#so while yes they still have their memories and personalities

[tealvenetianmask]

I want to talk about a kind of troubling reaction I've been seeing to both Apology Tour and Ghostfuckers among parts of the fandom. The person is usually a reaction youtuber but sometimes someone writing on tumblr or twitter. They say something along the lines of "oh, I'm glad Blitz is being forced to confront his crimes/traumas/pain. This is the only way he will finally heal."

That's not how healing works.

I know that reaction youtubers don't always have the most developed takes because they're . . . you know . . . reacting in the moment. But I think it's still worth talking about.

I'm going set aside the people who seem to believe that Blitz needs to be punished for his crimes, and address those who genuinely think that getting a tidal wave of his own trauma in his face is what he needs to heal.

There's an attitude in contemporary culture that traumas are something people need to confront. As in, put on a brave face and dive in like a big boy. I blame capitalism, rugged individualism, and all the pieces of media that tie up a character's arc neatly by having them confront their darkest fears and insecurities. It can put a nice bow on things, but it isn't really how healing from trauma works.

Apology Tour:

Blitz gets confronted by a shit ton of people who hate him, at least some of whom are his exes, who he feels he's personally damaged. The decor and party games are all about killing and torturing him. Verosika confronts him about how much he hurt her. Oh, and then he sees the love of his life, who he's just recently pushed away, making out with another guy- proof, in his eyes, that Stolas is happier without him. And this all reflects the underlying fears he already has about who he is as a person (shown to us by Truth Seekers).

So what was the takeaway? Blitz came to the conclusion that he doesn't always want to be like this (good, but like . . . worth this much pain?). He flops on his steering wheel (relatable). He stops trying to reach out to Stolas (uh oh . . . ). He spends A MONTH spiraling in his own misery and making a mess of all aspects of his life until he's dragged out of it by a caring friend.

The party doesn't empower Blitz to change. It knocks him down and fucking traumatizes him (seriously, images of Stolas from the party show up later in his trauma reel) too much for him to be able to do actually work toward said change. I suspect that if left to his own devices, he would have kept spiraling for quite a while longer. It's one thing to want to change, and another to try to do so alone in the aftermath of a pile-on.

Ghostfuckers

After Blitz drags himself out of his hole of cheesy ice cream and despair to "play sex ghosts" (escapism, again, still knocked down by Apology Tour), infester demon Rolando picks him out as an easy target and assaults him, yes, assaults, with horrific images of his worst traumas and fears.

Not to state the obvious, but Rolando isn't interested in helping Blitz heal. He's trying to kill the guy. He wants to engulf Blitz in his trauma to the extent where he's consumed by it and loses the will to fight back. And as some excellent posts by others have pointed out already, he very likely would have succumbed if not for Millie's support.

Millie helps Blitz get through the onslaught by telling him about what makes him great and how he's improved her life and showing him love and care. And by literally beating the fucking infester out of him. Because there's someone in him who's hurting him, who's re-traumatizing him against his will. She takes him away from the reel of horrible memories.

So . . . do I think that confronting traumas can play a role in healing? Sure. But only if it's consensually (which neither of these situations are) and when the person trying to heal is ready. And most likely in small doses. No one's going and successfully confronting every horrible thing that's ever happened to them in one go.

And in my humble opinion, it's not going to work (for anyone, but especially not for Blitz) alone and without a healthy dose of kindness and compassion (both external and internal).

Blitz has a long road ahead of him toward healing, and it's going to be hard work on his part but also require love and support from the people in his life.

In a wonderful moment near the end of Ghosfuckers, Blitz and Millie work together to get Blitz's wrecked van unstuck and push it back through the portal into Hell. I love it because it's so simple and it kind of tells us everything we need to know. This sweet and salty gremlin has a lot of work ahead of him, but he doesn't have to do it alone.

[kaytheday]

Dog Tags and Damnation

Soda steps through the door as quietly as he can. Unwilling to wake the boy on the couch. Ponyboy was so exhausted that he couldn’t even manage to make it upstairs so he’d simply dropped onto the couch, practically guaranteed to wake up tomorrow with a killer hangover. He twists over in sleep, groaning a little and revealing a silver chain that slips out of his shirt to pool on the cushion below him. 

Soda’s dog tags. 

Bile comes up his throat and tickles his taste buds as he sways. He puts a hand on the wall to avoid falling.

He didn’t take those tags off for nearly a year. He couldn’t. If he was killed they would need those same dog tags to identify his body. Those tags would be the one to tell his brothers he was never coming home. Those same tags that watched him defile his parents' memory of the sweet little boy they had raised. Those same tags that hung around his neck as he did horrendous things, things that he would never ever breathe a word of to his brothers. Even if it killed him. 

Those same tags that he had hurled at Ponyboy nearly five days ago out of anger and frustration. Why couldn’t Ponyboy just leave him alone about this? Growing up, Soda always knew when to push Pony or when to back off, why couldn’t Ponyboy just return the favor? 

Both Darry and Ponyboy knew he had come back different. Darry had noticed but never said anything about it, but Ponyboy had taken a crack at it a couple days ago. Accusing him of using drugs to escape himself or some bullshit like that. It was those damn psychology courses he was taking at his fancy university. 

Then Soda had just laughed at him. Trying to crack a joke and say he should become a psychologist instead of a writer. Ponyboy had only gotten more upset, the tips of his ears going red as he tried again to push the issue, all while Soda deflected. Instead jerking past him to grab the chocolate milk out of the fridge, taking a swig straight from the carton. He had just finished a shitty day of work, he didn’t want to have a conversation about how shitty he was at being a brother too. 

Obviously frustrated, Ponyboy trudged on, trying a different tactic than the blatant observation of how Soda was killing himself with drugs. 

“You can talk to me, you know Soda? About anything, you’ve always been able to talk to me, even when we were kids You can still talk to me, now isn’t any different.” Soda wanted to rip out his hair and scream and then maybe beat someone half to death because it was different. Of course it was different. 

Ponyboy was different from Soda. He was good. Despite everything that had happened in his life, Ponyboy still found time to look at the sunset and read books and even write poetry. Despite everything, Ponyboy was still the same smart, talented, sensitive kid he’d been all his life. Losing their parents hadn't changed that, losing their buddies hadn’t changed that, and Soda was sure that even if Ponyboy had to complete a tour in Vietnam, he’d still come out the same poetry-writing, sunset-watching kid he’d always been. And he would continue to be like that, no matter what happened. 

So no, it was different. It was completely different. 

Soda was different. Anytime something terrible had happened in their lives, Soda had changed. A piece of him was chipped away and a mottled scar was left in its place. His parents death made him into the family bawl baby. His buddies' death had made him into a manipulating bastard with a colder outside shell. His tour in Vietnam had made him into a lot of things. It had made him into a broken shattered mess of himself, unable to find the pieces of his personality scattered on the ground. But the biggest and ugliest thing it had made him into was a killer. 

So Soda had tried to become some semblance of the person he was before this ugly stain on his life. He tried to say it kindly, he really did. 

“Yes it is Ponyboy.” He started gently. “I thought you were smart with all those fancy college classes you’re takin’ but you can’t seem to see that everything is different now.” He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I’m going to bed.” He decided with finality, having no desire to finish this conversation. Ponyboy gave a loud choked noise. 

“I don’t need those college classes to tell me something is wrong with my brother!” Pony shot back. “Why can’t you just tell us! Why didn’t you talk to me! Why didn’t you tell me you got shot!?” The last question comes out as a desperate hysterical scream. Pony is crying, but he’s trying so hard not to. Soda turned sharply from his spot on the stairs. 

“How’d you find that out?” He said quietly, almost dangerously. 

“I know when something is wrong with my brother Soda.” Ponyboy says simply before relenting the rest of the details. “I got your medical records pulled from the draft office. The officer there told me.” Before Soda can register what he is doing he is down the stairs eye to eye with Pony in some sort of stand off. 

“You had no right to do that you little son of a bitch!” Ponyboy doesn’t rise to the bait, insteading squaring his shoulders like he was expecting this sort of reaction. 

“Why didn’t you tell us Soda? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you. I still want to help you.” Pony asks, grabbing weakly at Soda’s wrist. Instead Soda jerks away, shoving his brother a little as he bites out a curse. 

“You couldn’t have done shit!” He snarls. 

“Is this what the drugs are for?” Pony asks. 

Soda doesn’t answer, instead biting out another curse while Pony keeps trying. They yell back and forth at each other for a while before Pony brings up their parents. How they wouldn’t have wanted their little war hero turning to pot and heroin and god knows what else. Soda blanches, his fists faltering a little bit. Bringing up their parents was a low blow. Finally Soda does the only thing he can think of. He rips off his dog tags that had been hanging around his neck. 

“If you and mom and dad up there think I’m such a war hero then you can wear them!” He hurls the dog tags at Ponyboy and before he can see the aftermath, he’s trudging outside to the car and storming off. 

Now he’s still standing at the door. His eyes on Ponyboy's ungreased hair, flopping a little over closed eyes. This fight was five days ago, they had since made up. Soda didn’t know he was actually going to wear those dog tags. 

The same ones he’d rubbed while shooting at kids younger than Ponyboy. The same ones he stared at during the long rainy nights, nothing in his stomach, thinking of his middle name. Patrick, like his grandfather. His grandfather was buried at home. The same home he longed to be. 

Those dog tags had been with him through so much pain and misery. They had sat on his chest while he watched unspeakable horrors unfold, stories of destruction, blood, violence, and death. He hadn’t realized what those dog tags meant to him until he watched them tangle around Ponyboy's neck. 

Because he was glad.

He was glad Ponyboy would never have dog tags of his own. He was so thankful that Ponyboy would never have dog tags sit on his chest as he witnessed destruction and death. And though he knew it would never change the kid, he was glad it didn’t have to happen nonetheless. He was glad Ponyboy could go on reading poetry and looking at sunsets and writing books instead of sitting in an early grave. Or worse, coming back like him. Soda was so glad that the dog tags around Ponyboy’s neck read Sodapop Patrick Curtis instead of Ponyboy Micheal Curtis.

A second submission for day 3 of @outsidersweek

[whilomm]

oh okay heres one:

"sleepaway camp"= you go there for at least a few days, a week, sometimes several weeks, and sleep there, as opposed to a """camp""" where you go for the day and your parents or whoever picks you up afterward (those arent really camps, but like. idk when i went to "space camp" it was a weeklong but not sleepaway). in the U.S. at least, the typical image of a sleepaway camp involves staying in cabins, dunno how common it is/what it looks like in other countries.

for the first few i just mean like. not necessarily a stealth church camp, just like. idk, a camp where theres also an Assumption Of Christianity and just general vibes without being actually church camp. So, there might not be daily services and jesusy dedicatwd activities, but maybe theres still a prayer said over meals and shit. Which i assume might exist...

(oh and @reblogforsamplesize if u wanna)

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[fortunemars]

Alright council i have SO MANY THOUGHTS but I started typing them in the tags before I realised how many I had... Good time to learn there's a tag cap... Anyway I'd love to world build on this a lot more bc this is interesting!!! This is so long that I have to page break it 😭😭 why am I like this

Okay tw under the page break: death, grief, a tiny bit of implied gore

So many things to explore with the different SKs and their reactions to discovering it, to the actual event of shad dying, to the aftermath where they'd be forced to give up their power and their immortality to end the pain of basically being suspended in the time between living and dying or deciding to keep the power as it slowly dwindles and destroys their bodies bit by bit. Torn to shreds because they were so full of greed. Living through every ounce of pain that came until it finally ended. A warrior to the end, no?

I'd love to see if I could write smthn with this concept. I'm thinking of all the options I'd have. Like how does laur find out? Through vylad (a comrade), before the fight? Or Gene in the middle of the battle, a shock that gives gene enough time to knock laurance down and remind him of everything he's gone through to get here, how much he's lost and how much hes had to give up for the ones he loves, how much he's been pushed to the side for the village's gain?

Would Laurance reconsider, turn on aph or Garroth? Would be hesitate to kill them, let gene do it instead and tell laurance it was his fault they died so brutally, that laurance could have done it himself if he wasn't so afraid? Or would he double down, get stronger, fight harder, and win? Why, because he thinks he's okay with dying for them? Or does he think it's the only way he can save them from every bad thing that laurance represents? Does he defeat Shad because he thinks it is the only way his soul could be redeemed by Irene, to be the end of her lost lover's reign of terror, to end the existence of these demonic bodies that were corrupted and twisted from their original forms?

Furthermore, how would aphmau and Garroth react? Would they find him before he fully died or would they find him after, slowly decaying with a peaceful smile stuck in his face? How would they tell the others, the village, the alliance? What would they say of him when he was gone, how would they celebrate him, how would they remember him? Would he be forgotten in the history books, another faceless admirer of the new Irene?

Some random other questions: would Laurance meet ungrith in some sort of limbo or would ungrith already be born again? Or would laurance's soul be devoured by the fates as a payment because of how long he kept it after he died? Maybe he becomes a ghost like Malachi, doomed to walk within the borders of Phoenix Drop unseen and unheard for years, decades, forever...

Would aphmau and Garroth grieve together or would they end up blaming each other, or themselves, for laurance's choice and for not knowing until it was too late? Would they ever know if he suffered as he died again? how long he was there dying, if it was cold and quiet in their absence or if the burning of the nether and screaming of the souls be the last thing he heard-- a demented lullaby to sooth his aching soul to rest...

Ahem as you can tell I think a lot about laurance... Please tell me any of this made sense...

Ps I literally can't fandom tag this other than aphmau and aphmau Minecraft diaries bc of HOW MANY THOUGHTS I HAD HELPPPPPP THERES STILL MORE BUT MY PHONE IS LAGGING SO HARD

This post is relating to the thoughts that @laurencezvahlslefteyebrow, @xerith-42 and I have been discussing. Somehow the brain rot has progressed to me completely losing my shit.

okayokayokay

We were talking about what would happen to Shadow Knights if Shad were defeated and he died. And I have sososo many thoughts.

But this ones a bit hard to explain.

Shad's presence is necessary for Shadow Knights to exist. His being is what keeps them in motion, so in turn, you'd think the Shadow Knights would die once Shad does.

I know @xerith-42 was thinking the difference would be between Premature SKs and Full ones. However, I think it's more dependent on how the SK was formed.

I think Shad's control is necessary for undead shadow knights. His spirit has to be around for Undead SKs to be "alive," seeing as he literally has to revive them. If Shad dies; and his spirit is gone, the undead shadow knights finally get to pass on. I think it would be more of a relief, even to those like Gene. Especially to those like Gene. He barely has any autonomy left, so once Shad is gone, he can finally think for himself, even if it's in some world beyond.

This is all different for transformed/living SKs. They are still alive, and still have life energy. Shad is only a part of them, not their entire being. So, once Shad is gone, they aren't shadow knights anymore. However, they aren't human. They are... something else. Something more empty. To be transformed, something is ripped from their soul, and replaced with something from Shad. So, when Shad is gone, that part of them is gone, and it's not replaced with anything.

So, Living SKs survive once Shad is gone, but they almost transform into something else. Something we haven't seen before. I'm not sure what that is yet. I really want opinions on what this would look like, especially in Laurance.

Council, your thoughts?

[pillowspace]

Fascinated by how many people are picking the Daycare Attendant on that poll, I would have been soo scared of Sun

[artekai]

OC-tober (late) Day 7: Personality

Guess who finally watched ATLA

[phoenixcatch7]

If there's one thing I like more than time travel it's crossover reincarnation, so.

Botk link reincarnated as Damian Wayne.

An incredible weapon master of all types, but especially prodigious with a sword - he was beating knights at the age of 4 and with his memories as intact as they get for him I can see that goalpost moving even further (probably with traps and tricks, a 3yo doesn't exactly have great bodily control).

He's an excellent survivalist, agile, strong, durable, cunning and creative. He can move like a feather in the breeze, strike from behind with ease. His first kill, an animal, did not stir him as it did the other children. With his poise, grace, skills, obedience, he ought to be ra'as' finest assassin in the making, a jewel in the crown of the league.

Except he never speaks a word. Half his targets escape unscathed. He skates by true punishment on the merit of his skills and achievements in other missions. Testing has shown it is not a physical deformity that prevents his speech, but not even talia has been able to coaxe a word from him past his second birthday.

It is a defect ra'as is growing more and more frustrated by, as each attempt to fix these two final flaws ends in resounding failure. Less extreme solutions are running dry.

Talia fears those solutions. Her child does too, she knows. For them, there is a possible solution, more extreme than anything ra'as would tolerate.

She sends him out of the league. To his father.

To Gotham.

[dire-kumori]

I tend to think of Mike as someone who wants to be good, but only had bad examples to learn from.

[picory]

i really need to rewatch uwe before the upcoming season finale and properly gather my thoughts on it but i really really like the show! its goofy and cartoony style paired with a serious story about these warriors' souls stuck in an eternal war with the evil, the slight psychological horror of being used as hosts for said souls and almost completely discarded and disregarded (though it doesn't say too much about this, this is more my overthinking), the steampunk elements, the character designs, the voice acting... all of it. despite that i still have some irks with it, like the pacing. this show would've definitely benefited from having more episodes. for such a story heavy show 10 episodes doesn't feel enough. it worked with primal, genndy tartakovsky's previous show, because there was little to no dialogue there. it did an excellent job at making the viewer understand what was happening with mere facial expressions. but uwe characters have a lot to say, a lot to work out between each other. and it's clear tartakovsky wants to tell more. they need more episodes to do that. i hope the show gets renewed for a second season. i need everything that i'm extremely confused about to be addressed and cleared up

[bl00dh0rs3]

the way i have absolutely no business being the way i am

[apollo-just-ice]

Love that I had the thought “hmm well some of this stuff in my fic might not be completely accurate :/“

But then I reminded myself it’s like a totally self indulgent written for *me* thing,,, like yeah! It doesn’t have to be perfect, I am writing what makes my heart happy! That is all that should matter really!! And so now I feel okay, honestly. Good job, me.

That rly is an important thing to remember when creating things, is that foremost it should be making you happy, no matter inaccuracies or popularity or anything else

Also an essay of my thoughts about writing a pmd fic below in the tags hahah oops:

[gallusrostromegalus]

Move To A Darker Place

This is a story of Man Vs. Machine.

---

Last March, my father attempted to file his Taxes.

My beloved father is a Boomer. Unlike most Boomers, my father is rather handy with technology because he was one of the people that had a not-insignificant hand in Developing a hell of a lot of it. He was studying Computer Science at Cal Poly before the computer science degree existed. I have many fond childhood memories of skipping through the aisles of various electronic and computer part warehouses while Dad described something that either terrified the staff or made them worship him as a God.  He taught himself how to use his smartphone.  Internationally.

So when he saw the option to file digitally with the IRS through the “ID.me” program, he leapt at the chance to celebrate the Federal Government finally entering the Digital Age.

It was all going swimmingly for about six hours, until he was ready to file and the system told him that it needed to verify his identity. 

“Very Well.” said my father, a man unafraid of talking to himself and getting something out of the conversation. “It wouldn’t do for me to get someone else’s return.”

The System told him that it needed him to take a “Digital Image ID”.

a.k.a: A Selfie.

“A-ha!” Dad beams. Dad is very good at taking selfies. He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped one, and tried to upload it.

Please log into your Id.me Account and use the provided app to submit your Digital Image ID. The System clarified.

“Oh. You should have said so.”  Dad pouted, but used his phone to log onto the ID.me account, do the six security verification steps and double-checked that the filing looked the same as it did on the desktop, gave the IRS like nine permissions on his phone, and held up the camera to take his Federal Privacy Invasion Selfie.

Please align your face to the indicated grid. Said The System, pulling up a futuristic green-web-of-polygons approximation.

“Ooh, very Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry would HATE this!” Dad said cheerfully, aligning his face to the grid.  My father is a bit… cavalier, when it comes to matters of personal information and federal government, because he’s been on FBI watchlists since the late 60’s when he was protesting The Vietnam War and Ronald Regan before he’d broken containment. Alas.

Anyway, there is very little information the federal government does not have on him already, but he’s as good at stalking the FBI as they are at stalking him, and had worked out a solution:  He has something approaching a friendship with the local Federal Agent (Some guy named “Larry”. Allegedly), and got Larry hooked on Alternative Histories and Dad’s collection of carefully-researched “there is very likely buried treasure here” stories, and Larry is loath to bother his favorite Historical Fanfiction author too much.

But I digress.

After thinking for a minute, The System came back with an Error Message. Please remove glasses or other facial obstructions.

And here is where the real trouble began.

See, my father wears glasses that do substantially warp the appearance of his face, because he is so nearsighted that he is legally blind without them. His natural focal point is about 4 inches in front of his nose.  While Dad can still take a selfie because he (approximately) knows where his phone is if it’s in his hand, he cannot see the alignment grid.

He should ask someone to take it for him! I hear the audience say. Yes, that would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but Dad was attempting to do taxes at his residence in Fort Collins, while his immediate family was respectively in Denver, Texas and Canada.  He tried calling our neighbors, who turned out to be in Uganda.

He looked down at the dog, Arwen, and her little criminal paws that can open doorknobs, but not operate cell phones.

She looked back at him, and farted.

“Well, I’ll give it a try, but if it gives me too much trouble, I’ll call Larry, and Larry can call the IRS about it.” Dad told her. 

She continued to watch him. Arwen is an Australian Kelpie (a type of cattle-herding dog), going on 14 years old, deaf as a post and suffering from canine dementia now, but she still retains her natural instinct to Micromanage. She was also trained as a therapy dog, and even if she can’t hear my dad, still recognizes the body language of a man setting himself up for catastrophe.

So, squinting in the late afternoon light next to the back door, Dad attempted to line his face up with a grid he could only sort-of see, and took A Federal Selfie.

The System thought about it for a few moments.

Image Capture Failed: Insufficient Contrast. The System replied. Please move to a darker place.

“...Huh.” Dad frowned. “Alright.”

He moved to the middle of his office, away from the back door, lit only by the house lighting and indirect sunlight, and tried again.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“What?” Dad asked the universe in general.

“Whuff.” Arwen warned him against sunk costs.

Dad ignored her and went into the bathroom, the natural habitat of the selfie. Surely, only being lit by a light fixture that hadn’t been changed since Dad was attempting to warn everyone about Regan would be suitably insufficient lighting for The System.  It took some negotiating, because that bathroom is “Standing Room Only” not “Standing And Holding Your Arms Out In Front Of You Room”.  He ended up taking the selfie in the shower stall.

As The System mulled over the latest attempt, Arwen shuffled over and kicked open the door to watch.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move to a Darker Place.

“Do you mean Spiritually?” Dad demanded.

“Whuff.” Arwen cautioned him again.

Determined to succeed, or at least get a different error message that may give him more information, Dad entered The Downstairs Guest Room.  It is the darkest room in the house, as it is in the basement, and only has one legally-mandated-fire-escape window, which has blinds.  Dad drew those blinds, turned off the lights and tried AGAIN.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move To A Darker Place.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO PHOTOGRAPH MYSELF INSIDE OF A CAVE??” Dad howled. 

“WHUFF!” Arwen reprimanded him from under the pull-out bed in the room. It’s where she attempts to herd everyone when it’s thundering outside, so the space is called her ‘Safety Cave’.

Dad frowned at the large blurry shape that was The Safety Cave.

“Why not?” he asked, the prelude to many a Terrible Plan.  With no small amount of spiteful and manic glee, Dad got down onto the floor, and army-crawled under the bed with Arwen to try One Last Time. Now in near-total darkness, he rolled on his side to be able to stretch his arms out, Arwen slobber-panting in his ear, and waited for the vague green blob of the Facial grid to appear.

This time, when he tapped the button, the flash cctivated.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Dad shouted, dropping the phone and rubbing his eyes and cursing to alleviate the pain of accidentally flash-banging himself. Arwen shuffled away from him under the bed, huffing sarcastically at him.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“MOTHERFU- hang on.” Dad squinted.  The System sounded strange. Distant and slightly muffled.

Dad squinted really hard, and saw the movement of Arwen crawling out from under the bed along the phone’s last known trajectory.

“ARWEN!” Dad shouted, awkwardly reverse-army crawling out from under the bed, using it to get to his feet and searching for his glasses, which had fallen out of his pocket under the bed, so by the time he was sighted again, Arwen had had ample time to remove The Offending Device.

He found her out in the middle of the back yard, the satisfied look of a Job Well Done on her face. She did not have the phone. 

“Arwen.” Dad glared. It’s a very good glare. Dad was a teacher for many years and used it to keep his class in order with sheer telepathically induced embarrassment, and his father once glared a peach tree into fecundity.  

Arwen regarded him with the casual interest a hurricane might regard a sailboat tumbling out of its wake. She is a force of nature unto herself and not about to be intimidated by a half-blind house ape.  She also has cataracts and might not be able to make out the glare.

“I GIVE UP!” Dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air and returning to the office to write to the IRS that their selfie software sucks ass. Pleased that she had gotten her desired result, Arwen followed him in.

To Dad’s immense surprise, the computer cheerfully informed him that his Federally Secure Selfie had been accepted, and that they had received and were now processing his return!

“What the FUCK?” Dad glared. “Oh well. If I’ve screwed it up, Larry can call me.”

---

I bring this up because recently, Dad received an interesting piece of mail.

It was a letter from the IRS, addressed to him, a nerve-wracking thing to recessive at the best of times.  Instead of a complaint about Dad’s Selfie Skills, it was a letter congratulating him on using the new ID.me System.  It thanked him for his help and expressed hopes he would use it again next year, and included the selfie that The System had finally decided to accept.

“You know, my dad used to complain about automation.” Dad sighed, staring at the image. “Incidentals my boy!  My secretary saves the state of California millions of dollars a year catching small errors before they become massive ones! He’d say. Fought the human resources board about her pay every year.  I used to think he was overestimating how bad machines were and underestimating human error, but you know? He was right.”

He handed me the image.

My father was, technically, in the image.  A significant amount of the bottom right corner is taken up by the top of his forehead and silver hair.  Most of the image, the part with the facial-recognition markers on it, was composed of Arwen’s Alarmed and Disgusted Doggy face.

“Oh no!” I cackled. “Crap, does this mean you have to call the IRS and tell them you’re not a dog?”

“Probably.” Dad sighed. “I know who I’m gonna bother first though.” he said, taking out his phone (Dad did find his phone a few hours after Arwen absconded with it when mom called and the early spinach started ringing). 

“Hey Larry!” Dad announced to the local federal agent. “You’re never gonna believe this. My dog filed my taxes!”

Larry considered this for a moment. “Is this the dog that stole my sandwich? Out of my locked  car?” he asked suspiciously.

“The very same.” Dad grinned.

“Hm. Clever Girl.” Federal Agent Larry sighed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before she got into tax fraud.”

---

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[poppyseed799]

I have this problem that’s like the opposite of nostalgia or something where some things I remember liking a lot as a child I look back and only remember the bad times.

This is specifically about Animal Crossing, loved that game as a kid, but I have literally no idea why, cuz it was just pure hell for me from what I can remember.

[angeltism]

not 2 keep posting literally Only Vents (and like 1 normal thing once a day) but it's nights like these I reminisce about my abuser and wonder all that "what if"s

all the sui tw/cw tags r because of shit I wrote in the tags

[ddejavvu]

Helloo!! Sooo I have a picture of mgg as my lock screen but his face isn’t in the picture and I was wonderinggg if you could write about the girls at the bau seeing your background of your phone and it’s some guy but they don’t know it’s spencer and they ask all these questions about this mysterious secret boyfriend you have and asking to meet him and r is just like maybeeee idk knowing that they have in fact met him and maybe spencer is near by and hearing all this and is just all shy and flustered. If you do write this THANK YOUUU you’re writing it phenomenal, one of a kind, it’s so good!!! <333

"Woah, hubba hubba," JJ's eyes bug out at your phone screen, and Emily, forever on JJ's wavelength, snatches it out of your hands before you can properly dim the screen.

"Who is that?" Emily asks everyone's burning question, and one of Penelope's hands squeezes yours, with nails, to emphasize her urgency.

Your lock screen is a picture of Spencer's bare chest clad only in a blazer, the front open in a lewd V that showcases the dark pink kiss marks you'd spread across the smattering of wiry curls he's grown. It's not something you'd meant to flash your coworkers with, and Spencer chokes on his water while Derek hoots and hollers at it.

"There are some things that should be kept private," Rossi drawls, eyes wide and haunted as he stands, "I'm going to get Aaron and myself another refill, just in case any worse pictures get shown around the table."

Hotch laughs at the older man, amusement lining his features handsomely as the group continues to tease you.

"So, when are you bringing this guy around? Not that we'd recognize him anyways, unless he showed up shirtless with lipstick all over him."

"Derek, you-" You barely stop yourself from saying, 'you have met him', instead swerving into an easy insult, "You're the last person I want to introduce him to. You'll never let us live this down."

"None of us will." Prentiss promises, her grin wolfish, "You'll be lucky if Garcia doesn't manage to track him down using nipple-recognition software."

Your technical analyst cackles into her drink, and Spencer makes a hasty getaway.

"I need the bathroom," He paws with burning cheeks at Derek's leg, ushering the man out of his way so that he can speed-walk to the bathroom. You watch him go, hearing Hotch let out a rare laugh at his urgency.

"Poor Spence," JJ croons, "Did you see how red his face was?"

"That kid's almost thirty and I bet he can't even say the word 'sex' without blushing." Derek scoffs.

"He can't. I've seen it." Garcia confirms, "It's pathetic."

"Pathetic," You snort, but what your team hears as agreement, you mean as contradiction. Spencer was nothing close to pathetic that night- sweet and tender, yes, but pathetic, no. He'd cupped your face while you'd spread a smattering of sticky kisses across his chest, and he'd stared into your eyes when you'd taken the picture, a smile on his face even though he'd known his grin wouldn't be in frame.

"Well get all of it out now," Hotch advises, a teasing tone in his voice, "Spencer won't come back if we're still talking about it."

"I'm happy for you." Dave states, setting his and Aaron's drinks down, "But so help me, Y/N, if I ever see your boyfriend's naked torso again, I'll kill myself."

You refrain from telling Rossi he had just seen your boyfriend's bare torso, last week when Spencer had needed to be stripped of his cold, wet clothes, and thrust into a heated blanket for warmth. No one had batted an eye at his brief nudity, and neither had you, because you'd memorized every inch of his skin. You didn't need to ogle him; you could recall his body from memory.

"I'll keep that in mind." You nod at Rossi sagely, "Just don't go through the rest of my camera roll." You see Spencer exit the bathroom, peering cautiously at your table to see if he can predict the conversation before returning, "Or you'll find a lot worse than his chest."