#sorry this took literally over a year to draw i was extremely ill with a brain parasite

[maretriarch]

Just in time for 4/13 here's the second line of my r63 dolls, this time CREEPover themed with bonus accessories! in an ideal world they would come in adorable recuperacoon shaped packaging. and probably a sopor slime making kit because kids love slime. which one are YOU picking up from your local Goreget today?

[h3llcat01]

[<3] ROBBIE AND LUKE HEADCANONS!!! [<3]

(Some TWs because I mention Luke and Robbie's trauma [in my au/hcs/lore] TW for SA.)

☆♡Fandomtrashcan/Irhen (If its okay to call you Irhen, I DONT KNOW IF IM SPELLING IT RIGHT EITHER IM SORRY) you are an inspiration and you gave me so many headcanons I'm gonna have to either beat you with a mallet or maybe make you cupcakes and cookies. /pos your art seriously makes me happy and very joyful (same with all you other cool ghost rider mooties like wazz, cicada, other robbie cuz my name is robbie, kayla, bel, you guys are really cool, I would try to talk to you guys more but I am so awkward n you all scare me sadly because you're all really really cool and you guyz are basically the only robbie reyes fans I know........ 😞😞)♡☆

(I got inspiration from Fandomtrashcans so they are simular I think SOMEBODY GET THIS TO THEM I BEG I DON'T WANNA SHOW THEM MYSELF IM A SCAREDY CAT🙏🏽🙏🏽)

I'm gonna take a fat nap this took me like an hour so much writing and then the Elias Morrow in a Robe pic at the end mmph 😞🙏🏽

Okay, so basically, I think Robbie wouldn't really like intimacy as much just due to Eli who is inside him. (Eli literally sees everything he does, and that probably would make Robbie extremely uncomfortable, plus, Robbie is most likely the type that wouldn't get into physical touch such as sex or so until he is truly comfortable and also dealt with Eli or something.) Lucas doesn't find out about Eli until they actually start to date and way more into it [As much as I joke abt Luke and Robbie getting 𝔉𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔨𝔶, Ima be fr, the only time they actually canonically had any sexual relations was the drunk hookup. If I said any other time, Ill be damn surprised.] *Yes, Ive drawn nsfw of them, but 👏🏽THOSE.👏🏽ARENT.👏🏽 CANONICAL.👏🏽AND.👏🏽NOT.👏🏽REALLY.👏🏽ANY.👏🏽CONTEXT.👏🏽* [Still don't know if I want to keep drawing nsfw at all really.]

I'm graysexual personally (I am hypersexual yall, but that is a curse. Im not comfortable with sexual stuff irl really [Might be ace]) but I kinda want to put that label onto Robbie. In my au, Robbie is trans female to male and is also bisexual. Hes not openly trans and the only people that DO know is Gabe and Luke due to the drunk hookup.

Also, as Irhen said, Robbie is more of the awkward shy type.

I think Robbie wouldn't really care for sex in an actual relationship I think he'd be fine with just romance and stuff but not anything sexual really.

In my au, Sam does exist, but thats way before Luke and Robbie generally start to click and such.

(I don't think I have spoken about Sam yet so Ill put him and Robbie AND Luke's backstory in orange)

Sam also is a key part in it, due to Sam being an absoulete A-Hole and completely just pushing Robbies boundaries in the relationship he had with him and also being just a total weirdo, that also plays a big part in MY Robbie's story and stuff, Robbie is hesitant towards the stuff. Robbie overall isn't a really 𝔉𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔨𝔶 guy...

Anyway, That plays a big part because Sam has pushed Robbies boundaries a lot and has definitely given him trauma and Robbie has definitely become more guarded due to it. (Sam Hate Club.) [I also might make it to where Sam was BEFORE Robbie became a ghost rider.]

Lucas and Robbie have a very complicated relationship, they are quite literally enemies to lovers, Robbie has literally DESPISED Lucas and at one point Lucas forced himself to feel the same way about Robbie. (In my story Lucas has known Robbie since highschool, but I'm thinking about removing it because Lucas's story is progressing to a isolated traumatic childhood being forced into Luke being raised into a weapon for the Gang that his father is in.)

Luke and Robbie's friendship (They'd never admit it till FAR on) progresses over the years very slowly, and mainly due to Luke and Sam's history and Robbie's. [It honestly REALLY starts off with that, Luke and Sam get into it because Sam just doesn't leave Robbie alone and Luke managed to get rid of Sam for a bit and Robbie learns about Lucas and Sam's history.]

When Robbie and Sam were together, Robbie generally was just so mentally unstable and stuff that he didn't really watch what he was doing and stuff, Sam really drained him. (This is Kinda where Lucas driving Robbie home constantly after something stupid like a party or so and Robbie gets drunk or smth. [Sam would always refuse to take him home.])

If you think the drunk hookup actually got them close, HELL no, they actually got further away from eachother. Lucas and Robbie were kind of just embarrassed. (Especially Lucas, the hookup really really messed with him, Lucas has kept that crush a secret for a while and that drunk hookup just ruined Luke's ability to think around Robbie, Lukes a nervous wreck. After that whole thing, Lucas avoided Robbie, and Robbie avoided Luke. Until a while later they eventually would run into eachother no matter what at the street races and eventually get back into that banter they would always have *without bringing up that embarrassing moment they had ages ago*)

Luke and Robbie started to get closer over Sams bullshit and once Sam was mainly out of the picture other things would happen and Luke would end up helping Robbie out.

I don't wanna say the drunk hookup made them dislike eachother more, it didn't, it kind of made Robbie feel a certain way about Luke (and also just kind of wrong because of Eli, smh.) and Luke felt just even more in love with Robbie (Poor guy could NYATT find a new crush 😭🙏🏽) but also really really weird around Robbie because Lucas himself has sexual trauma too (Now why did I give them both intimacy issues. [Because maybe they both can help with those issues by talking to eachother about their personal trauma with that])

But anyway, Luke and Robbie got closer due to Sam.

Let's get back onto the actual thing I was talking about which is how Robbie feels on intimacy. (A part of me really wants to make him a freak deep down when he's very comfortable and Eli isn't a PROBLEM!! 😡) I personally think Robbie would actually avoid relationships and intimacy all together until Eli wasn't an issue or so. [I did put in my au that Eli can swap places with the car and Robbie, but he specifically stays with Robbie.] Plus, I feel like Robbie would just be very awkward or so with intimacy.

[When I act get the money and find the ghost rider comics too it'll make it easier for me to add headcanons onto Robbie and mess with his lore n hcs :)]

Robbie isn't asexual but he definitely doesn't get into intimacy much or doesn't really experience it. Buddy doesn't jump into that. [I think Robbie is touch starved but he still just doesn't want to get into intimacy because of the second mind inside of his head that does not leave him alone and literally makes him want to scream, we all know who we're talking about here.]

(LUCAS DOESN'T EITHER DUE TO HIS TRAUMA, SO HEAR ME OUT, I FEEL LIKE THEY'D JUST BE GOOD WITH THAT IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T BE FOCUSED ON SEX OR SO. 🙏🏽)

I think graysexual fits Robbie or maybe demisexual (Is it possible to be both?)

Now, with Eli... Luke figures out abt Eli later on when Robbie and him do start to date.

Robbie kind of really keeps it hidden and such, but it almost became impossible to hide because Eli just DID NYAATTT want Luke and Robbie 2gether. 🙏🏽🙏🏽 And would literally do everything he could to try and break them up and to be honest, they did break up a few times due to Eli. (THE ANGST I HAVE FOR LUKE BECAUSE LUKE WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY!! AND TELL ME WHY I WANNA MAKE IT TO WHERE THEY BROKE UP MULTIPLE TIMES AND LUKE WANTED TO GIVE UP BECAUSE HE JUST THOUGHT THEY DIDN'T BELONG TOGETHER!!STARTS SOBBING!!) Robbie eventually does try and talk to Lucas about it [Since Lucas is also supernatural, he does end up believing Robbie and its not like the Ghost Rider does not exist and let's be honest here, Robbie, you are not fooling anyone, you have a 69 dodge charger, same color, and same mods, just like the ghost rider. Who are you fooling here?] And Luke's opinion on Eli is kind of... Complicated. He kind of just ignores him and just does not like Eli at all. (NOT ONLY THAT THEY DO NOT GET INTO SEXUAL STUFF EVER REALLY BECAUSE OF ELI.)

I kind of like to think Eli does take control of Robbie sometimes and maybe argues with Lucas sometimes. (Which I kinda wanna do smth comedic on that cuz I would find it funny drawing a picture of Lucas screaming to get out of my boyfriend or smth and chasing Eli around idk.)

Robbie telling Luke about Eli and also... Robbie being dead, did make things complicated in the relationship, like Lucas didn't really like the idea of Eli being there, so it just felt awkward, but it did make them closer and made the relationship stronger which Eli absouletely hated.

(Lucas is the type of guy to make jokes to cope, so you already know he'd make jokes about Eli. And maybe sometimes Eli replies.........)

(Anyone want me to draw Eli Morrow in a fancy ass fuzzy robe because ***I WILL.***)

This also caused distance between them, as much as Lucas loved Robbie dearly he just didn't feel comfortable with Eli there so he was a little uncomfy.

"Robbie, we need to kill that guy." -Eli

"What? Absouletely not, He's my ex." -Robbie

"I agree, I think we should kill Sam personally." -Luke

"Don't agree with him, Luke." -Robbie.

Whos Sam in my story?

Okay, Robbie and Sam dated a while ago, and at first it really went good until Sam slowly just started to switch into a really manipulative boyfriend, he also lied a lot and wouldn't really defend Robbie or Help Robbie in a lot of situations like if Robbie needed a ride home he would tell Robbie he was too busy or make some excuse or sometimes just be rude for no reason because he has no life and we hate Sam (sorry sam might be my oc but I actually hate him its not even funny im killing him off later.) And eventually would get like really rude towards Robbie or like push him a lot and also didn't really respect his boundaries (In my au, Robbies trans, and Sam would be transphobic towards him and make him very uncomfortable.) At first it was fine but then as Sam got closer to Robbie and Robbie opened up, Sam took advantage of it.

When Sam found out abt Luke and Robbie knowing eachother and Robbie not really liking Lucas, Sam didn't handle it well, Sam would constantly ask if Luke has talked to him about him before and Robbie would constantly tell him that he literally doesn't like Lucas and isn't friends with him at all or even talks to him. [Well figure out why Sam was so worried abt Robbie and Luke talking and stuff abt him.] Sam started to get also just worse too, really possessive, jealous, and not in a good way, and it'd be mainly because of Luke?? It was obvious to Robbie that Sam and Luke clearly had history but everytime he'd try and ask Sam would brush it off with some excuse like "I just don't like him due to the whole Jones thing, I don't trust him." (IN LUCAS'S LORE, LUKE IS RELATED TO TIGER, WHICH IF YOU'VE SAW N STUFF IN LUKES LORE, HE IS A KNOWN MURDERER AND THE LEADER OF THE BLACK SCARLETS AND THE FATHER OF LUKE N HIS SIBLINGS, He's constantly compared to Tiger/looks like him qs well and stuff due to it because people generally think Lucas is involved with his dads gang and more.) Sam isn't really a stable guy, so this whole thing with Robbie knowing Luke absouletely tore him apart to the point he'd start to accuse Robbie of cheating with Luke which really took Robbie's mental health down, Sam was a real piece of work. Sam avoids talking about any of his history with Luke. [Let's be honest, Sam literally just wanted to manipulate and use Robbie.]

Sam and Robbie ended up breaking up because Robbie went through Sam's phone (He doesn't really break peoples privacy, but Sam acted so weird and just suddenly changed so much to the point it had Robbie worried about maybe Sam getting physical plus the whole pushing his boundaries stuff really really affected Robbie) and Robbie found out Sam was cheating. [THE AUDACITY OF HIM TO ACCUSE ROBBIE OF CHEATING WITH SOMEBODY HE FUCKING HATED AND THEN CHEAT ON ROBBIE IS FUCKING DISGUSTING I SWEAR TO GOD NOBODY HATES MY FUCKING OC MORE THAN I HATE HIS BITCH ASS)

(A lot of Robbie and Lukes trauma is kind of me importing MY trauma onto them, so this is kinda where Sam just magically appears. [Same with Liam, we're not talking abt Liam though, Ive spoken about him before hes a big ass part of Luke's trauma, we dont like Liam nor Sam.]

Now, let's get into Luke and Sams history. Oh, boy, theres a lot to unpack.

Luke and Sam weren't really friends back then, Luke knew Sam because Sam dated Jasper which is Lucas' deceased best friend. *This was a while ago.* Luke always was kind of hesitant of Sam, ever since Jasper started to date Sam, Jasper changed, he wasn't the same, he was distant, and he avoided Luke, he avoided all his friends. Luke generally started to get worried about him and was worried it mightve been caused from Sam (Which. It. Was.) But Jasper would never speak about it, never. Sam started to notice Lukes interest as well [Sam also knows that Luke and Jasper has a sort of thing at one point, Luke hooked up with Jasper, and liked Jasper, but Jasper turned him down, and Lucas very easily fell out of love with him after that, they were just friends, Sam used that to his advantage with Jasper.] Since Sam noticed how Luke was acting, he immediately started to kind of tell Jasper lies and that Lucas still liked him and was trying to break them up and was lying about how he was treating Jasper and that he wasn't doing what Lucas thought he was doing (Which was controlling Jasper and mentally abusing him and more, a lot of similar stuff with Robbie including pushing his boundaries.) And that started to cause distance between Luke and Jasper, and since Jasper was starting to believe Sam more than Lucas, Sam decided to try something else, since Jasper believed him constantly, he decided to try and "hook up" with Luke behind his back but Lucas obviously declined and immediately went to Jasper about it, but of course, Sam pulled the "He's trying to break us up because he likes you" card and what did Jasper do?? BELIEVE IT. I'M GETTING ANGRY OVER MY OWN LORE. I'M PUTTING MYSELF IN LUKE'S POSITION AND IT HURTS AND IT MAKES ME ANGRY BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME YOU'VE KNOWN ME LONGER. Luke and Jasper eventually had a really big fallout but lets be honest that didn't stop them from going back to eachother and talking it through, they finally hang out, Luke gets gifted the supernatural necklace from Jasper, (Jasper was also gonna breakup with Sam that night because he and Luke talked it out and Jasper showed Luke the screenshots and stuff what Sam would say and stuff) and what happens? Jasper DIES. BOOM. BANG. POW. What really made Lucas hate Sam the most was how Sam didn't even go to Jasper's funeral. (They were still technically dating because they never broke up because Jasper died.) Lucas hates Sam for what he did to Jasper and how he didn't even show an ounce of care. Jasper passing away tore Lucas straight apart.

@that1bitchqueer HIGHWAY THE ELI MORROW IN A ROBE IS COMING YOU JUST BE PATIENT ITLL BE ADDED AT THE END OF THIS PAGE.

I did what I said I would

Ill have much more better headcanons n stuff when I get the money n find all the robbie ghost rider comics

Give suggestions if want :)

[Help me out too like I said I haven't read the comics :( ]

[quaranmine]

🍉

🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life?

very interesting question! i feel like i don't go into writing fanfic with the idea of "i'm going to use this to process things from my real life" and then it just bonks me over the head anyway. like writing is a process where you just cut yourself open and bleed all over the page, and half the time i don't even really realize what i'm doing

i write about a lot of things indirectly. there's pieces of things hidden everywhere. i don't necessarily share the same traumas and experiences of the characters i write about but it's like, oh, if you hold it to the light at this specific angle, you'll see what i poured into it. not all my fics are like this, some are just ideas i had, but i'm a pretty introspective person who puts a lot of thought into things so a lot of my fics are like this

i have this one watcher!grian wip that's pretty self-indulgent. i hope that i'll post it one day, even if it's just a tiny piece, but it's one of those fics that just got away from me a little even though i love the writing i've done for it. anyway in the fic there's some very specific things that grian struggles with and it took looking at it THREE MONTHS LATER for me to suddenly realize that it was just a repackaged fantasy version of my main personal identity/social crisis i was going through then 😭 it was actually really funny to me i was like WOW i literally didnt even know what i was actually writing about when i made this but it was On My Mind i guess

there's also occasional references to my experiences with chronic illness/autoimmune disease in my fics. i've fortunately been in remission for several years now, so my current chronic illness experience is mostly just "abled adult without any symptoms or pain who is just permanently on medication and slightly immunocompromised." it affects my day to day life very little right now fortunately but the years when i was super sick were some of the worst of my life and are like. VERY core memories of my teenage years. anyway, there's a specific bit of HTBAHB where i draw on that some--specifically, grian's very mixed feelings about being a watcher and if he'd change it or not. with my autoimmune disease, if you gave me an opportunity to take it away or cure it i would accept in a heartbeat. but if you let me go back in time and prevent myself from ever having it? idk if i'd accept. as painful and traumatic as it was, it also very much shaped me how i am today, and the idea of extricating myself from that is strange. maybe the me of the past would have been happier, but she'd be a totally different person. anyway! other people probably have a different take on their traumas and experiences depending on what it was and its affects, so that was a very personal perspective there. additionally i have also incorporated some of this autoimmune disease experience into my listener!jimmy headcanons, but i haven't been able to complete and publish my wip that is About That

firewatch au is also just. extremely this. i'm very sorry but it's gonna be pretty devastatingly sad throughout and y'all just gotta let me have this because somewhere along the way it went from "interesting fun idea i had last year" into "something i Need to write" lsjdflsjfslf. i haven't grieved or lost anyone in the extreme way that grian has, but i think there's just. so many types of loss and grief in the world. lost friends and family (via death or otherwise), lost relationships with people you used to care about so much (and still might care about), lost opportunities and lost chances to have lived a different life or made different choices, the collective loss of living through the pandemic, the persistent environmental and climate grief that stalks my entire chosen career. there will be things that pop up in this story that are referenced from my real life, and things that pop up in the story that align with my own fears/anxieties.

anyway this is why writing is the most terrifying hobby ever i am like really out here every day doing this and then publishing it for strangers on the internet to read and hoping they don't read me too hard

fic writer asks

[juuls]

Pharmacist/Me = 1 🏆 Doctor/Nursing Staff = 0

Thank you in advance for reading this rant. I’ve been really frustrated and just needed to get this off my chest, and today at least I had a wonderful knight in a white lab coat. 🩺❤️‍🩹🥽🥼💪🏻

Content warnings and squicky squicks: (further down there is) an image of a medical vial with a clipped image of a more benign part of a syringe, health conditions (endometriosis, fibromyalgia), menstrual cycles and associated terms such as bleeding and other things, lack of empathy in my specific healthcare system, hysterectomies, pain, swearing and losing patience. Most important warning: self-administered syringes and injection discussions of legal medications (Depo-Provera) approved of by professionals and properly researched. P.S. this may sound rather Karen-like but I would never do this to someone’s face. Online ranting and acknowledging where I could do better is not the same as screaming in public for bossy requests or comps, etc. Ew.

Another ‘warning’… pharmacists being kick-ass allies and giving a damn about their patients.

I’m really annoyed because (and I know healthcare and scheduling is a clusterfuck right now, but…) for over a month now I’ve been trying to get an appointment in person to get this injectable medication that is, yes, birth control, but is also used for endometriosis in my case. And I have severe endometriosis (exacerbated severely by fibromyalgia, siiiiigh) to the point I bleed enough and lose so much I have to go to the hospital when my care is not properly preventative… like in this case, and the pain is unbelievably severe also to the point I’ve spent time in the hospital, including my 11th Christmas Eve and Day. I started this injectable medication at 13 because it was the only thing that came close to helping reduce my endometrial tissue. Even a hysterectomy wouldn’t help as much, unless they decided to go the super invasive route and remove all the organs (or parts of them) that had become ‘infected’ by the tissue. Again, tissue where it’s not supposed to be, and it causes extreme pain as the tissue tries to flush out of my body each period, even if it’s attached to, like, my pancreas. Just no. That does not work at all. No. That is not fun.

SO. I’m 31, nearing 32, and the doctor’s office knows this. I’ve had the same doctor since I was 10. Been on this medication nearly non-stop for just shy of two decades (with appropriate precautions such as bone density tests) because of the absolute severity of the pain and my inability to function when it hits… which can be months at a time of non-stop bleeding and morning sickness-level nausea and vomiting, migraines and the occasional complete inability to move—in other words, it’s debilitating.

My doctor (even the nurses, as it’s in large print at the top of my file in the system) knows all about this. They’re supposed to call me if I’m overdue by a certain margin (I get they’re busy but months and months???). But my doc’s also a bit of an airhead (albeit a smart one when he focuses) and takes forever to reply to anything on time, even when it’s a severe issue, but not severe enough to go to the hospital. But it’s gotten to the point where the nurses say to go to the ER and then the ER nurses and doctors there get SUPER pissed off (AT ME AND SOMEHOW NOT AT MY DOCTOR/NURSES AND THEIR ORDERS) at the ‘waste of time’, and it’s just a clusterfuck.

Oh yeah, and that ER visit while I was overdue for my injection? Internal intestinal bleeding along with a lovely, even if small, perforation in my fucking uterus from the growth of endometrial tissue. I MEAN COME ON — WHAT IN THE HELL. Totally preventable if they fit me in when I called literally over a month ago.

But I will not change my doctor (the other docs at the practice know what is going on and have offered to take me on, but they don’t have the experience with myself and my conditions or the history, but they can do little else because of professional conduct—it’s between myself and my doc) because he is the only one who treats me with humanity and understands fibromyalgia, endometriosis, pre-MS and pre-RhA/PsA, endo-related IBS, (ulcerative) colitis, and other neurological conditions with any degree of empathy. (See, I told you I’m a mess!) There is no way I’m switching offices in the perpetual shortage of doctors in Canada moving elsewhere for m o n e y (plus Covid-19 being a teen hooligan and constantly coming back to wreck more goddamn shit, including everyone’s sanity, then setting things on fire like the real hooligans in my village have been doing this summer — I mean… what in the hell!?!?), so with all that in mind I actually thank my lucky stars. So I put up with a lot of this shit because he treats me, besides him being an airhead, like an actual human being deserving of compassion and care and quality of life despite my severe disabilities and pain. So.

I’m usually treated really well (even if they often think I’m a nuisance for daring to be severely chronically ill/in pain all the time) so I try to be patient and good and understanding when I can.

But his STAFF (I know they’re busy and I’ve been patient but they’ve been so awful honestly to the point I cried hard enough my dad noticed my red eyes and frustration-tear fracks on my face)! And the doc himself’s inability to reply to notes on time even when urgent and when he knows the circumstances (I admit I am a bit of a hard patient so I can understand if he just kinda ignores me sometimes, honestly). But in this case I was THREE DAMN MONTHS LATE for my injection and they’ve always called in the past when I was coming due if it looked like I hadn’t scheduled an injection, so that I was all on time and squared away and didn’t risk severe pain and damage to my already-fucked hormonal system (learning I couldn’t have kids was absolutely heartbreaking, let me tell you, but even a hysterectomy in that case would solve nothing — this is by far the easiest option, especially considering how my fibromyalgia would fuck with my post-surgery recovery and leave me with lasting pain for years if not decades; sigh).

Anyway. So. After some ridiculous levels of back and forth and some truly remarkable levels of lack of compassion (she kept giving me the exact same, word for word response in a bored tone UGH) considering the severe pain I was in (I was told, in front of OTHER PATIENTS AND STAFF, that I could just wait until I talk to the doctor myself at my next phone appointment and then schedule my injection for my next MONTHLY followup — 4.5 months overdue at that point, it would’ve been — because, and I quote, ‘am used to dealing with pain because of my fibromyalgia and years of dealing with it and other conditions’ which they named in front of others!!!!!!!! what. the. fuck. But I kept my cool because I know all these people, my mom taught their kids music, they’re a fixture of the community, etc. and I refuse to be a Karen…. At least externally.

But here comes the nice part that makes me love our new (okay, he’s been here like 5 years but still, in a small town that’s pretty new lmao) pharmacist that much more. Rasik was aware of my frustration with the doctor and nurses and was even the one who brought to my attention that, at the time, I was 2 months late for my injection and he was a bit concerned since he’s privy to how much pain I exist in without throwing in one or more knives directly into my womb, ovaries, tummy, hips, and other areas my endometrial tissue has taken root. He’s such a sweetheart and he really does care for his patients— the work he does with my father’s diabetes (the tricky one where you’re not obese) management is above and beyond the call of a pharmacist and I will forever be grateful for that alone, never mind how he cares for me.

So I went in today to pick up another medication, after yet another frustrating stop-over at the nurses’ desks, and he suggested I ask for my injectable medication (it’s Depo-Provera, by the way) and the syringe plus the two tips necessary — I’m actually familiar with this since I had to learn epinephrine injections from an early age (not Epipen) and how to give testosterone daily to my ex-husband (sorry not sorry, dude, but congrats on your first kid *grouchy thumbs up*). But yeah! Legally he’s not allowed to suggest I give it to myself, but he was getting super fed up with the nurses and doctors dragging their feet and ‘being assholes with little empathy’ in his own words, so I took the hint and requested my vial plus syringe, as well as the drawing and injection gauge needles…. which he gleefully filled for me, and I reiterated that it was ‘fully my idea, not yours, Rasik, because everyone knows I’m dumb and would never think it’s you if something happened’ (I’m not dumb and I’ve given injections to others many times looool).

Long story short: HERE’S TO PHARMACISTS AROUND THE WORLD, BEING AMAZING AND CARING FOR THEIR PATIENTS AND ‘BENDING BUT NOT REALLY BENDING’ THE RULES TO MAKE SURE THEIR CLIENTS ARE CARED FOR PROPERLY. They are amazing and deserve every last bit of your courtesy, especially when they pull double duty every. single. day. because of Covid and their subsequent boosters. (i.e. boosters in the form of humans who are fucking stupid if they have no medical reason not to get the vaccine… I mean JFC.)

Rasik? You are amazing and I am 100% going to find you some Indian-Canadian (or North Indian; I believe that’s where he’s from originally) treats or desserts or make some myself after slyly asking his assistant what he leans toward liking.

Be kind to one another, yeah, but… my goodness: be kind to those who can truly make a difference in your health, sanity, and even life or death.

Pharmacists, volunteers, and frontline health workers: the true heroes of these times.

Thank you so much. So very much.

💜💙🇨🇦👨🏽‍⚕️❤️‍🩹🙏🏻

P.S. … now I just gotta stab myself intramuscularly after making sure there’s no air bubbles and etc., and swap out to the proper gauge needle (different, smaller, to draw from the vial, larger to inject so that it goes in more quickly and, oddly enough, hurts less haha). I don’t think air bubbles are as much of an issue as when injecting intravenously (ummm I have a doctor uncle and grandma nurse and nurse friends, so shush 😆). But I’ve done this for others and animals so I should be good! :)

I’m a smart enough cookie even if I’ve lost a few nibble-size pieces around the edges. 😉😘 buahaha

Cheers to my pharmacist!!!! You are amazing and I can’t wait for the pain and months and months of bleeding to settle down.

Remind me again why humans are the only mammals (animals?) with monthly fluxes? UGH wtf ever. 🙃

[feymaid]

can i get a shitpost of ur DA2 fam? i am bummed out that no one is critical of characters anymore n i need a pick-me-up... :(

OF COURSE!!!! Thank u for asking ;o; (These got a bit longer than the last oop)

1) Luanna Hawke (Uli’s Aeducan’s world-state) ~

She was my first Hawke! She has a primarily purple/blue personality. 

. She worked as a mercenary during her first year in Kirkwall! Luanna gets a whole lot stronger and develops a thicker skin when working with him since she is a very emotional person. Her emotions don’t go away, but she learns how to better mask her emotions with humor to cope. She was extremely close with Bethany, much more so than Carver. Since both her and Bethany were mages, they often trained together, and Luanna was prone to leaving Carver out of her life. She still loved him dearly but it wasn’t until Bethany died and Luanna realized that Carver’s anger towards her felt justified. This was devastating to her and she tried everything she could to get the two of them to be closer, including taking him to the Deep Roads. Carver became a Grey Warden thankfully, but it was very hard for her to see him go. She romanced Fenris! She was drawn to him because Luanna’s self-confidence and will to better herself was extremely low when they met. She found his drive and passion to just get things done extremely admirable and found herself trying to mimic his strength.  She fought the Arishock for Isabela. Isabela is her best friend next to Varric and there was no way she’d let her be taken away. She faced death in that fight when she was stabbed through the stomach. Anders was able to save her but she was permanently scarred. She supported the mages! But did not support Ander’s decision to blow up the Chantry. Despite being a mage, Luanna is Andrastian and was very good friends with Sebastian. However, due to the fact that she and Anders were good friends throughout the game, she couldn’t find it in her heart to kill him. She survives the fade and goes on to have two kiddos.

2) Alphonsa Hawke (Dakila’s Word-State) ~

- Primarily Red but occasionally diplomatic personality.

Alphonsa is my weirdo meanie Hawke who has a bit of an awkward streak but through all of the bullshit, truly means well. She also doesn’t look as clean as she does in the drawing above, often resorting to a terrible hand-cut bowl she does with a pocket knife. She’s pretty quiet and introverted, not ever wanting to grand-stand or stand out. She’s a blood mage too so she wants to fly under the radar as much and hates the attention being champion gives her. With her companions, she has a slower start to forming bonds with them, but eventually considers most of them her friends. She actually ends up marrying Sebastian. So. It’s no secret that the Sebastian romance in DA2 is lacking in content in comparison to the other companions, so a lot of this is my own interpretation of events sprinkled with the canon in-game stuff. Alfie loves Sebastian because he is literally just a good-hearted, kind person. Alfie was never seriously religious. She’s one of those who believe that IF there is a Maker, he has “abandoned his creation la dee da.” She has never really allowed herself to be taken care of. And despite Alfie’s naturally pessimistic attitude, she does try. She wants to be a good person but her anger often times envelopes her when she sees a simple solution to a problem. She’s impatient and needlessly cruel at times. But she is self-aware in her anger, which makes her resent herself a bit. With Sebastian, she actively avoids him at first because the sort of compassion he offers is so alien to her, and how open he is about his heartbreak with his family’s deaths gets under her skin. Long story short, (I have like an essay tucked away about their relationship in general) The two bond over the mutual feeling of the deaths of their families. And they fall in love and get married!!  Alfie isn’t all that upset that the marriage is chaste since she is just so dumb-struck that someone loves her! Act 3 Al is sooo much happier and softer. She grows her hair out and starts taking better care of herself. THEN the chantry explosion happens and her whole world falls apart again. The Chantry represented so much for her. It was her place of healing and peace when she felt alone. It was even more so for Sebastian. In my canon too, Sebastian wasn’t with her when the Chantry exploded. So for one awful moment, she thinks he’s dead. Alfie doesn’t even give Anders a chance to speak. She just beats the absolute SHIT out of him fully intending to beat him to death. And she doesn’t stop until Sebastian literally pulls her off of him. She kills Anders despite supporting the mages. Sebastian drags her off to Starkhaven soon after and she’s glad to go. She has three boys parallel to Sebastian and his brothers for fun.  

Ezekiel Hawke (Marie’s World-state) ~ 

- Red personality. 

Ez is my rouge red Hawke and was a character I made to see how evil I could be in a game since I personally find it really hard to be mean to even video game characters. Ez was a very sickly child and was often bedridden. Throughout his life, his family never knew what exactly was causing him so much pain so the illness remained. When Malcolm died, Ez felt like he hadn’t even known his father, he had spent most of his time training with Bethany and Carver while he had been left to lie in agony. Being the oldest boy in the family, he was pleased to be the head of it and would work tirelessly to improve his strength so that he could walk without fainting. When Ez turned eighteen, he decided to do something about the sickness. He confronted a blood mage and forced him to cure him. The blood mage warned him that a price would need to be paid but Ez didn’t care and would do whatever it took to heal himself. The reverse spell cured Ez, but left him incredibly scarred. At the beginning of DA2, Ez realizes that the spell in itself was a curse, and took away the effects of his invisible illness that would eventually kill him, and instead replaced it with a painless grotesque life. His skin starts rotting off. To cover up the damage done to himself, he covers his face/hair in heavy makeup and powder. (Ez is a secret redhead I know it’s shocking lol) Ez is extremely vain and particular about how he looks and will not allow anyone to touch him out of fear of seeing under his painted mask. His resentment of mages causes him to lash out at Bethany. Carver’s death was even less meaningful to him than his father’s. For a majority of their relationship, Ez pressures Bethany to find a cure for his deformities. Bethany dies in the deep roads and Leandra’s death was almost therapeutic. A desire to erase his family and start over overcame him. The name “Hawke” belonged to him and only him. Power became very interesting to Ez, as he was powerless his entire life and he was willing to appeal to anyone who might give it to him. This includes the Arishock who he happily gave Isabela to. He worked as a smuggler for the first year in Kirkwall. Ez for the most part was never interested in romance or even friendship, just political alliances. But he ended up getting in a very unhealthy rivalmance with Anders. He never really cared for Anders in a romantic sense but enjoyed the attention he gave him. He and Anders never go beyond a few kisses since Ez just can’t stand to have anyone touch him. (Again I could write an essay on this relationship) Ez supported the Templars and ruled as Viscount. He had Anders executed (ya extra tragic for Anders again sorry lol). In my own canon, Ez gets corrupted with red lyrium in the final fight against the mages and is a brutal and ruthless ruler, so much so that a rebellion happens against him and he is driven out of Kirkwall. He immediately starts looking for the next source of power to appeal to. He eventually works for Corypheus and spies for him in Inquisition. My Inquisitor in that universe finds out he’s a traitor and leaves him in the fade. 

[caiuscassiuss]

Silver and Black (badboy au! NCT Jaemin)

Description: badboy! Jaemin and French transfer student! reader || He thought your accent was hot, but the leather jacket on his back and the motorcycle he rode warned you away from him. (for anon)

Genre: comedy | angst | fluff

WC: 4.2k

Warnings: profanity, so many tropes, underage drinking

masterlist | requests | updates

   School here was… different.    Wow, great observation, y/n. Full marks.    To be fair, it did look somewhat like the movies you always liked to watch back at home. There were mostly defined groups of peoples huddled by rows of lockers, what you assumed were the popular girls wearing bright and trendy clothing and the so-called “nerds” wearing graphic tees and ill-fitting jeans. Colorful flyers advertising various clubs like anime or technical society floated around, whether it be pinned on walls or stuffed unceremoniously in your face. Oh my, you could even the puffs of smoke produced by the stoners in the corner.    You were relieved to note that your skirt and long-sleeved top were appropriate, not underdressed nor too overdressed. You clutched your new backpack, a nice leather one your grandmére had given you on your move from France. It didn’t quite look like the neon or complicated ones your new classmates sported, but it was alright; it was refreshing to be unique, after all.    The rather loud bell rang as you settled into the hard plastic desk, placing your bookbag on the floor and books on your desk. The classroom was dingy and I looked like the ceiling tiles were about to rot and crash down upon unsuspecting students. It seemed like crappy classrooms transcended across all borders.    “Welcome, everyone, for another wonderful year in honors literature! It is nice to see all your beaming faces in my classroom this year!” Mrs. Johnson said to the unenthused, bored faces of the students in front of her. A rather awkward pause went through the classroom as no one responded, tired because of the early morning time or just not excited to be present. Mrs. Johnson, in her apparent jovial manner, took it all in stride and moved the conversation to another topic.    “In other news, we have a new student all the way from France! Hello Y/n!”    Heads turned towards you, and you blushed under the gazes of your curious classmates.    “Erm, nice to meet you, Mrs. Johnson,” you said.    “How is America? Nice? Boring? Fun?” Mrs. Johnson pressed on.    “It’s rather nice. Different, but very fun,” You cordially replied, a hesitant smile on your face.    “That’s good! Perhaps, in our European literature unit, you can give us another perspective” — she winked at you as if sharing a secret— “but anyways, please make her feel welcome!”    On the other side of the classroom, near the back, sat a boy lazily postured in his seat like the classroom was his living room. A leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair, revealing the boy’s toned arms in a white t-shirt, bracelets, and chains on his heavily veined forearms. Piercing eyes laid behind ruffled brown hair, the abyssal black pupils gleaming with interest. A smirk crept up his chiseled face as he heard the pretty new transfer student speak to Mrs. Johnson in accented English, the clear French accent stirring up some excitement in him.        “Oh, I’ll make her feel welcome alright.”

   “Come! You can eat with me and my friends during lunch!” your student guide, Aimee, exclaimed to you as she leads you through the crowded hallways.    She was rather nice, you thought. It seemed she had an endless supply of energy within her petite frame, ready to answer questions and initiate warm conversation. She was a junior, like you, and had said she was part of the Science and Math honor societies. While no Renee, your best friend from Paris, Aimee was someone you could see yourself hanging out with.    “Oh, thank you! I’d be delighted to,” you smiled at her while stuffing the chemistry syllabus in your bookbag.    You were suddenly overwhelmed by the boisterous and loud atmosphere of your high school’s cafeteria. Not much different from the canteen in your old school.    Aimee pushed you through the lunchline, chatting with you as you selected a nice Greek salad and a pressed juice. The “Chinese” noodles looked unappetizing, and so did the gravy and mashed potatoes option in the other line.    “Yeah, you’ll find that American high school food is terrible. My tip: don’t eat the pizza and whenever the lunch lady asks you if you want Yum Yum sauce, say no.” Aimee grimaced as she took a salad and water too.    “Will do,” you laughed.    Navigating between the mazes of the tables and students, you sat next to Aimee at a table outside in the pavilion. You greeted the friends she had introduced to you, all seemed very nice and just as exuberant as Aimee.    “So, you’ve got to tell us.” Jade, a gorgeous Chinese girl, leaned in conspiratorially towards you over her sandwich.    “Hm?” You paused mid-bite of your salad.    “How hot are the French guys?” The whole table exploded in giggles and laughter.

   “Where’s the next party, Haechan? Your house or my house?” Mark asked while taking a bite of his cheeseburger.    Haechan swallowed a bite of his hot dog before pointing at Chenle.    “Let’s hold it at Chenle's house. His house is hella big and I wanna convert his foyer into whipped cream slip and slide,” he snickered.    “What the fuck? Hell yeah to the party, hell no to the slip and slide. Last time you tried that we somehow got taffy stuck to the ceiling and one of your buddies broke a Ming dynasty base from my great-great mother.” Chinle frowned.    “Aw fuck.” Haechan pouted.    “We could just do it at the lake on Saturday. No repercussions, privacy, great spot to do whatever weird games Haechan comes up with.” Jaemin lazily says. He takes a sip of his water bottle filled with vodka and leans his arms onto the table.    “You know I’m the one that actually makes the party fun, right? If I weren’t here, all you motherfuckers would be left with a dry-ass party,” Haechan counters.    “Sorry, but I provide the booze. Then Y'all wouldn’t be able to have a party, period.” Renjun slips into next to Jaemin at the lunch table. He takes off his grey sweatshirt revealing a red tee underneath, drawing the gaze of many girls who gasped and whispered furiously.    “Damn, flexing for the chicks aren’t ya?” Marks crows as he offers his hand for a high five.    “For one, actually.” Renjun slaps Mark’s hand back and chugs his coke.    “Who attracted the illustrious Huang Renjun’s attention?” Chenle asks sarcastically.    Renjun points to you, who is walking with Aimee to their table. Your quick stride exposed your legs and your hair blew around in the wind.    “You see that girl? She’s the new transfer student from France. I think her name was Y/n or something like that. She’s pretty.” Renjun’s face contorts in a lascivious expression before everyone hums in agreement, transfixed by your pretty face and gorgeous features.    Jaemin caught sight of you, the girl whom he wanted to make-out within his literature class. His eyes narrowed.    “You can’t have that one Renjun. I saw her first in 1st period.” Jaemin says in a low tone, promises of retribution hidden in plain sight in his tone.    Renjun looks to him in surprise.    “Fuck, fine, fine. Goddamnit, she’s hella hot.” Renjun whined.

   “Hey!” A voice called out to you in the hallways.    You turned around to see an extremely handsome boy striding towards you. He reminded you of one of those boys you would see in the vogue magazines that your friends pored over endlessly, the boy that would be on phone backgrounds and editorials. However, your eyes caught sight of his leather jacket and ruffled hair and that was a message screaming DANGER.    “Hey, you’re that French transfer student right? Y/n?” the boy’s mouth pulled up into a mischievous grin, his lip piercing gleaming. He sidled next to you, his long legs slowing down to keep stride with your admittedly shorter ones. His gait was leisurely as if he had all the time in the world and was only more substantiated by his hands in his pockets.    “Yes,” you icily said, your tone clipped. You hoped that your demeanor would tell him to fuck off.    The boy rose an eyebrow curiously but kept going. Well, wasn’t he a determined one.    “The name’s Jaemin. I just thought I’d welcome you to the school, you know, to get you settled in and stuff.”    “I wasn’t aware you were part of the welcoming committee. You certainly don’t look like it,” you snarked, walking faster to get to your chemistry class.    “Woah, Woah, got some claws on you, don’t you, kitten?” the infuriating boy walked faster.    “Given I’m not a feline, nor do I have sharp nails, I don’t.” You were almost there.    “Mmm, well, we’ll see about that,” Jaemin smirked at you, his eyebrow piercing gleaming in the artificial hallway lights.    You caught sight of the door plate 8237 and nearly sobbed in relief (you could feel beads of sweat being to form at your hairline from the exertion). However, before you could make your escape from the boy that emanated trouble, the man in question gripped your elbow firmly and stopped you in your tracks.    He bent down until his lips were at your ear and you could feel his hair on your temple and his breath blowing across your sensitive neck.    “See you around, kitten.”

   “Bro, it’s literally been like your first day here and you’ve already attracted our resident bad boy! Tell me your secrets, oh goddess!” Jade exclaimed dramatically as you sat with her during the last period. The girl really reminded you of Renee; both were bold, brash, and unabashedly dramatic. Jade and Renee would’ve been best friends had they met each other.    “What?” you asked confusedly.    “Maybe it’s the French allure, you know?” Aimee joked as she sat down diagonally from the pair of you.    Jade set her hands down on the desk carefully like she was delivering the verdict of a court case, her face contorted in a determined expression. “Okay, so Ruby told Callie who told Sooyoung who then told—”    “Shut up, Jade, and get to the point.” Aimee cut her off.    Jade made a face but continued.    “TLDR, a lot of people saw Jaemin Na almost giving you a hickey in the hallway.”    The boy who has been on your mind all day was known as a “bad boy”?    God, you knew America was cliche, but not to this extent.    Wait, fuck. You processed what Jade had said slowly, but with growing horror, you understood the implications of her statement.    “Oh, je suis foutu (I am screwed),” you whispered fearfully and slammed your head into the desk. The other students already in your classroom looked towards you, but seeing nothing exciting was worth looking at, went back to their conversations. Aimee and Jade exchanged confused glances with each other.    “I don’t know what you just said, but that sounded hot. Probably the reason why Jaemin wants to push you up against a locker and make-out.” Jade said bluntly, with Aimee nodding primly in agreement.    Your only response was a muffled groan.

   Boy, had he just found a catch.    Pretty, different, and a challenge— it seems this school year wouldn’t be so monotonous after all.        Jaemin smirked as he leaned against a locker, and watched the French girl put her books in her locker. Students passed them by as the school bell rang signaling the end of the day, bustling and loud with endless activity. As focused as he was on you, it did not escape his peripheral vision that many girls were giving him side glances or suggestive winks. Usually, he would respond and even occasionally pursue a pair of battering eyelashes, but today, he had one goal and one goal only.    She slammed her locker shut and tightened the leather backpack over her shoulders. As soon as she passed by him and neared the exit doors he got up from his position and walked up by her.    “Hey kitten, how’s it going?” he slung an arm over her shoulders and he could feel her tense underneath his touch.    “Please, don’t touch me,” you looked him straight in the eyes and shoved his heavy arm off your shoulder.    He took it all in stride and hefted his muscled arm over your shoulders, now his hand wrapped around one of the straps of your bookbag so that if you tried to push him off, your book bag would go down with it. You were effectively trapped.    “Still didn’t answer my question though.”    “Maybe it’s because I don’t want to? You’re the type of guy that makes a mile out of an inch, so stop trying to flirt with me.”    Jaemin ignored your protests and turned the path in the sidewalk with you.    “I’m going to assume your day is not going well by your spicy attitude—”    “What!?”    “ — so I’m going to make it better.”    Jaemin with you in hand dragged you into the streets and kept walking with you on the sidewalk. He was leading you to the line of shops located near the school, which you had meant to explore on the weekend, but it looks like you’re going to get one now. At this point, you just give up on trying to resist stop tugging yourself away from him and just kind of… go with it. Jaemin tightens his hold on you a bit more and stops in front of Ann’s Ice Cream Shoppe.    “This is one of the best ice cream places and hang out spots in the town.  Thought this would be a great place to end your day.” Jaemin glances down at you with a half-smile. Oh? You are pleasantly surprised by how genuine he sounds, and you soften your resolve against him a little bit. Just a little bit.    The door opens with a ding and the air conditioning blasts you in the face like an explosion. The red and white themed shop smelled of sickeningly sweet waffle cones and chocolate.    “Welcome to Anne’s! What would you like to eat?” the cashier brightly asks as you come in. She looked like a lovely old lady. Jaemin glances at you. “You can go first.”    Your eyes scan over the many buckets of ice cream and ponder over which flavor of ice cream would be the best. The pink strawberry ice cream catches your eye, and you instantly decide to get that one.    “Em… strawberry, please?”    “Alright dear, what size and in a cup or a cone?”    “Just small, please, and… in a cup,” You certainly didn’t want Jaemin to get any ideas if you chose a waffle cone. From Tokyo to Rome, teenage boys were horny idiots that could turn any gesture into an innuendo.    Jaemin quickly orders his frozen treat (chocolate) and you both step up to the counter to pay. You get out your wallet to pay (why was American money all the same color? How weird) but Jaemin forks over some bills to the old lady before you could.    “Wha—”    “I wasn’t going to let a girl that I dragged here pay.”    Mr. Vogue Editorial had manners now, did he?    The old lady scoops yours up first and hands it up with a smile. Jaemin takes hold of it and passes it to you.    “A sweet treat for a sweet girl.” He smirks.    "Shut up." You blush but roll your eyes.    "You're such a cute pair. Oh, it reminds me of Jerry and I back in the days!" the old lady at the counter laughs.    Before you could protest, Jaemin smiles at her. "Thank you."    "Have a nice day,  you two!"    Jaemin drags you away from her and the pair of you settle down at a glossy red table near a window, and quickly dig into your frozen confectionaries.    The pair of you settle down at a glossy red table near a window, and quickly dig into your frozen confectionaries.    “So, tell me, why did you move across the good ole’ Atlantic to end up at American high school?” Jaemin asks casually while leaning back in his chair. The lip piercing gleams brightly from the window light.    You wipe your lips with a napkin delicately. “Uh, my father was transferred to the North American branch of his company and so I had to move here with him. Nothing exciting, really.”    “Where were you from?”    “Paris. On the outskirts, but still very much near the city center.”    “Paris, huh? Suburban America must seem very boring to Paris,” Jaemin laughs as he takes a bite of his cone.    “It’s good though. Very calm. Relaxing, I guess you could say.”    The two of you fall into a semi-awkward silence until 20 Dollar Nose Bleed comes over the speakers and you grin. You were one of those rarities among your group of friends that liked Fall Out Boy, while the rest liked One Direction or some UK solo artists. While you were astonished that such an old song would be playing, you hum along with the song nonetheless.    Your soft humming catches the attention of Jaemin, who was pleasantly surprised you knew such an old, hidden track from his favorite band and that you knew it quite well.    “You like Fall Out Boy?”    “Of course! I love them. I’ve been with them since I discovered Save Rock and Roll,” you grin at him.    “Seriously? They’re, like, my favorite band!”    Jaemin could feel his interest in you growing, a superficial attraction turning into something deeper. Not many girls that he liked to play around with liked the same music as he did, and if they did, only really basic songs.    You were turning out to be a bag full of surprises.

   The weeks went by and the leaves on the trees turned to red, orange, and yellow. School settled in until you were in a storm of tests and homework projects. The start of the school year seemed so long ago.    However, your friendship with Jaemin blossomed. Yes, he was still extremely flirty with you and was touchier than was acceptable, but Jaemin quickly became one of your closest friends. You often sat in lit class next to each other and hung out after school when you were both free. You loved arguing over trivial things and just listening to Fall Out Boy’s albums together.    You smiled slightly, thinking to when Renee had seen Jaemin’s Instagram and freaked out over facetime. Renee kept pestering you on whether he was your boyfriend, but you always denied her. She had been supremely jealous you had found such a boy, but bragged about it to the girls at your old school. However, you had gotten some DM’s from acquaintances to mention them to Jaemin. Ridiculous! As if they could ever have a viable relationship.    “What are you smiling about, y/n?” Jaemin asked as you were walking through the neighborhood park. It was such a nice day today, very sunny, yet Jaemin still wore his signature leather jacket and shiny Doc Martens looking like he was about to pop some wheelies on his bike down the street.    “Nothing,” you waved him off.    “You were thinking about me, weren’t you? I knew you couldn’t get my handsome face out of your mind—”    “Shut up!” you exclaim and push him roughly.    Him, being the well-built adolescent he is, did not budge nor break his stride, but the momentum transferred to you and you stumbled back. You hit a ledge and flailed back, but muscled arms wrapped around your waist and shoulders. Jaemin pulled you back but did not let you go, staring you in the eyes intensely.    “Careful,” he whispered softly.    You could only stare back in a daze, eyes wide, unable to look away from his chiseled visage. You snapped yourself out of it and out of his grasp,    “Um, yeah, thank you. That was a bit of a close call, eh?” you glanced back at the river water you could’ve been soaked in had Jaemin not been quick enough.    “Yeah.” Jaemin paused but opened his mouth hesitantly. “Uh, Y/n, I’ve been meaning to ask you about something for a while now.”    “What is it?” you asked with barely contained anticipation. You hoped you didn’t sound too desperate.    “D-Do you want to go with me to the party my friends are hosting on Friday at the lake? It’s alright if you don’t wanna go—”    “I’d love to,” you grinned at him.

   “Oh, mon dieu. No. Absolutely not,” you said, looking horrified at the sight before you.    A large motorbike stood, gleaming in the lights of your porch, like a death trap from hell.    “Oh come on, Y/n, you’ll be fine. Here, I’ve even brought an extra helmet for you.” Jaemin rolled his eyes and produced the aforementioned helmet. As usual, he looked dashing, a teen out of some 60’s bad boy flick. The elements of his outfit were all the same of course, but you noticed he had added more silver and gold accessories like a solid band around his wrist and an engraved ring around his pointer finger.    “Jaemin! I’m going to die!” you exclaimed hysterically.    He merely laughed and wrapped his arm around your shoulders.    “No, you’re not, sweetheart. You trust me, right?” He looked down at you beseechingly.    “...fine,” you pouted.    Minutes later, you were screaming in delight as Jaemin revved up his motorcycle on the highway. The wind blowing through your hair and the speed gave you a rush, exhilaration, and excitement flowing through your veins. It was so much fun.    Jaemin was just happy to feel you pressed up against his back, the warmth of your body giving him comfort. He could feel the stands of your hair whipping against his neck, and smell the sweet scent of your recent shower emanating from you. Riding around in the night with the girl he liked— it was a dream.    Finally, the two of you revved up into a parking lot in front of a park, some laughing teens walking on a path towards a brightly lit area. Looking closer, you could see there was a bonfire going on and trendy music being played on the speakers.    Jaemin helped you off the bike and walked with his hand on the small of your back towards the campfire. The dark trees of the forest led to a clearing with a magnificent view of the shimmering lake, waves glimmering with the light of the bright moon. In the clearing, however, there was a large mass of teens laughing and dancing, bass pumping on speakers. There were some tables filled with food and snacks, but most of them were occupied by alcohol in crates.    “Eyyyy look who it is!” yelled a person from your left. You turned to see Mark, clearly inebriated with Haechan snickering at his side, walking towards you with a beer bottle in his hand.    They met and the trio did a manly handshake while you stood at the side.    “Nice to see you, bro. See you’ve brought your girl with you, huh?”    “Sure did.” Jaemin grins. You notice how he doesn’t object to the label “your girl”.    “Well, enjoy the party. I think Renjun got some cherry vodka if you want it it’s over there.” Haechan gestures to a table with some teens around it.    “Will do.”    Surprisingly, Jaemin did not abandon you to the crowds as you expected. He guided you around the party and introduced you to various people, instead of going to get wasted with his friends. Well, he was currently nursing a beer bottle in his hand but did not go for the cherry-flavored vodka Renjun set out. Kudos to him.    After introducing you to a nice boy named Jungwoo, the pair of you fell silent and walked near the shore of the lake. You were still in view of the party but weren’t so much in the action.    “Hey… uh, I got something to tell you.” Jaemin blurted out suddenly.    “Hm?” you asked confusedly.    “I… I kinda like you.”    A stunned silence followed after.    “A-are you drunk?” you stumbled out, shocked by his confession.    “No! No, nothing like that. I guess it’s a bit sudden, yeah? Well, um… yeah, I like you. You’re… You’re not like the other girls in the school— and I swear I don’t say that to everybody! Just… you. You wanted to be my friend, not use me as arm-candy to brag about. You’re really sweet, kind, funny, and you like my favorite band. You’re… yeah.”    You smiled at him before grasping his shoulders and reaching up to kiss his cheek, leaving a bit of gloss on his cheek.    “I like you too.”    What made you really decide to accept his feelings is that nowhere did he say that you were pretty. Jaemin still might be a big bag of mysteries, but you were sure he was genuine and that made you overcome your doubt of his bad past with girls.    Jaemin smiled his crooked grin that made you melt and leaned down to connect your lips with his. It felt like you were suddenly near the bonfire because warm emanated from the kiss and the heat of his body. You tangled your hands in his ruffled hair and could feel the cold metal of his lip ring against your tongue. He pulled you closer and into the folds of his leather jacket, completely pressed against him. After a few seconds, you pull apart and just settle into each other’s embrace, looking at the beautiful lake.    “Also your accent’s really hot, kitten—”    You slapped him.    “Jaemin!”   Renee and Jade were totally going to freak.

(A/N: oh wow 2 jaemin fics in a row oh my god. not really my most technically advanced piece of writing, but it’s fun to just write your cheesy fantasies lol.  I hope you enjoy and pls like and reblog!)

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex

Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!

Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.

She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!

With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)

I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.

During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…

Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.

I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.

Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)

I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.

I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.

That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.

I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.

Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.

(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)

The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.

Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!

As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!

[pbjpuppy]

Serene In The Face Of Adversity

I typed up the whole backstory and everything for SITFOA (the story involving Serene and Horsepower)!!! This got unfathomably long so I’m gonna put it under a cut (also I haven’t really proofread it so I’m sorry if there’s weird mistakes)

(Tw for family mentions and death mentions in this part!)

The story primarily follows Serene, a 12 1/2 year old monster. Serene is the first and only child of Maximin and Levity Monster, who loved her very much and encouraged their daughter’s imagination and creativity. Serene was an extremely imaginative child- she never wanted to do anything other than draw or play pretend. Her energy and enthusiasm for basically everything around her was tiring, but adorable, and her parents loved her for it. All was well for awhile, with Serene thriving in school, academically and socially- until Serene was about 7 years old, when Levity, Serene’s mom, fell sick. After a long battle with illness, she passed away almost two years later.

This loss hit the family heavily, especially since Levity had been a stay-at-home mom- Maximin had a job in New Yorkie City, far away, and although he loved Serene very much, he couldn’t stay home to take care of her. Despite his efforts to keep her happy, Serene became more anxious and withdrawn after her mother passed away, and her grades and social life were suffering. It pained Maximin extremely to see his daughter like that, but he needed an extra hand in taking care of her.

In his efforts to find someone to take care of Serene, he finds Horsepower.

(TW for homophobia in this part!)

Horsepower is a 22 year old Pegasus. She is the daughter of Lahar and Caldera Peganix, and the older sister of Caliber Peganix. Her family is tense and strict- they love each other, yes, but she’s always felt that it was every man for themselves. It was a family of stubbornness and explosive tempers. In her teen years, she was jaded and rebellious. The strictness of her family was suffocating, and she escaped in her own ways- loud music, a choppy self-cut Mohawk, and a huge sun tattoo that got her in a LOT of trouble.

Another reason for Horsepower’s loud self-expression was the fact that she realized early in her teens that she was a lesbian. Though she wrestled with this initially, she eventually took pride in it, and used it as a weapon. She found power in being butch; loud, sharp, and unapologetic, she wanted to make the homophobes around her afraid. She got in a lot of fights defending younger or shyer LGBT kids from the same bullies that had picked on her. She made a lot of friends that way, and ended up with a small gang of LGBT kids, including her best friend Destiny, who protected each other throughout the years.

When she was 17, she was outed to her parents in a cruel act of revenge from her homophobic rivals. They didn’t take well to this. She was met with anger and denial, and the next few months were tense, with her brother getting a sudden boost of attention- and on her 18th birthday, she was kicked out on her own, with a small amount of money and a cold wish of good luck. She started doing odd jobs and couch surfing, often staying with Destiny- and eventually found a somewhat stable job taking care of a young kid named Serene through an Internet ad.

Despite Horsepower’s rough history, she can truly be very gentle and kind, and loves kids. She read about the Monster family’s situation and immediately felt sympathy for the sparkly-eyed kid in the photo, so she messaged Mr. Monster, and a meeting with her was arranged.

She made a good first impression on Maximin. She was very polite, if a little tousled-looking. When Serene came in to meet her, she was intimidated at first by Horsepower’s giant size, so Horsepower kneeled down to introduce herself, talking quietly. When she extended her huge hand to shake, Serene shyly shook just one of her fingers, which made her chuckle. Serene was shy, but she was drawn to Horsepower, and warmed up to her as she talked to Maximin. A few other people responded to Maximin’s ad, but Serene liked Horsepower the most, and she got the job.

Serene got over her shyness quickly, and over time they developed a sister-like bond. Horsepower looked forward to seeing Serene, who was a happy, innocent light in the midst of the hard times she’d fallen on. Serene adored Horsepower, and thought she was the coolest ever. She listened to all of Serene’s stories, and went with her on adventures, and best of all, she made Serene feel safe, like she had a personal bodyguard. Serene’s spark started to come back, especially once Horsepower shared her love of music and dance, a new form of expression Serene never thought about before.

Eventually, Serene asked where Horsepower lived. This led to Serene finding out about Horsepower’s situation, and that night, when her dad got home from work, she begged him to let Horsepower stay with them. Maximin is a generous man, and he saw how happy Serene had been since Horsepower started taking care of her, and he decided that something could be arranged... and so Horsepower joined the Monster family. It was decided that she was no longer going to be paid for taking care of Serene, since she was living with them now, and eventually she would have to start paying rent, but not before she could get back on her hooves. Horsepower is extremely grateful for, and now is a beloved addition to, the Monster family.

Horsepower is very skilled with her hands, and ends up being able to get a job as a blacksmith without a college education.

Currently, the story follows the adventures of Serene as a rowdy and curious kid, as she rockets around on her trusty scooter and gets into mischief. She takes after her role model, Horsepower, and is always getting into fights with bullies. She also loves to have jam sessions with Horsepower, singing loudly and dancing her little heart out. Horsepower dutifully supports Serene’s adventures with advice and endless bandaids.

GOTDAM THAT GOT SO LONG!!! If you read all that you’re a literal angel and I owe you my ENTIRE life and soul (and if you read even part of it I Love You)

BUT YEAH that’s Adversity so far!!! I love Horsepower and Serene so much I am Going To Die. Babies

If you have any questions whatsoever PLEASE throw them at me!!! I would love to answer them!!!

[heyytalia]

hi Bianca, I read your 'about' page and wanted to reach out to you since it really spoke to me. in 2014 I had a traumatic event and got professionally diagnosed with the same disorders you mentioned, as well as insomnia. I feel like I should be over my trauma by now and I'm just so frustrated at how I feel stuck in place. I always regret not being a stronger person at the time. I think if I'd had a different mindset or a better support system (c.)

Anon, I can relate to you. I can relate so much.

Long letter to you under the “Keep Reading.”

First off, thank you for messaging me about all this. Doing so must have taken so much courage. I know how hard it is talking about these things. It’s scary and sometimes I don’t know how people are going to react when I tell them I have GAD/Depression, even when I’m speaking to another person with a similar diagnosis. Just being able to put words on paper, or in a message, takes every ounce of brainpower we’ve got. I’m going to try to use as much brainpower as I can to convey as best a response I can.

I was also kind of a nervous child as well. Extremely shy, kind of cowardly, helicopter-parented. But never to the extreme, just enough that I can safely say I’m not an extrovert. I wasn’t diagnosed or referred for anything psychological. By all accounts, I was considered “normal” (I hate that word in psychological connotations). But as I got older, I started having a lot of problems with stress. I started having migraines in high school. I started getting severe stomach pains before every exam. The stress got even worse at university when I went from being a straight-A student all my life to an A/B/C one and my self-esteem collapsed. I developed insomnia. I was homesick. I had a roommate dealing with alcoholism my sophomore year, and I was constantly worried for her health. That near-collision I had in 2014 (the one I mentioned in my About Me) was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was driving back from an internship interview (from which I was rejected anyway) when I took a protected left turn on a yellow arrow, and the light turned green and a car coming from the opposite direction at 50 MPH nearly hit me head on. If I hadn’t pressed the brakes at the right moment, I would have gone straight into the front of his blue Honda. I wasn’t the same after that. I don’t even remember driving home, the next thing I remember is sobbing hysterically as I open my front door. My mom was comforting, my dad thought I would just move on, my sister thought I was exaggerating. I didn’t sleep that night. The next few weeks, I almost felt like a zombie. Like I shouldn’t be alive. Like I should have died on that road. Several nights I woke up sweating, and I had this recurring dream of walking up to that same intersection, the site of a crash site, and staring at my dead body. These feelings were real, but I didn’t know that. I just kept getting worse and worse. I was diagnosed with GAD/Depression in August, after a week of panic attacks, hallucinations, and an ER visit in which I had to be sedated with a high Xanax dose. But I don’t think, until I got those first Lexapro and Clonazepam doses, that it really hit me I had GAD/Depression. And then I really ruminated on that, and the first thing was…

Guilt. I FELT IT, ANON. I felt it bad.

You’re not alone in feeling guilty about your diagnosis, anon. I think it’s almost a given to most of us with depression and anxiety. Our society dictates that people should be able to function a specific way, and when we can’t do it we feel excluded, shunned. Not to mention, a feeling of failure to our own families and friends. I had that and more, I felt I let everyone down. My family who I spent my entire life trying to make proud. My friends, my teachers, professors, everyone who ever believed in me. When I was young I felt like a bird, that I could fly anywhere. As if I was Icarus, ready to fly towards freedom and beyond. But that first bottle of Lexapro in my hands felt like a weight that brought me down to Earth. And I burned. And everything I loved, burned.

My love for all my favorite series literally became NUMB. I kept up with them, but I literally felt nothing for them. My archive for this blog for the Fall months of 2014 shows lots of cute Hetalia fanart, OFF fanart, maybe the occasional cute thing. I was a regular (still occasionally am) GIF editor for the Hetalia fandom, and still churned out the occasional one during this time. But it wasn’t me posting. It was my shell. I was afraid to let my personal struggles bleed into my healthy tumblr blog and ruin it, so I kept posting as if nothing was wrong. But it wasn’t the real me. The real me was waking up shaking, in sweat, on nights that weren’t filled with insomnia. The real me was learning how to eat solid food again (which I didn’t do until October, I believe). The real me was crying every day. If my blog was honest that year, every post would have been replaced with ramblings on fear and sadness. But I couldn’t do it, because I was afraid to scare my tumblr friends, and scared that they’d all shun me and call me crazy. And by perpetuating a lie that all was “fine,” I felt guilty. I always prided myself in being honest, and I felt like I was betraying myself as well as them, and the guilt hurt even more.

And when I was in those moments of guilt, I’d always ask to myself, “What did I do wrong?” “Did I do something to deserve this?” “Was there something I could have done?” I used to think that maybe if I’d been a bit more independent as a kid, I’d have thicker skin, and I wouldn’t be going through this. Or maybe if I’d been a better student, I would have had better grades, and my anxiety concerning my future would be lessened. Or, maybe, if I had been a better driver and avoided that near-collision. Or maybe, I could have made myself prettier, or made more friends, or lost a few pounds, or not accidentally hurt the feelings of that one girl on the playground in 6th grade that one time. None of this would have ever happened, and I’d be okay. And my family would be okay. Everything would be okay.

It’s almost like I was digging into myself, trying to justify in my mind why all this was happening to me. Trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Until one day, I heard some words said to me.

“Bianca, it’s not your fault.”

It was my mom who told me this, the first time. I had been crying and apologizing profusely over and over for what I was going through, a few days after my diagnosis. Telling her that I was sorry that she had to put up with an “insane” daughter like me, and wishing she had been blessed with a better daughter with no ailments, because she deserved better. But, my smart mom, instead of agreeing with what my fractured psyche had come up with, told me those words. And I cried. I didn’t fully believe her at the time, but the sentiment did stick in my brain like a seed, and I felt comfort. Of course, the guilt would come back a few days later, still strong, but I’d hear those words again and that seed would grow a little bit. The next time, a little bit more. More when I would hear those words in her arms. More when I’d hear those words from my dad. More when I’d hear those words from my therapist. More when I’d hear those words from my doctor. Until one day, something interesting happened. I realized the value of those words.

It’s not our fault. It’s not something we did wrong. It’s not something we should feel ashamed of. There’s nothing we did in our past that made us “deserve” depression and anxiety. One of the most important things I learned as a Psychology Major in university was that our brains, just like the rest of our bodies, don’t always work or look the way they’re supposed to. All of our brains are unique, and a combination of our own personal experience along with family genetics and the environment in which we live in make all of us different. It’s now commonly believed that some people are more prone to mental illness than others, just as how some people are more prone to heart conditions or diabetes. Nobody really knows why this is the case. It’s not really a science you can quantify or boil down to an equation. Sometimes, mental illness just…happens. There’s really no concrete explanation. You can dig and dig into your heart and mind and soul forever but you’ll never find one. It took a long time for me to realize this. That I wasn’t at blame for my depression/anxiety. That I didn’t do anything wrong. That just because my brain needed some extra help from medicine and doctors, didn’t mean I couldn’t be strong again.

Anon, sometimes our illness makes us feel like less of a person. But that’s just the depression talking. I always tell people, when you have GAD/Depression, there are two sides of you. One side is the real us, the one who loves and laughs and enjoys life as it is. The other side is the anxiety/depression itself. Sometimes, the second side “covers up” the first side and “pretends” to be us. That doesn’t mean the real side is lost forever, it’s just hiding. We just have to, pardon the language, call that GAD/Depression side out on its bullshit. Because the real us is the best us. The ones who fangirl over our favorite series and ships and stories. The ones who care for all of their friends and loved ones. The ones who aren’t afraid to try something new and be creative. Anon, I believe its still in you. You can still do it. You can still do all the things you love.

Your GAD/Depression may be an element in your life you weren’t expecting, but nobody can really predict such a thing happening anyway. Not even the most brilliant minds in the world can predict the future to a T. It was never your fault, Anon. Never. I want you to trust me on this. And I want you to love everything you love even stronger than you did before. Write those stories you want to write. Watch those series you’ve been meaning to catch up on. Draw to your heart’s content. Read some new books. Start a new craft. That love won’t come overnight, it might take months or even years (even now, I’m still learning to re-love all my favorite things again), but it will start to come. Take every day at a time, and don’t worry about the pace. Recovery varies from person to person. I myself am recovering very slowly, on the exact same dose of Lexapro I was on back in 2014, and I’ll probably be on the same dose for an indefinite amount of time. But the more and more I’ve accepted my diagnosis, the easier it gets.

I’ll leave you with some final tips which have helped me immensely:

1. Eat well! Lots of water, and healthy meals! Especially fruits and vegetables.2. Have certain activities to do during your “down” moods or anxiety attacks. I usually crochet while watching a relaxing tv show or movie.3. Exercise, even if it’s simple walks or stretches.4. Find somebody to talk to when you’re feeling sad, or write your feelings down in a journal. I find that expressing inner feelings can be very relaxing.5. Pet therapy! Go and pet a dog or cat. Some studies have found that spending time with cute animals can increase “happy” hormones in the brain, like dopamine and endorphins.

I hope I answered your message! If you have more questions, always feel free to ask. I wish you all the best, and all my blessings.

[i-d-k-man]

If I’m Being Honest...

[Tododeku, BNHA]

A03 Link

Chapter 1

Bright sunlight made Todoroki squint as he stepped through the hospital’s automatic doors.  

It was a beautiful day - surprisingly cool for June - with a pleasant breeze tossing Todoroki’s bangs.  Even the hospital had seemed cheerful, his mother smiling softly as Todoroki opened her window, then laughing behind her hand as the wind caught the curtain and smacked her son in the face.  

She had been laughing more and more lately, each giggle (and occasional snort) threading one more stitch across the fractures of the past between them.  After all, Todoroki had heard that broken bones grow back stronger.

Closing his eyes leisurely, Todoroki basked in the sunlight.

A short buzz in Todoroki’s pocket interrupted his musings, and he pulled his phone out.   Midoriya Izuku , the screen read.  Speaking of broken bones...

As Todoroki typed in his passcode, another buzz rattled the phone, also courtesy of Midoriya Izuku .  A perfectly suitable contact name, intentionally dull so as not to raise any suspicion.  Kirishima had more than provided a cautionary tale last year, when Ashido had discovered that his contact name for Bakugou was “BakuuuBabe”, accompanied by a rather unfortunate string of emojis (the water droplets especially stood out).   For nearly a month, a chorus of “Bakuuu!”s chimed whenever Bakugou entered a room or hallway, like some occult ritual.  

A couple charred streaks remained on the hallway floors to this day.  Needless to say, Todoroki wasn’t about to go putting Midoriya’s contact as ‘light of my life’, ‘reason green is my favorite color’, or any of those other intrusive thoughts that spun right ‘round like a record through Todoroki’s head whenever he was around the boy.   Midoriya Izuku was proper, professional.

(Midoriya Izuku somehow still managed to send a pleasant chill up Todoroki’s spine.)

>> hey man, u still wanna join us or should we just go ahead and start ? 

 Todoroki glanced at the time, 10:37.  Ah, he was running late.  The unofficial little “Men of Class 1-A Weekend Workout Squad” (or “Swole Team 6,” as Kirishima called it) usually started an hour or so before lunch.

 << Count me in, if nobody minds waiting.  I should be back on campus in half an hour.

 >> great !!    Midoriya replied almost immediately.    see u there, Freezer Burn :) 

 ‘Freezer Burn’, huh?  That was a new one.

It really was a beautiful day, so Todoroki let the butterflies flit freely within him as he basked in the sun at the train stop.  He liked when Midoriya called him nicknames.  Or called him his real name.  Or looked Todoroki’s way in general.  It didn't take much, with Midoriya.

The breeze smelled like roses.

A couple minutes passed, and the train pulled into the station, rumbling to a halt.  The doors slid open, revealing an angry couple, screeching hysterically.  The warmth of the sun dissipated as Todoroki boarded and found a seat, as far from the racket as possible. Todoroki sighed - the peace had been nice while it lasted.

“Don’t even try giving me that bullshit again, Subaru!”  some lady was yelling, her eyes cocooned in black eyeliner and long nails glittering in the fluorescent light.  “I’ve seen the way you look at her, it’s like a dog drooling over a piece of meat.  Or its own vomit.  You’re disgusting, Subaru, a fucking disgrace!”

A man - presumably Subaru - threw his arms up in frustration.  “For the last time, Mitsubishi, I told you that she’s just a friend.  I’d hang out with any of my friends at 3 am, that’s no big deal!  In fact, I’d love to go out late with you, but you insist on sleeping before midnight, like some senior citizen.”

“Yeah, so I love sleeping.  Sue me!”  Mitsubishi was really fuming now - it reminded Todoroki of someone, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.  “At least I do it alone.  Unlike you, you fuck!”

Bakugou!  The answer clicked in Todoroki’s head.  That’s who Mitsubishi reminded him of.  It must be the homicide in her eyes.

“T-that’s ridi- I can’t believe you’d say-!”  Subaru stammered.  “Mitsubishi, I would never.”

A wicked smile uncoiled across glossy red lips.  “Is that so?  Then why don’t we make ourselves 100% certain?”

Dread eclipsed Subaru’s face, and he began backpedaling both literally and figuratively, retreating into Todoroki’s personal space.  Great.  “N-now, there’s no need for extremes, babe.  Have I mentioned how sexy you look in that lipstick color?  Why would I ever even look at another girl when I have you!”

“Let’s find out,” Mitsubishi menaced, eyes positively sparking with ill-intent as she stretched out a hand towards her (soon to be ex, in Todoroki’s opinion) boyfriend.  Her expression was downright murderous - had Bakugou mentioned having an aunt in the area?

Any musings surrounding Mitsubishi and possible relation to Bakugou were dispelled as Todoroki felt his phone vibrating on his knee.  Midoriya Izuku.  Ahhh.  Todoroki put the phone up to his ear.  “Hello, Midor--”

Three things then happened at once.  

1)  The train cabin shuddered suddenly without warning.  

2)  Mitsubishi, caught off guard, lost her balance, desperately grabbing Todoroki’s shoulder in order to stay upright.

3)  A violent bolt of nausea crackled through Todoroki, and his head swam painfully.

Thankfully, the train returned to its original course as quickly as it had left it.  Todoroki’s stomach smoothly unwound, the nausea disappearing completely.  He breathed heavily, eyebrows knit in confusion as he rubbed his shoulder where Mitsubishi had speared him with her nails.   What the hell was that about?  Had he eaten something bad?

A loud gasp tore Todoroki from his thoughts.  Mitsubishi looked downright horrified, her hands slapping over her mouth.  “Oh shit, shit, shit!  Fuck, do you feel sick at- hey, wait.”  Her heavily outlined eyes popped even wider, if possible.  “Are you that Todoroki kid, from U.A.?”

“Yes,” Todoroki replied, curiously quickly.  He normally tried to avoid drawing attention in public.

“Oh, I see you all over Twitter!  You were so cool in the sports festival last year - I was totally rooting for you, by the way.”  Mitsubishi beamed widely, a small blotch of lipstick disrupting the glare of her white teeth.  Todoroki nodded weakly.  To think, just a minute ago he had been calling her a relative of Bakugou.  

Still smiling unnaturally wide, Mitsubishi beat a hasty retreat.  Subaru, for his part, looked even more horrified than before.  He opened his mouth, but Mitsubishi sent him another Bakugou glare, yanking her thumb and pointer across her lips harshly in the universal ‘zip your lips’ gesture.  

Todoroki frowned.  What was that about?  And wait, what was up with that whole nausea thing?

Todoroki opened his mouth to inquire as such, but Midoriya chose that moment to conduct his own questioning.  “Todoroki?  Are you there?  You stopped replying!”

The warm crackle of Midoriya’s voice, as always, quickly monopolized all of Todoroki’s brainpower, and soon enough, all thoughts of Mitsubishi and possible food poisoning had vanished.

“Yeah, I’m here.  Sorry, the train got a little bumpy for a second…”

Todoroki exited the train station as carefree as he had entered it.  It really was a beautiful day.  

An hour later, Todoroki walked into the men’s locker room, a towel and water bottle in tow.

“Hey, bro!”  Kirishima looked up from where he was tying his shoes, grinning.  “Glad you decided to come!”  

“Of course,”  Todoroki replied a bit awkwardly, unsure of what to say.  Kirishima always greeted him like it was Todoroki’s first time working out with them, while in reality he attended nearly every week.  Todoroki had actually been one of the founding members of the group (along with Midoriya and Iida), despite actually preferring to exercise alone.  

Working out in groups was great, is all.  Very important for both mind and body, building camaraderie.  And if Todoroki had had an ulterior motive for forming Swole Team 6, then nobody had to know.  

“Took you fucking long enough to get here, asshole,” Bakugou grumbled with a scowl, and in retrospect, Mitsubishi’s harshest expressions seemed downright welcoming.

“I’m so glad you could make it!”  Midoriya, the ulterior motive himself, beamed.  “Taking the train can be such a pain.”

Todoroki only allowed his mind to dwell on gooey thoughts concerning green hair and bright eyes for a moment before he forcibly ejected them.  “Thanks for waiting.  So, what are we doing today?”

Iida raised his hand and sprung upright.  “I would like to present an idea!  Last night, I had a dream about Mr. Aizawa, and--” 

“--Wow, how scandalous of our very own class president!  I never knew you liked older men, Iida,”  Kaminari interrupted, waggling his eyebrows.  

Iida glared at Kaminari sternly, adjusting his glasses.  “Not that kind of dream.  Which should go without saying.”  Another pointed glare.  “In it, I forgot to turn in a large assignment, and Mr. Aizawa erased my quirk forever as punishment.”  Iida shuddered.  “It was an unpleasant dream.  However, I began thinking about my abilities without my quirk, and I realized I’d like to work on my hand to hand combat skills without quirks.”  

“That’s not a bad idea,”  Tokoyami nodded.  “We should always be prepared for scenarios where our quirks are disabled.  Darkness surely lurks behind every corner.”  

The entire locker room chimed in agreement, collectively ignoring Tokoyami’s last comment.  Kaminari pulled a die from his pocket.  “We can use this to pair up.”

“Why..are you carrying around a die?”   Midoriya asked.

“I use them to do magic tricks,”  Kaminari winked.  “The ladies love them.”

Todoroki wasn’t so sure.  

After a couple minutes, the group had split up.  Todoroki ended up paired with Midoriya - of course he did.  Why would the universe ever cut him a break, especially when his self-control was already on the wobbly side, crippled by changing in the same room as Midoriya?  Sparring with his crush was a double-edged sword if ever one was forged, and there was no way he’d escape without any nicks.

“Hey, partner,”  Midoriya jogged over to Todoroki.  “This will be great training, don't you think?”

“I think. Yes, I do,”  Todoroki babbled, a little thrown off by Midoriya’s radiance, then wanted to die when he realized what he'd said.  God, there was no way he'd survive this, at this rate.  The sword was already unsheathed.   

Yet, impossibly, with 15 minutes past, Todoroki had managed to avoid any overtly self-incriminating actions.  The sparring session couldn't make up its mind between rapture and torture.  

A pro:  Midoriya unconsciously licking his lips in concentration.

A con:  Todoroki taking a hit every time Midoriya unconsciously licked his lips in concentration.

Pro:  getting to ogle Midoriya’s neck when he tossed his head back to drink water.

Con:  resisting the urge to kiss Midoriya’s neck when he tossed his head back to drink water.

Pro:  falling on top of Midoriya on more than one occasion, their bodies pressed close.  

Con:  desperately reciting mathematical formulas in his head to avoid a more, ahem, prominent reaction when Todoroki fell on top of Midoriya, their bodies pressed close.

Pro:  practicing hand-to-hand combat technique, one of Todoroki’s rustier skills.

Con:  Todoroki was not focusing on his hand-to-hand combat technique, one of his rustier skills.

Stars twinkled in Todoroki’s skull as Midoriya landed a particularly nasty right hook - Aoyama would have been delighted.  

“C-crap, Todoroki, I didn’t mean to hit you that hard!”  Midoriya’s eyebrows were knit in concern.  “Does it hurt?”

“No” , Todoroki lied - or at least tried to.  Somehow, the word wouldn’t come out.  Todoroki frowned.  “No”, he said, more firmly.  Still, nothing came out but a raspy exhale.  

Something akin to panic began rising in Todoroki.  Had the punch fucked with his vocal chords?  There was no way, right?!  He was just overreacting.  

Midoriya, meanwhile, was wringing his hands anxiously.  “T-todoroki?  Oh my god.  Please don’t tell me I gave you a concussion.  Do you feel alright?”

Crap, he hadn’t meant to worry Midoriya.  Todoroki took a deep breath, forcibly calming himself.  Just say ‘Yes.’  He took one last deep exhale, focused, and…

An empty huff croaked out of Todoroki as agony suddenly cracked through his skull, and nausea slammed his body like a [door in Paranormal Activity].  Holy fuck, was he having an aneurysm?  Todoroki groaned as a fresh wave of pain bowled him over, his head on the verge of imploding.  

Midoriya appeared to be panicking, grabbing Todoroki’s shoulders.  Todoroki yelped again, his side splitting.  Fucking hell, he could hardly even see Midoriya through this haze in his head.  His stomach tweaked in all the wrong ways.  

“No!” Todoroki shouted desperately, completely involuntarily.  Midoriya’s eyes, all watery, widened in confusion at his outburst.  “No, I don’t feel ‘alright’.”

And just like that, all traces of pain vanished.  What the hell?!  

“Todoroki?  S-shouto?”  Midoriya’s voice and eyes wobbled in unison.  “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Todoroki whispered, with complete ease.  Huh?  Unease settled in Todoroki’s bones.  He had absolutely no idea what was happening to him.  

Absently, Todoroki caught a vague scent of smoke, and a breeze tickled his side.  Shit, he must have partially singed through his shirt because of the pain.

“Do you feel stable?”  Midoriya implored, hands tightening their grip on Todoroki’s shoulders.  

“Yes,”  Todoroki replied again, perfectly fine.  

“Oh my god, thank heavens,” Midoriya sobbed, wrapping Todoroki in a desperate hug.  Todoroki could feel the boy’s heart pounding through his charred shirt, which was, well… If Todoroki didn’t feel so freaked out, he certainly would’ve ascended to cloud 9 by now.  

“I’m so, so sorry, Todoroki!”  Midoriya squeezed him even tighter, hands balling up against Todoroki’s back.  “Y-you just normally dodge those right hooks, and I banked on that and put too much force into it, and then you started grabbing your head and smoking and curling up and oh my god it was so terrifying, and I’m so sorry, and I would never ever hit you that hard on purpose, you know that right??”  

Todoroki nodded, Midoriya’s soft hair tickling his chin.  He focused on the warm, solid body pressed up against his and melted into the embrace, pulse relaxing.  Whatever the hell that episode had been, it was over now.  

Except-- the beginnings of a headache began unfurling in Todoroki’s temples and he stiffened.  As soon as he opened his mouth to suck in a nervous breath, however, he found himself murmuring “Of course I know that, Izuku” into Midoriya’s hair.  

Todoroki’s burgeoning headache dissipated as his confusion returned in full force.  He hadn’t meant to say that, even though it was true.  And wait, had he just called Midoriya ‘Izuku’?

A slight flush rose in Todoroki.  He really hadn’t meant to say that.  What was happening to him?!  Maybe I do have a concussion...    

Todoroki broke the hug, taking a few tentative steps back.  He still didn’t entirely trust his body to not belly flop into a swimming pool of agony at any moment.

Specks of ash from Todoroki’s shirt stuck to Midoriya’s own.  The boy picked at them absently.  “You, uh, did you just call me ‘Izuku’?”

“Ah, um, yes.”  Todoroki flushed further.  “I wasn't thinking.  I'm sorry.”

“No, no!”  Midoriya’s hands waved in protest.  “It's..nice.  You should call me Izuku all the time.”  

“Huh?”  Todoroki breathed, quite eloquently.    

“I said,”  oh man, apparently it was now Midoriya’s turn to glow bright red,  “that you should call me Izuku.  If you want.”

“Oh,” Todoroki replied, lamely. “I do want to. And call me Shouto. -only if you want to.  Too.”

“Whatever you say, Shouto,” Midoriya grinned, and began gathering his things. “I think we’ve done enough for today. I'll see you at lunch!”

“Yeah. See you.”  

Midoriya looked expectant.  Oh.  “...Izuku.”

The name melted pleasantly in Todoroki’s mouth, like cotton candy, and Midoriya bounced on his heels.

“And just so you know-”

Todoroki paused with his water bottle halfway to his face, glancing at Midoriya.

“Just so you know,” Midoriya repeated, eyes flickering down.  “You should, uh, put on another shirt before lunch. Yeah. Bye!”

Midoriya left, and Todoroki looked down at his tattered top, only half remaining.

The walk back to the locker room was occupied by Todoroki berating himself for allowing himself to think that Midoriya’s cheeks had glowed ever-so-brighter with his parting comment.

If wishes were fishes, Todoroki could open a goddamn aquarium.

Back in the locker room, Todoroki mindlessly slipped on a fresh shirt, as if his brain had subconsciously labeled Midoriya’s suggestion as it's top priority.  

It wasn't far fetched.  

Todoroki’s stomach surged softly as his mind replayed his inexplicable agony earlier, and a cold sweat broke out over his sweaty skin.

Too freaked out to shower just yet, Todoroki collapsed onto a sink in the locker room, knuckles white as they clenched the porcelain.  What’s wrong with me?  How can the headaches appear and disappear so quickly?

Mismatched eyes found themselves in the mirror, and Todoroki stared intensely at the glass, imploring his own reflection for answers.

Does the pain only activate with questions, like some strange cousin of Shinsou’s quirk?  But the pain only happened twice, and Izuku definitely asked more than two questions.

Unfortunately, Todoroki’s reflection seemed just as confused as he was, and offered no solutions.  The glass fogged as Todoroki sighed in frustration.

Is it even the work of a quirk in the first place?  I could just be getting random headaches...  Midoriya did hit me pretty hard.

“Checking yourself out, Todoroki?”  Kirishima’s grinning face joined Todoroki’s in the mirror, creating a pretty decent rendition of the comedy/tragedy mask.  Todoroki stiffened - he hadn’t heard his classmate enter and wasn’t quite in the mood for conversation.  

“I, I wasn’t checking myself out.”  Todoroki felt the strange urge to clarify.  Thankfully, no tendrils of pain began unfurling in his head.  So it's not question-based?

“Sure you weren’t,”  Kirishima grinned even wider.  “Besides, I’m pretty sure that the entire rest of the class has got that covered.  Hell, more like the entire rest of the country.”

Well that was...generous.  “Thanks?”

“Don’t mention it, Pretty Boy.”  Kirishima crowded closer to Todoroki in the mirror, eyes scanning Todoroki’s reflection.  “Damn dude, speaking of that iconic face, what the hell happened to your jaw?  That’s shaping up to be quite the bruise.”

Ah, Kirishima was right - only then did Todoroki notice the throbbing along his jawline.  “I accidentally let my guard down during Midoriya and I’s spar.  It was a stupid mistake.”

Kirishima clapped an arm around Todoroki’s shoulders.  “Don’t be too hard on yourself there, Stud Muffin, everybody loves a guy with some battle scars.  It shows moxie.  Besides, I know exactly what you're talking about.”  Kirishima winked.

Todoroki simply nodded, a bit lost.  

“So tell me, Hot Stuff - or should it be Cold Stuff?  I’m gonna go with Lukewarm Stuff.  So tell me, Lukewarm Stuff, just what did Midoriya do to cost you that bruise?”  He winked again.  Kirishima seemed to like winking.  “My bet is he got hot and took his shirt off.”  

Speaking of getting hot, the air in the room suddenly felt quite oven-like, and Todoroki desperately battled three scrapbooks’ worth of mental images.  Midoriya did tend to shed clothing when warm, a fact that reflected quite poorly on Todoroki’s faint, gay heart.  

Todoroki gripped the sink even tighter, refusing to encourage Kirishima with an answer.  

Kirishima bulldozed on, encouraged.  “Don’t worry, man, there's no shame here.  I of all people understand the deadly combo of shirtlessness and sweat.  It’ll really get ya.  For a while I’d nearly turn Katsuki down if he asked to spar because I knew I'd end up ogling and leave with a game of connect-the-bruises across my body.”  Kirishima hummed.  “Plus he's just really fucking good at hand-to-hand.”

Todoroki didn’t even have a chance to become flustered before that terrifying, now-familiar flutter of nausea laced through his gut.  His jaw throbbed as he grit his teeth in apprehension.

Kirishima seemed to notice his unease.  “Woah, dude, I’m sorry if I went a little too far there.  I really am!”  The nausea grew, becoming just this side of excruciating.  “In my own dumbass way, I was just trying to let you know that I’ve been in your situation and I’d be more than happy to-”

“His pants were tight!”  Todoroki spit out, feeling the nausea recede.  “Midoriya was wearing these ridiculous pants that started clinging everywhere when he sweat, and…”  

A palm swung up to stop Todoroki.  “Say no more, Dreamboat.  We’re more than on the same wavelength.  Katsuki likes to wear these thin tank tops that really fuck me up.”  Kirishima sighed fondly.  “In a good way.”

The mirror, helpfully, supplied Todoroki with knowledge of just how lost he looked, and Kirishima blessedly took mercy.

“I'm oversharing, aren't I?”  He scratched his neck sheepishly.  

Flatly:  “Yes.”

“That's my bad.  Again, I just want you to know that I've been there, and I get it.  I know you like Midoriya for way more than that sort of thing, don't worry.  Mind above the gutter, yeah?”

Todoroki opened his mouth to demand how Kirshima had figured him out, to deflect, to agree - practically anything except what actually came out.  “Not all of the time, no.  I fantasize about Midoriya quite regularly, sometimes even in my dreams.”  

Oh god, oh hell no.  Why did he keep saying stuff like this, stuff that was way too...personal?  And true, disgustingly true.  Kirishima, bless him, just laughed awkwardly.

Todoroki turned red and away from Kirishima, snatching up his things.  “I’m.  I'll be in my room.  Alright bye.”

Kirishima didn't even protest.

Outside of the locker room, Todoroki collapsed against the wall, clutching his water bottle to his heaving chest.

Just what - to reiterate - the actual fuck was going on?

Thanks for reading!  :D

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Gotham 4x03: A Liveblog

It’s that time of the week again. Hoo boy. I have a sneaking suspicion my son gets thawed this episode and... PHEW, body is not ready. But, here we sure go.

TL;DR - Why.

Question: why does Arabia 125 A.D. look like an edgy production of Les Miz? Just saying

Into the Resurrection Pond! Because... y’know... that’s a thing. That is... Clearly how resurrecting is done. It all totally makes sense now

What is this, divine amniotic fluid? Also why are his clothes gone? He definitely had clothes when he went in. Why did the pond dissolve his clothes but heal his body? ...wut?

I... I don’t... old guy, you’ve explained officially nothing. Nothing here makes sense. What the fuck.

We have a fancy sword now, that’s ALL I’m taking away from this.

BTW, this is a show about Batman

I wonder what the mysterious crates Penguin’s shipping contain

Meanwhile in... Spain? Mexico? Is this what Falcone meant when he said “a place down South”? I thought he meant like... fucking Jersey, not south of the border XDDD

Anyway, meanwhile Jim is here in this tonal departure of a location to get his head shot off

Oh jesus fuck and there’s ALREADY ANOTHER LOVE INTEREST? FUCK EVERYTHING. WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS, ALWAYS STUBBORNLY, OBSESSIVELY SHUNTING JIM INTO EVERY HETERO SHIP THAT COMES ALONG? I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS, SHE’S JUST SOME CHICK RIDING A HORSE, BUT GIVEN THE WAY THIS SHOW RUNS, SHE’S PROBABLY FALCONE’S DAUGHTER OR GRAND NIECE OR SOME BULLSHIT AND JIM WILL HAVE YET ANOTHER DOOMED ROMANCE WITH HER IN THE EYES OF PAPA FALCONE WHO IS COMPLETELY HIS DAD SUBSTITUTE. JESUS.

Please get a NEW FUCKING PLOT Gotham

Unrelated: Margot Verger flashbacks, but this show 1) would never and 2) Does Not Deserve Margot. They Could Never.

STOP LOOKING AT HORSE GIRL OH MY GOD, Why is my life suffering.

YUP. CALLED IT. FUCKING CALLED IT. HIS DAUGHTER. GUESS WHO JIM’S NEXT RELATIONSHIP IS WITH GUYS? I hate myself, I hate this show. Fuck you all.

Godddddd and she’s the heir to the throne, wants to take over the family business... Fuck. This. Fuck This. Fuck everything. I hate this show.

I’ll miss you Papa Falcone, I’m so sorry you couldn’t help us this time and instead enabled a TERRIBLE subplot that I already fucking HATE. HATE SO MUCH.

“A real crime”? because muggings aren’t real crimes? Great, I’ll inform the government of that shall I? Tell them to stop breathing down my neck when I pirate music. Just because Selina was there Bruce doesn’t make it a better crime than any other. If you go after only big fish, buddy, you’ll become like Jim. Don’t do that shit Bruce. Don’t do that.

Alfred on point today, at least

Zsasz you beautiful angel, you vinyl wearing freak, I love you so much, you’re the only one I love, all the rest of them are trash. I only love you.

Talking to the ice block,mmmhmmm, mmmmmmhmmm, called it. Things going swimmingly for Nygmobblepot, as per usual

That’s uh... this is uh... uhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Who The Fuck?

Also you’re... you’re fucking kidding me. You’re fucking kidding me. A blowtorch. You’re going to melt him with A blowtorch. I... I’m. You’re SURE there isn’t a master power switch that would defrost him WAY faster than this? Because... y’know, if he’s STAYING in the ice at room temperature I uh... I’m PRETTY sure he’s hooked up to some cooling vents to... y’know. Keep him in the ice. So... this whole SINGLE blow torch rescue is... I want to say futile but it’s actually WAY more idiotic than that.

Holy fuck.

Also also WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU. You’re looking at Ed like you want to sit on his face and I HAVE NEVER SEEN YOU BEFORE IN MY LIFE WHICH MEANS ED HASN’T EITHER. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS TERRIBLE, ILL-ADVISED, SUICIDAL CRUSH ON HIM? IF OSWALD DOESN’T MURDER YOU, ED WILL, TRUST ME, THERE IS NO SCENARIO HERE WHERE YOU GET OUT ALIVE. HOLY FUCK YOU WERE NOT AROUND FOR SEASON 3. HOLY FUCK WOMAN WHY DID YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH AN ICEBERG, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

...Zsasz do you know something about this my sweet cream puff? Or are you just amused by Oswald ‘I’m Totally Over Ed Nygma’ Cobblepot screaming at you? I mean, both are fair, both are completely fair.

And I REALLY FEEL I MUST POINT OUT THERE’S NO FUCKING WAY SHE MELTED ED THAT FAST UNLESS SHE TURNED OFF THE FREEZER THAT WAS KEEPING HIM THERE. NO FUCKING WAY. Because, my dear friends, if she didn’t, then the water would have refrozen into harder ice before she could even make a dent. That’s literally how ice sculpture works, to get that nice, smooth, hard finish, you melt the ice and refreeze it and you do it over and over again to get the shape you want. UNLESS she turned off the frost on him, with ONE blowtorch there’s NO FUCKING WAY she got him melted in the SCANT HOURS Oswald was gone. FUCK THIS SHOW. WHY DID I HAVE A BETTER PLAN TO GET HIM OUT OF THE ICE THAN YOU DID?

Ohhhhh god you’re... a fucking psycho. oh god. Just what this needed.

I... I guess you’re the Harley Quin of this show... I... Mmm. mmm. this. this sure is happening. this sure is a thing.

I see we quick taught Bruce how to talk like a dock worker

Everyone needs an accent coach, I guess

Fancy knife makes a reappearance! The plot-relevant fancy knife!

Oswald’s coping with Ed being missing pretty well, all things considering. Also, interesting... belt arm bands. We’re kicking the kink back up in this show I see.

Ah Yes. This Millennia Old Illuminated Manuscript Proves Ra’s Al Ghul Is Immortal. Drawings In Books Are Irrefutable Proof Of Identity. 

Uggggggghhhhhhhh... back to Jim Het Subplot Gordon, ugh I feel like throwing up. All of my tears Harvey. I hope you’re pissed as hell with him.

I hope you kill him, sweetie. I hope you’re only here to murder him. I’d be proud of you.

asfghjshadgksahjfwkhfkjshfdksja <--- rage typing @ Jim’s everything

*siiiiiigh* Well, at least Ed isn’t attracted to her at all. Although... that’s just feeding me ALL of the Harley vibes and MMMM. MMMMMM. You know what we DIDN’T need?

Hmmmmm, Ed doesn’t... Ed seems to be processing some shit. Interestinggggg. There’s hope for this show yet.

Ummm... weird cut away shot. I think that was an homage to Hannibal, the extreme #aesthetic close up, but I’m afraid y’all don’t have the camera crew to carry that off as it took me 8 million years to understand what I was looking at

Hey! Acupuncture is a legit thing Ed, fuck you

Your body is just all fucked up man, this’ll take time

Ed’s uh... having some bad times. Huh. Didn’t think freezing him would fuck up his brain, but uh... let’s see. That would certainly be a departure from the icy convenience.

Ewwwwwwwww @ Jim’s romantic subplot. Ugh. Why.

HE KILLED YOUR BROTHER. GOD I HOPE YOU MURDER HIM.

*rolls around in despair*

Oswald likes Bruce at least, there’s like... one whole thing

Hmmmm, it was the old switcheroo. I mean... frankly I buy the muscle atrophy thing, that totally makes sense, and... I guess his body being fine but his brain being mush, even if it doesn’t make sense, it’s satisfying? Ehhh, we’ll see

Godddd *siiiiigh*

I see that Sofia has a thing against shirts so... I mean that’s a thing

*siiiiiiigh* I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

Zsasz, my sweet, my angel, I love you, you are my everything

Ed’s uh... he’s fine. He’s fine.

“The Lazarus Pit” ...really? That’s what we’re calling it? I think divine amniotic sack is more appropriate but... whatever man. Call your creepy green goo whatever you want.

Babs and... Ra’s Al Ghul that’s... that’s a new one

Also, how did a quality actor like Alexander Siddig end up in a trash show like this?

[theteablogger]

Andy’s Instagram

I said in my "I'm back" post that Andy is still engaged in some of his old behavior patterns on his Instagram. He said last fall on Facebook that he has "no real interest in maintaining the big public persona fandom thing," but that was and is obviously not the case. Here is a run-down, with screenshots in case he deletes things. Other people's faces and usernames will be censored and comments will only be included if they're relevant in some way.

Overidentification with a fictional character

This is the most obvious element of Andy's Instagram behavior: the majority of his photos concern or are linked to Bucky and the MCU in some way. Until very recently, if he wasn't actually in costume for the photo, his comment would talk about how much his hair looks like Bucky's, he'd refer to himself as Bucky, or Bucky would appear in the tags. To some extent, this is normal for cosplayers on Instagram and other social media platforms; however, given Andy's history, it seems like a terrible idea for him to engage in this sort of behavior.

Remember, this is the guy who verbally, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, and otherwise abused a number of people for years and tried to excuse his actions by claiming that his mental illness/es had caused him to believe, among other things, that he was the embodiment of various fictional characters and some real people, and/or was in contact with them as they existed in parallel universes, and that everything he did was necessary to save the world. Only four years ago, he said that he'd been writing something from Neville Longbottom's point of view and suddenly started to see and hear this fictional character in the room with him. Within the last three years, he was explicitly tying in Destiel with his relationship with Brittany in SPN meta posts. Just last year, he was claiming to have very specific sense-memories of New York in the 1920s and '30s, but lampshaded it by saying that he probably picked up some information during "the gap-filled years", which he felt made him even more like Bucky. This was around the same time that he started talking about how his hair had mysteriously changed color all on its own to look exactly like Bucky's, much as it changed when he "became" Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom.

As I and others have said time and again, if Andy honestly believes that he did horrible things to people due to mental illness making him unable to differentiate fantasy from reality, why would he ever engage in behavior that risks triggering an event like that again?

Here are just a few examples:

#buckyhair and #buckywiththegoodhair come up a lot.

Andy’s hair just naturally looks like Bucky’s. Yup.

Of course a fictional character's training has any bearing at all on Andy's real-life abilities.

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with Bucky, but note the hashtag.

I find it very hard to believe that Andy's really been planning this tattoo for years and that it has nothing to do with Bucky. I guess we’re supposed to believe that it’s a huge coincidence that the current design and his future plans for it coincide so well with the placement of Bucky’s metal arm. Without explicitly saying so, he offers this as evidence of how he’s “so connected to Bucky”.

Yes, Andy himself is a superhero.

Again, there is no actual Bucky in this post.

Here, Andy over-dramatizes his actions while being hit by a car to make it seem as if he responded in much the same way that a highly trained supersoldier would. Someone replies, "You are literally Bucky oh my god are you okay??"

Andy also says on his Instagram that his Bucky cosplay has motivated him, more than anything has before, to work out and to get in better shape. While this is a good goal to have, it's worth noting that talk of/promises to change lives for and by means of fandom (and characters that Andy channeled or embodied) was a major component of the BagEnders and DAYD cults. In the latter case, getting into better physical shape was part of it, with “Dumbledore’s Boot Camp” and the cross-country hikes.

Tying fandom in to real-life politics and world affairs

This was also posted on tumblr. The text is a paraphrased quotation from The Avengers, from the scene in which Captain America saves the life of an elderly German man (by implication a survivor of the Nazi regime) who is the only one brave enough to stand up to Loki.

Andy is hardly the first person to conflate being a slash fan with political or social activism, but considering his history, this gets an extra hard eyeroll from me. People's lives are at stake due to LGBTQIA persecution in Russia, so naturally it's an extremely emotionally charged issue, and Andy is right there to take advantage of that. He also talks about learning Russian, supposedly for career reasons, although people on tf-talk have pointed out that the Russian film system is closed to outsiders, the field is rather crowded in Eastern Europe, and oddly enough, people in countries that are not Russia tend to speak primarily non-Russian languages. (A Russian class did not appear on Andy's Spring 2017 transcript, so he only took it for one semester, if at all.)

I also notice that he says he's "about to learn a lot about Russian time zones", as if he's never had a Russian friend before. One of the women that he emotionally manipulated via tumblr and Skype is Russian and lives in Russia.

This is not the only post of Andy as Bucky wearing a POW/MIA shirt as part of his cosplay and using hashtags like #honorourvets and #powmia. If he really wanted to honor military personnel, a minority group, etc., he wouldn't use them as props to draw more attention to himself.

Another post about cosplay and slash fandom as a form of activism. What a shame that his cosplay partner puts his real-life relationship ahead of "being a tree by the river of truth", and that his fiancée puts her discomfort with "anybody else gettin' their hands on her man" (as Andy says in the video) ahead of their great chemistry. [/sarcasm]

Andy has repeatedly made passive-aggressive comments about this man's being unwilling to do Stucky photos because of his and his fiancée's boundaries. I didn't think much of it until I noticed that a comment giving Andy kudos for showing respect had been met with pontification about how he would really love to be able to do Stucky photos, but "real life romances come first" and he wouldn't want to do a Stucky shoot with a "stunty, stilted, or no-homo vibe".

I also think the way he refers to his "wonderfully devoted fan following" in Russia speaks volumes about how he thinks of them. Everyone is just a means to an end, and usually that end is narcissistic supply.

Here's some post-election political Bucky art. Run through Google Translate, the caption reads (bolding mine):

I'm sorry that my Russian is bad, small and new. I'm grieving for America tonight. I do not believe in religion. I believe in God. I do not think I found this place by accident. Here I learned that a place can have bad leaders, bad laws and good, strong, kind people. It's Russia. Now it will be America too. I hope we can change and have good leaders and good laws.

He continues to portray himself as wise, compassionate, and haunted by the fact that the rest of the world is not equally so. This also continues his old pattern of imparting mystical significance to his participation in a fandom.

Using superhero imagery "to highlight the problems faced by real world vets" on Veterans Day seemed disrespectful to Andy…so instead, he posted a picture of Cap and an apology to veterans for Trump's having been elected. Because that's completely different.

International Women’s Day. See previous point about his use of people and issues as attention-getting devices.

Courting younger, politically-minded people with condescension and a hefty dose of misinformation

Here are just a couple of Andy's posts about the 2016 presidential election:

I can't even tell you how many times Andy made tumblr posts inviting random strangers to his (his parents') house to hang out and have fun; this is the same old story from another angle. Anything to lure new people into his influence. (This video is incredibly condescending, by the way.)

This (part 2) (part 3) is the Instagram version of this misleading tumblr post. I'm going to go ahead and admit that this and several other tf-talk comments about his BS surrounding the election were from me because I was incredibly angry about Andy's once again taking advantage of people's completely justified fears about a volatile situation.

See also this brief but masterful takedown of his "shh everything will be fine" tumblr post after the election.

Here's a completely unironic post (part 2) (part 3) about how back in the day, only intelligent, right-thinking people had the ability to share their opinions with large numbers and wide ranges of people—but now any jackass pleb can get on the internet and spin anything in any way that they want, to reach any nefarious end. "Credentialed experts, not Instagram gurus. Data, not anecdotes." There he is again, hiding in plain sight.

Talking about how poor he is

It mainly takes the form of the usual posts about doing or making XYZ impressive thing on a shoestring budget because Andy Is Wise and Resourceful, but there's also this (part 2).

Stupid art school! Not only do they expect Andy to take art classes instead of just accepting that he is The Most Talented; they also expect him to purchase supplies! Thus he can no longer attend VA ComicCon…unless his friend knows "a magic money tree or a way to get free tickets." One or the other must have materialized, because he made it to the con anyway. Obviously Andy's friends are free to pay for things for him if they want to, but remember that he has a history of lying or "bending the truth" to get money out of people.

Making and endorsing extremely poor decisions

Yes, he says that he only had one Oxy with his giant tumblr (sic) of wine. That doesn't matter. It's unwise to mix any amount of opiates with alcohol, and equally unwise to discuss it publicly, especially given his tendency to encourage much younger people to regard him as some sort of font of wisdom and life advice.

This is how Andy achieves the one-armed Bucky look. Yes, a lot of people can pop their shoulders in and out of joint at will, but it's a bad idea, especially given the amount of time that he spends with it in this condition.

I spoke with the same doctor whom I consulted about the horrific binding injury that Andy claimed to have sustained. They said that repeatedly dislocating one's shoulder is very likely to cause instability of the joint, which can be debilitating (and quite dangerous, I would think, if his shoulder went out while lifting weights or something). Additionally, every time his shoulder is popped out and reset, Andy risks incurring torn muscles and stretched or torn ligaments/tendons, a trapped nerve, and vessel damage. Some of these effects become increasingly likely the longer it's out of joint. Andy, if you happen to read this, please stop doing this stupid thing. I may not like you, but I don't want you to injure yourself, for fuck's sake. And please stop instructing other cosplayers in how to accomplish dangerous things for the sake of a costume.

I have no idea whether Andy was checked out by medical personnel after he was hit by the car. I hope so. It's the #noexcuses tag that really gets to me. Attention, everyone: never, ever assume that you are 100% okay to engage in strenuous physical activity after an incident like being hit by a fucking car. It doesn't matter how slowly it was moving at the time. Without a thorough physical examination, you cannot be sure that you haven't sustained a non-apparent injury that will cause trouble later. Something like this is absolutely a valid reason not to go to the gym the next day, as intense cardio or weight training may exacerbate damage of which you are not yet aware. This post of his is incredibly irresponsible.

Promoting DAYD

Last October, in a post that featured photos of the GoT feast, Andy referred to DAYD as "a fairly popular HP companion novel", as if it were the HP equivalent to the Star Trek novels rather than a fanwork.

Andy continues to urge new people to check out the fan novel that he used as the basis for the second cult of personality in which he manipulated and took advantage of a great many people. (Also, DAYD got a neutral, one-line mention in an Atlantic Monthly article alongside Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but okay.)

He is so hoping that someone will ask about that tattoo.

Grooming female companions

I'm not sure what other word to use for Andy’s relationship with this person, as public information about it is limited to what appeared on Instagram. Please understand that I am not judging her at all and do not wish to identify her in any way. Considering Andy's behavior with Abbey, Brittany, L, Silven, and others among his female friends/followers, I think it's important to talk about it.

This is the first overtly romantic cosplay picture that Andy has posted in MCU fandom. His cosplay partner’s comments are very telling:

It really was the best day for me. … I love you my handsome cosboyfriend you seriously are my best friend my love and I truly believe my partner I know when you call me "your" Natalia that I am loved and care for more than I could ever imagine. I love you

If this person is roleplaying as Natasha, it makes no sense to refer to Bucky as her "cosboyfriend". She is talking about Andy. Whatever is going on here is pretty fucking intense. And given his proclivity for redheads, it is not lost on me that he has selected a character who’s had a canonical relationship with a red-haired woman in the past, giving him an excuse to act out scenes like this.

Here is a romantic photoset of Andy with the same woman, to whom he now refers as "the cosgirlfriend". She replies,

I love you my beautiful cosboyfriend … By the way you owe me roses now … [you're] the beauty im the beast

A commenter asks whether this is "canon, or just two beautiful people being beautiful together," wondering whether Andy and this fellow cosplayer are an IRL couple. Andy neatly dodges the question by referring to the comics.

Andy's "cosgirlfriend" has also called him gorgeous, left a suggestive comment on one of his bathbomb photos, talked about missing him/his face, and referred to him as "baby" and "dear". All of her comments were left within ten days, and of course Andy didn’t respond publicly to any of them. In my opinion based on what Andy has done many times over, the little information that I have (not all of which I am comfortable sharing) suggests that this may have been another situation in which he love-bombed a woman and quickly established what she felt was a very close, deep relationship with romantic possibilities, and then backed off just as quickly. As of 5/30, Andy had taken down the first picture of the two of them and she'd asked for the second to be removed as well. He did so earlier this month. I have not attempted to contact this person, as I feel that would be crossing a line, but I'm guessing that she requested their removal because she’d received negative attention and/or warnings about Andy.

Miscellaneous

I will not share screenshots of these, but Andy has posted several pictures of himself with young children. He loves kids, perhaps in part because they tend to be so much more credulous than adults and they make great attention-getting props. In one notable instance, he posted a picture and video of a little boy from Romania, who he said was a huge Captain America fan who'd love to hear from Sebastian Stan. Andy and some of his friends tagged the actor several times in the posts and comments. All the boy talked about in the video was his Pokemon fan creations, while Andy tried hard to drag the conversation around to Cap and Bucky. The picture that he posted was also Pokemon-related, as was a later image of a drawing the child had made. It seems likely, given his past behavior, that Andy is using this child (who may or may not be interested in Marvel characters at all) to gain the attention of the actor who plays the character around whom his life currently revolves.

Andy has consistently referred to the kittens as "our babies" for a couple months now, which is understandable because he lives with them, but also makes me nervous because of his history with the rabbit, the mouse, and Boo.

He recently shared a picture of himself with a very good Seven of Nine cosplayer and called back to his days in the Star Trek: Voyager fandom. Reminding people of the first time that you lied your ass off to a fandom for attention is probably not a great idea, Andy.

Here he is using another flimsy excuse to humblebrag about his alleged genius IQ, which he's been doing from the very beginning. Andy never changes.

Andy also now has a Patreon on which he is offering a tutorial for Bucky’s metal arm. Someone at tf-talk has noted that his bio includes a different origin story for his costuming interest than he gave in Viva La Cosplay. Then, he wanted to appear charmingly naïve and to make his work look more impressive by claiming a lack of experience. Now, he wants to look super legit to attract more patrons.

The higher reward tier includes a 20-minute [Facebook] messenger session for Q&A and for Andy to talk the patron through customizing the arm for themselves. A) Facebook’s policies mean that a lot of people will have to give Andy their RL names for this...which is one reason that he likes using Facebook. B) That doesn’t seem like very much time to go over customization. Would any cosplayers like to weigh in on this?

[closedspeciesdrama]

Re: The Wendigo argument, there's this instability trait which is prevalent on the internet these days. There are a lot of very unstable young men and women who try to give themselves meaning and worth by deeming themselves "gatekeepers" of either political correctness or cultural appropriation. Down to a man the ones I've seen in CS and in other communities are typically insecure to the point of near-mania and with any number of mental issues. Gatorbite and VCR are like poster boys. 1 of 2

- The best way to deal with this sort of nonsense isn’t to argue with them which is ultimately narcissistic supply and a means for them to try and show how morally “superior” they are to their victim, it’s simply best to flat out block them if needed or ignore them. Might seem harsh but I have personal issue with the way they use issues of gender and culture to bully every community they touch and to intimidate younger people with threats of dubbing them “bad people” or public defamation. 2 of 2

(1)Citing “Windigo Psychosis: the anatomy of an emic-etic confusion” an academic journal by a group of anthropologists: “When the windigo phenomenon is considered from the point of view of group sociodynamics rather than from that of individual psychodynamics, the crucial question is not what causes a person to become a cannibalistic maniac, but under what circumstances a Northern Algonkian is likely to be accused of having become a cannibalistic maniac(2)and thus run the risk of being executed as such. It is argued that those so executed were victims of triage homicide or witch hunts, events common in societies under stress.” Hell just that alone should be enough. Algonkians and other natives were straight up murdered over a mythological creature that was used against them. No one besides Algonkians are in any placeto make a CS/adopt design based on something with such a dark historical context.(3)Looking beyond Wikipedia could have easily told you this. Also, no anon, you fucking idiot, the wendigo was a thing before the term “wendigo psychosis” even existed as a culture-bound syndrome. AND IF YOU PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER… usually “culture-bound” syndromes are inherently racist and untrue.

Didn’t vcr-wolfe get called out for something too tho like if you’re gonna be the 1# sjw for everything wouldn’t it be ironic to get a call out for a shitty thing you’ve done

OH MY GOD. that post is LITERALLY a whole fucking year ago. once again vendetta anons pull shit from their ass. that character isnt even a freaking adopt, and vcr doesnt even have a species and has hardly sold maybe 3 adopts in the last 6 months? maybe if yall weren’t reaching so far into the past for some petty bs we could stay on topic for once lmao

Wait is there any proof of them being white?? I’ve I beleive I saw vcr wolfe say they’re native or smth before. But the thunderbird thing is so stupid lmao in the Wild West tm a lot of towns only had like white people because natives were driven out. I mean depending on the characters setting. Plus there’s majority of white people. Thunderbirds aren’t like a wendigo, you can say it’s name and talk about it and it wouldn’t attack just you so I don’t see a problem lmao

I think the issue here is you’re going to have people from a culture saying something is offensive, but someone else from the same culture saying that it’s not offensive and they’re glad you’re taking interest in their culture in the first place. See: Every East Asian mythology based CS out there, basically. Literally there is no right or wrong across the board, nobody “wins”, and that’s just how life is. Grey morality exists, just let people make content they enjoy ffs.

I think the issue here is you’re going to have people from a culture saying something is offensive, but someone else from the same culture saying that it’s not offensive and they’re glad you’re taking interest in their culture in the first place. See: Every East Asian mythology based CS out there, basically. Literally there is no right or wrong across the board, nobody “wins”, and that’s just how life is. Grey morality exists, just let people make content they enjoy ffs.

People act like VCR-WOLFE’s word is law or something. I can see being passionate about causes and all but they take the cake for extremism. People should be allowed to make a character any race to fit their preferences or just their likes, of course within being respectful. I think VCR gets some kind of high and mighty buzz by going after people, especially us evil whites.

multiple poc: hey this is offensive. yall: uhm idk that sounds fake :/. one poc: yeah it’s fake. yall, digging your claws in: YOU SEE? WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG! THIS ONE POC HAS VALIDATED OUR RACISM FOREVER! *pterodactyl screech*

Is vcr wolfe a serious account or is it just some random asshole that enjoys stirring up people by being the dictionary image for the social justice warrior stereotype that literally everyone hates. I have seen them be a little weiner before (cue them accusing me of misgendering them), I would take nothing they say seriously because honestly they are a joke.

Why does this Wendigo shit still come up? This is the same as the sombrero Mario crap that blew up on twitter. Quit speaking for other cultures that you don’t belong to. Native American people have expressed both support and distain for the issue. A wendigo is a monster, why is making a monster be a monster suddenly such a taboo? You can white knight the subject to death, you aren’t in the wrong but you’re certainly not in the right either. If you don’t support it then don’t.

context: the wendigo was used as a slur and label for natives/Algonquins who were mentally ill (aka called them canibals; hence “wendigo psychosis”) and was used to justify their genocide so making an adopt out of such a theme isn’t taken lightly as this has a historic context you can’t erase (source: I live in the algonquin northeast) (½)mythical creatures such as vampires and werewolves come from a ton of different cultures and generally they’ve been reinterpreted so often that it doesn’t retain its origin context. here’s another point- the Algonquin people still exist. despite the mythical creature being used against them they are more than in the right to use it how they see fit. it’s sorta like how the lgbt community took back the word “queer” while a straight person should definitely not call a gay person “a queer” (2/2)

Btw the wendigo isn’t a legend ! It’s a tale told up north and is taken very seriously. The reason people don’t want you to use it is because saying the name is suppose to make you a victim ( aa I forgot I’m sorry ) BUT I still beleive if you do your research u should be okay like just don’t make it a xD murderer monster cannibal

The thing with a wendigo character is not everyone is going to see/research the full story of them, because they’ve been big in media for awhile now. Until Dawn, Supernatural, even My Little Pony. And tbh, it’s something that while drifting away from the original intent, does bring traditional stories to the homes of others, who otherwise would never know the term, or know of the monsters. Mass media is keeping our culture alive, even as we kill it ourselves by not letting others near it.

this just in: vcr-wolfe solely dictates what can and cannot be used from cultures in character designs

VCR is mixed actually lol

VCR-wolfe is actually half mexican. So maybe don’t be fucking racist?

Can we stop the “ insulting = I’m right” thing it’s so stupid. If someone’s discussing something or DOESNT KNOW you don’t have to insult them. You look like a jerk js ( this is towards the anon in the wendigo post about wendigo-psychosis). The person was just basically saying ‘fun fact’ no need to call them a fucking idiot jeez

Mixed with what? I’ve seen this argument on another drama site. If they are mixed, they are white enough to pass as entirely white. Even then your word isn’t some divine rule on what is right & wrong. VCR constantly leans on the “I’m mentally ill” schtick, maybe they should focus on themselves for a bit & quit badgering people that want to enjoy another culture. Geez would bringing back segregation make you fuckers happy, let start DNA testing before you can draw or create a non white character.

The anon about wendigo pychosis got their panties in a twist lmao. If we can’t use anything with “” dark historical context" or “ only ____ are allowed to use this” then we all might as well sick to our own religions and make nothing but what we’re born into/practice. So if you’re native and you make a nun rabbit prepare for a ass chewing ! :( keep whining about everything you just sound like a broken record lmao you “” fucking idiot “”

Wait so if vcr-Wolfe isn’t native what say do they got in it then??? If they’re Mexican/white ??? Why don’t they step down and let real native/mixed natives speak for themselves and not have someone gatekeeping their beliefs Jesus lord I LOVE when none natives try to speak for my culture

Multi poc people: this is bad y'all: SEE ITS EVIL Multi poc: its alright do your research tho Y'all: WTF THATS BAD WHAT ABOUT OUR TOKEN FRRIENDS SAYING ITS OKAY AAAA Get your head out your ass dude there’s two sides to the shit just because people back your opinion doesn’t mean you can use your poc friends as a way to wave it around. You’re being just as bad to diss other peoples opinions FROM THE SAME GROUP lmao

i’m ndn, and personally my opinion on the entire thing is, don’t make wendigo characters for profit in general, especially if you’re not ndn. i don’t even like seeing my brothers, sisters, and two-spirited brethren do it. it’s one thing to make one for personal use, and as long as you’re not making them uwu edgy wendigo doggo that eats people uwu then.. honestly? who cares. but stop making wendigos when you know nothing about the culture, or that many tribes have different lore on it.

also the entire thing of wendigo psychosis being a thing: false. that was a term made up waaaaay after the fact. the thing is, there are multiple tribes that believe in wendigo, many have different names for it, and there’s even variations born differently like wechuge. but the fact of the matter is that most people don’t even read in or pay attention beyond the edgy cannibal shit to know that a wendigo is pretty much a skeleton made out of ice in most tribal cultures LMAO not a fucking dog

the entire purpose of people saying ‘hey if you don’t understand it, don’t make it’ is so that you don’t make a mockery of our legends, lore, culture, and history. not so you can’t have fun. it’s like me making a black character and making them stereotypical and completely shitting on it, and then doubling back with the ‘oh i made a black character so i understand black struggles’ shit like. it’s not cute when you do it to any race or culture so stop.

Why is it a crime to make Wendigo characters but when some family lines (before me, I don’t care) wouldn’t approve of the use of nordic mythos no one bats an eye at adopts that play off them, or for that matter, movies and shows that paint them in completely inaccurate ways. You can’t close the mythos of one culture & make it untouchable while saying some are fine to take from, that isn’t how it works. 

VCR is mixed Mexican Navajo and saying a mixed person is basically white is just fucking ugly and racist as shit, holy shit

Nordic myth is white myth and white people are not in any danger of having their culture stamped out and then reinterpreted by their oppressors while they are punished for trying to access it, unlike, you know, Native American myth. Reverse racism isn’t real

‘nordic myth is white myth and–’ it’s still someone’s religion, so yeah actually it still stands, either all religions are sacred inherently and are off limits or none are and you can’t bitch and whine and moan and throw a social justice tantrum into that being untrue, people making shitty wendigo ocs isn’t stamping anyone’s religion out any more than marvel making a shitty version of loki is, they’re equally stupid but harmless 

Except there is a huge fucking difference between open and closed religions? Nordic pagan worship is an open religion. Native folk religions are closed religions. Christianity is an open religion. The Amish are, by and large, a closed sect. Sincerely, an nordic heathen who knows full well what people can take from my belief system

“Werehyenas can’t be made into species and characters because they appropriate African culture uwu~” The hyena and werehyena have a very similar negative connotation in African folklore by you don’t see them getting so butt hurt over them being used. I get so sick and tired of people saying you can’t base a CS or Character off of a fictional monster. I guess I should toss out my Church Grim OC because that’s an insult to English and Scandinavian Folklore as it guards a place considered sacred

literally no one is saying dont ever do it theyre saying be respectful, follow the originating culture’s traditions, and dont slap a native myth on a white character because its disrespectful to the culture you supposedly like so much youre pulling from them. entitled much?

"my friend finds this thing offensive! your friend doesn't find this offensive? stop tokenising your friends, also YOUR friends are WRONG!" so native voices only count when they agree with you? maybe accept that an individual can't speak for an entire group, and that people from within the same culture can have very different ideas about what cultural appropriation even is.

Everyone yelling about wendigos when they're ignoring the fact Sincommonstitches literally made a design based off the imperial rising sun (you know- rape of Nanking?? Children and women slaughtered?) and day of the dead (mexican holiday already shit on for $$$) guardians, sold them for profit, and then bitched in a journal when they got called out how they shouldn't have to deal with this and they need their fiance to handle their pr now lmfao

Keeping all this in one post, anything new sent in will be added to this post. While it is on topic, it is far from species related. 

[bybrookeleigh]

Hannah, i’m glad your last words were sorry, because so am i

Some of the greatest writers say you can only write what you know. Some artists say you can only make work from what you know. Well, this is what I know, this is what happened to me. Hannah, this story is for you -

I was looking for something to watch one Saturday evening. Always a little behind with the trends, it wasn’t a surprise I had heard absolutely nothing about the long awaited, new series on Netflix. I knew nothing of the content’s history, nothing about the narrative. For me, pressing play on ‘13 Reasons Why’, was like tumbling down the rabbit hole. I was as mentally, emotionally and physically unprepared as little dear Alice was. But this was no wonderland, although it did leave me wondering.

The story is clever. The narrative unravels in the most carefully constructed and thought out ways. The cinematography is striking. The actors’ commitment to their roles, and their ability, is nothing short of profound.

I was drawn in at 5.30pm on April 1. Within five minutes, I had messaged a close friend to tell her how incredible this new series I had just discovered was. I was immersed, from the very beginning. Episode after episode. At first I am struck by the idea of a love story. Slowly, it is revealed that nothing is at all what it seems.

Hannah begins to spiral, and so do I.

Image: 9.44pm Broken, Instagram post by @brookeecarlson, 29 March, 2017. The story draws attention to and raises awareness of the seriousness of teenage bullying, and, suicide. These are issues which are not spoken about enough, and to attempt to break down the stigma is brilliant. It is inspiring, and motivating to see. Now, where does the stigma surrounding mental health lie? In our generation, we are fortunate to have begun to break the code of silence, which seems to have buried mental health for some time. I have only just myself realised that it is OKAY to say “I do not feel well today” in reference to my mental health, rather than only using it in reference to physical health. One of the crucial issues with ‘13 Reasons Why’, is the portrayal of the relationship between bullying and suicide. There appears to be a crucial missing link between the two, an unidentified void, which demands attention. Alice didn’t open the tiny door to the secret garden, without growing and shrinking multiple times, and almost drowning in a sea of her own tears. Now, I will say here: I am not a psychologist. I am writing from and of my experience: how I felt, how I feel. I speak from my own experience of mental health struggles, and what I have learnt through my own psychotherapy and personal research. I am an artist and an academic researcher working within the field of Fine Art. Over the past five years, I have dedicated my research to exploring the unconscious (repressed memory and emotion) with a growing interest in psychoanalysis. Five days after I watched the thirteenth episode of ‘13 Reasons Why’ I had a session with my psychologist. Driving home from the clinic, I found myself questioning, and trying to piece it together. My thought process was this: Hannah killed herself. Because she was depressed? No. Bullied. Because she was bullied. Hannah killed herself because she was bullied. Need I say more? In ‘13 Reasons Why’, the issues surrounding mental illness are not discussed. The ability which mental illness has to affectively change a person’s cognitive behaviour is not portrayed, demonstrated or explained. Throughout the thirteen cassette tapes, we hear Hannah’s recount of events through spoken word, and are provided with glimpses of significantly graphic visual imagery. We seem to receive fragmented abstracts Hannah’s suffering, but only through the sequence of incidents and events. But what is happening inside Hannah’s head? How does she mentally progress towards the suicide solution? What is happening in her day to day? Where is her struggle? Where is the depression? The symptoms? Everything still feels extremely internalised. Everything is extremely internalised. Serena Smith interrogates the series in her article, “13 Reasons Why is an insult to anyone with mental health issues.” She questions: “Where’s the numbing lethargy? Where’s her losing interest in her appearance? Where’s the self-harm Where’s her recovery?” (Smith: 2017) How did Hannah reach that point of suicide as solution? Especially as suicide is the most inhumane act that one can do.  My psychologist asks me during our session: “How did you feel after watching that last episode?” My response: “I couldn’t get the visual image out of my head. It kept playing over and over. It was unbearable to watch, but it made the act of suicide look so easy.” This is an awfully disturbing thing to hear, to hear myself say. The words had left my mouth before I could even comprehend them. Hannah’s suicide wasn’t easy to watch, but she appeared to do the act so simply, as if it was just on the end of her to do list (which it literally was). Even as I type this now, it feels unfathomable to write, to process. But that is how I felt. And this is the point. ‘13 Reasons Why’ has to be accountable for the effects it produces and how it causes some people to feel. And if my experience can be of any evidence, it is that ‘13 Reasons Why’ is extremely triggering. Executive producer, Selena Gomez claims that her intention and reasons for showing such realistic visual depictions of suicide and sexual assault was to confront viewers (especially teenagers) to make them realise the seriousness of it. But this visual confrontation has the potential to make viewers do more than just recognise the seriousness of bullying, suicide and sexual assault. The show needs to take responsibility for the headspace it leads the audience into, and where it leaves them. ‘13 Reasons Why’ presents the reality of a situation, but does not suggest or show how it can be rectified. It does not give any other possible solution or alternate ending. So what if you are a Highly Sensitive Person, like myself? Where does that leave you? Did you know it is actually possible for someone to experience a degree of trauma through hearing a traumatic incident described to them, let alone visually experiencing one? This is something which my psychologist explained to me months ago, and now I understand exactly what she meant. So how was I affected? I watched the series over an eight day period. (I am not usually one to binge on series - I keep my television watching to a minimum, so that in itself says something.) The further I delved into Hannah’s story, the more I began to think about it, think about her. From driving in my car to university, to running at the gym to trying to focus on my Masters thesis. I was immersed, in her story, I knew that, but little did I know subconsciously I was beginning to immerse in my own. I was immersed to the point where I felt as if Hannah were real. At one point, I almost turned to the girl next to me in my gym class to tell her, “you look like my friend Hannah.” (And I do not suffer from psychosis). I was triggered. And this psychological trigger induced physical symptoms. I finished the final episode at 1am on Saturday 7th of April. That weekend, over a three-day period, I struggled. I couldn’t get out of bed. I slept fourteen to fifteen hour days. I skipped university. I felt despair. I felt empty. I felt numb. I felt alone. I felt as if I were only the shell of an existence. The visual imagery of Hannah’s suicide scene kept playing over, and over in my mind, like a broken record on repeat. It was stuck. I was stuck.  As an artist, I am constantly writing - thoughts, notes, ideas. When the compulsion or sensation of thought is so urgent, I write it in ‘notes’ in my iPhone. Over the weekend, post finishing the series, this is what I wrote:  8 April 2017, 10.39pm: E is for empty. 8 April 2017, 11:11pm: This sadness is isolating / And this isolation is sad / Thus continues the circle of life 9 April 2017, 1:47pm: Today is painful I do not suffer from depression, but these thoughts obviously exemplify depressive feelings. 

Images (above): Screenshots of notes written between 8 April 2017, 10.39pm and 9 April 2017, 1:47pm. According to my psychologist, I was affected so severely because I had identified so strongly with Hannah. But why did I identify so strongly? I do not struggle with suicide idealisations, nor have I experienced sexual assault. Apparently, that wasn’t all that was on the criteria for being triggered by this series. Why did I think it was? Because the warnings displayed alert graphic depictions of “violence and suicide” and “rape and sexual assault.” Evidently, this was not enough. (And don’t even get me started on the fact that warnings are only displayed before three episodes of the series). What was enough, were the feelings of despair, hopelessness, lack of control, loss of sense of self, failure, emotional neglect, cruelty, feeling like a burden - like you are not good enough, not in control. These were enough, enough to trigger me. And so, I learnt it wasn’t about identifying with the physical incident (albeit rape or suicide), but what the incident represents. “It’s not about the sex per se its about the fact that, you’re a person who is breached, about being powerless, things that have been happened to you and affect you but there is nothing you can do about it - there is no fight,” my psychologist confirmed. I wasn’t triggered just because I am a highly sensitive person. I was triggered because of my background. A background formed by experiences which took place fourteen years ago.

Now, fortunately, I am in a reasonably stable headspace where I am able to identify triggers, and eventually take control. I have a standing history with a psychologist, $165 in my bank account and the ability to schedule an appointment when needed (such as after experiencing ‘13 Reasons Why’). I have already endured eight months of psychoanalysis, and begun to learn how to manage my mental health. Would a teenager be in the same position? I highly doubt it. It took me until twenty-six to work through my own personal childhood traumas, and discover my sense of self. I deeply fear how a teenager amidst suffering and traumatic experience may respond to this series.

Facebook comments responding to Lucinda Price’s article published on pedestrian.tv share the same concerns:

“This show fucked me up and i’m 28. Thought I had a good handle on my mental health. This was confronting as shit.” “I’m 32 and have been told not to watch it because it may act as a trigger.”

Image: Facebook comments responding to Lucinda Price’s article, “Headspace Issues Warning Over Depiction of Suicide in ’13 Reasons Why’” published on pedestrian.tv Yes, Hannah blames others for what happened to her. And, yes, those people are responsible for their actions, and the consequential hurt they caused her, but they CANNOT be accountable for Hannah’s death. Hannah could have spoken out, confronted her friend about how hurt she was by their friendship falling apart, opened up to her parents, but the fact is, she didn’t. Now, isn’t this the point? That Hannah didn’t know how to. So if Hannah’s suicide, to me, felt like it was just the last task on her to do list in mind, what does that say about the solution? Because once the last forty-nine minutes of the series is over, I am left feeling as if there was, and is, no other solution. I’m sorry, did I miss how Hannah could have rectified her ending? In “Headspace Issues Warning Over Depiction of Suicide in ‘13 Reasons Why,’” Lucinda Price writes that the series ‘romanticises suicide,’ which is one of the reasons why Headspace has released warnings about the series (Price: 2017). Well, I whole-heartedly agree with this statement. The way in which Hannah reveals her reasons through spoken word, over the span of thirteen cassette tapes, for why she took her own life is poetic. And if one is so caught up in the poetics of the story, which leads to suicide as a solution, then a romanticised idealisation of suicide is, unfortunately, possible. The directors may have had the intention to provide a sense of support and resources to viewers that may be struggling by producing an additional episode entitled, ‘13 Reasons Why: Beyond the Reasons’, but even then, there is still a flaw. ‘Beyond the Reasons’ is meant to play automatically after viewing the thirteenth episode (which displays a very vivid and graphic suicide scene). Now, what happens if you do not stay around until the credits have finished, like myself (because lets face it how many of us do)? What if you, are so disturbed after viewing that last episode, that you decide to google the series, read an article that mentions ‘Beyond the Reasons’ so you go back to the last episode, wait for the credits to finish and still nothing happens (to which you then realise that your Netflix user settings ‘automatically play next episode’ are switched off)? Well then, you perhaps miss out on one of the most vital components of the series, and you, once again find yourself in the dark. And - yes, perhaps one needs to be responsible for their own sensitivity, and therefore not enter into a narrative like ‘13 Reasons Why’, but just like Hannah, I was affected long before the suicide scene (and other highly graphic incidents). Here I will pose the question again: what about the teenagers? I wasn’t aware of myself, let alone my own highly sensitive nature until I was twenty-five. Do we really expect teenagers to know thy self? My psychologist admits that teenagers process differently: “Teenagers don’t have the capacity to extrapolate” from the series and think: “okay, so what is the lesson here? We should really talk to adults. We should really seek the help. We should really go and get diagnosed with mental health issues so we can treat and learn to manage. - for example, get therapy or be on medication.” From a psychologist perspective the series is educational. But what is it educating? We need to learn not only to be OPEN, to SPEAK, to VOICE, but how to. ‘13 Reasons Why’ shows us how not to. And that’s it. There needed to be a discussion of mental health. ‘Beyond the Reasons’ was a little bit helpful in this regard, but it really needed to be inside the series itself. It needed to break up the story that says if you have suicide then this is where you end up - to shed the light on how to identify with feelings and symptoms associated with mental illness and what to do with them. What I believe we need to take in is that to experience struggles with mental health - to experience anxiety, to experience depression - is a form of fight. It is your cognitive behaviour of survival. Why should we feel ashamed, embarrassed or feel incompetent or weak because our body is fighting? It takes strength to fight, to survive. Hannah gave up, but you don’t have to. If I leave one message with you, let it be this: YOU CANNOT HELP HOW YOU FEEL. BUT YOU CAN HELP HOW IT AFFECTS YOU. I used to think I was “too sensitive”, “over-reacting” or “worrying about nothing”, but then I learnt no matter what I feel, it is valid. How I feel is legitimate. And there is always an underlying reason behind it. No-one can tell me how to feel, as much as I can control how I feel. Suffering is immeasurable. You cannot compare your own suffering to somebody else’s. Your own suffering can only ever be relative to you.  Understanding mental health, can not only be life-changing, but life-saving, whether it saves one from ending their life, or living a life weighed down with mistreated symptoms and unmanaged illnesses. The more aware we are of ourselves, and understand ourselves, the more we can help others, and live a content and enriched life. It took me until twenty-five to realise the point of life is to be happy. It took me until twenty-six to learn how to be happy. And I am still learning. The bravest thing I have ever done, is learn to know myself. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to reach out and do the same. It took me until twenty-five to learn that I actually had something to reach out about. I learnt that I needed help, thirteen years later. If you need to reach out please call out. You may feel alone, you may physically be alone, but you don’t have to be. You can take control. No-one else can write your story, but you. It is impossible to post the lifeline number of every country, but here are few - 13 11 14 (AUS)  | 09 5222 999 (NZ within Auckland) | 0800 543 354 (NZ outside Auckland) | 01708 765200 (UK) 1-800-273-8255 (USA) https://www.beyondblue.org.au http://au.reachout.com/emergency-help https://www.lifeline.org.au https://www.lifeline.org.nz http://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/suicide.php https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Resources for adults and young people watching Netflix’s ’13 Reasons Why’:

Mental Health First Aid Australia: https://mhfa.com.au/news/2017-04-21/32544/resources-adults-and-young-people-watching-netflix-tv-show-13-reasons-why

Headspace: https://www.headspace.org.au/news/dangerous-content-in-13-reasons-why/

so why did i feel so compelled to write this? I am passionate to my bones about raising awareness of mental health, especially in our youth. It is something which is incredibly close to my heart, particularly as my parents come from a generation in which, unfortunately it is common to not only understand what mental health is, let alone how it works. A generation in which the denial card, is often played out of fear that to struggle with mental health is a sign of weakness. I believe it is so important - so paramount - that each and every one of us, especially our youth of today, are able to reach out. And that begins with feeling like we can reach out. Unfortunately, I have to say from my experience, ‘13 Reasons Why’ does not enable this, but unfortunately, instead sends a message which is quite the contrary.

References:

Lucinda Price, “Headspace Issues Warning Over Depiction of Suicide in ’13 Reasons Why’” (Pedestrian TV) http://pezn.tv/2oGLqzy (accessed 19 April, 2017)

Serena Smith, “13 Reasons Why is an insult to anyone with mental health issues.”  https://thetab.com/uk/leeds/2017/04/11/13-reasons-insult-anyone-mental-health-issues-31188 (accessed 14 April 2017)

Brooke Leigh is a Sydney-based something (artist, researcher, writer) with a passion for mental health awareness. Her research practice explores the unconscious (repressed memory and emotion), and the ability for art to function as cathartic experience.

[whiterosemarie]

So…this is the true story of my current working life.

I had a job that I loved. I was working as a assistant teacher at a child development center. I absolutely loved my job. And then I began feeling miserable. I couldn’t figure out why it was getting so hard to bring myself to come into work. I began feeling depressed and very much like everything was meaningless.

One day, I sat watching the kids sleep and was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t shake the dual feelings I was having. How can someone feel so miserable and yet love their job? What was it at my job that was making me feel this way? And I began to think on every day that had felt that way and it dawned on me: my boss.

Here’s the thing about being gaslit: you often don’t realize it’s happening even when you’ve had it before. The situation with my boss was like this: I was experiencing bad symptoms that was putting me in the hospital. I would get so sick that I couldn’t and wasn’t eating. Anytime I ate, my stomach would hurt and I would get sick. I spent a lot of the time in urgent care. When I did have to miss work for that, she’d berate me on the phone. The began on the second call in. I’d be told that I better have a note, that I was just fine yeatersay, that I’m xyz of an employee, that everyone else suffers when I do this. Mind you, I only missed a total of 5 days in the TWO terms I was there, two of which were from strep throat, which we’ll get to in a moment. When I’d come to work, pale and barely able to stand because of fearing I’d lose my job, I was patronized. She’d use the tone she uses on children. “Now Jen, you’re a…big girl now. If you don’t feel you can work, you should call in. Do you think you can do the duties of your job?”

I called in with severe laryngitis due to strep throat, which I received from work because that’s what happens when you work with children is you catch things. A lot. Always. Often. The doctor said to not go in for 5 days. Two of those were weekends so I didn’t work but on the third day I was supposed to take off, I was told to come in or lose my job that they could “work with someone without a voice.” AH yes, because 5 year olds always listen when you can’t even speak. On top of that, I wasn’t supposed to medically. I did. She threw a fit because my doctors note didn’t specifically say strep (saying so is a HIPAA violation. Her demanding he tell her is also a HIPAA violation).

It was a long time until my next incident. We had green eggs and ham. Right after that I began getting extremely ill and bad pain. Thinking I’d be a good employee, I warned people I wasn’t feeling good. My boss was MIA. The next day, i was on the bathroom floor from 6 am to 9 am, unable to even move as my gut hurt so bad and I couldn’t stop getting sick. I call in. I didn’t work til 12:30 that day but I knew where my boyfriend was gonna take me when he found me like that. That’s right. The oh so familiar Urgent Care where Thor the male nurse would be hooking me up to IVs AGAIN and making the same jokes about cocktails.

Over the phone I found no sympathy as I lay there crying on the bathroom floor. I was told I was faking it. That we’d have a talk Monday. I was not told to feel better. My boyfriend took pictures of me hooked up to 3 IV bags that day.

Monday comes. I still have hazy memories of this because it has been locked in my brain as manipulative and bad. My boss proceeded to insist that if I felt I couldn’t perform the duties that i “find other opportunities” and such forth. She said “You’re a burden on everyone else because of your illness” even though she was made aware that I do have disability status filed at HR. This talk lasted 30 minutes. I spent that day struggling not to cry. But it also dawned on me then: she couldn’t fire me. She was trying to chase me out.

Some other background.

My boss liked to undermine my authority. The thing about young children is they observe things and react accordingly. So imagine then that they see who has been equated to the highest authority treated one of the teachers like lower than the other teachers. On one particular occassion, the lead teacher was out sick. I was left in charge of a very wound up classroom. That day I had a student who was born drug addicted have a complete and utter mental breakdown into violent territory during naptime. I relied on my boss to help since she had told me that discipline was only hers (meaning I could not even have him go sit and calm down and not get his journal until afterwards without her). She kept bringing him back to my classroom in this state where he had begun to get physically violent at others. So it was a rough day, see? Well, after this, as children are getting their nap time things put away, she comes in and has me sit on the carpet to “talk” to me. We are surrounded by children. When she normally talks to teachers, they go off to the side to do so. This put me in a position where I’m being treated different. On top of that, she positioned herself to be higher than me. Her tone was talking down to me. Mind you, my job requires a high school degree. I have a fucking bachelor’s in CHILD AND FAMILY STUDIES. CHILD. STUDIES. So her telling me what to do as if explaining to a child while positioning herself above me, using a tone that she reserves for children….while we’re surrounded by children…it made the day worse as I literally felt the classroom begin to react to my authority far differently.

On another note, whenever my boss was near she would mention my work as “okay” And “getting there”. When I told my leads this they were astonished. “You’re the best assistant we’ve ever had here. You go above and beyond in work.”

When it comes to childcare, there are licensing requirements that varies by state. I asked several times for help getting those. Whenever she was supposed to help, she’d go home early. One day, I come in and she shows me an exit card on her desk. “This is to fire you. Get it done today.” “Show me where to go at lunch and I will.” Gone. That night I tried on my own. Wouldn’t load. Come to work. “Did you do it?” “Figured I could during my first 15 minutes. It wouldn’t load. Not sure I had the right forms anyways.” As I got it done, she entered the room and made such comments as: “Oh good. It seems you want to actually keep your job.” A high pitched fake laugh obviously forced. “Sorry it’s such a high price but you know it’s better than being fired.” Snide smirk. She dangled firing me as a suggestion in front of my face often to the point where I began to fear doing anything.

After that fateful talk with her about my absences, she would catch me during lunch when no one was around to dangle such in front of me. I began to job search. She found out. I’m still certain she’s the reason why I didn’t get the jobs. One day she caught me during lunch. “I heard you’re looking for new jobs. I would have hoped you would give your two week notice if you got one.” “I would. I haven’t gotten one yet.” “We’ll I would’ve hoped. So…I think you should give me your two week notice…how about this friday. That’ll put you at ending at the end of the term. I want it on my desk tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

Readers, I want you to realize the above is highly unethical and was what led me to go to HR that next week. I did give two week notice. I did not have to. No boss can force you to give leave just because they cannot find an offense to fire you on. I took the step and went to HR. I quit my job because shortly after that I had a large scale breakdown that would’ve led to suicidal acts while repeating her words over and over that “You’re a burden because of your illness.” My PTSD and chronic illness. My disabilities. I went to HR because my coworkers urged me to desperately.

He said things don’t happen over night. He was a pale man with the sharpest blue eyes. He scared me. But I told him as much as I could while shaking like a leaf. He’s a nice man. But his eyes pierce. He took note that I quit because of this. Things don’t happen over night.

I left my job and cried. I spent this last week in a depressive fugue feeling that I gave up something I loved doing. I had to say goodbye to 27 individual children. I wrote them each a card and gave each a pencil and eraser and an individual drawing. Everyone got one. That weekend, I saw one of my kids at the fair. All three days I saw her and I felt such horrible loss. I loved those kids, guys. I loved my job. I was chased out by a woman who had serious issues of her own and was in way more power than she need be.

Tonight…

Tonight my phone and Facebook blew up.

She’s been asked to clear her desk. Her contract is up. It isn’t being renewed. The term just started this week. It’s only been just over a week since I quit my job and she’s gone. Gone. My teachers want me back. My position was filled before my notice was ever given though. There’s no place to apply other than as a sub. I’m spending tonight crying. Because I want to go back so fucking badly. She’s gone. She’s gone. And she can’t hurt me there anymore.

In the end friends, I leave you with this. Never let a boss get away with harassment and bullying. Especially the abusive nature kind where they convince you that this is all your doing. Never let someone undermine you. And never ever let ANYONE tell you you’re a burden. You’re not. Not one bit.

[the-tales-of-horror]

Korea Has Bought Me Weird Experiences

Original Link By Hayong

When I was 10 years old I went to South Korea with my mother for summer break. When I first heard we were going to Korea I was extremely excited, but my excitement faded away when my mother told me we were going to one of the smaller islands of Korea. Being on an island may sound like a lot of fun, but the island we were going to was basically like a very small town with almost nothing to do.

When I asked her why we were going there she told me that my grandmother on my father’s side has gotten very ill. My dad was moving from Seoul to the Island, and we were going to be there for my whole summer break. Of course, I was completely bummed about the thought of being constantly bored, but the thought of being able to see my dad was well worth it. He found a job in Korea a couple of years ago, and he has been there since.

I just wish I had stayed at my grandmother’s house the whole entire time.

During the first week I was in Korea I played around at my grandmother’s house. She had about 15 chickens she took care of so I played with them for a good bit, and when that got boring I would talk to my dad and followed him around while he took care of grandma.

About 9 days into being in Korea my dad asked me if I could go to the local store and pick up a couple snacks for us. I grabbed the 5 out of his hands and started my walk to the store. I had gone with my dad a couple of times so I had the way memorized. Plus, once I got outside it was a straight 2 minute walk without any sort of turns. I got to the store and started to pick out my favorite snacks when I noticed a boy around my age was staring at me from the next aisle. I asked him what he wanted in Korean and he just shrugged his shoulders.

I took the snacks to the counter and gave the lady my 5. She handed me back 2 dollars. The kid then tapped on my shoulders and asked if I could pay for his snack. He held up a snack that was maybe 50 cents so I went ahead and bought it for him. I knew my dad would have wanted me to so I didn’t feel bad about spending more of his money.

Before I could grab the snack out of his hands to pay for it he bolted out of the store with the snack in his hands.

I headed out of the store and started the walk back home. About five minutes into the walk I notice that it was taking a lot longer than it should be. I started to walk faster, but I still felt like I was getting nowhere. I broke into a dead sprint and towards my house, but even after what seemed like 15 minutes of running I looked behind me and noticed that the store was still right behind me.

I didn’t know what else to do so I ran back into the store and told the lady I was having difficulty getting home. I gave her my father’s number and waited at the store until he came and got me. I told him about how I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere no matter how fast I ran, but he just rubbed my head and told me the streets were confusing. I tried to explain that I literally felt like I wasn’t moving anywhere, but he just laughed and walked with me back home.

When we got back we played a couple games of hangman and munched on our snacks. In the middle of the third game I remembered to give my dad back his change and told him about trying to buy a snack for a boy, but he just ended up stealing the snack from the store. My dad then looked at me and asked me to describe the boy to him. After I was done he looked at me strangely when I finished my description about the boy.

He asked me if I had gotten his name but I told him he didn’t really say anything. He just asked for the snacks and then ran out the door. After we finished the third game he told me that he had to take care of grandma so I just doodled on a piece of paper.

I can’t really draw, but I like to draw squiggly lines around the paper and see if anything recognizable somehow comes out of the squiggles. After five minutes I gave up on the picture as it resembled absolutely nothing.

I grabbed a book and went outside. I took a bag of chips with me and spent the next hour reading and eating chips. When I was about 40 pages into my book my dad asked me to come back inside. When I walked in my father was holding the drawing I ditched. He flipped it over when I walked in and saw it was a drawing of the boy I saw in the convenience store. I told him that was what the boy looked like, but that I didn’t draw the picture.

He looked over the picture again and threw it into the trash and left me in the room without another word. When he walked into my grandma’s room he slammed the door.

I didn’t know what made him so mad, but I didn’t really think about that. I was more concerned about why the picture changed on me. I drew scribbles, but the picture on the paper was a fully drawn out face.

I don’t know why, but I rushed out the door and ran back to the store. I saw the boy walking around the store and I walked up to him. He didn’t really notice me so I said “Hello!” He looked at me and I asked him what his name was. After a couple of second he said “Umpyo.” I remembered my dad never took back his change so I asked him if he wanted to share a snack with me. He nodded his head and I bought the same snack he asked me to buy.

When I walked out of the store I saw that he was gone.

I was a bit bummed out, but I just started walking back to my house. When I was around half way there a man ran out of his house and grabbed me by my shoulders. He reeked of alcohol, and he asked with a sob “Umpyo?” I looked at him and he let go of me quickly. After he looked at me for about 5 seconds he went back into his house without even saying sorry.

I ran back into my house and into the room I was staying in. I stayed in there and read books until I became tired. Around 10 o’clock I fell asleep.

In the middle of the night I heard a light tapping on the window. I looked out and saw that it was Umpyo. I opened the window and he jumped in. When he landed he made absolutely zero noise. He put a finger up to his lips and pointed at my bed. After I gave him a confused look he walked up to the bed and used his finger to signal for me to move it. The bed was light so I moved it over a couple of feet. He pointed at one of the wooden panels on the floor. I felt over the panel and realized that there was a little opening. I lifted the panel up and found myself staring at a dead Umpyo.