#tested negative the entire time so i guess it was just. another case of whatever happened in december

[miodiodavinci]

peace and love on planet earth w

[hopeymchope]

The Pre-Valentine’s Meeting: A Danganronpa Fic

Summary: Leon Kuwata calls together the men of Hope's Peak's 78th class in an attempt to learn who is expecting to receive Valentine's chocolate from which of their female classmates.

Links:

The Pre-Valentine’s Meeting on AO3

The Pre-Valentine’s Meeting on FF.Net

Or you can read it below the cut if you like.

"What's up, my dudes?" Leon Kuwata said as he strolled into the dining hall. He was addressing the longest table in the hall, where all of the other openly male members of the 78th class were currently seated.

In contrast to Leon's jovial attitude, Byakuya Togami looked deeply irritated. "We should be the ones asking that," he said irritably, "Since this meeting was at your insistence."

"This gathering is an important opportunity regardless of why Kuwata-kun requested it," Kiyotaka Ishimaru declared proudly, directing his comments towards Byakuya. "We must make the most of this chance to maximize our bonds as men!"

"I suppose I'm down with what bro said," Mondo Owada offered, "But does it gotta happen so late?"

"I'd never have guessed you're the early-to-bed type, Owada-kun," Makoto Naegi said with a light laugh.

Before Mondo could respond, Hifumi Yamada interjected: "It's only midnight! I'd normally be working until at least 2 a.m. on my latest doujin!"

"I ain't against a late night," Mondo said to Makoto. "But we gotta be real here, man — it's only Thursday."

"Exactly!" Leon replied, still standing. "It's basically already the weekend! Besides, don't tell me that your gang never got up to anything on Thursday nights."

"Not this late," Mondo told him. He smiled as he added, "Gotta save that energy so we can really tear it up on Friday night, y'know?"

"I do hold reservations about whether this will negatively impact our performance tomorrow," Taka said. "However, as there are no tests scheduled for this Friday, I believe the benefits of this male bonding time will outweigh the possible blowback!"

"Whatever, thanks for that," Leon said dismissively. "Let's get down to business," he said, pivoting to something that put much more passion in his voice. "We're a week and a half out from V-Day, and I am here to find out who among us is expecting Valentine's chocolate from which ladies!"

Makoto closed his eyes and hung his head. Mondo audbily groaned.

Yasuhiro Hagakure, on the other hand, grinned. "If that's all ya wanna know, I'll be happy to peer into the future for you!" he told Leon. "I've got a special Valentine deal going: Just 100 million yen!"

Now everyone at the table groaned. Makoto leaned over and gently told Hiro, "Ah, nobody here is gonna go for that. Sorry."

Byakuya Togami stood up. "If there's nothing else... " he muttered, then pivoted to face the door.

"Please, Togami-kun!" Taka said, reaching out with an open palm. "Without the full complement of our brethren, this male-bonding activity will be incomplete!"

Togami gave him a withering look. "I couldn't possibly care about that," he said. "I only came here to this gathering in the first place to satisfy my mild curiosity about what Kuwata considered so urgent." He moved his attention to Leon. "I admit that I didn't expect much, but you actually surprised me, Kuwata."

"How's that?" Leon said.

Byakuya smirked. "This was an even more foolish waste of time than I anticipated." He turned away once more. "Don't bother me again." With that, he walked out.

Taka looked crestfallen, but Leon didn't even visibly react to the insult. "Whatever," he said, shrugging. "He's only gonna get chocolate from Fukawa anyway."

Hifumi rubbed his chin. "Even if that's true, wouldn't her dual nature mean he'll get two gifts?"

"Dude, who even cares about that?" Leon responded. He pointed a finger at the side of his head. "Are you brain dead or something? It's not about how much chocolate you get — it's about the ladies you get it from!"

Hifumi gently adjusted his glasses with one hand. "Speak for yourself," he said back. "3D women mean nothing to me."

Mondo chuckled a little. "So nobody in our class is good enough for ya?" he prodded. "That the size of it?"

"Nothing so entitled," Hifumi said. "3D women are just too complicated, too... messy. With my 2D girls, I always know where I stand. The flags for instigating romance are always obvious, and in most cases, the ladies respond positively to those flags regardless of any other factors."

"Sure," Leon said, unconvinced. He finally sat down, slipping into a chair across from Hifumi, then leaning forward to bring himself closer. Hifumi instinctively leaned away. "Are you really gonna sit there and pretend there's not a single girl in the class who's even got you a little interested in the real thing?" Leon pressed.

Hifumi began to sweat. "We-well, I... I suppose... " He placed his forefinger across his lips and looked downward. "I mean... I guess I wouldn't mind if Chihiro Fujisaki-dono g-gave me some chocolate... "

Mondo glanced sideways and pursed his lips. "Huh," he muttered.

Leon rubbed the hair hanging off his chin between his thumb and forefinger as he looked at Hifumi skeptically. "But is that, uh... likely?"

Hifumi looked dubious, but he managed a smile. "We've enjoyed working together on some projects in the past. Perhaps some Friend Chocolate... ?"

Leon shook his head. "Man, that's the worst kind of chocolate," he said.

"Philistine!" Hifumi suddenly declared. He thrust forward one hand, pointing dramatically at Leon as he bellowed, "All chocolate is precious!"

Leon folded his arms and leaned his head back. "Don't get all high-and-mighty with me. You know damn well the kinda chocolate I wanna hear about, man!"

"Well both of you shut the hell up?!" Mondo yelled, slamming a fist on the table. Everyone jerked backwards. Hifumi let out a small yelp of surprise. Makoto flailed his arms a bit. Unphased, Mondo continued, "Your dumbass argument doesn't matter!"

After an awkward beat of silence from the group, Taka was the first one to lean back into position. Sitting beside Mondo, he sternly said, "Bro, you know that kind of language is-"

Mondo waved him off. "Yeah, I know, I know. Sorry, bro."

Leon swallowed and tried to hold his ground. "Well, it still matters to me what kind of chocolate it is."

"That's not even what I was talkin' about," Mondo grumbled, looking away.

Taka's brow furrowed. "Then what did you mean by saying that it 'doesn't matter'?"

Mondo looked at him with irritation. "Just that... look, Fujisaki... " He paused and cleared his throat, then looked down at the floor. "They ain't plannin' to give anybody anything more than Friend Chocolate, okay?!"

There was another moment of silence that was soon interrupted by a loud gasp from Hiro. "This is awful!" he shouted. "Owada-chi! How come you never told me you're a psychic, too?!"

Before Mondo could protest, Taka stepped in. "That is not what bro is saying!" Taka told Hiro confidently. "Clearly, he learned this because he and Fujisaki-kun discuss workout tips!"

Makoto looked at Mondo with an expression of surprise on his face that transitioned into something else as he narrowed his eyes. He said, "So Owada-kun, are you saying that you just... asked her?"

Mondo eyes locked with his so quickly that Makoto flinched. "Hell no!" Mondo replied. "They just said so, okay?!"

This inspired a chuckle from Leon. "Maybe she was trying to keep you from getting your hopes up," he said, smiling.

Now it was Leon's turn to be on the receiving end of Mondo's glare. "God dammit, it ain't like that!" Mondo said.

"C-can we just move on from Fujisaki-dono already?" Hifumi said as visible sweat beaded upon his face. "Leon Kuwata-dono — why don't you volunteer information on the chocolate you expect to receive? You were the one to initiate this meeting, after all."

Letting out a fake sigh, Leon grinned as he said, "I get it. Everybody wants to know what Valentine's Day looks like for a real ladies' man. And yes, I'm sure I'll be getting chocolate from many of my fans."

Mondo let out a guffaw. "Is one of those 'fans' your cousin?" he teased.

Leon rolled his eyes. "I mean... she'll probably send me some too, but no, I meant-"

"I was asking about our classmates," Hifumi interrupted, pointing at Leon. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger around the rim of his glasses. "Are any of them your 'fans'?"

At this, Leon frowned a little. "Well... I'm hoping to receive some from somebody, but I kinda think she might have her eyes on somebody else... " His gaze drifted over to Makoto.

Makoto smiled nervously, holding up his hands in defense. "Hey now... I'm not expecting chocolate from anybody." At that, the entire rest of the table burst into laughter. Makoto looked around at everyone in confusion. "What?!" he demanded. "What'd I say?!"

As he stopped chuckling, Mondo bowed his head. "Dude, you really are clueless."

Makoto threw up his hands. "About what?"

"For starters, Maizono-chan is constantly by your side," Leon pointed out.

"She's a good friend!" Makoto insisted. "And that's all!"

Taka spoke up next. "I have noticed that Ikusaba-kun speaks with you more than most of our classmates."

Makoto shook his head rapidly. "Ikusaba-san is a friend, too! She's not, like... into me or anything like that."

"You and the detective girl seem pretty close," Hifumi observed.

Makoto looked away. "Kirigiri-san is... uh, sh-she wouldn't be interested in someone like me... " he said softly.

"Like I said," Mondo remarked. "You're clueless."

"You've got it wrong!" Makoto exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He pointed one hand dramatically around the table as he said, "Just because I'm friends with these girls doesn't mean they want to be my girlfriend!"

"And what about you?" Leon pressed. "Do you want to date any of them?"

Makoto opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. His face reddened, and he slowly slumped back into his seat. "I'll... deal with that on White Day," he finally murmured.

Leon leaned back and and raised an eyebrow at Makoto. "Yeah, about White Day... Do I gotta get your permission before I give any of those girls chocolate?"

Raising his forefinger to the side of his mouth, Makoto scratched at his cheek and said, "No no, you're fine!" After a momentary pause, he added, "Uh, I assume you're talking about Maizono-san?"

Leon visibly cringed. "If you know that I'm into her, does that mean Maizono-chan knows?"

Makoto nodded a couple times. "She does have really good intuition," he said, smiling sympathetically.

Hiro rubbed his head sheepishly as he told Leon, "Actually, I knew you're gunning for her, too."

"Crap," Leon said emphatically. "If you could tell, everybody must know!"

"Hey — not everybody has my psychic power!" Hiro protested.

Mondo bowed his head a bit and countered, "Kuwata's got a point, man. I mean, I already knew."

Leon put his head in his hands. "And here I was already working out a grand romantic gesture for White Day," he grumbled.

Taka clenched his fist. "You can still do that!" he declared. "It need not be a complete surprise!"

Closing one eye tight, Leon looked upwards with the other as he considered that. "It loses some impact, but... yeah, maybe." He sat upright once more to look at Taka and Mondo, who were seated beside one another. “Let's just move on," Leon said quickly. "This is about the V-Day, not White Day. So what about you two?"

Mondo and Taka exchanged look, then simultaneously turned back to Leon. "What about us?" Mondo asked.

With exasperation, Leon asked, "What girls do you think you'll get chocolate from?"

Confused, Taka and Mondo looked at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, they began to laugh.

As the two of them burst into hysterics, Leon threw up his hands in a shrug. "Am I missing something?"

Mondo gradually stopped laughing. "Who needs chocolate from girls?" he said. Throwing an arm around Taka, he grinned as he continued, "All I need is some chocolate from my bro here, and I'm set!"

Blushing, Taka put an arm around Mondo and exclaimed, "Same here!"

Leon closed his eyes and sighed. "Well, this is turning into a real bust," he grumbled.

"Perhaps the problem is that no one can truly know what to expect," Hifumi offered.

"Yeah," Hiro agreed. "None of us are in relationships, and I mean... when it comes to girls, most of us are just as clueless as Naegi-chi!"

"Hey!" Makoto protested.

Ignoring Makoto, a dismayed Leon acknowledged Hiro's remark. "Yeah, I'm getting that impression." Looking around at the group, he said, "Maybe I should've waited to ask for everyone's White Day plans. At least then it's all up to the guys."

Taka gave a swift nod to that. "It is easiest to know future events when you are the one who controls them," he stated.

Makoto frowned at Hiro. "You know, somehow it hurts more when you call me clueless... "

Hiro shrugged at him by way of apology. "My offer still stands for anyone interested, by the way," Hiro told the table. "Step right up and get your fortune told — learn which ladies will love you today!"

A variety of negative replies emerged from the rest of the table. "Not interested." "No, thank you." "Not a chance." "N-no, sorry." "Nuh-uh."

[largedenominationsplease]

There are too many good ones on the drabble list so I picked four and you can choose which one(s) you want to write a Jarah B drabble for (because you should have known this was coming 😜). #2, 24, 41, or 59 (59 is my favorite one)

THIS ONE WAS HONESTLY SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE! And I’m a fucking over-achiever, as you well know, my dear, so I did all four prompts. 💀 Enjoy!

“Can you shut up for five minutes, please?”

“If I trip over one more of your shoes, I’m throwing them all away.”

“Take notes, sweetheart.”

“... or we could make out…”

Sarah’s alarm blares suddenly, pulling her from a weirdly vivid dream. The bright colors fade from her memory as soon as she opens her eyes, squinting against the light leaking between the slats of the blinds. It’s too early to get up for a weekend, but the Pogues had been over late the night before and she knows the Chateau is still a mess. She’d been too tired to clean up before going to bed, but now she wishes she hadn’t procrastinated so she could roll over and go back to sleep. As she stretches, willing some form of energy into her limbs, she realizes John B’s side of the bed is empty. He’s never been an early riser, and he didn’t mention having to work. Whatever the case, he’s no longer in bed next to her and with his absence goes any excuse she has to linger under the warm blankets. She smells coffee as she opens the bedroom door. That will be a better start to her day than jumping right into cleaning. 

As she makes her way down the hall, her foot catches on a discarded converse. In that moment, she decides that moving in with John B was the best and worst decision she’d made in recent history. “John Booker!” she yells, rubbing her stubbed toe and hopping awkwardly on one foot. “If I trip over one more of your shoes, I’m throwing them all away! I swear to god!” And okay, that comes out a little meaner than she intended. 

“Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” his good natured chuckle floats from the kitchen to greet her. 

Sarah twists her mouth into a semi-pout. She can admit to herself she’s irritable, but admitting it to someone else is another matter entirely. “And?” she snaps, her voice having almost no bite to it. Then she sighs, crossing to the kitchen table and sinking into one of the chairs. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well I guess. Need coffee.”

“Coming right up, Val.” He pours her a cup. “Though you did ruin my plan.”

“What plan?”

He grins a little sheepishly. “I was gonna make you breakfast in bed.”

“Really?” Tears spring to her eyes for just a moment and she feels kind of silly, getting all emotional over one little breakfast in bed. “You’re so sweet. How am I supposed to top all your grand romantic gestures?”

He sets a plate of fried eggs, slightly burned bacon, and toast in front of her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Take notes, sweetheart,” he says with a wink. 

Sarah’s stomach growls as she looks at the food in front of her, but she finds herself wrinkling her nose after the first bite. Something isn’t quite right about the bacon, and she’s guessing it’s due to its near charred state, but she can play it off. It’s awfully sweet of John B to make breakfast, even if he isn’t a first-class chef. He sits down next to her with his own plate and asks, “What’s on your to do list for the day?” 

“Cleaning up the mess your friends made last night,” she laughs. 

“My friends? Since when are they only my friends?”

“Since they trashed our house!”

“Well, I guess I can help with the cleanup, since I did contribute to the mess.”

“Thank you for your sacrifice.”

John B chuckles for a moment, then glances down at his food, pushing it back and forth across the plate. “And, uh,” he pauses and clears his throat. Sarah doesn’t often see him struggle to say what he’s thinking. John Booker Routledge is rarely lost for words. But in this moment, he seems almost nervous to continue. “So I think you should add something else to your to do list today.”

She pulls her feet into the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees and leaning forward. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Like taking this.” He reaches into a bag on the floor, pulling out a rectangular box and sliding it across the table. 

Sarah opens and closes her mouth a few times, blinking in surprise as she takes in the small package sitting in front of her. 

“Your period’s late,” he explains. “And you’ve been… feeling off lately, I can tell. And Kie can, too. She said so last night. And I mean I was already thinking something was weird and I figured it was better to go ahead and see-“

“Can you shut up for five minutes, please?” Sarah snaps, staring holes into the pink and white box in her hands. A pregnancy test. “Do you really think-“ she cuts herself off, trying to collect her thoughts. Sure her period is a little late, but that had happened before, nothing to freak out about. She hadn’t thrown up or anything like that. There is no way she’s pregnant. She slams the box down on the table and stands abruptly. “No, this is crazy. My period is just a couple days late, that’s all. It’s happened before.”

John B stands and walks around the table to put his hands on her shoulders. “Sar,” he says. “It’s two weeks late. You always mark it in your little planner thingy and it’s been two weeks since you were supposed to start.”

And there go those stupid tears again, filling up her eyes, except this time she’s afraid. She’s afraid because she knows he’s right. She hadn’t even allowed herself to notice how long it had been, but of course John B did, and now... “What if it’s positive?”

“Well,” he pulls her in close, wrapping his arms around her. She instinctively relaxes into his embrace. “Would that be so bad? I mean, you’ve graduated, and I know we’re not married yet, but what does that mean in this day and age anyway. And it’s not like we’re exactly strapped for cash.”

That last statement makes her giggle, just a bit. “So we’d be okay, yeah?”

He nods. “We’d be okay.”

She sighs, pulling back from and picking up the box of pregnancy tests. “Shit. Here goes!”

Two full minutes later, after the timer on her phone goes off, Sarah has a hand over her eyes and a test in the other. What if it’s positive? John B would be a great parent, she’s certain. But she doesn’t know how to be a mother. It’s not like she had the best examples to look up to. But then, what if it’s negative? “I’m honestly scared to look.”

“We’ll look together,” John B says, coming up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He steadies her in a way a much younger Sarah didn’t believe was possible. “On the count of three?” She nods. “One, two… three!”

And with John B’s hands on her shoulders, his eager face hovering next to hers, just as excited to see the results as she is, she suddenly knows exactly what she wants from this silly bit of plastic in her hands. She flips the test over. Two little lines. 

“Two? What does two mean?” John B asks. 

“It’s… it’s positive.” Her voice is a little shaky, and holy shit this is happening, but then she’s laughing. “It’s positive!”

“Oh my god, Sarah!” He lifts her off the ground and spins her around once. “Oh my god,” he says again, setting her back on her feet. “Should I have done that? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, John B,” she whispers, tears shining in her eyes for the third time that damn morning. “We’re gonna have a baby!” Just saying that out loud sends a shiver down her spine. She didn’t think she could be so excited for something so unexpected, but here she is. 

He laughs, almost in disbelief, raking his fingers through his hair. Sarah thinks he looks happier than she’s ever seen him. She thinks maybe she’s the happiest she’s ever been, too. “We should tell the Pogues,” she says. 

“Yeah, probably…” his voice trails off as he pulls her back to him. “Or, we could make out?” He teases. “We can always tell them later.” 

Sarah giggles, feeling better than she had in probably a month. “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”

“So is that a no? Or…”

Twisting her hand into the front of his shirt, she pulls him even closer, kissing him deeply. His hands come to rest on her waist and she can feel him smiling beneath her lips. Breaking their kiss for just a moment, she says, “You know I love you, John B. Right?”

“I love you, too, Sarah.”

[paintedphoenix]

Noticed MC’s back was breaking from the weight of carrying the diagnostics team, so I decided to count exactly how much of the team’s solves so far are down to them. up to 3.2

Total cases: 12

Solves by MC alone: 6

MC with help (mostly Ethan but lowkey Baz once since he did Leland’s biopsy): 5

June: 1 although mc was literally a patient

Honestly this hurts to type since I literally worship June but wtaf is up with June and Baz they literally solved none of these cases

The sheer absurdity of a second/third year resident solving all (yes I’m saying all bc they only didn’t solve one since they were slightly busy with dying) of this world famous diagnostics team’s cases shocks me. Unless I guess MC is the reincarnation of Einstein and has an IQ of 200. The entire concept of this team is literally nonsensical anyway so idk what I was expecting really

ALSO please lmk if I have my facts wrong or missed anything! Specifically contributions from June and or Baz because I really want to be wrong there lmao

Specifics of each case:

Chapter 2.1-2.2

Patient: Eric

Diagnosis: kikuchi disease + cholecystis

Solve credit: MC

Extra: MC notices he complained about stomach pain specifically after eating

-

Chapter 2.3

Patient: Lamar

Diagnosis: tertiary syphilis

Solve credit: MC

Extra: Just had a lightbulb moment when he was hallucinating

-

Chapter 2.4

Patient: Evelyn

Diagnosis: a scotoma

Solve credit: MC and Ethan (I’m guessing  Ethan only if no diamond scene)

Extra: noticed it other art show when the landscapes she was painting had missing parts compared to the reference. Put them together chronologically and realised she had a growing blind spot

-

Chapter 2.5

Patient: Gwyneth

Diagnosis: tapeworm

Solve credit: MC and Ethan (mc only if no diamond scene)

Extra: they were going through her channel and saw she made steak tartare and came to the conclusion.

-

Chapter 2.6

Patient: Leland Bloom

Diagnosis: aggressive Berger’s disease

Solve credit: MC, Ethan, and lowkey Baz

Extra: they run tests and MC and Ethan decide to do a kidney ultrasound. They do it then say he needs to go to the hospital, Baz does a biopsy then they get the answer. Any of them would have figured this out, it’s just who was around.

-

Chapter 2.10

Patient: Ed Farrugia

Diagnosis: lead poisoning

Solve credit: MC (bonus points for figuring out that it was Travis later)

Extra: MC notices Ed’s memory issues and connects the timing to when he bought his house then puts it together I guess. Then after the paint from the house comes back with a negative test for lead they figure out that Travis poisoned Ed via google search.

-

Chapter 2.11

Patients: Danny, MC and Rafael

Diagnosis: exposure to maitotoxin

Solve credit: June

Extra: MC reports Rafael’s hot cold reversal symptom and it reminds her of a journal she read. She figures out what it is. I’m going to cut mc slack here for not  getting the diagnosis for once bc they were literally dying

-

Chapter 2.13

Patient: Farley

Diagnosis: Lyme disease

Solve credit: Doesn’t really say. Ethan talks about waiting to see if any bacteria shows up in his cultures. MC goes into Farleys room with test results so I guess the bacteria one was positive. I guess I’ll give credit to Ethan and MC. Again, this wasn’t a hard to solve one since it probably just came up on their basic tests and any of them could have got it.

-

Chapter 2.14

Patient: Paula

Diagnosis: altitude sickness caused by drug interaction between ibuprofen and lithium in bipolar medication, and rash caused by poison sumac

Solve credit: MC for altitude sickness and Ethan for poison sumac

Extra: MC and Ethan notice the lithium in Paulas blood and realised that her son was dosing her with bipolar medication. Ethan suggests that she is bipolar first. Also that portrayal of bipolar was offensive bordering on actionable anyways

Im giving MC extra points bc mc first suggested altitude sickness and everyone told them to stfu but they were right. So it was mostly MC imo

-

Chapter 2.16

Patient: Marisa

Diagnosis (cause of her sepsis): intestinal cryptosporidiosis

Solve credit: MC

Extra: mc must have solved this off camera because they literally don’t show it since ch16 is the Ethan’s mom show. Anyways Ethan says that mc’s hypothesis was correct so I’m just gonna them all the credit as per usual

Mc also gets extra points for getting the guy to give a lobe of his liver. I mean they did pressure him into it and it was a bit uncomfortable but whatever they saved the patient extra points for mc

-

Chapter 2.19-2.20

Patient: Caroline

Diagnosis: selective IgA deficiency and an IgA allergy

Solve credit: MC?

Extra: again mc apparently did some magic off camera since baz says ‘we’ve’ discovered her deficiency, and Ethan says ‘we’ suspect that the recent attacks were caused by an external bacteria, but later Ethan says ‘tests confirm your theory, MC. Let’s tell Caroline the good news.’ and they don’t all her anything new other than they identified a number of bacterial strains that they can prescribe treatment for. And Baz literally says that?? Idk what’s going on really

However it was mc that figured out her allergy to immunoglobulin A and that her exposure to it was coming from Leland so all props to them absolute unit

-

Chapter 3.1

Patient: Martha

Diagnosis: hypothyroidism

Solve credit: MC

Extra: MC figures it out because Sienna shows them deceiving cake videos lol and says ‘good decoration can mask almost anything…’. They have a book 1 esque brain baby moment and rush back to the hospital knowing wtf is up

-

Chapter 3.2

Patient: Andrew

Diagnosis: i forgot lol

Solve credit: MC. minus points for ethan and harper sorry

Extra: mc figured it out after talking to aurora and elijah about camping and woods and bugs. another brain baby

[slowly-writing]

Ulterior Motives

Steve Rogers x Kid!Reader

Word count: 1795

Requested by: @kye06

a/n: Trigger warnings for childhood Neglect and overall shitty parenting

You don’t remember very much before you started living with your dad. You had a few flashes here and there, mainly of what you thought was doctors offices though you know knew must’ve been labs of somesort. Then when you were around 4 years old you found yourself on the Avengers doorstep with a note that you couldn’t read at the time. Little did you know it was a letter, telling the heros who you were, and more importantly, who your father was.  That was over 12 years ago, and somehow your life still hadn’t gotten any easier.

You were Steve Roger’s daughter, or at least that’s what you were told. You could tell nobody believed it, and that made you doubt the truth as well. He believed you at first, but as you grew you were constantly sick, which got in the way of any training that could prove your claims. Not that they really tried to train you after the first few weeks. You didn’t seem like anything special, so they decided you probably weren’t.

You did your own training in the safety of your bedroom, that where you spent most of your time anyway. They didn’t acknowledge your existence very much, and you pretended it didn’t hurt. None of them knew how to handle children, that was all. You made it work. You didn’t ask for help with your homework, you kept your grades up. When you got sick you made your own way to the medical wing and got the help you needed yourself. You found a way to raise yourself, and you pretended to be okay with it.

You tried not to show how much everyone’s attitude affected you. It’s not like they really knew you anyways, so who cared what they thought. The whispers going on behind your back of what your real agenda was hurt, but you could take it. You’re heading towards the kitchen to get breakfast when you hear more of the whispering that never seems to stop.

“She can’t really be his kid, she’s nothing like him!” you hear Tony say and you sigh.

“The odds are highly unlikely,” Bruce responds softly, “you know all this could be solved with a simple paternity test, Steve.”

“No.” You hear your dad’s voice, “I don’t think I’d be able to look her in the eye if it came back negative.”

That’s all you needed to hear. You turn around and grab your backpack from your room, none of them would notice if you left for school a little early. You’d be surprised if they even knew what grade you were in.

xxxxx

You had just got home from school when you noticed the tower was empty. You walked through the halls, looking into some of the rooms before wandering back to your own. You saw a note on your pillow and picked it up curiously.

Hey y/n,

We all had to head out on a mission. We should be back in a few days. There’s food in the fridge, so you should be okay here. You won’t be able to reach us but I put a number at the bottom of the page if something goes wrong. It is for emergencies only, y/n. Stay safe, kid.

-Clint

You smiled a bit at that. Clint was always the nicest to you growing up, he had a very fatherly vibe. He was gone a lot though, disappearing for weeks at a time, so you didn’t get to spend much time with him.

You set the note on your dresser before sitting down to do homework. You’d been working for about an hour when you heard some noises in the kitchen. You slowly make your way over, hearing a robotic voice murmuring to itself. You think JARVIS must be malfunctioning until you turn the corner and see a tattered version of what looks like an iron man suit stumbling around. Before you can react it turns to you.

“Ah, the littlest Rogers. What an honor,” it says and you feel a chill run down your spine, “you wouldn’t know where I could find your father, would you?”

“H-he’s not here,” you stutter out, not quite sure how to react to this particular situation.

“Well I know that. I am looking for a clue as to where he could’ve gone, certainly you must know something,” the machine says and you roll your eyes.

“You’ve come to the wrong place, buddy. I’m the last person they’d tell.”

“Ah, I remember now. The forgotten daughter. Well, I guess we could find out how much he really cares, though you won’t be around to see it,” the machine says, and with that it charges you.

You send a kick to it’s chest area as it approaches, sending it stumbling off course. You’re in over your head as the fight ensues. You can’t spar yourself, so you have very little combat knowledge. Adding that to the fact that you’re fighting a robot that you can’t knock out, you’re fighting a losing battle. You take more hits than you ever have, but eventually the machine takes off through the window, sending shattered glass flying at you. You wipe the blood from your face as well as you can. Holding your ribs, which you’re pretty sure were broken, you stumble towards your room and grab the note Clint left. You wait impatiently as it rings, praying whatever that thing was doesn’t come back.

“Fury, we’ve got a problem,” you say as soon as the line connects.

“This isn’t Fury. My name’s Laura,” a female voice responds, throwing you off. You can’t think of who else Clint could’ve left you a number for.

“Oh, um I’m sorry. Clint left me this number...I just assumed…” you trail off.

“Clint gave you this number? What’s your name?” you hesitate for a second, but you trust Clint. If he trusts this woman then that’s good enough for you.

“I’m y/n, I live in the tower with him.”

“Y/n, as in Rogers?” she asks and you frown.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” you say, you don’t enjoy advertising your last name.

You hear a commotion on the other end of the line before the phone is handed off, “Y/n, what’s wrong?”

“Clint, some...thing just attacked the tower. This robot thing looking for Steve. I fought it off, but I’m afraid it could come back,” you explain frantically, every second that ticks by your nerves are growing, you know you can’t handle another round right now.

“Y/n, listen to me. You need to get out of there right now. Get to the hanger, I’m sending coordinates to the jet.” You hear the woman, Laura, in the background as you start making your way through the tower. “Ultron attacked the tower, I’m getting her here.”

“Clint, what’s happening?” you ask, almost to the jet.

“I’ll explain when you get here, you’ll be okay, y/n.” With that the line cuts off and you pray he’s right.

xxxxx

By the time you touch down you’re already starting to feel better, physically at least. Mentally, you’re more confused than you’ve ever been. You make your way towards the house, you didn’t expect a safe house to look so lived in, but then again you’ve never seen one before.

“Hello?” you ask, knocking on the door.

“Hey, come on in,” the woman from the phone says and you nod slowly. You’re not sure what you’re expecting but it certainly isn’t the entire team to be sitting in the living room, looking very out of place.

“Y/n? What are you doing here?” Steve says and you flinch slightly.

“Hey, calm down. She needed help,” Clint says, walking over towards you and you take comfort in his presence.

“We’re not really in a position to be helping people right now, Clint. In case you haven’t noticed we just had our asses handed to us by Ultron!” Tony yells and you look at Clint.

“Is that what he’s called? The robot guy?” you ask softly and suddenly all eyes are on you.

“You’ve seen him?” Banner asks and you glare.

“Yeah. I’ve seen him. I’m sure you wouldn’t have noticed, but I didn’t have a black eye or broken ribs when you left the tower,” you yell and they all look confused.

“He attacked you? How’d you get away?” Steve asks and you shrug.

“He took off. There’s still some spare wiring and a broken window in the kitchen in case you don’t believe me.”

“You fought him off?” He asks and you nod.

“As well as I could, I don’t really have any combat training. I did what I could, I’m stronger than you all give me credit for. I told you I’m your kid,” you say, refusing to make eye contact.

“That’s not proven,” Tony says and you snap.

“Then just do a damn DNA test already! Or kick me out so I can live anywhere else! I was four when I moved in. I know none of you have any idea how kids work, but a four year old doesn’t have any ulterior motives. I’m not here to take you down from within, I’m here because I have nowhere else to go. Believe me, if I did I would’ve been gone years ago.”

“Y/n, I’m sorry I-” your father starts but you cut him off.

“No. You don’t get to apologize now. I hear how you talk about me. How you all talk about me! Like I’m the enemy, like I’m some ploy to get you to let your guard down. I’m a sixteen year old kid. I’m a junior in high school, though I’m sure you’ve all forgotten that. I don’t know why I get sick when you can’t, or why I’m not as tall as you are. I don’t know any of that because you guys are the geniuses here. You’re the adults, and if you want those answers, by all means go get them. I’d love to know too, but quit taking it all out on me. None of this is my fault!” You yell and the room falls silent.

“You’re right. None of this has been fair to you,” Steve says and you glare.

“Understatement of the damn century,” you grumble and he nods.

“It is. And when this is all over, we’ll be better. We will treat you like you deserve to be treated and we’ll find you those answers, but for now we need to get rid of Ultron, and it looks like we could use your help.”

“Thank you,” you say softly and he shakes his head.

“You don’t have to thank me, it’s how this should've been from the beginning.”

Tag list:  @rvgrsbrns @marvelsdc22

[gryffindor-glizzy-gobbler]

Out Past Curfew (Pt. 1/5)

“No, no- fuck off. I’m mad at you.”

Sitting on the bench with your arms crossed firmly over your chest whilst slouching in your seat, positioned right next to you was the one person you didn’t want to see right now.

Pansy Parkinson. It was no stranger to anyone that you two were the biggest ankle bitters in the house of Slytherin, which made you two being best friends even more unfortunate for the rest of the house members who had to deal with your nonsense. This was one of those cases.

“What? You don’t believe in a cause?” Pansy reached over to place both of her hands on your shoulders, her right arm clenching the shoulder farthest away from you. “This is a cause?” You cocked a brow at her, honest to God wondering if she was serious. Pansy was a fool all in her own right, and you respected that to a decent degree, but there comes a point where you sometimes can’t take some of her shit anymore. You sucked in your stomach through your teeth before using the back of your hands to brush her grip off of her shoulder, turning your entire body to face her.

“This is bullshit, Pansy. You didn’t even ask me first. Then you come here and you’re asking for ANOTHER favor?” “That’s what best friends do, squibby. I know you’re kind of a loser and haven’t really had friends before, but that’s how that works. You do me a favor and when you need something done, I’ll do you a favor. Get it? It’s called human fucking decency.” She stressed the last syllables of her coaxing, thinning out an imaginary line with her fingers, pinching the air as she furrowed her thick eyebrows at you.

“You don’t know a damn about human decency.” You grumbled before pushing off of the bench using the back of your legs to spring to your feet, looking down at her with a glare that could kill. What Pansy had done had been a bit worse than the things she had done in the past.

It was no secret to any one - not just in Slytherin - but in Hogwarts, that you hated Draco Malfoy more than anything. Probably Harry Potter himself, and that guy really hated that weasel.

Pansy knew this better than anyone, yet she still had a crush on Draco. She’s fancied him since their first year. It’s been 5 years since she acknowledged to herself that she had the fattest crush on the fattest asshole in the whole school. It was aggravating that your best friend was in love with the guy you hated the most, but you could tolerate that. What she had just done was too far.

Tonight you had planned to spend your time doing homework for Potions, but instead you were going to have to spend 2 hours of your precious sweet time with the most annoying boy imaginable. All thanks to Pansy.

You see, Pansy was head girl. The title of hers was definitely earned, and you had no doubt that she worked to secure her rank, but damn sometimes you wish she wasn’t head girl. It certainly disadvantaged you in more ways than one. Tonight, instead of studying for your Defense Against the Dark Arts test you have tomorrow and finishing up your Potions homework, you had to cover for Pansy’s prefect rounds tonight. And guess who happened to be Head Boy?


Draco Motherfucking Malfoy.

Loathing couldn’t even describe the feeling you had rumbling in your stomach right now that was harbored towards Pansy. You were seething. Fuming even. Your anger was unimaginable, but as Pansy had mentioned, she already signed you up for covering her rounds. This was a system that was created when you both were fifth years, being able to cover other prefects rounds.

You yourself were not a prefect this year, that baton got passed over to Pansy, but due to your previous expire in el with being a prefect, you were elegible to take rounds from the prefect of your house - even if they are Head Girl. You dreaded this information, because that means there was no way of getting out of it. 2 hours of Draco’s bitching would haunt your dreams tonight, and as the time came around to finally fulfill the task that Pansy roped you into, you had to wonder...

What was she doing that was so important to where she missed out on a chance to hang out with Draco? Her everything. Her little love bug. Whatever plans she had tonight must’ve been important for her to skip out on prefect rounds, the one time of day she can actually get Draco alone with out ripping him away from his friends.

Glancing at the clock that was above the doorway leading to the spiral staircase that took you down to the Slytherin common room, you grit your teeth as you were lacing up your black leather boots that you usually wore when you knew you were going to be taking a long walk. Of course, this was one of those night. Also, you knew that compared to your other shoes, that this pair hurt more when kicking a guy in the balls.

That might come in handy.

You glanced at Pansy, and she herself was also getting ready for something. It wasn’t for anything school related, based on the nature of her attire, which was a sexy slim fitting velvety green dress. It accentuated her figures quite nicely without making her look fat, which was always a plus.

“Oh don’t you look like a slut.” You snapped, lying about her obviously gorgeous looking appearance as to belittle her. Humbling her was all you could do right now to bite back at her for what she had submitted you to. “Where are you going anyways?” You cocked a brow at her. You had been speaking quietly due to the time of night that is was and the fact that some of the girls were already sleeping.

Even though it was...

You glanced at the clock.

9:55.

“Nevermind, tell me later, I don’t care right now.” You sprung off of the bed you were sitting on after fully lacing up your shoes. Under your robes that you were require to wear you were wearing a green and black plaid pleated skirt with a black wool vest over a white dress shirt.

“Have fun.” She sneered at you as you found your way around the mess that was scattered across the floor, said mess consisting of clothes, shoes, random crumbled up pieces of papers, and some text books. Note to self: clean up Slytherin dorm if you have time in the morning.

You already knew that asking the girls in your house to help you was as useful as asking a fish to breath air.

Skittering down the stairs, trying to make you footsteps as quiet as possible, you creeped into the Slytherin common room where you spotted a pair of curly haired brunettes - both of them were probably woman based on the angle you were looking at them from - and they were playing tonsel hockey right on the couch where you left your ashes and weathered satchel that held your wand and a couple of sweet snacks. You ignored the intimacy unfolding in front of you, despite the smacking sounds being practically negative-ASMR for you to listen to, and dashed out of the common room towards the meeting place that Pansy disclosed you on.

Middle courtyard right near the fountain that had the eagle statues on its corners. You knew the place, that was where some kids went on dates after curfew. Especially on valentine’s day. You shuddered at the nature of the place where you were meeting Draco, but nonetheless speed-walked towards the courtyard where you spotted the platinum-blonde weasel sitting, looking more annoying than usual.

His hair was a bit messy, obviously not making an effort to make it look like normal due to WHO he was doing his rounds with. Every time someone asked Draco how he felt about Pansy, it was always a one-worded answer, and if it was more than that... vague doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Though he sure had a lot to say about you.

“Oh that little squib? She’s an absolute thorn in my side. All the attractive qualities about her appearance is basically squashed by her whorish personality. She’s an absolute cunt, but getting on her nerves is the highlight of my day.”

That comment you can clearly remember Draco making in front of you to Blaise was something that you had imprinted on your mind. And as you walked up to the weasel himself, you could only leer at him.

“Evening, Malfoy.”

[rotationalsymmetry]

Arsenal: Thought Checking

This is a CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) exercise, and it's based on the idea that "negative" feelings like anger and loneliness and so on usually come from "distorted" thoughts. However, there are some cases where the feelings know something the rational mind doesn't, and if you get a lot of internal resistance to this approach it might not be a good one to start with, or use at all. Philosophically, it pairs well with Stoicism (also with Buddhist ideas to a large degree): the idea is that suffering doesn't come from what happens, it's from what we think about what happens. How we interpret it. And whether we can change what's going on in the world or not, we always have some measure of control (with practice) over how we respond to it.

(This is not incompatible with working to change the world. You can work on both.) I've found that when this approach helps, it tends to help a lot and it often surprises me how much it helps. At one point I was doing this every day for a year or so. (If you're doing it every day, you probably aren't going to be feeling especially bad in the moment, so you pick a time when you did feel bad.) I got this from the book Feeling Good. I've got an app, MoodKit (small one time fee, not subscription, no ads), that walks me through the steps. There might also be online worksheets you can print out, or you can just do it freeform if you know the pattern. I'm going to give the format, then an example.

What happened? (short description, maybe one sentence)

How do I feel? (list as many feelings as seem relevant, and how intensely you feel each, from 0-100%. This is mostly to test whether this method is working -- you check your feelings again at the end. If you tend to get stuck here, you can look for lists of emotions online. If you're still not sure, take your best guess, if you just write "bad 100%" or whatever that's OK.)

What were my automatic thoughts? (1-3 sentences.) (This part can be surprisingly tricky because sometimes there aren't any conscious thoughts, the feeling just happens. But, there does tend to be some mental framing even if it's not fully conscious. One way around this is to draw a stick figure representing yourself, and give the figure a speech bubble and fill it in. 100% OK to just guess wildly here. Don't be afraid of hyperbole. Don't be afraid of writing down something that you know isn't true. Sometimes things we know aren't true still influence our feelings. We need to get them into the light.)

What cognitive distortions do those thoughts contain? This part is the part that really needs more explanation. You can find lists online and I suggest you look them up (or check out the book or something), I'll discuss a couple in the example.

What's another way of looking at this? You just write out something you could think about what happened instead. It will only work if it seems true and meaningful to you; this is another step where it can be kinda tricky and practice can help. My favorite hack is replacing "should" statements with "I would prefer"...somehow that always does it for me.

How do I feel now? the 0-100 scale again.

An example!

What happened? I'm having anxious thoughts about something I posted on tumblr earlier, and also it's bedtime and I'm trying to fall asleep

How do I feel? Nervous 50%, embarrassed 20%, self-loathing 20%

What were my automatic thoughts? "Everybody is going to misinterpret things and hate me and also I'm a bad person."

Cognitive distortions: catastrophizing (everybody, really?) (or maybe that's all or nothing thinking, maybe it's both, that's not really that important, the important thing is to recognize when a thought might not be true, not to understand the specific terms perfectly); mind reading/fortune telling (I'm making wild guesses about what is going to happen in the future and about what other people are going to think), labeling ("bad person"); personalization (if someone does hate me, that might just be because they're judgemental and not because I did something wrong-- in general personalization means assuming someone else's negative reaction is your fault); negative filtering (maybe the post was a good thing that will benefit someone.)

Another way of looking at it: "Well, I already posted. I can look at the post again in the morning and decide if I don't like it then. If I think it's fine then, no harm no foul, and if I don't think it's fine then, then I messed up and I can do better in the future. In any case, this isn't the right time to figure that out."

How do I feel?

You'll notice nowhere in there do I tell myself "oh, nobody's judging you" (I don't know that!) or "the post was fine" (it might not have been fine.) I don't have to lie to myself to feel better; in fact this method is all about figuring out what's true. (But also, maybe I don't have to figure out the truth about everything when I'm trying to fall asleep.)

I also don't have to convince myself I'm already a good person who never messes up; I know I mess up sometimes, and my self-esteem doesn't rest on the idea that I'm infallible. Actually, this approach is more connected to letting go of the ego entirely and just being, rather than cultivating a positive self-image. I use this example because ... idk, seems probably relatable ... and because this is a thought-feeling whatever thing that happens to me fairly often. Usually, when I look at the post again it's not as bad as I was remembering it. But also often, there are things that I didn't notice when I was posting that I really should have. (Negative thought distortions are a thing, but so are positive thought distortions where your emotions are more positive than they should be based on inaccurate thoughts. For instance, "I'll just be on here for a few more minutes, then I'll go to bed." That's a distorted thought.) So, it's a case where my feelings are both exaggerated and inconveniently timed. But also they're basically trying to convey a good message, which is that what I post can have negative consequences and it's good for me to be alert to the possibility. It's not about getting rid of all negative feelings once and for all. Negative feelings exist for a reason. It's about not having to have more negative feelings than is appropriate and helpful for the actual situation.

[girl4music]

Gabrielle’s evolution - Searching for her way

Protective and defensive Gabrielle is the best Gabrielle. It was her way all along. What she was searching for was a philosophy she was already following, but she just didn’t realize it because she was caught up in the violence and blood-lust of it all. Everything she did, including the negatives were because she wanted to protect someone she loved and cared about. It was instinct for her to be a protector and defender. It just didn’t always require her to fight or kill. In the early episodes, words were her best weapon. In later episodes when she developed enough skill to do damage, killing was something she had to consider doing to ultimately stop it from happening. The problem was she confused her will to save someone’s life with the action of taking someone’s life away. She constantly denied her instincts and warrior spirit, but when it came down to it, she did what she had to do to fight for what she believed in and dealt with the consequences later. Because she knew deep down that the wrong thing to do would be to not do anything at all. She fought for the lives of her loved ones. For her village, for her family, for her friends, for her daughter (both of them), and especially for the love of her life, Xena. Sometimes she even had to go against Xena, like in the episodes ‘Ties That Bind’, ‘The Execution’ and ‘Gabrielle’s Hope’. Her way was not ‘The Warrior’. It was the ‘The Protector’ and ‘The Defender’. But she had to become a warrior to do just that. To protect and defend the innocent. To follow her way. The way she eventually coined ‘The Way of Friendship’, and WHOOSH has an interesting article about that if you want to click on the hyperlink to pop over there and read it.

There is so much Gabrielle stuff I want to talk about because her character is just so layered and complicated. There are many different sides to her personality and her lifestyle that are shown but never detailed or explained. Her evolution is immense. To begin with she is this innocent farm girl who has never really experienced any real danger or threat in her life, until Draco and his army come along to take her village, Poteidaia, and try to sell all the women as slaves. She makes a bold choice to stand up to them and sacrifice herself in return for their safety and freedom. That was the start of her way. At least from what we see of it in the first episode of the show. To protect and defend her loved ones. Offering herself up as a sacrifice or trying to do something to save them. Anything she could think of. Back then talking was her greatest weapon. 

A little later on in the show we see that peaceful and compassionate side of her tested when Callisto kills Perdicus after just marrying him. Vengeance and blood-lust shoots through her immediately. This is the first time she’s ever really dealt with what Xena deals with on a daily basis. Struggling between avenging him by killing his murderer, and being a person who vows not to kill. It scares Xena. Knowing that Gabrielle was the only one that could pull her out of that cycle of hatred and anger. She was afraid. The thoughts of “If Gabrielle can’t do it for herself, what could she do for me?” whirled around constantly in her head while watching her attack that tree with the sword. But thankfully Gabrielle was able to overcome that temptation to satiate her lust for revenge. She would not kill… not even her worst enemy. 

Things were alright for a while there, until another situation occurred where she birthed a demon baby and felt she had to go against Xena for its survival. Now here is where the “protect and defend” part of her really came through. As a maternal instinct, she fought for that baby’s life not caring whether it was evil or not. In her mind it was a baby because it looked like one. That made her go against Xena for what seemed to be the 3rd time in the show thus far. Only this time, she was the one on the other end of it instead of Xena.

So, this and several other situations caused the infamous ‘rift’ between them. It looked like their relationship was done for completely. But it was Gabrielle’s way of dealing with it that really inspired me. That made me see her in a new way. She was indeed a warrior. Not a physical one, but an emotional one. She carried emotional strength within her the likes Xena never did. She kept in control of her emotions and did not lash out at all. 

So, in the end, was it right for Gabrielle to become a physical warrior as well? Well, thinking about it. It wasn’t just right for her. It was her karma. It was an inevitability ever since the start. She thought that not succumbing to the violence at all was the right thing to do. To basically just stand there and do nothing. “Fight with love", as Eli described it. But she always knew from the very beginning that love was something you had to fight for no matter whether it was physically or not. Doing nothing was even worse than using violence to deal with the situation. It’s like seeing abuse or bullying happen to someone. Is it really the right thing to do to just do nothing? Or should you try to protect and defend them? Isn’t the ultimate act of love to sacrifice yourself, whatever you believe in, or the way you choose to follow, for the defence and protection of another? Xena even tells her later on in the show that people like her and Gabrielle exist so that innocent people who don’t know how to protect and defend themselves against danger and threat can live in peace. Gabrielle might have been useless in that regard from a couple of episodes in, when she never had any physical strength or fighting skill to even punch someone without hurting herself. But the emotional strength she carried within her and the incredible courage she had with standing up to someone who threatened her loved ones or the innocent, even if it had to be Xena, that is a true warrior! And I guess in that case… using physical ways of dealing with the situation is perfectly okay. Maybe even right. 

I guess in the end it all comes down to what the heart feels it has to do. It’s right when the heart feels it is. The mind doesn’t come into it. It’s not even a decision that has to be made. It’s a gut instinct. And only if it has an ulterior motive that is selfish and malevolent, can it ever be wrong. Gabrielle deals with that throughout the entire show, but especially in the 5th and 6th season when she has the physical strength and fighting skill to do damage, and the capability to kill easily. She already had a warrior spirit within her to begin with but “The Way of the Warrior” wasn’t entirely her way. It was for Xena, but not for her. Her way was to protect and defend her loved ones or the innocent no matter how or why. It was pure instinct. It’s what her heart told her to do in the moment. For Xena. For family. For friends. For the innocent. For anyone she felt needed protecting and defending. That was always what she did from the very beginning. 

Like I said, the character is just so layered and complicated. It seemed every dangerous situation or traumatic experience brought that warrior spirit forth. But she never truly went all the way with it, until someone was in need of defence and protection. That was her way. Doing whatever she had to, even if she hated to do it, to protect and defend her loved ones. To put them first over her own belief system and happiness for the “greater good”. Eventually she became okay with the violence she had to display to follow her way, but the killing never quite settled in her. She was always torn between doing something or doing nothing, but she was never a true pacifist like Eli. She tried to be one, but it was clear it just wasn’t in her to do nothing at all. She couldn’t be passive. Xena thought through everything. Everything was a mindful decision. Strategy, fighting, even killing. But Gabrielle… Her heart ruled her. And by the gods, did her heart speak when it was Xena in danger. She became her protector and defender. Her hero! Her warrior princess!

[let-it-raines]

another kind of green (5/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I hope everyone is having a good weekend! 💚

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2| 3 | 4 | 5 |

-/-

Emma filed for an annulment of her accidental drunken marriage yesterday.

She also took a pregnancy test.

Neither of those things were exactly in her life plan. Or whatever hypothetical life plan she’s supposed to have.

Luckily, that test (and the three she took after it because she does not trust those things) all came back negative because if getting accidentally hitched isn’t bad enough, getting accidentally knocked up would be even worse. That’s significantly more permanent and time consuming than marrying someone she doesn’t have to see every day, and she’d pass out from stress if she was actually pregnant.

And the extra-large margarita she had two days ago would have been a pretty big mistake.

(It was already a pretty big mistake when it made her a sloppy kind of intoxicated that had her telling Killian Jones that she liked the smell of his hair.)

(Ruby and Mulan have not stopped making fun of her for that.)

(Killian Jones, Emma Swan, and alcohol are obviously not a good combination.)

But she’s not pregnant, started her period today actually, and after going downtown to the family clerk’s office and having the nicest clerk in existence help Emma fill out the request for annulment papers, she’s officially got that off of her to-do list, which had quite possibly been the biggest weight off of her shoulder in years. Walking inside of the courthouse hadn’t been the best time, giving her flashbacks to being seventeen and having to go to trial (and jail) over those damn stolen watches that Neal set her up for, but at least she didn’t have to have a lawyer.

She stressed over that way too much, but it’s all in the past now. She’s got to keep that stress there.

Fucking Neal. He’s the scum of the earth, and that doesn’t even describe him. She wants to – no, she can’t. she can’t go there.

Positives. She has to focus on the positives, and not all of the memories she’s been tormented with over the past few days. There have been flashbacks of spending her days in a small cell and marking down the days until she could get out, her eighteenth birthday passing by her without her truly realizing it because she’d missed a few days on her chart. The flashbacks of the pregnancy test are the worst, however. The test she’d taken in jail was cheap, something not entirely reliable, and for a brief moment, Emma thought she was pregnant.

For an even briefer moment, she was happy about it because it meant she still had a connection with Neal. How messed up was she that she still wanted to be connected to the man that betrayed her trust and her heart? Why would anyone sane want that?

Why would anyone want to be connected to the man who ruined their life?

Because she loved him, let him tell her that things in her life were going to turn out right, and listening to him was her first mistake.

Emma wasn’t pregnant then and isn’t pregnant now, and she’s thankful for both negative tests even if things would have been different this time. It wouldn’t have been great, but at least she wouldn’t be a teenager in jail scared shitless over how the hell she’s going to do anything with her life because no one she cares about seems to stay. She’s got people now. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. That’s all that matters to her.

She’s got to stop focusing on those awful memories that make her stomach churn and nausea bubble up, and she needs to focus on something productive.

Like serving Killian Jones with his annulment papers.

The clerk has given her options to do that, including paying a courier to do it, but that had cost money and she figured it would be just as easy to give it over to them himself and ask for his half of the two hundred bucks she had to shell out for this. She meant to text him yesterday morning to arrange a time, but the whole pregnancy test thing threw her off. There was no way in hell she was going to talk to him after all of that. Today, however, she’s going to get her shit done and get this whole thing over with.

Emma Swan: Can you meet today?

The little bubbles pop up two seconds later.

Killian Jones: I’m booked all day today. Tomorrow?

Emma Swan: I’m booked all day tomorrow.

Killian Jones: Saturday then?

Emma Swan: I can do Saturday. What time?

Killian Jones: My place? Around noon?

Emma Swan: Send me your address.

She realizes that she never tells him why she wants to meet, but he probably knows. Despite them spending the entire evening together Monday night, they’re not casual friends who meet up to get something to eat or go to a concert together. They’re…acquaintances. She’s got no clue, isn’t really interested in defining it, and she’ll leave it at that. Their “whatever” is short term and will be ending soon anyways. There’s no need to get any kind of attached.

Her phone starts ringing, a picture of she and David from last year’s Christmas popping up, and she slides the bar across the screen to answer the phone.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” David sighs, “this is your daily reminder that you have to file your annulment papers.”

“It’s really a shame that you and Marg haven’t procreated yet because you’re such a dad.”

“How could I have a baby when I’m too worried about you? So I think we’ll keep using condoms for now.”

“Oh my God,” Emma grumbles, getting up from her bed and walking the few feet to her kitchen, which is really more of a kitchenette that can barely fit food than anything. She needs to get a bigger place, but she doesn’t mind living here. Having a savings account to fall back on is far more important than an apartment with actual walls around her bedroom. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”

“I know for a fact Mary Margaret talks to you about it.” “That’s different.” “How?”

“So, I filed the papers,” she blurts out, changing the subject.

“Did you really?”

“Mhm, yesterday, and I’ve already texted Killian so I can give him the papers in case he wants to contest it or anything.”

“Do you think he will?” “What? No. Neither of us want to be married. It was literally a drunken mistake. Nothing about it was sane. We both want it behind us.”

“Is that Emma?” Mary Margaret says.

“Yes.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Wait,” Emma starts, “aren’t you at work? How is Marg there?”

“I’m home on my lunch break. I – ”

“Emma,” Mary Margaret gasps, her voice coming in clear in the phone. “I had no idea Killian was one of Ariel’s clients. I don’t know how I didn’t realize that when we did the convention. I called Ariel yesterday, and I just had to talk to her about how funny the whole thing was with the two of you getting married. We – ”

“Wait,” Emma gasps, dropping her package of Pop-Tarts to the counter, “you talked to Ariel about it? Did she know or did you tell her?”

“Well, I told her.”

Shit, Marg. “Marg, Killian hadn’t told anyone about it! I don’t think he wanted to! What happened to not telling anyone?”

“I assumed she knew.” “Did you having to tell her about it not clue you in that maybe you shouldn’t have told her?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking. That’s been happening so much lately. God, Emma, these pregnancy hormones will make you insane. It’s, like, shit, my brain isn’t even my brain even more. I’ve been all over the place. I promise I didn’t mean to screw that up. It didn’t even cross my mind. Will you apologize to Killian for me?”

“Mary Margaret Nolan,” Emma whispers, “did you just say that you’re pregnant?”

“Fuck, I did, didn’t I?”

Emma barks out a laugh, leaning forward to rest her arms and her forehead against the countertop. She was just teasing David about this, and then…they’re having a baby. For all the screwed-up thoughts Emma has over her own experiences in this area, she knows this is a good, wonderful thing that David and Mary Margaret deserve.

Damn.

They’re going to be great parents.

“Congratulations, lady! I’m so happy for you guys, and I forgive you for being even more scatterbrained than normal.”

“Says the most unorganized person I know.”

“I get shit done.”

“That you do…most of the time.” Mary Margaret sighs. “I’m so happy, Emma.”

“As you should be. You guys are going to be the best parents.”

“Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Tell David congrats on knocking you up.”

“What a graceful way to put that my wife is pregnant,” David grumbles, his voice muffled. “Real classy.” “That’s me. Marg, are you going to be at any of my shoots tomorrow? I think I need to hug you.”

“I will be at your two o’clock appointment because I need to go over some of the paperwork for you.”

“Perfect. Expect the biggest hug of your life.”

-/-

“How the hell does Ariel know that I got married?”

“Well, hello to you too, Jones.”

Emma side steps around Killian and lets herself into his apartment, her eyes scanning over the place. It’s clean a lot cleaner than her place, and she wonders if it’s always like this or if he cleaned specifically because she was coming over. But that would be ridiculous, and she doubts Killian would have straightened up his bookshelves and dusted his TV off just because she was here.

“Hi, Swan,” he sighs, closing the door behind her before walking back to the kitchen where something that smells ridiculously good is cooking on the stove. “It’s nice to see you. You’re looking as beautiful as ever. How the hell does Ariel know that I got married?”

Emma sighs and pulls out a barstool to sit down, dropping the envelope of papers on the countertop. “Mary Margaret can’t keep a secret, and she told Ariel. I’m really sorry about that.”

“I mean, it’s fine. Honestly. Ariel and Eric have always been like older siblings to me, but they can get a little…”

“Overbearing, protective, annoying as hell?”

“Yeah,” Killian laughs, turning around and crossing his arms so that the muscles in his arms flex underneath his t-shirt. “You know the type?”

“My friends are the exact same way, which makes sense that they’re friends with Ariel and Eric.”

“Small worlds and all that.” “That seems to be happening lately.” Emma sighs and pushes the papers over the countertop. “So, we are officially a pair of fools whose annulment papers are somewhere bustling around in the family council office of Boston.”

His brow arches. “Yeah?”

“Mhm. I didn’t get an attorney. I filed the papers out myself I didn’t ask the split any assets or anything…since we don’t actually share any. I don’t think you have to do anything unless you see something ghastly wrong in these papers, but we have to wait at least twenty-one days before it’ll get looked at. That’s how long you have if you dispute anything.”

“I’m not going to dispute anything, love.” Emma opens her mouth to dispute his little name, but she stops herself. It’s just how he is, and there’s no reason for her to be rude to him no matter how fun that could be. He’s never actually done anything wrong to her. “The only reason I’d dispute the disappearance of our marriage is the fact that I know how you kiss, and it’d be such a shame to not get to do that again.”

She takes back every nice thought about him she’s ever had. She gained a few new ones Monday night, but they’re all about to fly out the window.

“If I had something to throw at you, I would.”

“Such a violent lass.”

“I am what I am.”

Killian chuckles and turns back around to the pot he has on the stove. “I’ve got some spinach and ricotta tortellini if you want to stay for lunch.”

“Oh, I, um, I really shouldn’t.”

“Have you eaten lunch?”

“No.”

“Do you have plans to eat lunch?” He turns around to look at her, and all she can do is shrug. “Exactly what I thought. C’mon, darling. We’ll call it a celebratory lunch that we’re soon to be free of what was quite frankly a nasty marriage. I mean, my wife kept trying to throw things at me.”

“Shut up, Jones, or I’ll actually throw something at you.”

“You think that’s a threat, but really, I see it as a promise.”

The bastard winks. He’s got to stop doing that.

Killian keeps talking, asking her about her shoot yesterday and how it went. He apparently hasn’t been working as much lately but does do the occasional job like the other day to keep paying the bills until he can officially start at the Academy and get a paycheck like normal people do. Emma’s never liked talking about her job because it always seems to lead into conversations about if this is what she really wanted to do with her life. It’s not, never has been, but considering everything, this is so much better than she should have it. Maybe one day she’ll branch out into something more normal and a little calmer, but googling jobs that hire ex-convicts with a GED has never been something she particularly enjoys.

“So, how’d you get into this whole thing?” Killian asks her when he slides her a plate and hands her a bottle of water. “Someone saw you and thought they just had to have your face in an ad in a magazine?”

Emma hums, cutting a tortellini in half. “There was an ad in the paper, which makes me sound so old, for a local dress designer who wanted someone to do a shoot for some of her dresses. There was no experience required. I just needed to be the right size, and I was. I think I maybe got paid two hundred bucks for that shoot, but it opened me up to the whole industry. You?”

If she’s got to answer these questions, he does as well. Tit for tat and all that.

He hesitates. He tries to cover it up, but she can tell. He’s trying to be a cop, so obviously this whole modeling thing isn’t what he’s always wanted to do. Emma may not be some kind of genius, but she knows people pretty damn well.

“Ariel got me into it. I’d known her forever, needed some money, and it just kind of happened. I’d been piddling around in construction and bartending before that.”

“Ariel’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, she’s one of the good ones, always keeping me on track.”

Killian smiles, something soft that makes the crinkles around his eyes show up where they normally wouldn’t, and Emma’s stomach flips. It’s probably because this food is really good. That has to be it.

“So, did you make these from scratch? They’re really good.”

“I bought them from Whole Foods. It’s simple, Swan. I think anyone can make it.”

“That’s because you don’t know how unfortunate of a cook I am.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, I’m the worst. I won’t admit that to anyone who has seen me cook, but I’m definitely the worst. I could mess up boiling water.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“Hey,” Emma scoffs, flicking a piece of the bread off her plate at him. “I can say it. You can’t say it.”

“Are these in the unwritten rules of Emma?”

“Oh, absolutely. And they constantly change, so you’ll never really know.”

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles, leaning forward to press his forehead to the counter and hiding his face in his hands. She can see his smile peeking through. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Well, I assume at some point we did say ‘til death do us part.’”

“Does that mean you’re going to murder me before our papers are processed?” he laughs, those crinkles showing up again as she feels her own lips curling up to the sides.

“Obviously that’s exactly what I meant. Gonna finally put all of my police connections into use.”

“What the hell is going on out here?” someone groans, and Emma nearly falls off of her stool as someone walks down the hallway in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s got to be fifteen years old from all of the holes and faded letters. “Who the hell are you?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“You’re in my apartment.”

“You have a roommate?” Emma asks Killian, turning to look at him as he’s still got this shit-eating grin on his face. “You never mentioned that.”

“You never asked. Emma, this is Will Scarlet, my roommate. Will, this is – ”

“Holy shit,” Will gasps, “you’re the girl he married. I couldn’t believe it when Ariel told me. Sorry about that, lass. He’s a real piece of work, and I’m sure he didn’t get you satisfied on your wedding night.”

He did, but that was technically before the wedding, and she’s not saying any of that out loud.

“Oh, I think I’m going to like you,” Emma laughs, shoveling some more food in her mouth. “Can you tell me every weird thing Killian does?”

“How long do you have?”

“All day.”

“Bloody hell,” Killian grumbles, pushing his hair back, “I don’t need to be here for this.”

“You do if you don’t want me to tell her about the time you went blonde.”

“Oh, I definitely have to hear that,” Emma sighs. “Tell me everything. I hope you have pictures.”

“Digital and print versions.”

“Perfect.”

-/-

-/-

Tag list:  @xemmaloveskillianx​ @stahlop @shardminds @carpedzem @captainsjedi  @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @shireness-says @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke  @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @spartanguard @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776​ @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​

[hotchley]

hey sumayyah! i saw your sign!! I'm writing the JJ & Emily parts of the really out of the blue and shitty mini-whatever it is 💀 and hopefully I'll figure out how to shorten it or something lmaoo

but i wanted to come here and talk for awhile i guess

it's like, 2am where i am right now and I'm just so drained mentally like idk i can't seem to focus on getting all my work done (school work) and i just submitted a fake corrupted file to pass off as my homework because i haven't been able to finish it (it's not graded or anything it's just 2 biology practice papers for revision for the upcoming exam but they're really long & biology is not my strong subject......)

like I'm 60-70% done on both papers and yeah i feel so bad for doing what i did and i am still planning on finishing those 2 papers (both as legitimate practice/revision & just in case my teachers do check and decide to ask me to resubmit/send them the file through another channel) and idk i obviously can't really talk to any one in school about this so i came here.... sorry for this bout of negativity i just feel so drained inside and it's not even the first time.... I'm on my break right now (mid years break) but my break is ending in roughly 4-5 more days? and I've felt unmotivated and horrible throughout the entire break idk :/ idk if this is just burn out or something else.... I've been planning on finding a therapist/professional to talk to? but 1. i can't exactly do it "openly" because i come from a rather conservative family and mental health issues (& sexuality etc) aren't things we talk about in my family.... and 2. I'm still a full-time student & I'm not sure of what services are available + the costs and all the other concerns? so like idk I'm not even sure where to start :(

and because I've been feeling like cr*p most of the time the last 3 weeks, I've done absolutely nothing & so i have TONS of school assignments piled up (those that were due during the break I've finished (somehow lmao) and submitted, but those that are due AFTER the break when school reopens.... i have completely not touched) & the worst thing is I'm not even entirely sure what's my entire workload.... so i definitely have to start seriously getting my work done from tomorrow (technically today) onwards.... but like i genuinely have a hard time focusing on work and I'm not sure if it's just my issues with procrastination or if i have a genuine illness or something and i don't want to self diagnose so I've been trying to not think about this but lately it's been so hard because i can't even finish my work on time and exams are coming and it's just really affecting me? and it's getting worse? i don't even have anyone i can truly talk to about this irl too and SKDJSKSNS idk 😭😭

i am SO SORRY for all the negativity!!!!! i just felt so alone and really had to vent somewhere i am so sorry, feel free to delete this ask if you're uncomfortable 🥺

i hope you're having a much better day/night and i love you ❤️ your blog (& cm Tumblr) is really giving me hope & keeping me alive, if i can put it that way 🥺♥️♥️ thank you for being you, and thank you for simply existing. I'm sorry things got so depressing all of a sudden lmao I'll be fine (eventually, probably)

- 🌙

I feel like my answer got long, so I put it under the cut :)

YAY!

Also, I did see this when you initially sent it, but I'm working on boundaries and priorities, which is why I didn't answer it then- I just needed a break <3

Look, you're learning during a pandemic that has disrupted everything and caused a lot of pain and stress. One corrupted file does not make you a bad student. You're still going to try.

There were so many days during lockdown where I just... didn't submit any work, and then I would submit it later saying the thing broke- which seemed believable because the thing we used never functioned properly.

And we cannot be happy or perfect all the time. Sometimes we need to share our problems. I have always said you can talk to me, it just may take me a few days depending on my own situation, and I stand by that.

Sometimes breaks just make us more miserable. Sometimes it is just genuinely a phase that you will snap out of. Sometimes it isn't. Either way, you need to let yourself feel this. Don't try and bury it. That'll be worse.

So when it comes to therapists, if you've been thinking of seeing one, go for it. Chances are, it'll help.

I get what you mean. I don't know what it's like where you are, but in England, everyone over 16 has control over the medical stuff. That basically means your parents cannot be told what you're doing, and you can do things without their knowledge. If I wanted to make an appointment, I wouldn't need to tell them I was making it, or what was discussed. Neither can the doctors.

I asked one of my friends (I have consent to share this), and she said that she went through the BetterHelp website, and that it's really helping her. Now I know BetterHelp had some real serious problems, so I would be cautious, but that is one option. Hers is between £50-£60 a session, but there were cheaper options.

You could also go through your school!! My school has what is called a "well-being practitioner" who you can just go and see when you're feeling down, and it all remains confidential UNLESS they think intervention is needed. So you could see if there are any sessions they do, or if there's any help you can get from them :)

I have seen SO, SO many teachers on TikTok recently say two things: ask them for help if you need it, and they will give it, and just do something. I don't know what you're teachers are like, but they're probably stressed and burnt out too. If you need an extension or a break or help, they'll do their best.

And if you can't do everything, then just do one thing. Do your favourite subject, or the easiest thing. I know people say do the hardest thing first because then everything gets easier, but the one time I did that, I started crying and I gave up for a good three days so...

If you've done extensive research, then maybe it is something, and if you think that there is that, then you should try and get tested <3 and it's okay if there really is nothing. Sometimes brains are weird

You don't ever have to apologise for being human <3 Remember how I mentioned crying for twenty minutes to my history teacher? I said the same thing to him: that I feel bad talking about these things because everyone has their own problems. His response was: well yes, but there are so many people that want to help you. And they would tell you if you were being a burden.

You need to trust that. And it's hard. It's painful. It's difficult. But I promise you, telling someone will always be better than bottling it up- and this comes from the person that was pissed for six weeks because I got a phone call home from someone higher up because previously mentioned history teacher told them that I was not doing great

I love you too!!

And sometimes life gets you down! That's okay! Things will get better! Maybe this isn't healthy, but my thing is: things will work out, and things will get better because they need to, and I refuse to believe I am living a life where they won't.

You will be fine! I have every faith in you!!

[e11evenkeys]

Pitch: The Adventures of Danger Rabbit- Chapter 2 Friendly Friendly (part 1)

Long story short, my dad wasn't arrested. Ms. Harper made her displeasure quite clear as far as my new form was concerned, but I wasn't taken away. Because of my mistake, dad had a reputation for being a careless father, and I was seen as a delinquent. Teachers started watching our family like we were career criminals, but dad raised me to be a good kid.

Regardless of the truth, I had a reputation that stuck with me as I grew up. Even into my junior year of high school, kids thought I was bad news. It didn't help that I had the worst luck imaginable, unlike Mr. Nickels, who I still had yet to find. Trouble seemed to seek me out. Just the simple act of walking home from school was dangerous enough to warrant fear of chaos. Freak accidents were a norm, and they only fueled the fire when it came to the negative light everyone shined on me. Of course, my dad always had the worst end of the fiascos because he had to deal with the aftermath.

If I had any luck at all, it was spent when I had the fortune of finding my two best friends.

B James was a girl who moved to town after my accident. Her parents were professional magicians, so naturally, I tried to get in good with them. I had hopes of them helping me. It turns out I didn't have to work too hard. BJ was fascinated with my form and impressed with my ability to create my own magic. I told her I didn't mean to transform myself, but I don't think she cared. She wanted to make new spells like her parents, and I suppose she thought I could help her. She overlooked how the rest of the school avoided me, but that might have been easy, considering no one flocked to her lunch table any more than my own. Remember when I said creating new magic was dangerous, well, BJ didn't care. We hadn't even graduated high school yet, but she'd created more spells than a person could count. It's important to keep in mind most of those spells had adverse effects or didn't do what they were meant to, but they did something.

My friend Wesson, a satyr I met in my freshman year of high school, didn't use magic at all. To be fair Fae, because of their natural abilities, didn't need magic as much as humans did. Even I had natural powers after my transformation like super hearing and invisibility. Which I'm sure is how Mr. Nickels managed to avoid capture for so long if he also possessed the same abilities. Wes being a satyr, was super fast and super strong, among other things, whether he appeared to be or not. We became friends after I tried to join the school's Creature club. There weren't many Fae that went to our school, so the club was meant to be a way of letting them all meet one another. Unfortunately, when I tried to join the club, someone pointed out I was born human, and that I was only what I was because I cursed myself. I couldn't join the club. Technically they weren't allowed to exclude anyone, but I thought it best to pick my battles wisely and let it go. Wes, being the best guy in the world, found me the next day and told me he thought the other kids were dicks for not letting me join the club. From that day on, I couldn't remember a time I couldn't fall back on the friendship Wes and I had.

It was two weeks till summer break. All of the ends of the year testing was out of the way, so everyone was waiting for the school year to come to an end. That Friday afternoon, I decided to walk BJ home. Despite my being close to Wes and BJ both, they never seemed to like one another. Every day I'd have to make a conscious decision whether to hang out with BJ, who loved playing magician and getting into trouble, or Wes, who was basically the brother I never had. BJ won that day because Wes had a meeting with the principal.

BJ should have taken the bus home, but I guess that would have been less time she got to work out new magic with me. We took a lot of back roads that day that eventually spit us out into the Dead Woods. It was the town's biggest forest, and it sat in the middle of everything. We learned in history class that old settlers named it the Dead Woods because back in the early days, when people were still coming up with most of the modern magic, they had to go far away from homes and buildings so bad magic wouldn't destroy anything. A lot of people died out there. Despite the bad history, it was a beautiful place as long as you knew where you were going.

"So there's this summer internship I read about," BJ said as we walked under branches while leaves crumbled under our footsteps.

"What kind of internship?" I asked.

We stopped walking so she could take her spell book out of her bag. The pages of her hand made spiral held weight and took time to flip through.

"For magicians. I thought you might want to go for it," she added.

"You want me to be a magician?"

"You created a working transmutation spell when you were 11."

I laughed at her, calling it a "working spell."

"Yea, and I've been trying to undo it ever since," I said with my amused tone still vocal.

"I could help you."

"I don't want to be a magician," I said in my most definitive voice possible.

"But I do."

I took a few steps away. I didn't want to stand too close while her book was out. Some of the stuff in that thing didn't need words to be activated. As she flipped through the pages, there was a danger similar to throwing a grenade into a kid's birthday party. Pages glowed and faded as her hands turned them over. I'm not sure how she managed to carry something around like that without constantly hurting herself.

"Then you should do it," I said as I crossed my arms and leaned against a tree.

She came near, and I knew to expect puppy dog eyes to fluff some kind of catch. That's what people do when they want something

"I need you."

I asked, "why," but she turned away.

"I need your spell," I thought she said, but I couldn't make out her words for sure, and with my big ears, that meant she was really quiet.

"What?" I asked.

"I need your spell."

I stood up straight.

"The spell that gave me fur and left with only eight fingers," I said before I continued with, " the spell that made my feet too big to wear shoes and ears big enough to hear my dad when he gets off at night."

"I have to submit a working spell to be considered."

"Then use one of yours," I said.

"None of mine work."

"What about the one you use to change your hair color?"

"It blinds anyone who sees me cast it."

"Then just use my spell, you don't need me for that, I wrote the words in some book, and I'll give it to you."

I wanted to get off the subject. Anyone who knew me knew how long I tried to find a cure for my curse. After years of turning over stones to no avail, of course, I gave up hope. That's not to say I didn't wish and dream for a way to change back, but being a bit of a pessimist meant I couldn't help but see the uneasy reality of how unlikely a cure was.

"It wouldn't be right to take credit for your work."

"But, it's alright to strong-arm your friend into an internship that'll take up our entire summer?" I didn't mean to sound nearly as argumentative or sarcastic as I must have at that moment, but it came out that way.

"There's a chance we won't even get it," she said, basically pleading with me at that point.

"If I say yes, will you leave me out of whatever experiments you're about to do?"

"But I had something special planned for today."

"That's my price."

"Deal, but you have to stick around to watch."

"In case something goes wrong?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," I replied.

We exchanged a mutual grin before she adjusted her glasses and finally flipped around in her book to find the newly crafted spells. We spent most of the afternoon in the woods. BJ wrote a spell for growing plants faster, but it made anything made of wood burst into flames, including all the papers in my backpack. She tried to put out the fires with another spell meant to create rain clouds, but it summoned a swarm of butterflies that flew into the flames. Needless to say, they all died. They died quickly, but at least the fires went out.

By that time, it was getting dark.

"We should get moving," I said as I picked our bags off the ground burnt as they might have been.

"We will never speak of what happened here to anyone, right?"

"Like always," I said with a chuckle before handing BJ her ruined bag.

We started on our way out of the woods.

"Do your parents know you're applying for this internship?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"Don't you think they should know?"

"I'll tell them once I, " she started to say before I cut her off with, "did you hear that?"

"Hear what," she asked.

There was a sound coming from the bushes ahead of us. It was too big to be a cat, dog, or rabbit.

"Stand back," I said as I put my arm in front of BJ.

"Is someone there," I called out into the distance, but no reply was returned.

Only the rustling of the bushes broke the silence as something or someone came near. It was close. There was a momentary pause of nothing but the bugs around us falling silent, and then whatever it was lunged out at me.

It was Wes. He made me fall backward and rip the arm of my button-down shirt.

"Shit," I yelled out.

He tried to catch my arm on my way down, but he was too slow.

"Sorry, dude," Wes said with a laugh as he helped me to my feet.

"What are you doing out here?" BJ asked in a tone more annoyed than me, but I was the one with the ripped shirt.

"I need Pitch."

"Well, he's walking me home from school."

"Schools been out for 3 hours now, and you know how to get home."

"You want me to walk by myself," BJ asked.

"No one ever offers to walk me home, and we're the same age," Wes said sarcastically.

I cut in, "Wes, what did you need my help with?"

"I need your ears," he said.

"Let me get BJ home, and then I'll swing by your place."

Neither of them was even looking at me anymore; they were staring one another down.

"Alright, just make sure 'Bug Burner' isn't with you."

"You saw that!" BJ exclaimed.

"I'll be there, alone," I said as I held BJ back from Wes.

A few uneasy, and unwelcoming glances were exchanged before we took to our separate ways.

"I don't know why you hang out with him," BJ argued.

"Wes is cool," I said.

"Wes is just short of being a toddler. He doesn't use magic."

"I don't use magic."

"That's different; you can't afford it."

"That hurt," I said.

"You know what I mean."

[watchathon]

BONUS: The Last Airbender

In case you’re finding this post just by browsing the tags I’ve used for this post, this is the Watchathon, a blog where I’m hoping to watch an episode of a show (or in this case, a movie) every one-to-two days, with a short blog post where I give my thoughts on what I’ve just seen. Each new point starts with a hyphen and a bolded first word.

- Like so. 

But today, I’m subjecting myself to the notorious live-action film The Last Airbender, to... Well, to “celebrate” its tenth anniversary. I initially planned on doing it either after Book 1, or after Book 3, but for whatever reason, I have decided to do this now.

Fair warning, this is going to be one of my rare posts where I’ll be mostly negative.

So much for “gushing about things I like”...

Also, so much for “the rare occasion I cover movies”, but that I don’t mind so much. The Lilo & Stitch post was a ton of fun to make.

- So, first things first, I don’t tend to be a fan of live-action movies based on animated properties in general. But it’s not like I don’t give them a chance. 

Sometimes I even like them better than the original. I could never get through The Jungle Book in one sitting as a kid, but the 2016 live-action remake? I adored it!

Even the worst ones I tend to be “meh” about rather than flat-out disliking. But The Last Airbender? I hated it when I watched it as a kid... Emphasis on the past tense. I could well change my tune because of this, though I can’t imagine I’ll end up liking it.

- They recreate the “Water, earth, fire, air” part of the intro but without narration. Which, to be frank, just makes it look pretty silly.

- “The four nations. Water, Earth, Fire, and Air Nomads.” Sooo are they all nomads?

- Awvatar? Pronouncing Aang as Awng, I could sorta get, but... Awvatar? Really?!

- It feels oh-so-weird to see a white Katara and Sokka, when they, and all the people of the Water Tribes, had the darkest skin in the show.

- Something that really strikes me about this movie already is that it’s so... humorless. Sokka described himself once in the show as “the meat and sarcasm guy” if I’m remembering right, and not even five minutes in I can already tell we’re missing half of that description.

- Not only is this movie humorless, it can seem strangely... smaller, than the cartoon. In the cartoon, Katara got Aang out of the iceberg by accidentally using powerful Waterbending. 

But here, Sokka causes the ice to crack by accident, revealing the iceberg with Aang inside. Then Katara grabs Sokka’s boomerang and whacks the iceberg twice with it. 

- More about the lack of humor: There’s not even a mention of penguin sledding once Aang is out either.

- And not only are our most prominent Waterbenders white, the Fire Nation (who had light skin in the cartoon) have the darkest skin of the whole main cast. Juuust great...

- Aang’s heroic moment from the cartoon is taken away from him. In the cartoon, Aang was on his way out of the Southern Water Tribe when he saw the Fire Nation approaching, at which point he turned around and helped them.

Here? Aang sits in a tent until one of the Fire Nation soldiers sees his tattoos and drags him out.

- “We found that boy, he’s our responsibility!” Katara sounds like she’s talking about a stray puppy they found. “I’ll feed him, and bathe him, and teach him!”

- It crosses the line into unintentional hilarity when, as Katara and Sokka are discussing Aang, there’s just Appa noises in the background, entirely unremarked upon. The only take a glance in that direction once they’re done talking, ironically after Appa’s quietened down somewhat.

- Nobody gets out of this movie without major changes, but if it weren’t for Iroh referring to Zuko as his nephew, I’d have never guessed it was him. Also, Eeroh. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if Zuko isn’t pronounced Zucko.

- Katara and Sokka’s grandmother pronounces Avatar correctly. Why don’t Katara and Sokka? Or, heck, why doesn’t she pronounce it “Awvatar”? It’d be better if they stuck to one rather than the inconsistent pronunciation.

- I’ll give them props: The idea of testing if Aang is the Avatar by setting four objects representing the elements in front of him is pretty cool. Does become kinda silly, though, when the rock just... wobbles and goes upright. They could have had it, like, cracking, but instead, wobbly rock.

- I might be misremembering, but it felt like Aang’s escape from Zuko’s ship was a lot... more, in the cartoon. I know, time constraints of fitting a twenty-episode season into a two-hour movie. But I have to tilt my head at just how much shorter (and milder) this particular scene is than its animated counterpart.

- It’s weird how Katara’s narration calls Aang by name, then like a minute later (at most) we see her ask him for his name.

- Wow, is it weird to see Aasif Mandvi playing Zhao when I watched The Daily Show as a teenager.

- Exposition is always fun when it’s delivered in the form of a roast.

- “But we will let [Zuko] wear [the Fire Nation uniform] today, like a child wearing a costume.” And nobody even smiles at Zhao’s sick burn.

- Hey, at least they have Iroh drinking tea. But cartoon Iroh probably wouldn’t do that so casually while his nephew is fighting Zhao’s soldiers. And cartoon Iroh would probably smile. At some point in time.

- And movie Katara and Sokka have apparently gone all the way to the Earth Kingdom without learning that Aang is the Avatar.

- “He was bending tiny stones at us from behind a tree! It really hurt!” I gotta be honest, that’s not a bad joke. It does feel kinda out of place with the general tone of the movie thus far, but whatever. I’ll take the lighthearted fun moments where I can get them.

- I can sort of understand why they would want the Earthbenders imprisoned by the Fire Nation to have some sort of earth to bend without the Gaang going to all that trouble to get the coal. But putting them in a quarry is more than a bit overboard.

- Aang gets a big Katara moment from the cartoon. And the thing is, Katara doesn’t really get that much time to shine in this movie. She could have used a moment like this one. Heck, Aang could’ve joined in to confirm that the Avatar has returned.

But no... In this scene, Katara just shoves a Fire Nation soldier who’s being rude to Aang.

- Ah, the infamous pebble dance. And the thing is, in the cartoon, this would’ve been a joke. 

Aang would go through this huge, over-the-top dance just to make a relatively small rock float slowly towards a Fire Nation soldier. At which point, Toph would make the rock move much faster before teasing Aang about what he just did.

- Ohhh, gosh, I’m half an hour into this hour-and-a-half movie, and the post already looks like... this.

- “Teachers to teach you bending.” A lot of attention gets given to another repetitive line later on in the movie, but we shouldn’t ignore this beauty.

- Weird to see Ozai in plain view. Especially considering how, later on, he will be framed in shadow.

- Agni Key... What is it with this movie and changing pronunciations? I wouldn’t even care if that was the only problem, but with how it is, it’s one of several things that make this movie feel like “Avatar but wrong”.

- “Yip yip.” Gosh, does it feel weird to hear those words in a movie that tries to be more serious than the cartoon.

- I had to stop and continue this in the morning since it was late, so I might be forgetting something... But was it established before the Blue Spirit that Zuko knew Zhao would be hunting the Avatar?

- Hard to take it seriously when Zhao looks at his soldiers, chained by their hands to the ceiling, and simply mutters “fools.”

- “You think my son is this person the soldiers are calling ‘Blue Spirit’?” *pause of at least four seconds* “...Yes.”

- “My brother and the princess became friends right away.” First off, that’s really underplaying it. But second, Sokka’s face is so blank as Katara says this that I can’t buy even that.

- Zhao really becomes a much less threatening force when it’s Ozai who tells him to kill the spirits, when it’s Ozai who starts talking about their destiny.

- “HOOOOOOOOO” lives in a pineapple under the sea?!

- Everything in the Spirit World is compressed into this one dragon. Which makes it seem a lot less like a Spirit World than just the home of this dragon.

- I would say that the whole bit of Aang trying to avoid Zuko even though he’s right behind him is more like something from the cartoon... But, the dramatic music really makes it seem like this is supposed to be a serious moment. And it just doesn’t work as one.

- Iroh’s trying to stop Zhao is nowhere near as good as it was in the cartoon.

- “He’s making fire out of nothing!” I don’t understand why they made the change that this is uncommon. The Fire Nation are the villains, they should be stronger than other benders.

- “It’s time we show the Fire Nation that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs.” I don’t understand how anyone thought this could work as a serious line.

- Back to the whole thing of this being smaller than the cartoon, Aang doesn’t turn into Aangzilla here. He accomplishes a very impressive feat of Waterbending, but when I just watched the cartoon version last week, it feels lesser in comparison.

- I imagine this is supposed to be Aang bowing in response, since he didn’t with the monks. But it doesn’t look like bowing. It just looks like an elegant dance move.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Yeah, I still don’t like it much. But I’ll say this: Now that I’ve watched it again, I appreciate the cartoon so much more.

I appreciate the characters. I appreciate the tone, I appreciate the pacing. And I appreciate all the things that are lacking from this movie.

I can only hope that the new live-action adaptation will be better, even if I know the cartoon will still be my preferred way of experiencing the story.

[mcjickson]

THE CONSTANT

I think about Edith Fuller a lot. Edith Fuller, if you don’t remember—and there’s absolutely no reason you should, all things considered—was a wunderkind kindergartener who qualified to represent Tulsa in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. You know, the one for eighth graders. At 6, Edith was the youngest contestant in the history of the Bee, and as such was the darling of the media covering the event. And with good reason—as she had no idea of the relative enormity of her achievement, she carried herself with the infectious humility of a genuine 6-year-old, not a media darling. She was basically the Bad News Bears of the Spelling Bee: a scrappy little towheaded upstart that you couldn’t help but root for. She made the final round of competition but caught some brutal words early in the day, and spent the rest of the event doing insanely adorable color commentary and interviews. And then the tournament was over, and Edith went home with her family and back to being a 6-year-old. I could not wait to see her come back as a first-grader. I was so very excited to see how far she could get with another year of study under her belt, so when the next year’s finalists were announced, I immediately searched the list to find her speller number. And she wasn’t there. She hadn’t qualified. There was no joy in Mudville; first-grade Edith had struck out. I felt a slight measure of relief for whichever 8th-grader from the greater Tulsa region had pulled off the upset. Turns out it wasn’t an eighth-grader, though. It was a dapper little 3rd grader in a bow tie. Young Sal Lakmissetti had done the impossible and knocked out America’s sweetheart. I was happy for him—until I read about how it happened. One of the reasons that watching the Bee is so emotionally involving is that the tension between the spellers and their occasionally overbearing parents can be so heart-wrenchingly intense. Edith had been a respite from that—her parents seemed to have been surprised that she had developed those skills. Sal’s dad on the other hand, had gotten indignant when Sal lost to Edith in Tulsa the year before. So he hired the previous year’s tournament champion to give Sal private lessons for a year. You know, the way you do when you want your 3rd grader to trounce a 1st grader in a contest for 13-year-olds. Not for nothing, but that is basically the plot of the movie Bad Words. Sal’s dad had turned him into Chitanya Chopra. I wonder if Sal’s dad knows how to spell “autofellatio.” I wonder if Edith had been heartbroken when she lost the Tulsa bee. Turns out, the next year she wasn’t interested in participating at all. And her dad didn’t push her, because it wasn’t about him. Edith Fuller’s dad got it right, and he just let her be a second-grader and pursue whatever her enormous second-grader heart wanted. I was ecstatic she didn’t return, that she was out there getting to be a kid. The funny thing is, I’m not really obsessed with spelling per se. What I am obsessed with, however, is the raw human drama of watching painfully awkward home-schooled kids on ESPN. There’s no denying the hilarity of some of their more awkward moments. But the real reason to watch is to marvel at their bravery. I’ve heard it alleged that the #1 most commonly held phobia in American adults is a fear of public speaking. And yet year after year, some of the most sheltered kids in America gather in a hotel in DC called The Gaylord (because these kids aren’t bullied enough, I guess), and walk up to a microphone before millions and risk entire-hometown-disappointing embarrassment. Wanting to more fully understand what these kids go through, I let my family talk me into entering an adult spelling bee sponsored by the local library. After my initial disappointment that “adult spelling bee” didn’t mean it was a four-letter-words contest, I got fully enthused at the prospect of competing, and even had our friend Scott design a t-shirt for me to compete in, emblazoned with a bee illustration and the mantra that governed my participation: “Edith Fuller is my constant.” By “constant”, I was referencing what was maybe the best-ever episode of Lost, a self-contained narrative about a man searching for the love of his life across shifting time periods. The usual complications of time travel narratives were overcome by the idea that in order for him to find his true path, he had to serve as a “constant” to remind other people what their true purpose was. My true purpose in entering the bee was to try to have the kind of come-what-may attitude that made Edith shine. And that’s largely the way it went down. I breezed through the first few rounds with ease, the words got hard in a hurry, but I acquitted myself nicely. After a solid initial hour that whittled a field of about forty people down to six, I was relieved when I got thrown a softball for an umbrella-drink-loving goober like me: daiquiri. Which I promptly misspelled. I’ll never forgive myself for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but I’m always happy to throw that t-shirt on these days. Of course, now, a couple years removed my own bee experience, it’s more evident than ever to me that when I throw that t-shirt on, Edith Fuller is a codename. A transparent alias, at that. I’m sure you have a person in your life that serves as your constant: not necessarily your partner or best friend (though it could be), but the person you go to when you need to be reminded of who you really are. What you’re really about. Who believes in you with no agenda. I’ve been lucky to be that for a few people—I was my brother Patrick’s constant, for instance. And while Declan’s always been my wartime consigliere—there’s no one more clutch in a crisis—Delaney has always been my constant. They say having kids is like living with your heart outside your body, and that has always hit me at a cellular level. I don’t talk about it often—or ever really—as it’s not something that happened to me, or that I went through, it’s Delaney's story. But for context I need you to know that when she had a debilitating mystery affliction a couple years ago, she was put through a series of tests for terminal illnesses. Those tests came back negative, but for a little while I had to confront the possibility of losing my baby girl and it nearly fucking broke me. Thank jeebus, the folks at the Mayo Clinic were able to diagnose her malady, and it’s something she had to learn to live with, and cope with, and thrive with. And she’s done all of that, admirably, but it required her to delay college for a frustrating year. Given the ways we’ve all been sidelined lately, it’s done me good to remember the ways Delaney got through her involuntary gap year with grace. Multiple creative projects. Tending to the care of small things. Finding ways to breathe through the worst of it. And leaning on the people who love her most. And I’ve treasured her as my constant like never before, and spending time with her got me through being 2x4’ed by my avowed best friend. (There’s been some good-natured conjecture by well-meaning friends as to whether the most recent playlist was indeed a break-up mix. First of all, I don’t want to knock whatever any of you have do to get over somebody, but listening to a bunch of songs that rub your nose in the loss just isn’t my thing. There’s no denying that when I sequenced the songs, I was struck by the lyrical subtext that emerged, but they weren’t selected for that purpose. In fact, most of those songs were in the playlist before I found out what had happened. But it merits a thoughtful inquest, in any case. You poor bastards.) And I guess that’s the thing. There’s something legitimately sad about when your best-laid plans and most fervent desires don’t work out the way you envisioned, especially when it was completely out of your control. (And dear readers, as you well know, most things are out of our control.) But maybe, just maybe, if you can somehow keep your eyes open for the joy you find on the detour, and have a sense of where—or more specifically who—your true north is, you might wind up writing a better story than the one you had planned. And maybe this new story was the point of you all along. I love the thought that right now, in all likelihood, Edith is doing something that's simultaneously challenging and entirely age-appropriate. Which, in a very real way, will be her trophy for not participating. I don't think Edith's done with the Bee, but I'm also not sure I would be heartbroken if she was. And I absolutely believe that, much like Delaney, Edith has more in store for us than we could ever imagine. Even in the middle of missing my people—and especially my North Dakota hussy constant—I have to say that being reminded of who I really can be has me feeling like one of the Bad News Bears myself these days, with all the swagger of Ahmad stepping up to the plate in the Astrodome: “Back up, suckers. I feel good.”

[somnilogical]

transfem protestors released info that moved 350000$ of donations from miri. because miri is an evil org, they decided to lie about why they think it happened and say its really confusing. i know the answer to this ~mystery~, i know why this year was different; i can talk about it in public, they cant. cuz im freeee from CDT PR. i can decide to lazily choose an algorithm that optimizes utility in multiverse, not just institute whatever choice seems to give most utility "going forward".

<<Our fundraiser fell well short of our $1M target this year, and also short of our in-fundraiser support in 2018 ($947k) and 2017 ($2.5M). It’s plausible that some of the following (non-mutually-exclusive) factors may have contributed to this, though we don’t know the relative strength of these factors:>>

https://web.archive.org/web/20200214061634/https://intelligence.org/2020/02/13/our-2019-fundraiser-review/

they then go on to list eight pretty thin excuses. you know perfectly well why this year is different from all other years, MIRI. your ""speculations"" are fake.

a small group of transfems moved ~350,000$ from your ineffective charity.

i suppose eight of these factors also account for why CFAR extended their fundraiser 5 days longer than announced after donations were super low?

or maybe there is a more compact generator for both of these events: whistleblowers protested what you have been doing releasing lots of marginal information and donors saw this.

i know why this year is different, you know why this year is different. Colm Ó Riain you are facilitating MIRI lying, hoping that if one doesnt mention something, people wont pay attention to it.

like lying in such a way that you wouldnt be held legally culpable, because you could say in front of a court with low schelling reach "you cant prove what i was thinking". except i dont care about legal culpability, i care about causal entanglement. you heard about the protests (or, much less likely, were kept from hearing about these protests somehow by a distributed version of this algorithm set one personstep back), you have > 1/100 intelligence. your omission of this is deception.

is <<In past years, when answering supporters' questions about the discount rate on their potential donations to MIRI, we've leaned towards a "now later" approach. This plausibly resulted in a front-loading of some donations in 2017 and 2018.>> really more plausible than "there was an entire protest against MIRI and CFAR's support of UFAI. people reacted strongly to this, it shows up in the donations.¹"?

it would have come up on a list that scrapes the bottom of the barrel for plausible causes in a counterfactual world in which you werent optimizing for good PR. an AU in which you were searching for and publicising how things were causally entangled.

--

¹see, for instance, the Patrick LaVictoire who had aggregate donations of:

25,885$ november 26 2018

35,885$ august 29 2019

117,199$ february 14 2020

giving diffs of 10,000$ and 81,314$ to estimate 2018 and 2019 donation periods. iirc at some point the diff was 81,000$, id guess at some point afterwards they donated \floor{100π}$. https://web.archive.org/web/20200601000000*/https://intelligence.org/topcontributors/

and then went on to do the standard antitransfem thing calling ziz a "gross uncle" style abuser who just wants status like brent.

https://pastebin.com/TUZ7EThz

with their evidence being someone kaj said it, and kaj's evidence being that ziz said:

<<> I asked Person A if they expected me to be net negative. They said yes. After a moment, they asked me what I was feeling or something like that. I said something like, “dazed” and “sad”. They asked why sad. I said I might leave the field as a consequence and maybe something else. I said I needed time to process or think. I basically slept the rest of the day, way more than 9 hrs, and woke up the next day knowing what I’d do. [...]

> In the case that I’d be net negative like I feared, I was considering suicide in some sense preferable to all this, because it was better causal isolation. However, despite thinking I didn’t really believe in applications of timeless decision theory between humans, I was considering myself maybe timelessly obligated to not commit suicide afterward. Because of the possibility that I could prevent Person A and their peers from making the correct decision for sentimental reasons. [...]

> I was very uncomfortable sharing this stuff. But I saw it as a weighing on the scales of my personal privacy vs some impact on the fate of the world. So I did anyway. [...]

> I tried to inner sim and answer the question. But my simulated self sort of rebelled. Misuse of last judge powers. Like, I would be aware I was being “watched”, intruded upon. Like by turning that place into a test with dubious methodology of whether I was really a delusional man upon which my entire life depended, I was having the idea of Heaven taken from me. [...]

> I made myself come up with the answer in a split second. More accuracy that way. Part of me resisted answering. Something was seriously wrong with this. No. I already decided for reasons that are unaffected. that producing accurate information for person A was positive in expectation.>>

which doesnt sound at all like brent or other people ive encountered who were chronically angsty about status.

--

im going to write more about this and others in another post but like okay:

[1] ppl with high current or natal testosterone (centrally but not exclusively cis men) keep doing this thing where they mind-project that everyone else has the same degree of status sensitivity and unreflecticity upon it as them when actually this is hormonally mediated.

ziz has a natally & currently estrodized brain and from my observations doesnt have that submodule testosteronized. people with PCOS like ilzo have mentioned that they had masculinized status sensitivity modules, lex somni and some cis guy all tried increasing testosterone and noticed status-sensitivity went up, without looking for this effect in the first place. there are papers on it. your experiences are not universal.

[2] but also this isnt really a "belief", its a coordination mechanism. in the same way "its in black peoples nature to be servile" was a coordination mechanism for slavery rather than a "belief". humans actually can use evidence efficiently and see, for instance, in the antebellum south that black people were human just the same as anyone else. but the local social positionality and what they valued made it more advantageous to verbally report otherwise.

similarly for any minority. "*phobia" is the wrong word, its not fear its a schelling coordination mechanism that humans can expect most of society to have their backs on when bad times happen. which tracks what social justice theorists mean by this stuff being "structural". its not about some emotion of hatred or fear against the specific phenotype of "black skin" or "gender divergence" its about what humans can coordinate against.

hence the use of "antitransfem" instead of "transphobia", i picked this up from ziz and gwen and later noticed it mirroring the form of "antiblack". i wonder if antiblack was coined after encountering a similar issue.

[3] you parted with a marginal 71,000$ (compared to what id expect in a counterfactual world without a protest given your lifetime donation total was 35,885$ and you donated 10,000$ last year.) to protect a UFAI org. is this not an amazing amount of "subservience" to MIRI? anarchotransfems getting together to protest the present omnicide isnt "subservience". the transfems protesting against google being evil werent "subservient", but the employees at google who fired them out were.

its amusing watching this one narrative being tiled everywhere, but with different targets. the authoritarians did the same thing to emma goldman. ▘▕▜▋ says emma and somni are haxing a clueless ziz to "bully" people, linta said somni was infohazardously corrupting people, CFAR affiliates say ziz was 'whipping people into a frenzy' and 'demanding subservience' from them. im going to write a post about this.

[five-wow]

i finally watched 10.10! here are some thoughts. you might maybe not want to read this if you really enjoyed adam’s plot in the episode, because i, uh, have some reservations.

i started laughing during the “previously on” flashbacks when adam told tamiko that she could get free of her yakuza ties because “look at me. i did.” are you sure, adam? are you sure you’re sure? because every single subplot you’ve ever had over your nine or so years on this show seems to contradict that, fjdkfd.

oof, poor adam has to fight his attackers utterly butt-naked, which is not the way you’d want to start your day. also, i mean, they have tamiko. double bad.

fdjkfd adam wakes up to tamiko’s dad’s men cleaning up the signs of struggle in the apartment and the dad standing over him, and adam’s been covered up with a sheet (very thoughtful mob men!) but that’s, uh, a very awkward position to be in with your girlfriend’s dad.

“we’ll leave five-0 out of it.” no adam, bad. bad idea. [sprays him with water bottle]

tani being the voice of reason in the face of junior and lou wanting to keep a tiny pink kid’s bike that samantha will have zero use for anymore is a thing of beauty, even if i do understand junior’s position.

fjdkfdjkf lou: “that’s right. [the victims are] all male, all in their early forties.” steve: “ooy. prime of their lives.” quinn, quietly but not so quietly steve won’t hear her: “guys in their forties love saying that.” haaa, i love her. so far, this is a GOOD episode for the women, omg.

steve talking about his health and getting older, even if it’s just that he’s a little down about it because his doctor says he can’t eat steak anymore (the horror!!!), is kind of very wonderful to see on screen, gosh. that’s the kind of content i want.

adam: “i came down with a bug or something.” yes, the bug is in his brain and it’s called i-have-a-stupid-need-to-tackle-my-problems-on-my-own. many people in five-0 are familiar with it, so you might want to ask their help, adam.

so. so here’s the thing: i never really liked adam for kono, and then i warmed up to them as a couple, and shortly after that they got divorced. i never really liked adam on the team, and then i started warming up to him as a member of it because he was being a genuinely good guy, making friends with a homeless man etcetera (and his last big yakuza plot was finally wrapped up), and now he’s going rogue and assaulting an informant and acting behind the team’s back, and he’s probably about to do worse things and get deep into yakuza business again, idk, and honestly, i just. i just don’t really care. i started to like him when he was kind and now he’s suddenly Bad Adam out of nowhere again (i mean, it’s because his girlfriend was kidnapped and that makes some sense, but we don’t really know her and i have zero investment in her or their relationship and she’s more of a prop than a person and it’s all just kind of whiplash-y and i wish i cared but i’m afraid i just don’t. they keep flipflopping between making adam a really sweet good guy and a violent, bad one and i wish they’d just choose, or at least make the seesawing more understandable and interesting. his motives and the stakes are too undefined to me, i guess. it doesn’t carry any weight.

quinn obnoxiously and loudly eating a malasada in front of steve while refusing to share for steve’s supposed health is wonderful though!!! i mean, steve almost gets into a car crash while trying to snatch a malasada, which shows slightly skewed priorities, but at least the desire for a donut is something i can relate to. that’s a good plot. (i kid, but not entirely.)

aha! duke finds out about adam’s activities for the day.

the adam plot is coming to a head and they have tamiko back but her dad’s been shot, and i know i just said i don’t really care and i still don’t for the most part, but my god, tamiko, that poor woman? she’s been kidnapped and drugged while naked and then there were people shooting over her head and just when she thought it was over, her father is dying, and doing a lot of violence to a woman is not the same as building a character or plot that makes me feel something (do! not! confuse those two!), but it does still make me feel something.

h50 is generally a fairly black and white show (the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good, and people who are in prison deserve to be there and worse), far more so than in any way fits into my own moral view of the world, so i really like seeing this plot in which a guy gets to be freed from incarceration by our main cast because it turns out he didn’t commit any crimes! it’s a nice turn around from viewing all prisoners as irredeemable bad guys - here’s a man who claims he’s innocent and actually is innocent. (even though his story also makes my heart hurt because he’s already been in there TEN YEARS and jfc, he’s going to need more therapy than tamiko.)

we get lou on the phone with samantha and it’s really cute! and then he also talks to tani and junior about how will’s gone now too, and it’s good to at least know that (i mean, we could guess, but we’d never gotten any kind of confirmation before), but it also puts into stark contrast that we still don’t actually know for sure where grace is this year, fjdkfd. we can infer that she went to college, but like. mention it. (hashtag don’t let grace be the next female character that disappears on this show, please.)

dsfjdkfjdkfjdfjdk right SO. adam has realized that the guy who now inherits tamiko’s dead dad’s power probably plotted to murder tamiko’s dad, and then the guy is like “let’s finish our business” and essentially, it boils down to adam having kidnapped and tortured a guy for information and now that man is about to get killed while adam’s there and very definitely guilty of a number of things and i’m screaming because this gives me extreme déjà vu feelings to the time adam killed two guys in the woods and that time he tortured another guy, i think? both also after he’d finally gotten onto the right path, and then he ended up in prison. i guess they want adam off the show again, so they had to make him do ~bad things~ that were definitely totally absolutely against his will for [cue dramatic music and wind machine] The Woman He Loves! [dramatic zoom on Adam’s face or something, idek, eagle cries in the distance]

now adam is being threatened by New Baddest Guy and i am genuinely confused, because i think we’re supposed to feel sorry for him when the guy says adam’s career with five-0 will be over? but i kind of, um. kind of think that might maybe be a good idea? not even just because he did bad things, but also like, adam keeps getting drawn into this yakuza shit and he just really, really needs to move states and start a new life from scratch that doesn’t involve law enforcement but accounting or painting or modelling or what have you, because this is like an addiction that keeps pulling at him and it’s good for no one, least of all him.

dude gets shot (the one adam abducted and hand delivered), adam looks shocked. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT, ADAM.

and then steve calls adam and asks him to come to hq and we get a little scene showing us that duke brought steve all the evidence against adam, and the episode ends. oh boy.

so i liked some things about this episode! all of tani and quinn’s lines, lou talking about how he feels about his kids moving out, tani and junior’s interactions, steve’s health being a topic that gets brought up even if it’s jokingly, the general substance of the case steve and quinn solved. i feel like i’m being very negative about the adam plot and if you’re someone who does like it, obviously that’s cool, and i’m happy for you! i’m glad you can enjoy that. i just. personally, i’m so tired. this makes very little sense to me in ways that aren’t “i don’t understand this” but rather “this doesn’t logically work for me” (and i’m also simply not very interested in it, i’ll admit) and if this is a thing leading up to adam leaving, then if this is the version of adam we’re going to get for the forseeable future, i honestly wouldn’t mind. i liked good, kind, found-a-good-place-in-life adam! but oh dear lord, i’m tired of watching him slide back into yakuza drama over and over and over again because the writers don’t seem to want to think of a different storyline for him that might not involve... whatever this is. (also, tamiko absolutely failed the sexy lamp test in this episode (as in, she could have been replaced by a sexy lamp and the plot would have been the exact same) and it makes me sad.)

[number9robotic]

9-24-19 Update

 The long-awaited sequel to my 9-22-19 Update!

(plugging my newest pic as an artist tax)

Short version: I’m in physical danger right now.

Long version: My relationship with my parents are breaking down significantly because changes to plans of my living situation, my inability to cope with my depression, anxiety, and other mental/emotional compromises, and the resulting inability to do anything outside my comfort zone like finding a proper job/source of income or going to school. 

As a result, my mom over the course of a few days have been physically threatening me (in public, no less) to send me back to my home in Vancouver while also shaming me for ruining their lives, and I feel legitimately unsafe being in my own home because I don’t know what they’re gonna do to me. All while this happens, my ability to stay motivated as a creator is really being tested.

Fuller version is below this line because I don’t wanna flood the feed and my account with walls of unpleasant text:

Please read my 9-22-19 Update for full context and backstory, there’s a lot of text and I don’t wanna retype it all.

1. THE REAL-LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES GOT WORSE

Yesterday as I was in my weekly therapy appointment, my parents had a renegotiation with each other about that plan I mentioned for my dad to come here and basically repeat the process of my legal anchoring to LA away from my home in Vancouver. Even though I responded with a (resigned) “sure, I’ll do it for you,” suddenly my dad made a conscience decision and told my mom that he changed his mind, because he’s really concerned about my mental well-being and the complete stagnation of my life because of my time here in LA.

This... didn’t go well with my mom, because as usual, this is ultimately about her, I guess. Later that evening, she took me to a Starbucks because she wanted to talk with me about something important, partially as a result of her indeed getting her travel permit document that day. She told me she also talked to her lawyer earlier that day, who said that as it stands, while the case isn’t expected to be finished until April 2020 at the earliest, I’ve technically done all I need to do to be declared a resident of the US, and my job is effectively done. Combined with my dad’s newfound desire to not keep me here any longer, I was told that I could return home.

buuuuuuuuuuuut

She was VERY clearly not happy about this. Despite being the one who decided to talk about this publicly, she had a very loud meltdown as she was explaining this and decided to erupt all of her frustrations not just with herself, but also of me. 

To summarize her very long and confusing tirade, she started to outright force at me “JUST GO BACK TO VANCOUVER! GET A TICKET AND MOVE BACK TOMORROW! JUST GO!!!!”, yet was simultaneously also venting about how much damage this would do to HER and her career; that my lack of presence is a sign of failure on her part as a parent, because she hasn’t been able to get me to go to school or a “real” job or even learn how to drive. Keep this one little bit of info in mind. 

A third argument she was trying to convince me of is that the return to Vancouver for me is only going to fuck ME up, because she doesn’t believe that me returning back to a comfortable place where I’m familiar with and am actually able to get around using public transit (which is so much better than LA, it’s not even a fair comparison) would be better for me and my personal health. She also said that Vancouver’s ability to help me with my mental health is so much worse than that of LA... which... that’s incredibly laughable on so many levels, the least of which is the fact that we spent a several-month assessment process to apply for job assistance because of my autism, only for the result to me to deem me and my autism diagnosis as invalid, but whatever, I guess... 

I responded by telling how incredibly irrational she was acting in her hysterical state (again, in a very public area) with her a bunch about what I felt would help me through this, which I’ll talk about later. Reason not now is because she promptly forgot about it and this morning, SHE DID THE SAME THING AGAIN. This time she invited me to talk at a different Starbucks, asked me about my future, and then had ANOTHER very public meltdown screaming about her and my life problems, but this time it was at a time before McDonald’s stopped serving its breakfast menu.

Once again, she slammed me in my inability/refusal to try anything that would apparently help justify me being here in LA, me ruining her life no matter where I go in the world, and also threatening to send me away to Vancouver. This time I just had to outright leave the conversation because she was getting violent this time; I’m currently typing this in a library and she hasn’t found me yet. This isn’t an entirely new feeling, but currently I am legitimately scared for my future and physical safety.

2. EMOTIONAL HEALTH AND PARENTING

I (re-)explained to her that my problem with all of these personal development hurdles -- my inability to try anything where it feels like the failure of which will be utterly emotionally devastating -- is because I flat-out do not have the ability to deal with it. The entirety of grade school and post-secondary have collectively been the most emotionally devastating times of my life to me, I failed my written exam that’s the first step to get a driver’s licence 5 TIMES, and I have a smattering of emotional, communicative, mental, and physical hinderances preventing me from finding work.

And here’s why that affects me so much: my parents are not emotionally supportive. Mom and dad have outright admitted that due to “Chinese parenting”, “it’s just not my personality”, “I don’t know how to help reassure you” they don’t wish to help me with my emotional problems directly, often times finding it to be the job of others they can then shunt that duty off to, such as therapists, psychologists, counselors, or others. This ignores the fact that my meetings with them are weekly, whereas my greatest exposure to other people come from them, my supposed “loved ones”. I feel like I should be able to go to them for emotional strength. I do not, either because they aren’t capable of or just simply don’t want to be that.

Just to note how little they care about my feelings, I came out to them as nonbinary a few months ago, explained to them what that actually means, that I don’t like my pronouns or birth name at all, and asked for them to respect that. They have yet to comply despite me broadcasting my discomfort constantly, because they simply won’t “get it”.

Yknow... as someone who’s failed a lot in life... I can safely say that the resulting emotional wreckage isn’t fun. 

The thing about being emotionally wrecked is that without any reliable source to go to like family or friends, my only solution is to just wait for my depression to pass... which if anyone knows anything about it, you’d know it’s super-unreliable and can take either a week or a month for me to feel better again, and is incredibly destructive. What I’ve recently realized is how much it utterly fucks with my perception of time and continuity -- depression cuts off my ability to feel anything significant or optimistic, including my ability to perceive a future worth looking up to. As a result, I feel like I’ve wasted A LOT of time in the last few years because nobody has been able to help me with that, at least in my actual time of need.

I’ve made this point to my parents many times throughout the year, and I’ve been desperately trying to communicate to them that the easiest solution to my mental trauma? To actually be there emotionally as loved ones; to help me through that potential sense of failure that I’m so afraid of experiencing again, and for them to comfort me as their child.

This request has pissed off my mom on multiple levels: the first I established already is that she’s constantly claiming she doesn’t know how to/isn’t capable of doing it because “it’s just not me” or “I’m not white mom” or some other crap. The second however is where things got super-confusing: she was also offended that I would ever think that she doesn’t support me on that level, and shared me a bunch of wechats to our extended family supporting my minor hobbies, even though they’ve been sucking really bad (again, please consider my patreon, this is a super-hard time to be motivated as a creator)

So I was like... “You ARE capable of being emotionally reassuring! I want to actually hear it myself!” because she almost never expresses positive emotions; it’s either complete ambivalence or negative frustration. She continued to express negative frustration at this, and at that point I just gave up because at this point it struck me that she just outright doesn’t want to help me with it because she felt like she can shunt the duty to someone else... even though she’s pissed about having to pay them therapy bills to do so. Ugh...

3. EVERYTHING BITES

To summarize: this entire breakdown and my future is emotionally fueled not about my needs like my dad wished, but about my mom’s, who believes that it is far more simple for me to be sent back to Vancouver at her blatant behest, and for me to just “get over” my depression and anxiety to do all the shit she expects me to do which she also believes me to be incapable of doing, than to just... be a caring parent who expresses positive feelings.

And during all of this, she’s also shaming me as a failure who ruins her life no matter what I do.

I am... so exhausted... and it’s super-difficult to stay motivated as a creator these days as a result of it. Fuck, I barely feel safe returning home either in LA or in Vancouver, because I know my mom hates me for it.

I still don’t have friends, and I still have depression and anxiety... and I can’t even ask my mom to be there for me in my time of emotional distress... thanks.