#so when the big rescue happens

[idk-bruh-20]

Irondad fic ideas #131

Tony Stark has been kidnapped. Barely a year after saving the universe, and fresh out of a coma -- he's gone. Everyone is doing everything they possibly can to find him. The Avengers, the government, the cops, everyone.

Well... everyone except Morgan. Nobody will let her help.

Irritated, determined, alone, and terrified, Morgan finally decides to take matters into her own hands. 

Her mom wants to keep her away from the search. The Avengers and other adults won't take her seriously. But she knows of one hero who might support her. A hero known for guiding kids to their lost parents (though usually the kid is the lost one, but her mom always says her dad is immature so he probably counts).

She remembers her dad's stories. This hero would understand her need to help, to do something, too.

It's weird that nobody has thought to call this person in for the search anyway, and it's weirder that FRIDAY doesn't seem to have any info on them, but Morgan is persistent.

She sets out to ask Spider-Man to help her find her missing dad.

This is a remix of an old fic idea (#44, which no one has done yet btw!) that I just thought of ^_^

[memento-morri-writes]

I've been thinking a lot about how Rook's reunion with his former mentor, Zara, is going to go, and since I can't predict what the DM is going to have her do or say, I can only dwell on what I know is going to happen. Which happens to include taking off the illusion ring that's been hiding his injuries from her. So have a snippet of the description I have planned for that moment:

tw for description of (mostly healed) injuries

He hesitates, twisting a ring on his finger. Looking at it more closely, she can tell it’s very finely crafted, and must have been very expensive. A large emerald is set into the band. Rook sighs, and pulls the ring off his finger in one quick motion.  Immediately she’s struck by the difference in his appearance as the illusion melts away. He looks awful. His warm, healthy skin fades to a dull and sickly grey. There’s huge bags under his deeply sunken eyes, and his cheeks are hollowed, as though they have been carved out by an overeager sculptor. He looks like he’s recently risen from the grave.  While he was thin before, now she can see his ribs under the skin, and his collarbones are exaggeratedly pronounce. Thin white lines left by dozens upon dozens of recently healed cuts are scattered across his body. On top of that, faded bruises cover most of his visible skin, a mottled mosaic of purple and yellow. They’re clearly days, maybe weeks old, and she can only begin to imagine what they must have looked like when fresh. Bandages are barely visible under his shirt, wrapping around his back, hinting at even more injuries.

[whump-n-comfort]

when you read a fic that gives you a hyper-specific whump scenario that you know would either A.) take forever to find in another story or B.) hasn't been written at all so the obvious conclusion is that you have to write it yourself

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

That's so weird because my reaction to S4 finale is it was the moment that convinced me Buddie was going to be endgame. Now two seasons later and we could be heading back to that same ending for the season depending on the events of the finale leaves me doubting things ngl. The only things I'm clinging on to are the couch theory, Eddie saying that relationships with people you meet at a rescue never works, and the fact that we're being introduced to these women so late in the season. It just seems like the writers even know they're giving this the most superficial things so that they can fix what they did in early S7.

To put it bluntly it just sucks that you know if this was gonna be the final 2 episodes that instead of going towards a story they've been telling since S2 they decide to put Buck and Eddie with women we don't even know their last name or anything about them. But they got renewed and will be moving to ABC so they can do the story they wanted to tell and I imagine these women will be kicked to the curb early in S7.

Okay, I'm gonna be real honest with you. I've seen that you've sent asks to a few of my friends, all generally saying the same thing. So to see you send me this ask makes me feel like you don't really want to have a discussion and aren't looking for actual support or positivity, you just want to keep being upset and tell people until someone agrees with you and tells you that your opinion that the writers made a shitty choice etc is valid.

So, to repeat a few things my friends have said:

They have not been doing Buddie since season two. I don't know why people persist on claiming this. Buddie was never the original plan. They did not decide to have Eddie get with Buck in season two. In fact in season two they seemed kinda unsure what to do with Eddie since he wouldn't be with Maddie any longer, but they still wanted the character, and Ryan, on the show. For my money, they started exploring the possibility of Buddie and discussing it seriously in season three, and season four was when they locked that in.

Now, I don't know about you, since you're a stranger on the internet, but to me, as a writer, it is a much, much better choice for them to have taken the risk rather than cram Buddie together, for a few reasons.

One: They cannot walk it back once Buddie is together. You're telling me you wanted them to sacrifice their story's integrity to give us a rushed unsatisfying get-together? Get out of my house. Watching television is, inherently, a gamble because it means you might get your stories unfulfilled. If you can't take that risk, then leave the casino. I am willing to risk it because I want a truly satisfying get-together, not something that was rushed and therefore isn't worthy of the delicious slow burn they're building.

Two: How many times do I have to scream at everyone to consider the behind the scenes issues before people start actually listening to me? Oh, forever? Because everyone is operating in bad faith and nobody wants to actually listen? Good to know. This will be the last I say on the matter.

We do not know what behind the scenes was going on in addition to the cancellation. What if certain Fox executives weren't supportive of Buddie? You're telling me that the writers and cast and crew should have, right when they'll need new jobs, guaranteed that their last employers will talk shit about them for disobeying orders and putting two characters together that they were told not to put together?

This is purely conjecture on my part, but I have seen time after time in fandom certain cast members and certain crew members and certain writers want a ship to become canon, and others not, and I have seen the way that back and forth played out, and guess fucking what? NOBODY WANTS TO LOSE THEIR FUCKING JOB. NOBODY WANTS TO BE PREVENTED FROM HAVING ANOTHER JOB.

Now, again, that's pure conjecture, but Fox really hasn't treated OG well for a while in terms of renewal, marketing, etc. And I have never, EVER, seen a show snapped up by another network so quickly. It's always "we got cancelled!" and then a few days or weeks later it's "we were saved by another network!" ABC was ON it. This gives me hope for a lot of things, like perhaps a 22 episode season. But given Fox's lack of promotion and appreciation for OG, it wouldn't surprise me if the cast and crew wanted Buddie and some people in the network didn't, and that is why we've been delayed on Buddie going canon. And while YOU may cry viva la revolution, it's much easier to have your principles when you've got a belly full, and while it may suck creatively there is no reason to piss off your bosses right when you need them to write you a recommendation for a new job because your show got cancelled - and while I'm sure they were hopeful, given the cast's social media I do not think anyone knew until it was publicly announced that they had, indeed, been saved and gotten another season.

My point is, this is just one theory I'm pulling out of a hat like a rabbit. We do not know what other BTS stuff is going on that made them choose to delay Buddie until season seven.

Three: To go back to point one, I do not think you've seen the reactions when a ship goes canon poorly. I was there, Gandalf. I was there the day that Booth and Bones got together. I was in the trenches. It soured SO many people, including me, on the show. To quote MBMBAM: YOU DIDN'T STICK THE LANDING! YOU JUST FLIPPED IN THE AIR FOR TWENTY MINUTES!!!

Sticking the landing when getting a ship together is possibly the most important moment in the couple's story. You cannot fuck up that landing. The writers chose to take the chance on it never happening in order to stick the landing the way they wanted. If that pisses you off, FINE. But stop coming into our inboxes to say the same thing over and over again about it, because we do not agree and we are never going to agree. We are at an impasse.

Now, to move onto some other points, WHY IS EVERYONE CONVINCED THAT EDDIE WILL STILL BE WITH SOMEONE WHEN THE SEASON ENDS!? WHEN DID WE DECIDE THIS!? He could be! But holy shit he could just go on one date with her that fizzles out! We have no clue! If someone in this fandom can see into the future and knows for sure this is going to happen then give me the winning lotto numbers right this second!!! Give them to me!!!! I need to fund my world domination campaign!!!

And finally, I feel like you've answered your own concerns, here. Given that you have sent similar asks to my friends, I don't think you're actually interested in allaying those concerns, because you keep answering your own questions and repeating yourself ad naseum. I could be wrong. Again, I don't know you. But this sure seems to be the case given that you're saying to me similar stuff you've said to my friends in asks they've already answered.

But to look at your own ask, you just said why we shouldn't be worried. "It seems like the writers even know..." YES. YES, THEY DO KNOW. I would love to know who the hell decided that television shows are made by the Television Fairy who creeps into the studio at night and waves her magic wand to create all the good stuff we see on our screens while the writers sit around with their thumbs up their asses.

Let's imagine you are a showrunner and you are going into the second half of your season, and you learn that it is extremely likely this season is actually your last. You guys start negotiating quietly with other networks to move the show, while hoping against hope this is not, indeed, the end. But this means you now have, what, nine episodes? To put all your characters in a place that is, if not ideal, at least somewhat positive for your audience?

You can't start any too-major arcs. You can't end on too bad of an emotional cliffhanger. This means some things will wrap up faster. Other things will get pushed forward. And some things have to be delayed, because they might never happen, and you can't give people a third or a half of an arc. Which means that you're going to be throwing in some filler for those characters instead, and doing things differently than how you might have wanted.

I do not know how many times I have to explain this, but television is not fanfiction. When I sit down to write a fic, there's not a damn person in the world who can tell me what to do. I write the story that I want, and if someone doesn't like it, they can hit the bricks.

Television is not like that. Television is one of the biggest group projects there is. Picture the worst group project you had to do in school and then times it by ten. Welcome to the television and film industry. The fact that any film or show, even the truly awful ones, gets made is nothing short of a miracle given all the people involved and all the ways the ball can be dropped. As a show runner, you are answering to multiple executives, to the creators, to the executive producers, to your own writers' room, and to the fans. You are trying to balance what everyone tells you to do, what the fans want you to do, and what you and your (hopefully trusted) writing team want and plan to do. I could never be a show runner and while there are quite a few with whom I've got bones to pick, I cannot deny that they all do a job I would never, ever be capable of pulling off. I'd quit on day three.

So, yeah, they gave Buck a temporary girlfriend as filler, to kinda cap off his current arc if this was the end, or to provide more layers to his full arc if they got another season. If you don't like that, then that's okay. Nobody is telling you to like it. When you come into someone's inbox like this, the assumption is that you're looking to be reassured, and so that's why you're getting the responses that you are. The previous people who've answered you have been trying to reassure you and allay the concerns you seem to have.

But it seems to me like you want a more full conversation, and possibly, that you just want to rant and vent. That's fine, but find a friend for that. Join a discord server. Because when you send the same stuff over and over again to different people, all of whom give you basically the same reply, it just makes you look like a very obstinate stick in the mud who wants everyone else to join them in being upset, and people don't much like having the same conversation multiple times, or being pushed into being upset when they're not.

You might just have to agree to disagree, and move on. Find other ways to get this out of your system, because my inbox, and the inboxes of others, is not the place for your venting in circles.

Now, in spite of my firm tone, I hope you will believe me when I say that I hope you're taking care of yourself, and that you are staying safe in this scary world, and that you have a good rest of your day.

[riosnecktattoo]

my dog just keeps getting bigger I don't understand how but he gains a kg every month he's at 67kg now he was 40ish when I rescued him just over a year ago

[dentist-brainsurgeon]

The older I get, the less I like Halo 3, like gameplay, music and set piece wise it's GREAT and I absolutely love replaying it for those aspects, but the story, slight aesthetic changes and bad characterization is just..... Bleh. The only weird characterization I like is Chief and Arby being bros and that's honestly probably the best thing in the game that unfortunately hasn't been explored much(outside of the books, even then still should be explored more)

Oh and Marty O'Donnell should [REDACTED]

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

sometimes learning maritime history is just sitting there thinking like okay i get that all my why would you not Xs is money like its just who cares about safety when money BUT i feel like if all of you would agree on shipping lanes for lake fucking huron, youd probably save money on ship collisions, what do you mean these lanes didnt apply to canadian ships????

[smiletimeisrunningout]

I'm rewatching new girl and I had forgotten how much I shipped Jess and Schmidt of all things in s1 and at least first half of s2 (I don't remember when/if I stopped, but he's so HUMAN and genuine when interacting with her, especially when Jess vents over things, and Jess is always extra sweet with him?)

[thebleedingeffect]

In my heart of hearts I truly do just want to write a self insert that interacts with the main story that's it really

[keeps-ache]

mmm metals,

[triple1st]

thinking about rassilon's (lack of) characterization in gallifrey time war

[moth-mart]

Outlaw status reachieveeed 🎉🎉🎉

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[niteshade925]

Saw these tags in a reblog of my Chinese museum posts, and thought I have to make a response just so everyone is clear on how archaeological studies are carried out in China:

^Well, the Shaanxi Archaeology Museum is a Chinese museum displaying artifacts found in China, it's not the British Museum lol.

But anyway just so everyone knows, modern Chinese archaeology has a rule, which is that unless it's absolutely necessary, an ancient tomb/mausoleum should not be disturbed. This means that many of these artifacts in the museums are found in a few main ways:

Tombs that absolutely had to be excavated because there were clear signs of grave robbing present, for example when tunnels left by grave robbers were found near a known tomb. This is called "excavating to rescue" (抢救性发掘), it's done by teams of archaeologists, the artifacts found will then be studied and eventually find a home in museums in China. In comparison, actual grave robbers would steal artifacts and sell them for money; many stolen artifacts would end up in auctions, mostly outside of mainland China. This is why there is no "general positive sense" in the phrase "grave robbing with grant money" when it comes to archaeology in China. Modern Chinese archaeology and grave robbing are simply not comparable in any way whatsoever.

Tombs that absolutely had to be excavated because new infrastructure will be built in that location. Such exacavations are also included in excavating to rescue. Examples include tombs in Xi'an city that had to be excavated because a metro was being built. Since Chinese people and Chinese culture are native to China, there are no ethical problems whatsoever, this simply a question of what matters more, the welfare of living Chinese people or the abstract afterlives of ancient Chinese people. Obviously, the welfare of living Chinese people is a more important matter. As for the argument of "but this goes against traditional culture", first, a culture is only alive if the people of that culture is alive and doing well, otherwise that culture is as good as dead; second, a major part of traditional Chinese culture IS focused on the welfare of descendants (ex: the belief that the spirits of ancestors will protect their descendants), so I'm sure our ancestors would be proud to see us doing well.

Tombs that were excavated because archaeologists were absolutely sure that artifacts discovered within would make major contributions to the study of Chinese history. This is pretty much the only exception to the rule of "excavating to rescue", and it is very rarely allowed. An example is the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project (夏商周断代工程), where the main focus is to gain a clearer picture of the timeline of ancient Chinese history, when dynasties began/ended, when major events may have happened, etc.

Artifacts that were found when arresting grave robbers. These are called "recovered artifacts" (追回文物).

Artifacts that returned to China from foreign countries, these are called "returned artifacts" (回归文物). A big portion of these artifacts ended up in foreign countries precisely because of grave robbers, and another big portion were and are still lost for the same reason as why the British Museum has so many artifacts from around the world.

Artifacts that were discovered scattered throughout China. There are three facts to consider here: 1) China has a long history and as a result, there are vast amounts of existing artifacts; 2) tombs are material things and thus are subject to the elements; 3) not everyone is an archaeologist. Combine these, and you have situations were valuable artifacts were found in places like the chicken coop of a farmer (this is how the eagle-shaped pottery ding was found).

Donations. Some artifacts were family heirlooms that were donated to museums.

[starlight-library]

Paddock Throuple | OP81 & LN4 (sm!au)

pairing: oscar piastri x reader x lando norris

summary: an insight to the paddocks favorite throuple outside of f1 before a race weekend

warning: none!

fc: none!

oscarpiastri tagged yourusername and landonorris

liked by yourusername, landonorris, yourbestfriend, carlossainz55, arthur_leclerc, and 1.6m others

oscarpiastri this is why lando and y/n need to be supervised when they're together

view all 982,403 comments

user025 LANDOSCARY/N NATION WAKE UP!!!

user842 what are they doing in the first photo?? 😭

user5936 THE PURPLE HOODIE IS SOOO CUTE WHERE IS IT FROM???

↳ user382 i think it's lando's hoodie on his store! ↳ user5936 runNING RN I NEED IT

carlossainz55 is lando trying to...crawl into the game?

↳ oscarpiastri yes but not to shoot since he's bad, the balls got stuck ↳ landonorris RUDE OMG??? ↳ yourusername don't cry cause he's right ↳ carlossainz55 they're right you are not...the best ↳ landonorris THE SLANDER IS--WILD

logansargeant y/n! grab me a coke while you're up there 🙏

↳ yourusername i got you bestie! 💕

user8739 YES OFF TRACK PHOTOS WE'RE SO BACK!!!

yourusername YOU LOVE US AND YOU KNOW IT!!!

↳ landonorris YEAH, WHAT Y/N SAID!! ↳ oscarpiastri just because I love you both, doesn't mean my statement isn't wrong. ↳ landonorris BOOOOOOOO ↳ yourusername 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

yourusername tagged oscarpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant and alex_albon

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, and 1.1m others

yourusername someone say mclaren & williams double date? 👀

comments on this post has been limited

logansargeant did someone say adventure?

landonorris we should run it back like NOW

alex_albon best night ever!!

arthur_leclerc what is happening in the second photo?

↳ alex_albon lando and oscar trying to hold logan up but it back fired so i came to his rescue ↳ landonorris alex failed at his rescue mission ↳ alex_albon SHUT UP 😫 ↳ logansargeant i think alex did a great job at saving me 🥰 ↳ oscarpiastri well if someone didn't scare us, it would've been a perfect photo ↳ yourusername oops?

charles_leclerc you are all menaces together i love it

↳ landonorris i was about to say we weren't better when streaming 😂

lewishamilton44 did someone win me something?

↳ yourusername yes king 💪💪

oscarpiastri okay i'll admit it, the amusement park was fun

↳ yourusername YES I WIN!!!

landonorris tagged yourusername and oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, carlossainz55, maxverstappen, and 1.6m others

landonorris pre-race date night ft. spiderman 🥵🫢

view all 1.1m comments

user9473 stop y'all are so CUTE 🥹🥹

user34 omg omg I WAS AT THE SAME AQUARIUM AND THOUGHT I WAS INSANE ↳ yourusername not insane! ↳ user34 OMG YOU RESPOND!!!

alex_albon IS THAT SPIDERMAN?!

↳ oscarpiastri yes, yes it is ↳ landonorris met a REAL celebrity today ↳ yourusername ugh soooo upset i missed spidey 😫

user406 THE SPIDERMAN ONE AHAHAHA

user3857 please tell me y/n is coming with y'all to Singapore!! PLEASE!!!

↳ yourusername 🤭

yourusername tagged landonorris and oscarpiastri

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, maxverstappen, logansargeant and 1.3m others

yourusername pretty boyfriends and prettier helmets 😮‍💨😮‍💨

comments on this post has been limited

maxverstappen i swear they never can agree on the weather

↳ yourusername of course not! one is always too hot and one is always too cold

landonorris i feel like you're only dating us for the helmets

↳ oscarpiastri and the paddock passes ↳ yourusername 😮...what?

logansargeant y/n i got our drinks ready

↳ yourusername LETS GOOOO!!!

landonorris you know i didn't get a good luck kiss

↳ oscarpiastri i second this. how are we suppose to do good without our good luck kiss to start the race weekend? ↳ landonorris we can't ↳ yourusername oh you big babies, i'm coming!!

[lizardho]

I came out to my dad as bisexual at 14 and I was PANICKED because I had a crush on a guy in my Boy Scout troop and thought I was Going To Hell Forever and he was so kind and understanding of my distress, but he had NO idea what bisexuality was. He just said “yeah but you like girls too? This is normal. Everyone is like this.” And I love my dad and trust him with my life to this day and the idea that the concept of bisexuality had not occurred to him had not occurred to me so I put it off.

By 16 though I had a crush on like THREE boys. Three entire boys in my Boy Scout troop. I felt like my sin was slowly advancing, until like an untreated cancer it had become metastatic. I remember bawling my L’il limp-wristed sissy eyes out in his big rumbly truck on the way home from a scout meeting and him telling me that it was OK, that he still loved me if I was gay, but that he knew I wasn’t gay because I still had crushes on women and that meant I was straight. I didn’t quite know how to explain that those felt *~*different*~* and that I felt like I was losing a fight to evil inside me but I again felt comforted by his reassurances and his genuine fatherly love.

At 18 I was like “hey I’m realizing all my friends are going on missions. I don’t wanna do that. Idk how to say that and I don’t have a ‘good enough’ reason to not wanna go.” So I just put it off. Again, my parents were extremely supportive of the information I gave them (I blamed it on perpetually forgetting to start the paperwork.) and one day my mom texted me that she had done the paperwork for me! And that all I needed was to get a physical! So I did that (it was awkward af tbh, my hernia check was done by a trainee doctor and she spent like 3 minutes fishing around my inguinal canals before her attending rescued me) and was sent to Mexico City where I learned that in addition to dipshit himbos with strong hands and scruffy guys with artistic hearts I was REALLY into chubby Latin men with strong personalities who bullied me a little when I lived in Mexico.

I remember my first companion got annoyed with me during an argument and said we were just gonna wrestle and whoever won the wrestling match won the argument (I stg I am dead serious this happened.) I was like…SWEATING when he tore off his tie and threw his white button-down shirt onto the ground (I won btw, don’t ask me how).

I remember one of my companions with this really intense, almost manic energy telling me that he was gonna make sure I was safe in a new area I didn’t know very well. He cooked breakfast for me and we’d go shopping together on P-Days and in the mornings before breakfast he’d jog around and do pull-ups with his shirt off and I’d do anything but look at him because my face would break out in a sweat so intense he’d think I was crying and come over to see if I was OK and somehow make it worse. He let me play D&D with myself in the evenings even though it was against mission rules because he knew how lonely and stressed I was.

I remember one of my companions was a big chubby man with a loud voice and a great sense of humor. He was kind and direct when addressing conflicts with me, and always bragged about how he knew the secrets of women’s minds and it felt like he really did since it almost always boiled down to “Treat Them Like People and Love Them a Lot. Don’t Stop Being A Person For Them. Also Eat Them Out Sloppy Style.” Our P-Day activities sometimes felt like dates, and it seemed like he was more attentive to my emotional state than I was since he was always the first to suggest we slow down our Divinely Mandated, God-Ordained, Super Sacred Work and Wonder to get a snack or check out a Pawn Shop (I love Pawn Shops).

I remember another companion who asked me to bully him every time he did something against his goal of losing weight. It was like he gave me Carte Blanche to take out my crush on him by being a nuisance and I LOVED that. I remember having a breakdown one day after we’d spent the afternoon frantically cleaning our disgusting-barely-habitable mission house to make it look less vile that it was (not our fault imo?) and I started bawling and he pulled me into a hug and he smelled good and he told me he knew it wasn’t just the house and that I was mad at him for being a Huge Dickhead for about a week (true) and that he would work on it. (He’s also a huge chaser but that’s a separate thing.)

I remember one of my companions waking up early (and our schedule is already built for sleep deprivation) to make me a “birthday cake” from knock-off Nutella and bread. He used matches for candles and woke me up, lit the ‘candles,’ pulled them out, then smashed it in my face and took a bunch of pictures while I was still madrugada and disoriented as fuck. He had the same sense of humor as one of my HS crushes and I could push his buttons pretty easily which was so fun.

I came home from my mission and started back at BYU where I became actively and aggressively suicidal. I had a stalker the year I moved up there and my dad’s solution to that was to get me a gun. I know he wouldn’t have bought me a gun if he could have read my mind, but I had a loaded pistol under my bed during a trifecta faith/sexuality/gender crisis and that was not helpful. I remember that the day I decided to kill myself I figured I’d call the BYU CAPS and see if I could get into therapy because it felt like what I was “supposed to do” so I could check my suicide boxes. My therapist was the guy who’d helped me pick a major the year before and was this drop-dead gorgeous Hawaiian man who cried when I told him how I’d been feeling.

A few weeks into therapy I met another stunning man with soft eyes and a scruffy illegal-at-BYU beard he kept pushing his luck with. He was funny, kind, patient, married, and wouldn’t give me the time of day if he knew I was crushing on him. We were in my history of psych class, which was inarguably the worst psych class I have ever had, and we studied together for every assignment and test and I realized that my feelings for him and for all the men I’d already mentioned were in direct conflict with my faith and relationship with God. My already agonizing spiritual conflict became even more wretched and as a result of this plus some other tightly-packed experiences with Mormonisms bullshit, I left the church.

After leaving the church I decided to move back to AZ and transfer to ASU. My mom helped me get a dog since I think it had started to dawn on my family that my mental health was barely getting me through the day, and she knew that we both loved dogs. Madi made my last year at BYU livable while I got my shit together and transferred. In that last year, I went on a date with quite possibly the only semi-openly-out trans person on BYU campus. It was not a great date imo, I was not doing well, but the person I spoke with was fun and fascinating and talked to me about Gender Dysphoria and it really cemented my need to go. To leave and never come back to that fucking school.

I started at ASU a month after my last semester at BYU and within a very short time frame it felt like I was coming back together, like a puzzle magically putting itself together in an environment that wasn’t slowly draining that puzzle’s will to live.

On the 4th of July, the year I started at ASU, I saw a transition timeline photo of a gorgeous happy beautiful happy radiant happy woman and her former Mormon missionary self and I realized the light that was on in her eyes was the light that was off in mine. I looked into transitioning for 3 days, sleeping about 10 hours total during that time. I started talking to other trans people on Reddit (one of whom is now my beautiful fiancée @cintailed) and after about a month of making preparations to be disowned and kicked out, something I was not sure would happen but was ready to go through to Turn On The Lights, I came out to my family and it was amazing. I started HRT a month after that. I secretly dated some dorky guys for about a year while I applied to grad schools. I got into a great grad school for me and my needs. I got FFS. I did my trainings and classes. Me and my fiancée moved in together after some LDR shenanigans. We’ve lived together now for 4 years of basically marital bliss. We have a cat named Grandmother Esmeralda Weatherwax who bites the hell out of my feet about three times a day. My bi-cycle continues to be part of my life but now it’s not as scary. Baby gays in my life have started to look to me for advice. Idk how this all happened so fast. When the years, months, weeks, days, and hours seems to crawl by so slowly now they are rushing past me so fast it’s almost bewildering. Whereas before I felt like I was living on borrowed time, past my ‘expiration date,’ now it feels like I can Fucking Breathe. I’m training myself to slow down now and it feels worth it to Live In The Moment.

Idk why I wrote this. Idk why these thoughts only seem to come up on Sundays when I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation. Idk why I’m crying rn or why I feel so happy. I’m gonna post this shit then get on with my dissertation I guess. Read more Terry Pratchett and give yourselves the time you need. Get a pet. Talk to someone. Re-examine the events that brought you here. Be gayer. Love y’all 💕