#something something you are your own worst critic

[grisnyx]

midas touch

[thebleedingeffect]

Hi hello hi, if anyone reads this just know that you're really cool and loved. Yeah that's my whole message 👍 you go out there and try your best and take a breather every now and again

[fstbmp-a]

me: [on hiatus]

also me: write 1k words for a drabble and ends up not liking any of it so far.

[cloudcountry]

Hi, thank you for sharing all of your writing with us! I love reading it and you have a great style. <3

If Floyd still feels like doing his after party naming could I ask him for one of me?

I am an artist and a writer but I don't have much self confidence so it's hard for me to share my art sometimes. I read constantly and love romance and happy endings (because the world can just be a cold place). I also really like frilly girly things and pink is my favorite color. I'm ace and pretty oblivious but I love my close friends and would commit murder for my little sister if she asked. I love animals and would love to be an outdoor person but I'm terrified of spiders (I internalized the 'never more than 8 feet away from a spider at any time' when I was a kid and that was that.) I really enjoy Twisted Wonderland because of the amazing character designs (it makes all other otome games look so bland!) and even though Disney is the devil I can't let go of my childhood nostalgia and love of it and so TWST is a wonderful evolution that I can enjoy older while still holding onto that. I really really don't like being in crowded areas and hate overly loud places. I love rainy days (I genuinely think they are beautiful and they make me happy). I can get very hyper focused (I think I'm ADHD or on the spectrum but I've never gotten a confirmation of that) on things that I like/enjoy but it takes a lot to force me to do something I don't want to do. I'm really cuddly with people I love and I genuinely feel like I'm a nice/friendly person but if anyone messed with my sister or friends I would have no problem body slamming them or committing homicide if needed.

(sorry I don't really have anything super interesting that stands out like the others do so I hope it's not too difficult)

Thank you and I hope you and Floyd have a great time!

"ahh! the little sea bunny is so cute." floyd's voice is pitchy and delighted as he smiles.

the debtor hums in response, a small smile on their face.

"floyd gave you this nickname because of your soft demeanor. you're a friendly person and are really cuddly with the people you love, which makes a lot of people at nrc think of you as cute. however, your willingness to protect the people you love also earns you this nickname, since sea bunnies are incredibly toxic to predators that try to eat them."

[earl-grey-love]

I hate being on the internet and being constantly exposed to people's hot takes on important shit. Like people will come out with the most unhinged nonsense and die on their hill as if it makes a lick of sense.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

Im beating the dead horse with the stick i used to poke the hornets nest but theres an argument bouncing around against the censorship of morally objectionable material on fandom spaces like ao3. And it goes "these spaces were created for morally objectionable material in the first place. Where else are we supposed to put it."

And i agree! I think as long as whatever site ppl are using has a robust tagging system any kind of content should be allowed if it's legal to post. I think individual works should be appropriately criticized for bad or insensitive portrayals of morally objectionable content, and that a saturation of said bad portrayals in media can lead to wider romanticization and acceptance of said topics. Most individual creators however have very little control over how a wider audience would receive their work, even if the inclusion of objectionable content would require more scrutiny by both the creators and audience. Fandom spaces like ao3 specifically refuse to limit individuals from distributing their stuff as long as it's legal. All moderators of these spaces should do is offer people who dont want to see that stuff an easy way to opt out. Criticism towards the subject matter should be given on a case by case basis by its audience. If they changed that rule, ppl will just create another space run on this principle.

(In fact, I personally think its better if the "sickos" explore what they want to explore in fandom compared to making actual published works with certain morally objectionable topics. I can block someones omegaverse incest fic. I can't block an ad for a thinly veiled fetish film disguized as a hollywood blockbuster if it's printed on the side of a bus.)

But anyway yes sites like ao3 was made for ppl who wanted to post gross stuff without being harassed for it. yes its stupid that ppl are trying to harass "sickos" off the "sicko" websites instead of using the extensive block features most of these sites have. no i dont think posting morally objectionable content is harmful on its own but yes these topics should be portrayed more carefully and be subject to a lot of scrutiny when present in any artistic content. But like. I hope the ppl making this argument understand that a lot of people arguing for censorship in fandom spaces dont actually. Care. Where the "sickos" post their gross stuff. Bc they dont want ppl to post stuff they dont like period.

This argument assumes there will always be people who want to explore "bad" topics in fandom. So the solution is to let ppl who dont want to see that stuff to back out. But the people who oppose this wants the "sickos" to disappear altogether. They think if they yell about it hard enough and get enough sites to ban stuff ppl will eventually naturally choose to never think about morally objectionable stuff. Or at least never portray it in a way they dont like. This is why ppl who whine about ao3 "allowing 'problematic stuff' rarely talk about the tag blocking feature. Because it's not just that they dont want to see that stuff themselves. They dont want YOU to see it either. Or for the person to post it. Or even think about it.

And it's like. Wow youre complaining about seeing too many "problematic ships?" Babygirl the first thing i DO when i look up a new fandom on ao3 is to block all the lesbian x men, sibling x sibling, and child x adult ships i can think of. And as i scroll every time i see a bad ship i add it to the block list. What were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament?

[allylikethecat]

girl your writing is NOT getting worse, there’s nothing bad about it for it to even “get worse” at all!!!!!!

🥺🥺🥺

Thank you so much! It's honestly a huge insecurity of mine, I feel like sometimes I get *really excited* and start a fic and obsess over the first few chapters before I post them and get them *perfect* in my mind, and then I start posting, and I get *even more excited* because now I'm SHARING the fic with PEOPLE and then I lose direction because I have the attention span of a hamster, and I'm like throwing words on a page to see what sticks lol

I know that *rationally* my writing is still about the same, but like sometimes it just feels like the quality deteriorates and I find myself spinning in all these different directions and then I get in my head and am like wow these people are so nice and kind and supportive reading my work and they deserve better even though everyone really IS just this nice and supportive and yeah idk it's a whole thing and I'm sorry for over sharing right now but WOW did I see that tumblr post and feel seen because even if my writing isn't *actually* getting worse, we're our own worst critic so it does sometimes feel like it is? If that makes sense?

Anyway I almost cried reading this ask because it's honestly just so sweet and you didn't have to go out of your way to send it but you DID and for that I am extremely grateful and I screenshooted it and will be looking at it when I start to get too hard on myself so THANK YOU and also I apologize for how stream of conscious this is. I hope you continue to enjoy my fics, and I hope that I manage to keep it so that the quality doesn't actually go down, and also that you had a fantastic Friday! I also hope that you have the VERY BEST weekend!! Thank you so so much again!

❤️Ally

[the-sera]

My name is Sera, you may not know me but you know my past work behind the scenes here and there, such as the Mass Effect trilogy, Dragon Age, Silent Hills, and many others.

I am an agoraphobic indigenous Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) mixed lesbian who has fought for several years a worsening health condition that is currently killing me. The point of no return is not that far away. I have spent years exhausting any paths and means to get help, enduring extreme and near endless pain. I have sold all I have, spent every dime to my name. I have received various forms of help over the years in this battle, but I have reached the critical point I have feared all this time. And to make matters worst, the family responsible for inflicting a lifetime of abuse on me is stalking me very heavily online, which has not only exacerbated my agoraphobia, but has also made the efforts to build this harder than I could describe. Know that I share as many details as I can while seeking to avoid undermining my immediate safety, I hope you understand. This post is a highly abridged version of the content in the link, the unabridged and unedited version is available below the Read More cut ❤

If you have been following me for a while, you are familiar with my struggle and saw me talking about it throughout the years. There are no other options or help besides this, besides you. I need your help or I'm going to die, this is the last chance I have left. I'm afraid to my core, I still have a life in front of me, dreams to pursue. If you read this far, I know you may be inclined to share and move on, but I am asking you to pause and think if you have a dollar that could make all the difference. I know it can be troublesome to stop and actually do it, I am asking you to please consider doing it.

If you yourself have a health condition, I salute you for fighting your own battle. Regardless of whether you donate or not, if you read this far, know that you are loved.

A warm thank you to @transmechanicus , the kind soul who made this possible. I would be lost and doomed without your help. Erika did not believe thank yous were necessary, but they are. Attempting to save a human being's life is no small act. Whether it succeeds or fail, no thank yous will ever be enough. Even as the pain consumes my body, I am able to feel hope thanks to this. There are no words invented to express this level of thanks, but if I get to live, I will search for it.

(Please don't put tags on this unless it is to actually talk or comment something. As always, kind words are appreciated.)

My name is Sera, you may not know me but you know my past work behind the scenes here and there, such as the Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age, Silent Hills, and many others.

I am an agoraphobic indigenous Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) mixed lesbian who has fought for several years a worsening health condition that is currently killing me. The point of no return is not that far away. I have spent years exhausting any paths and means to get help, enduring extreme and near endless pain. I have sold all I have, spent every dime to my name. The system, I feel, is indifferent to my situation. I have received various forms of help over the years in this battle, but I have reached the critical point I have feared all this time. And to make matters worst, the family responsible for inflicting a lifetime of abuse on me is stalking me very heavily online, which has not only exacerbated my agoraphobia, but has also made the efforts to build this harder than I could describe. Know that I share as many details as I can while seeking to avoid undermining my immediate safety, I hope you understand.

If you are reading this, you are one of the few people who can help save my life. A single dollar is enough to make a tremendous difference. There is no other options or source of help besides this, besides you. I need your help or I'm going to die, this is the last chance I have left.

The goal is a series of treatments and challenging surgeries that will remove small metal shards near vital organs and bones in my body. It is categorized as severe internal injuries secondary to a traumatic event. As medical professionals have put it, "the lack of immediate surgical intervention necessitates a comprehensive, multidisciplinary treatment approach aimed at mitigating the risk of disease progression and optimizing long-term outcomes."

My injuries are from a car accident which injured me immensely and took the lives of my two closest friends in the world. This page does not ask for the full amount of the procedures and treatments, since it is a very large sum of money that cannot be reached that quickly. The page only asks for enough to get me started in the process and access proper vital treatments in countries of the european union. Adding time to the clock, giving me a chance to fight this battle and launching an important part of the process towards saving my life.

I know you may be inclined to share and move on, but I am asking you to pause and think if you have a dollar that could make all the difference. You may be but a few clicks away from truly helping someone who desperately needs it. I know it can be troublesome to stop and actually do it, I am asking you to please consider doing it.

If this fails to reach its goal, I will die. I'm afraid and I need your help. I still have a life in front of me, dreams to pursue. If you read this far, you are the only chance I have left. Don't underestimate the difference a dollar can make, your dollar could be the one dollar we come short of. The expenses covered by this amount ranges from the medical consultations, medical treatments, surgeries and, of course, accessing said treatment, reaching the places where I need to go. I will have a true chance at fighting for the remaining amount myself.

As for cheaper alternatives, it is mainly temporary fixes that would not fix the issue and waitlists that I would die waiting on years before my turn comes. This is it, this is the only way I have that provides the care I need, in the timeframe I need it, with a success rate that gives me a chance to live.

Thank you for reading this and for persevering in the brutal system we all live under. If you yourself have a health condition, I salute you for fighting your own battle. May we all make it and may we all have the softest of epilogues. Regardless of whether you donate or not, if you read this far, know that you are loved.

I would like to thank Erika, a dear friend who has made this possible at all. Without her, I would be lost. I would also like to thank immensely Milica, who has been on this journey with me for so many years, almost since the beginning. Her medical knowledge and her kind heart, her support and dedication, have allowed me to survive long enough to get to this point. I would not be here still without her. I would like to thank the amazing and loving Dana, who has been here during the good days as much as the bad days. She has been a beacon preventing me from giving up hope. I would have abandonned before getting to this point had she not been there for me. And thank you to Oli, who has been my champion, it is thanks to his help that I can move around where I need to go. A great support and a great friend. I would like to also thank Bruna, a kind heart who has never failed to cheer me on, even when her life was not perfect, she never stopped cheering and supporting me.

I would also like to thank my tumblr mutuals, you know who you are, those who have been in my DMs offering me your kindness, laughter and support in these dark times. Your help has also saved me more than once. You are true blessings. Thank you for never giving up hope during the days I felt like doing so.

You have all carried the torch during the days I couldn't, and for that, I can never thank you enough. I have lived and survived because of you, your help in every form has made a difference in the world. I am ready to fight for my life, and whether I reach my goal and live, or fail and die, know that none of it was wasted. You have all made me a better person and that is the mark of true love transpiring from one person to the next. Thank you for believing in me when I could not. I love you all.

[aj-living-life]

I am in turmoil. As an author I've much been a writing purist who scorns fanfiction as always either crappy or a waste of talent. Then I let myself write some, just some Magnus Archives Statements which could practically be their own stories. Then I saw a cool scene in a comic and wondered how it would look in writing alone, and wrote it as a "writing exercise" to practice my descriptions, which is a place I fall short in ability. Then I saw some fanart that inspired me for a possibility and I wrote it, then later rewrote details to use it as an independent story since it was so off-canon. And then a story ended and I wrote a continuation because I was dissatisfied with the end and if the author wouldn't make it, hey, I could. Then I was dating someone who liked, read, and wrote fanfiction and would often make up tales of if we were in stories and I found myself writing those into reality like the simp I am. Then I started writing fanfiction just because I'd get a burst of inspiration to write and it's stupid to not take advantage of that since I could repurpose it later in my work. And now I've got a lot, including one of a story I think doesn't have ANY fanfiction yet and who's author would probably be delighted to find a fanfic about. So I wanna toss it out somewhere she could find it, and I do have an AO3 account at the behest of a friend years ago. And I may as well upload ALL my fanfiction if I'm uploading some, since I never share it and keep it locked up as a secret when its not bad writing at all, just not as original as I like to be. And I realized that if people like my fanfics online I could advertise my original work to those who like fanfics, I've found some favorite artists through fanart after all. So TLDR: I'm becoming a fanfic author and it feels like I've gone to the dark side.

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[pastryfication]

oscar x reader who has a cochlear implant

sudden silence | oscar piastri

summary: your cochlear implant isn’t always your best friend, but when it fails you at the worst possible time, you feel panic like never before. note: i hope this is what you imagined!! i researched quite a lot to make it as accurate as possible but please correct me if i’ve written something inaccurate xx

everything was loud around you. the engines roaring to life again and again cut through the air and the crowds erupted in cheers whenever they caught sight of a car. the announcers were talking animatedly over the loudspeakers, their enthusiasm clear even if it was just free practice. and on top of all that, the general hustle and bustle also sounded in the background. the high-octane atmosphere was almost headache-inducing. everything was slowly becoming too much for you, the noise deafening, drowning out your thoughts, until suddenly, everything stopped.

suddenly, everything was completely quiet. not a single sound of oscar’s pit crew talking loudly. not a single tyre screeching on the track. just complete silence.

your hand immediately reached up to the small implant in your ear. don’t panic. you forced yourself to take a deep breath. glitches happen. just count to 10 and it should be working again.

1, 2, 3, 4 . . . you took a deep breath again . . . 8, 9 . . . 10 . . .

nothing happened. the silence lingered, the disorienting feeling wrapping around you like a heavy blanket. one of the engineers started shouting something and suddenly everyone was running around, but you couldn’t hear them. you couldn’t hear anything.

you could feel your heart beating away in your chest while your hands started to tremble, clamminess forming in your palms. you tried to steady your breathing again, tried to calm yourself, but everything was suddenly overwhelming. relax. you thought. you can fix it.

fingers fumbling, you reached for the implant, quickly checking the battery. it was still there. adjusting the settings didn’t work either, and it dawned on you like a comet from the sky. there was nothing you could do.

the panic gripped you from the inside and moved into occupying your entire body. hearing was crucial at the track. not just for communication but for safety as well. what if you missed an important announcement? or something critical happening on the track? what if oscar crashed and nobody could tell you?

the visual stimuli—the flashing lights, the cars zooming by, the people moving around you—became slowly overwhelming without the grounding presence of sound. the sensory overload only added to the panic already formed by your thoughts.

what were you supposed to do? alert some of the employees? no. you couldn’t disturb them from their job. find someone else to help? you mind did a quick once over of the people attending the grand prix, but no one who would be able to help you came to mind.

you were on your own.

୨୧

oscar immediately stressed when he exited the car after fp2, finding out that you were gone from the garage. and no one knew where you were.

you had left somewhere in the middle of the session without telling anyone.

it instantly worried him, and with a frown on his face, he made his way to his small drivers room.

you don’t hear him enter, but suddenly, his figure was standing in front of you, a frown on his face as he said something. you couldn’t hear it. it was as if he was miming the words, no sound escaping his mouth.

he must have noticed something in your facial expression, because suddenly, he stopped talking. his face morphed into an even deeper frown of concern, and his hand moved up to point at his right ear, his question evident in the unspoken.

you only nodded, looking down at your fingers instead of meeting his eyes. was he disappointed that you had left?

you didn’t get long to ponder, because he quickly took a step forward, his hand meeting shoulder first to alert you of his closeness before he pulled you into him, both arms wrapping tightly around your frame and squeezing you against his chest in a hug.

the two of you stayed there for a while, his hand rubbing your back gently as you sniffled slightly, trying to keep the pent up tears at bay.

someone must have knocked on the door, because you felt oscar chest vibrate as he lifted his head to shout something in reply, but he didn’t pull back from you.

there, in oscar’s embrace, with his arms shielding you from the outside world, his lips pressing reassuring kisses into your hair, you knew everything would be fine. you could call the audiologist in a moment, and everything would be fixed. but for a moment you actually enjoyed the silence, because you know that oscar won’t let anything happen. with him, you were completely safe, and as long as you had him, nothing could go completely wrong.

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Advice: Noticing Bigotry In Your Writing

Tw for mentions of bigotry and discrimination, obvi

Look Up Common Stereotypes For Your Characters

Seriously, this is the best thing you can do in order to incorperate these stereotypes into a full-formed identity. I'm not saying that you can't write a "sassy black girl" or a "happy disabled person".

It's just that if you have any hope of writing these stereotypes into actual 3-dimensional characters, you need to know what you are working with. Look up "Common {Minority} Stereotypes" or "{Minority} Myths"

It's genuinely not that hard to see whether or not your character is a stereotype! Send an ask to @cripplecharacters if you are having trouble with your disablity representation.

Send a submittion to the thousands of Tumblr accounts whose entire schtick is giving you advice!

Let me tell you:

" The Worst Decision You Can Make Is A Subconscious One"

If you go into writing a minority character the way you do with all your characters aka fantasizing and just going straight for it, there is a chance you might undercut your story with bigotry!

Because everyone has bias. That's not a moral failing on your part but it is something you need to consciously fight against in order to write characters who can stand on their own and not be supported by internalized bigotry.

Which leads me to my second and last question.

2. Why Is Your Character Like This?

Investigate why you made the decisions you have made. To help with that, here is a little questionaire!

When I imagine a cruel person what assumptions do I make about their appearance and psyche?

Based on my previous characters, do I have a tendency to lean into a particular archetype when writing my minority characters?

Is there any narrative reason such as plot, themes, and other important devices that would justify my character's personality?

Why did I decide this character would be this particular minority?

How do I view this character in terms of their minority status? Is it condescending? Is it hateful?

What associations do I naturally have between a minority status and social status, personality, and importance?

Would I have treated and viewed this character the same way if their minority status was completely washed away?

Are my minority characters generally relegated to the side lines and only exist to help non-minority characters in their lives?

Is the level of detail, psychological complexity, story, likeability, relatability, and compellingness of minority characters on the same level as non-minority characters?

Do my stories contain symbolism which portrays cruel bigotry-motivated practices as positive or useful?

Do my stories sympathize with bigotry-infused individuals while not extending that sympathy to those who are oppressed by that bigotry?

Have I ever critically looked at my writing and what it says about my worldview on others?

If you are now considering that you have biased belief systems, that's good! Again, it's much better to be aware and fixing your problems instead of not being aware of them.

I hope my little questionaire made you think about your writing in a new way! ;)

Feel free to add your own important "check yourself" questions!

[imsobadatnicknames2]

How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art on the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is as much of a violation of copyright law as straight up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thing to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition and standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

[thebearer]

making the bed |carmen berzatto x reader| part one

prompt: carmen's stressed. food critics, a newborn baby, balancing work life and married life and now dad life; he's bound to break, everyone knows it. but no one ever thought he'd lash out on you.

or, part one of the devastation fic. based off this ask from the other day. two more parts to come.

contains: mega angst. mega angst, with no resolution in this part. hurt, no comfort (in this chapter, will be later in part 3). mean!carmen, very mean. mom!reader x dad!carmen with newborn teddy. fighting, language, carmen says mean stuff he doesn't mean. past mentions of trauma, family trauma, mikey mentioned. very angsty and a little heavy, please read at your own discretion. word count- 3.5k+.

"Are you ok?"

Carmen now understood why that phrase used to send Donna into such a blind rage, lips pursing and jaw clenching more and more every time he heard it. First at work, then with you, it felt never ending.

It was beginning to feel like critic season with how many were coming in, snooty and demanding to be impressed. It couldn't have come at a worst time, right in the middle of busy season with the start of the holidays. Days at The Bear were filled with frantic panic, running around, making sure everything was perfect, accounted for, and Carmen always had the sinking feeling it wasn't- that he'd forgotten something, messed something up. 

It wasn't rare for him to work himself up like this, a normal that you always warned him about, but he'd always had a solitude. As long as he'd known you, he'd had a place to go, to unwind, to let himself rest and reset with you. And he still did, it was just shared now with a newborn.

Dorothea Michelle. Teddy, for short. The light of his life, yours too. Nearly two months old with a set of lungs that sounded much louder, much more developed than that. Nights were long, sleepless, spent trying to lull Teddy back to sleep, awake even if he wasn't up with her. Carmen couldn't allow himself the selfishness to relax, to rewind, to "take it easy" like everyone told him to. At work, he was the boss; at home, he was a dad.

"Fuck, fuck," Carmen's sleepy stare was broken by a lick of bubbling heat, the lamb's roux popping with the high heat, splashing all over Carmen's chef whites.

"Jeff, c'mon," Tina clicked, shaking her head, moving the pan to lower heat. "What're you doin'?"

Carmen grit his teeth, snatching a rag off the stainless steel counter tops, scrubbing the burgundy stain, huffing when it only spread the stain.

"What happened?" Sydney turned, looking from the burnt sauce to Carmen's stained chef shirt. "Oh,"

"Do we have a spare coat?" Carmen huffed, throwing the rag down with a firm smack against the counter.

"I don't think so, Carm." Sydney shook her head. "You took the last ones home with you two days ago. The wine-"

"-I know, Chef, I know." Carmen snapped, running a hand through his hair. "Fuck, I-I can't fuckin' serve the critics lookin' like this. With shit all over me- fuck."

"Hey, easy, easy," Richie turned the corner, his hands held up. "What's goin' on?"

"Jeff got sauce over him. He doesn't have any clean clothes." Tina muttered, irritated that she had to fix his mess, more irritated that he wasn't taking care of himself. You have a baby, Jeff, you need to rest and take some time, she'd told him. Carmen only waved her off.

"Okay, okay, hey, that's no problem." Richie's voice raised, lifting over Carmen's. "You go home and change, get your spare, check on my beautiful goddaughter, and then come back with your A game. Yes?"

Carmen didn't even humor him with a snarky remark, yanking his coat off and stomping towards the office to grab his things. Richie and Tina looked at each other, shaking their head gently.

"Kids runnin' thin, T." Richie muttered with a sigh. "He's gonna break. It's gonna be bad."

"Yeah, he is. Gonna wear himself out before then." Tina shook her head. "Jeff needs a vacation." They both jumped at the slamming of the backdoor, Carmen's angry exit shaking the foundation.

"Needs to be fuckin' medicated. Fuckin' lunatic." Richie scoffed, rolling his eyes at Carmen's dramatics.

The drive home was filled with silence, Carmen's iron grip on the wheel, tearing through the traffic towards the house- his house, his home. 

Home, but it didn't provide the same comfort that it usually did. Carmen's shoulders still stayed tense, buzzing with rage, not dissipating when he thought of you, or of Teddy, knowing you'd both be there, excited to see him. 

You jumped at the sound of the car door slamming, peeking out the window to see Carmen's parked next to yours, furiously stomping up the front steps. You frowned, grabbing the baby monitor, walking towards the front door.

Carmen nearly hit you with how fiercely he flung the door open. "Woah," You reached for the door, stopping it before he could flick it shut. "Carm, don't slam it. Teddy's asleep. I just got her down." You frowned at him, shutting it slowly.

Carmen looked at you but didn't speak, looking through you with a rage that had your spine tingling before he finally broke his gaze, stomping towards the laundry room. "Carm? What’re you doing home? Don’t you have dinner soon?" You hesitated slightly, lingering in the doorway with an uncertainty you hadn’t felt with Carmen before. 

Carmen didn’t answer, his jaw still ground tight while he rummaged through the clean clothes, carelessly unfolding and shifting the folded clothes.

"Carmen," You said more firmly, caching his gaze. He didn't speak still, just stared at you- through you. "Are you ok?" You lifted a brow, features softening in worry.

Carmen paused, eyes closing, shoulders tensing in agitation. Are you ok? His ears rang, a familiar rage that he hadn't felt in years bubbling up deep in his chest. Frustrated and blinding and rampant, heat rushing through his veins, pulling himself further and further from reality into someplace different- someplace darker in his mind. 

"What's wrong?" You pressed, he could barely hear it, ears ringing at your question. "Did something happen? Did the critic come-"

"-Where's my chef whites?" Carmen barked, cutting you off, his chest tightening more and more with every heavy heave of his chest. You flinched at his tone.

"Uh, I-I haven't seen the whites. I washed your white tee-"

“-You what? Y-You what?” Carmen spat, eye widening with a wild, raged glint in his eye. Your stomach flipped and fell with fear, stepping back instinctively. 

“I-I washed your tee, Carm, that’s all that you left in the laundry basket-” 

"-Are you fucking kidding me?" Carmen boomed, his head spinning, body buzzing with rage. Your breath hitched, frozen in fear at the anger in his tone, the roar of his voice bouncing off the walls, echoing through your ears in a painful drum. 

Carmen moved, snatching the dirty clothes basket, dumping it into the ground with a shake until the dirty chef coat fell on top. He gripped the basket, flinging it across the room with a hard throw. The final push to his bad mood that sent him right over the edge, crashing into a pit of blinding fury, aggravation, breaking him from the inside out.

"Fuck!" Carmen roared, his voice shaking the walls, your breath leaving your lungs in a trembling exhale of fear. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! This is- This is- Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” 

You tensed in shock, gripping the baby monitor in fear, maybe surprise, as it started to buzz to life with Teddy's startled whimpers. Her small cries pulled you out of your frozen state, something deeper than fear replacing the ache in your stomach. 

"Carmen-" You gaped, voice wobbling with uncertainty, taking slow shuffled steps towards the stairs. “Carmen, calm-calm down. Ok? Calm down.” 

“Calm down? You want me to fuckin’ calm down?” Carmen sneered, an angry red flush blossoming in splotchy deep hues up his neck, towards his cheeks. “You don’t do shit, nothin’ that I fuckin’ ask for! Just sit around all fuckin’ day an-and I’m supposed to calm down?” 

“Carmen,” Your voice wobbled, throat tight with tears, hurt and fear strangling your words. “I-You didn’t ask me to wash them. I-I didn’t know. They weren’t in the hamper-” 

“-I shouldn’t have to ask you to wash them!” Carmen roared, eyes so wide you thought they might pop right out of his head, neck vein protruding on exemplifying his rage. “You know what I’m going through! You know how much fuckin’ stress I’m under! I go to that-that shit hole, an-and work my fuckin’ ass off so you don’t have to! Then I come home, and I-I can’t even get a second of peace!” 

“Stop,” You hiss, finally regaining your composure, his words fully sinking into you  now, feeling the full effect of them. “I-I just had a baby. I’m still on maternity leave taking care of a baby- our baby, and I’m tired too. But I’m not yelling at you-” 

“-Oh, right. Right.” Carmen laughs sarcastically, humorless as he runs his hand down his face. It felt mocking, left you feeling small and too vulnerable for your liking. “Because in between your napping an-and feeding, you couldn’t stick a fucking jacket in the wash, right? You’re so busy.”  

“What is wrong with you?” You snap, hoping he can’t hear the tears in your voice, the way your voice shakes with emotion. 

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?” Carmen scoffs, throwing his hands out. “I get no fuckin' sleep, go work my fuckin' ass off, a-and then I come home so I can go back and work my ass off some more, and-and you can’t do one simple fuckin’ thing? You can’t help me out? And then you wanna know what’s wrong with me? When you sit on your ass all fuckin’ day-” 

Teddy’s piercing wail pulls you out of your shocked trance, nose and throat burning with hurt filled tears you refuse to shed. Instead, you turn, climbing the stairs on shaky legs, the sound of Teddy’s cries growing louder and louder. Anchovy watches you from the top of the stairs, sensing the tension, your upset, sliding against your leg as if to comfort you. 

Carmen scoffs, hands buzzing and trembling with rage, the ringing in his ears growing louder and louder with each of your footsteps on the stairs and down the hall. He can barely hear Teddy’s sobs, hands threading through his hair, pulling at his scalp. He sees you walk towards the bedroom, quickly, hugging Teddy to your chest. 

“Oh, don’t go fuckin’ do it now!” Carmen roared, your ignoring him only infuriating him further. “It won’t be ready in time now. I’ll just look like a fuckin’ idiot for the critic tonight! Not that you care! Why would you, huh? I-I mean just our livelihood, just our fuckin’ income!” 

You swallowed back your tears, head tilting towards the ceiling, hands shaking with every shove of your things into the overnight bag. Just enough to get you through the night, the next day. A few essentials, Teddy’s spare onesies, a charger, your wallet- you stopped mid-shove of your items into the weekender bag, the sun’s rays catching in your wedding ring. Your heart fell, more and more, you weren’t sure how that was even possible. 

Carmen’s furious voice was still booming from downstairs, ringing and shaking in his furious fit. Richie and Sugar both warned you about Carmen’s tantrums, brought them up to embarrass him, tease him about it until he was red faced and hissing hushed threats at them. You never, never in your wildest dreams thought you’d be on the receiving end of one. 

You jumped, another slam of something Carmen had thrown, maybe hit in a fit of rage, causing Teddy to wail louder, Anchovy skittering nervously away. Tears leaked out of your eyes, twisting the ring off your finger, setting it on Carmen’s bedside table. Pulling the carrier out of the closet, Anchovy got in much easier than usual, which you were thankful for. 

Carmen was gripping the marble of the countertop when he heard you again, walking from the bottom of the stairs, quick steps towards the door to the garage, Teddy’s voice nearly hoarse from her crying. You kept your head high, tunnel-visioned towards your car, ignoring his heavy breathing and frantic pacing. 

“Wha-What are you doin’?” Carmen’s voice was softer now, still with a jagged edge that was cutting and harsh. The car door opened, the baby carrier hooked into the car seat. 

“Hey, wha- what are you- where’re you goin’? What’re you doin’?” Carmen’s heart dropped in a damning rush of hour, stumbling on heavy legs towards the garage. You ignored him, shushing Teddy gently, running a calming hand over her wet cheek, trying to coax her paci into her mouth. 

“Baby, no-no, no. Hey, no, I-I- What-” Carmen’s chest felt tight, mind numbing and racing, stuttering nervously. You reached for your bag, his hand reaching to grab the strap. “Whe-Where’re you-”

“-Don’t touch me.” You hissed, teeth bared, eyes shining with tears. Carmen flinched, pulling his hand back like he’d touched a hot stove. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me.” You sneered, pinning him with a watery glare that had his stomach turning in sickening fear. 

“Baby, hey, w-wait-C’mon, d-don’t-You don’t, you don’t need to do this, ok? I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Carmen choked out the words, frantic and unsure, his hands shaking when they ghosted over you back just for a moment. Wanting to touch you, to hold you, to grab you and keep you from leaving, but too scared to. Instead, he grabbed the car door you flung open, holding it when you tried to yank it closed. 

“Let go.” You hissed, sniffling back wet, snotty tears of fury and hurt. 

“Please, don’t-do-don’t do this. Please, baby, I-I’m sorry.” Carmen begged, blue eyes deepening with the burning red hues of tears, bloodshot and lashes wet. “Don’t-Don’t do this-” 

“-I didn’t do this.” You sneered, leaving Carmen flinching at your words. “Don’t you dare try to say this was me. After how you just talked to me? The shit you said to me in there? You think I’m going to stay?” Your voice cracked with emotion, lips pressing together to keep a cry in. 

“No, no, no, no, no, baby, please. Please, ju-just come inside. Come inside, please? Please, don’t-” 

“You don’t get to talk to me like that. To say that kinda stuff to me. That hurt, Carmen. That was mean.” You glared at him, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes. “I don’t care if you’re stressed. I don’t care what’s going on- nothing, and I mean nothing, warrants you talking to me like that. Just because you fucked up, because you forgot to ask me to do it, because you’re stressed out- I don’t care what it is. You don’t talk to me like that, say those things when I’ve been home all day taking care of my ch- our child.” You nod back towards the sniffling baby, whimpering and crying half heartedly, her little eyelids drooping with sleep that was interrupted. 

Carmen felt sick, his knees tightening in fear, he was sure they might give out, that he might fall to the ground right there. Looking at the tiny baby, lip jutted and shaking in the mirror hooked on the back of the seat, then back at you, eyes red-rimmed and glaring at him with a hurt filled anger. 

“Don’t-” Carmen’s chest shook, a white-knuckled grip on the door. 

Your own hand curled around the door’s inner handle, yanking it away from him. “Move,” You hissed, pulling again. 

Carmen wasn’t sure why he let it go, why he let you shut it, locking the door in case he tried to open it again. Why he let you pull out of the driveway, why he didn’t stop you, why he didn’t run after you, only taking soft shuffles down the drive like a zombie as you drove away. Standing in the drive, Carmen swallowed down the spit that pooled in his mouth, stomach churning, sure he was going to be sick. 

He managed to trudge back to the garage, mind racing and far away, the ringing in his ears dulling but still deafening. It felt like he was in a dream- a nightmare, a hallucinating trance that felt like a sick, sick dream- Carmen was hoping it was. That he’d wake up and find you next to him asleep. That he could hug you, pull you into him, nose buried in your neck, still warm from your slumber. 

As the sun began to sink low into the sky, minutes turning into hours that Carmen sat motionless in the garage, staring in a trancelike state, he realized that this wasn’t a dream or a nightmare. No this was his reality, a horrific reality that he’d made into his own. Carmen sat, eyes trained on the concrete of the garage, voice racing and blending in his mind- his words, yours, Teddy’s cries, Natalie and Richie’s, flashbacks of his mother screaming fits. 

He didn’t move, frozen in chilling, eerie fear. What ifs and terrifying possible scenarios, consequences to his own actions that left him feeling sick, hands trembling. A spiraling of fears that only drug him deeper and deeper with every haunting replay of his outburst. Even the flashing of headlights turning into the driveway, filling the garage with light, didn’t pull him from his trance. 

“The fuck is he- Cousin!” Richie roared, laying on the horn. Carmen didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge that he heard it, only stared. Richie frowned, turning the car off, throwing the door open. 

“Cousin? Carm? What-What are you doin’? Dinner service started an hour ago. Syd is freakin’ the fuck out.” Richie threw his hands up, walking towards the man who still didn’t move. Richie’s heart skipped, flashbacks of Mikey flooding into his vision, parallels of the two brothers blurring before him. 

“Yo, Carm, you-you good?” Richie stepped into the garage, his spine tingling with icy fear. It was quiet, an eerie, unsettling quiet. “Cousin, hey, what-what’s wrong?” 

Carmen's chest rose and fell, tighter and tighter. He was suffocating, head spinning and mind racing so fast he felt light headed. He could barely hear Richie’s voice over the noise in his head, Richie’s hand shaking his shoulder finally breaking his trance enough to meet his eyes, rounded in fear filled question. 

“Carmen, what’s wrong? Is it- Don’t fuckin’ tell me it’s the baby. What the fuck is goin’ on-” 

“-She left.” Carmen’s voice shook, raspy and scared. His tongue still felt too thick, head still spinning. He wasn’t even sure he said it, Richie’s widening eyes the only thing confirming that he had said it. 

“What? Who-Who left? Who?” Richie looked around, like the clues might be there, sure that Carmen wasn’t talking about you. No, he wouldn’t- he couldn’t. Not you. 

Carmen’s breath hitched, a strangling of a sob caught in his throat, running his hand over his face. Richie didn’t miss the way it trembled, shaking even as it rested over his eyes. Your car was gone, the house too quiet, no baby Teddy crying, nothing but silence was left. 

Richie’s heartbeat crawled into a rapid, scared pace. “Why? Wh-Why would she-” Richie looked at Carmen, eyes wide but still, reading his expression. “No. No, Cousin, no. What-What did you do? Carmen,” Richie grabbed both his shoulders, shaking him lightly until he met his gaze. “What did you do?” 

Carmen’s face began to crack, behind his eyes, Richie could see flashbacks of something- something he didn’t know what, but whatever it was, it was painful. That was evident by the fear that glossed over Carmen’s eyes, realization and horror. Carmen’s shoulders shook, frame rocking with a sob he tried to swallow, but couldn’t. Deep cries, guttural sobs breaking out of his frame, heels of his hands pressed to his eyes, fingers curled and clenched around his greasy curls in agony. 

The damning realization flooded over him, that you’d left. 

You’d left, you’d taken Teddy, taken Anchovy- you’d left because he’d driven you away. His angry outburst, petulant, mean, hurtful- he’d been so cruel to you. You. His wife, the love of his life, mother of his child, the one person who loved him endlessly without stipulations or boundaries, the one person who truly understood him. 

And he’d driven you away. 

He wished he could blame his mom, his dad, his family for fucking him up so severely, maybe Mikey, even, for leaving him the shit show that was the restaurant, making his anxieties worse and fuse shorter. But sitting in the empty garage, Richie standing above him in silent shock, his sobs and angry sniffles echoing off the cement floor, Carmen knew he had no one to blame but himself. 

He’d fucked up. Really fucked up. Fucked up in a way that made all the other times look obsolete. 

Carmen had fucked up, and for once, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t avoid it, ignore it, deflect it like other times. Half hearted apologies and promises of change wouldn’t work, you weren’t here for him to even try to give them to you, and he didn’t know where you went. 

Carmen wasn’t sure where you went, how to fix this, why he’d done what he did, and a million other things that raced through his mind. What he did know, sitting in the too quiet garage, chest stuttering with heaving cries, was that he’d do anything. 

Anything, to get you back home. To make it right. To fix this and make it up to you. 

He wasn’t sure how, but he’d give up everything. Anything. His restaurant, his dreams, his hopes, his life, at this point, to make it up to you. 

[seonghrtz]

teen!megumi ★ seeing you hurt is one of the things that has terrified megumi since he was a kid !

Megumi has always loved you. Perhaps from the moment Gojo carried him to your house when he was younger. You were the mother figure he never had, the person he knew he could rely on in any situation, the person he didn't have to be mature with all the time. You were always his safe haven.

Megumi may not have known how to express his own feelings or how to verbally express his adoration for you ⸻ he wasn't like Gojo, who was always making declarations of love to you. Sometimes Megumi envied Gojo for the ease with which he could say 'I love you' to you. But it never seemed to matter to you whether Megumi expressed his adoration for you verbally or not, it wasn't necessary as you understood it through his actions. You knew Megumi like the back of your hand and he was eternally grateful for that.

That's why one of Megumi's worst nightmares was losing you.

If he lost you, what would become of him? How would he manage without your care? How would Megumi survive in this world without being able to hide in your arms?

So when Megumi saw your exhausted and bruised body being thrown across the battlefield, he felt his whole body tremble and a sense of despair consume him.

Desperate, Megumi ran towards you, leaving Itadori and Kugisaki to fight the curse. And when he saw you lying on the floor with your eyes closed, bruises all over your exposed skin and bright crimson blood dripping from your forehead and mouth, Megumi's legs went weak and he fell to his knees beside you. With trembling hands Megumi grabbed your shoulders and rocked you, hoping that you would open your eyes and say that everything was fine. But unfortunately this utopian fantasy didn't come true.

Maybe it was all just a dream. A nightmare of that night ⸻ the night you sacrificed yourself to save Megumi when he was still a child. And if it was just a nightmare, Megumi would wake up at any moment and run into your arms. You would hold him with such affection and love that he wouldn't be able to hold back the tears because he knew you were all right.

But Megumi didn't wake up.

And it wasn't a nightmare, it was reality.

Megumi's voice faltered and he held back his tears, you were there, in front of him, injured, on the verge of death, and he could do absolutely nothing, powerless in a critical situation.

"Hey, Fushiguro!" Yuji ran over to where Megumi was standing, "I think I'd better take Kamo-sensei to Shoko-san, Nobara's already called Kiyotaka-san.” The pink-haired boy looked at his friend and felt sad for him. Itadori had heard Megumi's story and how Gojo and Kamo had saved the little boy (and his sister) from the clutches of the Zenin clan. And Itadori also knew how much Megumi admired and loved the woman he called his mother, it was evident in his expression. "Come on, Fushiguro, we'd better go quickly if we don't want to lose her."

Without saying a word Megumi slipped his arms around your back and behind your knees and started to run with you in his arms to where the car was parked, waiting for the sorcerers.

The corridor was dark and cold. Megumi was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, his head down, holding back his tears. He couldn't cry, he had to be strong ⸻ be strong for you. Megumi had to stay positive, Shoko would save you no matter what.

"It's going to be all right." Gojo's voice echoed through the silent corridor. Megumi raised his head and met his sensei's crystal blue orbs. "Y/n is one of the strongest sorceresses there is, she's seen worse.”

"It's my fault." Megumi's voice was deep, "It's my fault that she's in this situation..."

"Don't blame yourself Megumi. It wasn't your fault."

"I should have paid more attention and listened to her instructions."

"Situations like this happen all the time when you're a jujutsu sorcerer, don't blame yourself for something you couldn't do. And Y/n is fine, she'll be fine, I know my wife very well. And I also know that she would hate to see you get hurt on her watch, so don't blame yourself for giving her life to save you." Gojo's hand reached for Megumi's head, ruffling the boy's ebony locks. "You better go to your room, I'll call you when she wakes up."

"I don't want to go."

"Don't be stubborn. Y/n will make me sleep on the sofa if she finds out I've let you sleep in the hallway."

"That's your problem, I'm not going."

"Come on, Megumi! I thought we were past that stage." Gojo sat down beside Fushiguro. "Are you going to get the silent treatment now?" A short laugh escaped Gojo's lips when he noticed Megumi's lack of reaction. "Okay then…”

The next day, Megumi woke up to a conversation next to him. He noticed Gojo and Shoko talking outside the room you were in.

"Finally awake, Sleeping Beauty?" Gojo smiled in the direction of Megumi who got up from the floor and stretched slightly, "She wants to see you."

"Is Mom awake?" He asked hopefully.

"Go ahead, I'll be right back with breakfast." Gojo gave Megumi a light squeeze on the shoulder before leaving with Shoko.

With a little trepidation Megumi slowly opened the bedroom door and saw you lying on the bed in the corner of the room, close to the wall. With light, quiet steps, the boy walked to the edge of the bed and stood, watching you. You were clean, not a drop of blood running down your face, and the bandages on your wounds were clean too. You were well. You were alive.

"Megumi..." You spoke quietly and opened your eyes, startling the boy a little.

"Mom..." his voice was weak, surprised and relieved at the same time.

You raised your hand and brought it close to Megumi's face. The boy, who had expected you to stroke his cheek with your thumb, was surprised when you tugged at his ear.

"Mom!"

"I told you to stay out of danger, Fushiguro Megumi." You said seriously, but then stopped pulling on his ear and hugged him, "Thank you for saving me.”

"You scared me..."

"I'm sorry, my dear." You smiled and released Megumi from your embrace, "I wouldn't let you get hurt, not for a second time."

"I'm not a child, I can take care of myself." A pout formed on Megumi's lips.

"I know, I know." You laughed at the younger man's reaction, "And of course you know how to handle yourself, you're my son, but you'll always be my little boy.”

Without thinking, Megumi hugged you again. Sinking his face into the curve of your neck, he felt a motherly affection that he had never known until he met you, and he let the tears roll down his cheeks.

After all, you were his mother and he was your son.

© seonghrtz, 2023. all rights reserved, please do not copy / steal / translate / modify any of my works !