurse than her father. You focus on her pink cheeks and scrunched nose as she concentrates. It helps you ignore the sting.

"You scared the shit out of me for a second there, Twix.”

"Sorry. I guess I need to work on my balance."

She gives a stilted laugh. The gauze comes next, just a thin layer since the bleeding has already stopped.

"Thanks for asking him to help me," you add in a whisper. You smile. "I don't think I've ever had a friend save my life so many times."

Blue cuts the gauze and begins tying it off. "I didn't actually have to ask him this time, you know. Like I said, he doesn’t hate you.”

You glance to where Ghost has taken the short break to lean against a tree and drink some water, pale jaw and pink lips exposed. An actual human hides under all that gear and horrifying mask. It annoys you that he doesn't just take it off.

You look back at her, eyes rolling. “You're lying."

She closes the med kit and shrugs. “Friends don't lie."

The afternoon sun bleeds white light over your cheeks as the three of you keep walking. Just meters away from the river, Ghost points out a small cabin. One that hunters used back in the day, you bet. He says it could be a good place to stay for the night. The scent of the rushing water nearby should do some to mask your human scent.

Rolling hills take place of the trees. To the west, you can see the faint outline of mountains dipped in white snow. Well, as much of mountains as you can find in England. They are not nearly as tall as the ones your parents used to take you skiing to in France.

You grow quiet and let Blue do all the talking. Maybe you are embarrassed after almost falling into the river.

Just when she asks - How much further? - something strange pops up in the distance. White medical tents— well, you assume they were once white. They are now torn and grey, with some blue crates beneath them. Confusion swells in your chest and you can't help but speak up.

"Why is this all here?" you ask, your boots stepping over some stray medical tools. Scalpels, tweezers, and syringes. Pressed into the rich earth like fossils. You would pick them up if they weren't rusted past the point of being useful.

"I don't know," Blue answers. "Ghost?"

"Emergency medical camp the military set up," he says. 

"After shit happened?" she asks.

He gives a curt nod as he looks around at the remnants. "Those that were left were tryin' to help survivors in the first few days. Didn't last long, though."

"Is that what your friends were doing after you ditched them?"

"Told you, kid. They weren't my friends."

"Alright, teammates. Whatever. Were they helping with injured people here?" she asks curiously.

"A few of them were.”

Blue looks at you. "Twix, did I ever tell you about that?"

"Um. About what?"

"Well, Ghost was supposed to be working when shit happened," she raises her brows and juts a thumb at him. "But he snuck away from his post to get all our stuff and come find me and my mum."

You swallow at the mention of her mom and avoid looking at Ghost. "Snuck away?"

"Yeah," she nods, "It's called dessert."

"Desertion," he gruffly corrects her.

"What?" you ask.

"He abandoned his assignment," she explains. "But he always says he would do it again if he had to. Anyway, he used to talk to his teammates on his radio to see how they were and stuff— what was happening. But then they got too far away for it to work."

Of course Ghost had a radio.

Paul had one, too. You can remember huddling around that radio like it was a mouthpiece for some god. The static grew choppier and choppier over the first few days. The channels dwindled. Eventually, it stopped working altogether and you didn't learn much about what happened in the outside world. You did learn that London was one of the quickest cities to succumb to the infection. Then, Paris, Bangkok, and Chicago.

Everywhere.

You process the new information as you keep walking through the tents, peering into some opened crates to see if anything is left— nothing is.

Now you know Ghost left his post when he found out about the virus. He stocked up on supplies and then got Blue and her mom. By the way Blue mentions her, it must be an old loss. How long did her mother survive with them, then? Did she use to live in the cabin with them?

You don’t know why your stomach grows tight, but the questions in your brain fade once the military base comes into view.

"Finally," Blue sighs rather dramatically.

A high, chain-link fence surrounds the place. There are a few buildings and some abandoned vehicles that look like jeeps. The fence has multiple gaps cut into it so climbing is unnecessary. Ghost leads the way. You continue sniffing the air. With your bandaged hand, you keep your bow poised and subconsciously walk closer to their footsteps. 

Ghost takes you to the main building in the center. The British flag flutters beside it on a pole, faded and as meaningless as the one sewn on Ghost’s bicep.

"Are we going through the barracks again this time?" Blue perks up.

"We have to go through 'em to get to the armory,” he says.

"Cool. There might be some good shit left behind."

There isn't much good shit, actually.

You don't know what the other military base they went to was like, but this one is unsettling and seems to be ransacked. Sunlight pours in through the shattered windows. Scattered papers and strewn bones decorate the tile floors. Thick cobwebs hang in the corners.

As you walk through the hallway of old dorms, Blue and Ghost stop looking in them after the first four turn out to contain only tipped-over cots, walls smeared with old blood, and even a few scampering vermin that make her yelp and grab hold of Ghost's arm.

He grows stiffer than usual. You don’t have to pry off the skull mask to know what he is thinking. Ghost is not the only person who thought of coming here. If these rooms are mostly empty, then what is left in the armory?

Still, you check out a few more of them on your own as they walk up ahead. You rummage through closets and drawers. You find three pairs of men's socks. More useful than one might think.

In one room, you kneel down by the unkempt cot to dig a black backpack out from under it. You can’t believe that Ghost, as big as he is, ever slept on these things. The backpack’s zipper catches as you try to open it, the metal teeth rusted, so you cut a hole in the fabric with your knife. Inside, you find another military-grade knife to add to your arsenal and some wrapped ready-to-eats.

When you check the closet, the sight of a full skeleton causes you to jump back in a startled step, a few rats running out between your boots.

"Oh, fuck," you mutter, noticing a bullet hole in the skull. A handgun lies beside the body, but you discover the magazine to be empty. Whatever bullet it once had was likely spent on this person's suicide. You stick it in your bag, anyway. A preserved uniform hangs loose on the bones. There is a mouth-sized tear in the forearm of the right sleeve, fitting for a bite. In the breast pocket, a silver chain spills out. Curiously, you grab it. A dog tag with an engraved name catches the light. John MacTavish. You run a thumb over the letters.

“Sorry, John.”

You decide to respectfully put it back in the pocket, and head out, satisfied enough with your modest finds. It’s not like you own as much as Ghost does. You leave the room and run to catch back up with them.

"You okay? Find anything?" Blue asks.

"Not much," you quietly admit. "A knife and some new socks."

"Finally. Your old ones are starting to stink," she remarks with a playful smirk.

You scrunch your nose at her, making a face. “Gee, thanks."

She returns the teasing gesture just before Ghost’s arm ushers her behind him.

The moment he does, your guard rises back up. You slap an arrow onto your bow. You smell them before you see them. Four - no, five - drag out of opened doorways up ahead along with a cacophony of whistled moans. Most are still dressed in the same military uniforms as the skeleton you found. One isn't wearing anything at all. It’s disgusting.

Ghost doesn't bother to let Blue practice this time.

He shoots the faster, fresher one first as it runs up to them. For the slower ones, he saves his ammo and opts for the axe. The sight of him effortlessly striking their skulls is almost enough to distract you. Almost. Your fingers release the string and send a headshot to the last one. It is a perfect shot. An arrow straight through the milky-white eye. One of your best.

You meet his eyes just as he slips the axe back to his waist, shooting him a raised brow. The two of you hold an awkwardly long stare-off. Though you loathe to admit it, you hope for some type of approval - for once - but all he gives is a short nod.

Blue retrieves the arrow for you and you tuck it back into your quiver.

"Great aim, Twix," she quips. "Where did you learn how to use your bow?"

"My old friend taught me a bit," you say as the three of you step over the fallen corpses.

"What was his name again?"

"Paul."

"Oh, right." She pauses, and then: "Were you having sex with him?"

"Jesus Christ, kid," Ghost says.

"What?" She peers up at him.

Before he can say anything else, you answer with a light flush crawling up your neck, “No, I wasn’t. He was just my friend.”

The three of you make it to the armory.

The aluminum door is already parted open. Ghost clicks on a flashlight and gives the room a quick sweep of fluorescent light before entering.

A number of pried-open crates and olive-green cabinets litter the inside. Drawers hang open like a tornado ripped through. A few stray rifles lay scattered on the floor. Ghost picks up each one and checks for cartridges. Empty. Each rifle is thrown back on the floor with more force than the previous. He needs more ammo, not more guns.

Whatever was in this armory is gone. This truth hangs heavy in the air. The mood shifts. Blue doesn’t talk. Billows of growing frustration roll off Ghost's body as he continues to search through every crevice and every drawer for almost an hour.

You know what he is feeling, even if he half-expected this.

It is a feeling that made you cry in the empty pharmacy. For Ghost, it ends up driving a clenched fist into one of the cabinets, dented metal left in its wake. He swears explosively. Another shudder runs through your spine, stealing your breath, but it feels far different from the one his soft voice invited.

"Is there... is there anywhere else we can check, Dad?" Blue speaks up softly. “Maybe in all those cars outside?”

He takes a moment to breathe before answering. "We don't have time to check ‘em all.”

“Well, maybe we could come back in the morning and look a bit more?”

“Maybe,” he says, but you read the tone in his voice. It is unlikely there is ammo left in the vehicles, and even if there is, it is definitely not as much as he was hoping to have found in here.

Before leaving, he stuffs one of the rifles in his backpack. An uncomfortable silence consumes the journey back through the hall.

You make it outside again. The afternoon has aged. You need to get back to that hunting cabin by the river before the threat of dark.

Ghost guides you back towards the fence.

You hear Blue's soft humming. The flap of the old flag. Your own steady heartbeat.

And then, out of nowhere, he stops and grabs Blue's arm to bring her to a halt beside him. He looks around. Confused, you scan the view up ahead of you, but all that is there are a few of those military jeeps and the fence you entered through. You sniff the air. It doesn't smell particularly awful. 

Then, the cause for Ghost's unease arrives loud in your ears.

A single gunshot sounds from a direction you can't discern. Your heart stutters. The suddenness freezes you for a moment. In your peripheral, you think you catch a brush of movement in some bushes to your right.

Ghost quickly pulls Blue behind one of the vehicles for cover. Only when you feel the rush of another bullet whizzing past your shoulder do your legs finally move— so fast that your feet catch on the ground and you stumble down beside them. Your knees dig into the earth as you land on your hands, but you quickly lift up and press your shoulder against the side of the car. 

You choke. "Ghost… people."

People are fucking shooting at us, is what you mean to say. Panic steals your voice.

Who? How many?

Another bullet ricochets off the other side of the car, clanking against the metal. And then another. Glass shatters. 

Ghost doesn't respond to you. Underneath the loud sounds, a soft voice whimpers. You finally look to where Blue is propped up against the large tire, Ghost kneeling at her front. His hand is tightly clamped over the side of her right thigh, and it is now that you notice the blood soaking through her jeans and his glove.

Blue's blood.

Crimson and glistening.

She whimpers again and her fingers twist the fabric of his coat.

"Dad, it— it feels like it's burning," she cries out, her cheeks turning wet from a sudden onslaught of tears.

"Fuck. I know, baby. I know."

She flinches when another gunshot rings out. "W-What do we do?"

You try to form a proper thought— try to make sense of everything. Before you can, Ghost grabs your hand, firmly replacing his hold on her wound with yours. The warm liquid immediately drenches your palm and you swallow, pressing as hard as you can, attempting to pack it crudely.

He speaks decisively. "Stay here with her. Wrap it up.”

"Ghost, you don't know how many fucking people there are," you say, panic turning your voice into something unrecognizable as you place your other hand on his arm. The muscles tense and leap.

“I didn't fucking ask you. I am telling you. Now do it."

He doesn’t give you the opportunity to protest again, but you wouldn’t even if he did because you fully realize that this is the best course of action. He needs to get rid of them. You need to tend to her wound. A strangled cry leaves Blue's lips when he departs. You coax her with soft hushes.

"It’s okay. He'll be right back.”

Urgently, you sling the bag off your shoulder and take out your own med kit. You don’t think twice about it. Not for a second. Not when all you can think about is making sure her soft, blue eyes stay open. When you move your hand from her thigh, the sight worries and relieves you at the same time.

You don't know much about bullet wounds, but you know where the femoral artery runs, and by the looks of it, it was missed. Still, a nice chunk of her flesh has been torn, revealing obliterated muscle. You don't see any bone or bits of metal, but it is hard to see much of anything with all the blood.

With fingers that shake, you use the same gauze she nursed your hand with to begin tightly dressing her thigh. As you do, your eyes flash up and around in a feeble search for where Ghost could be, but you can’t see him from behind the vehicle.

"Is it bad?" she asks, voice laced with a tremor. When your gaze returns to her, you notice that pale lips replace her usual rosy-pink ones. Her forehead is sheened with sweat.

"It looks worse than it is," you say.

"Are you... are you telling me the truth?"

"I am. Promise," you whisper. "Friends don't lie, right?"

Sporadic gunfire continues to pierce your ears. It sounds more distant now. You have no idea if it belongs to Ghost or whoever these people are. You push the uncertainties away, assuring yourself that he can handle however many of them there are, and focus on tying off the gauze, desperate to keep her blood in.

Blue suddenly blurts out, “Twix.”

You look up and meet her eyes. They are pointed at something behind you.