#they ARE real-life people who real-life hear this

[marypsue]

Man, it's cool and all if you see a metaphor for marginalisation in the monstrous, and if you want the power fantasy of 'what if you could just eat anybody who threatened you/pissed you off'. Me too.

However, as soon as you start saying 'no, these monsters are a 1:1 on Specific Marginalised Group, and you have to treat them in the fiction like they are directly representative of real human members of the marginalised group', BUT you also, in the fiction, make them hurt/kill/eat humans? And then try to shame me, your audience, for noticing or engaging with the bit where they kill people, because you made them directly representative of a real-world marginalised group? You have lost me, and also, I think, the plot.

[bringbackmaes14]

My mom has her TV on in her room almost 24/7 and it's always on some news outlet or other. We talk a lot about politics and world/national/local events. And we do have a lot of varying views on a lot of things but we're both adults who are capable of saying "well we've both stated we have differing opinions and it's clear that we're actually arguing at this point and not just talking so let's put away the topic for now." But there are also other times where I'm just too overwhelmed by my own life to think about what's going on in the bigger world around me, so my mom knows to be hesitant to bring up news stuff with me (i.e. she doesn't just start talking about politics/world events with me rather she'll ask if I'm in the mindset to discuss things when she wants my opinion on something). This is all relevant.

We've always been able to talk about nearly everything from the economy to the school system to human rights to human tragedy and we've never tried to censor ourselves around each other (outside of getting too emotional with our language). But about two weeks ago when the United Healthcare CEO was assassinated, my mom, who is in her 50s, came to me and she said "Did you see that the CEO of United Healthcare got unalived?"

And I just sat there and looked at her completely confused and she was like "did you not hear about it? It's all over the news. It happened in clear view on the street." Like the problem was that I hadn't heard of the event not that my Gen-X mother had just in a real life conversation said the word "unalived".

And I told her as much. "Yes I've heard that. Why did you say 'unalived' instead of 'murdered'?

And she told me that she just thought that since I'm touchy about heavier topics sometimes (which is definitely true, that does occasionally happen) she thought it would be better to just not use the "heavy" words. I asked her if she realized, honestly, how stupid that was because regardless of the word she used, she was still talking about a murder, it didn't change the subject matter, she was only making the subject matter seem less significant and severe by changing the word to baseless internet lingo that a bunch of misguided, clout-chasing influencers spread.

She hadn't. She's doesn't use the Internet replacement words a lot, online or otherwise. This was a first. She thought this was a different situation, and a fine one to use it in, and like the above stories people shared, it's still not.

I'm allowed to say there are days where I want to avoid heavier topics because I'm overwhelmed. I'm allowed to not ever really discuss certain topics because they actually trigger me based on my own experiences. But people who are out here living their whole lives like just talking about about difficult or controversial topics, or asking questions about it, or enjoying media where it's portrayed (especially when it's actually portrayed respectfully) are being ridiculous, and they're handicapping themselves. They're never going to learn how to talk about hard things, or how to handle hard things. And honestly I feel bad for them.

Luckily, in my case, once I explained why my mom saying what she said was incredibly weird and honestly devaluing to the conversation, she backtracked and told me that (like I said above) she doesn't talk like that regularly and she has no intention to start; it's just that this was a huge news event and that day had been particularly rough for me emotionally and she wasn't sure how to approach it. So her intentions were good and I'm very lucky that she understands and also agrees that the Internet censorship language is incredibly unnecessary.

we have GOT to kill tiktok/twitter self-censorship i just witnessed a grown adult say the word “smex” out loud to our professor

[tanadrin]

I would love to hear the rant about social media doomerism and conspiracy

I’m on my phone right now but the summary version is something like:

Humans are bad at integrating information into their worldview accurately bc of various cognitive biases

Social media incentivizes us seeking out content that excites fear or anger or irritation

Social media thus causes us to form negative impressions of the world bc it mediates so much information consumption and discourse these days

This general negative affective impression is subject to high confirmation bias and ppl in general are really bad at divorcing an affective impression of a thing from their dispassionate reasoning abt a thing

(Bc one of the functions of an affective impression is to “cache” our conclusions about a topic to save time and effort later)

(In general if you are a cynic and pessimist you can fall prey to these biases w/o social media but I think social media makes more ppl susceptible to them)

People don’t want to be dupes so they seek refuge in cynicism. We treat cynicism as wise or worldly when in fact cynicism makes you a dupe and an easy mark for grifters. Cynicism and low trust foster conspiracism, paranoia, and antisocial politics

(This is why so many congenitally contrarian folks seem to flit effortlessly between the far left and far right; it’s not horseshoe theory, they’ve just cooked their brains on this stuff)

This is a world where populist anti-social politicians like Trump and the AfD thrive, bc they will lie about how everything is terrible and people will nod along, bc it explains why their social media is full of awful stories of, like, immigrants eating pets and shit

But it doesn’t just have to be insane lies only a moron could believe. It can be any impression about a fact in the world that it is difficult to personally check and which is vulnerable to being swayed by anecdote

This is how we get a word where people think crime rates are higher than they’ve ever been when in fact crime is falling

Or child predators lurk around every corner when in fact children are safer than ever

Or the American economy is in a recession when in fact it’s doing historically well by just about every available metric (now with full employment AND low inflation!)

Because in a big world even where things are in general good and getting better you can always produce infinite individual examples of shitty things and pipe those in a steady stream into people’s eyeballs, and then point to that and leverage people’s low trust attitudes and their cynicism which tells them they are smarter than the experts and go “statistics is just a fancy way to lie! The world is secretly terrible! Every bad thing is even worse than you thought and every good thing is a lie!”

(Nevermind the whole phenomenon where anything that is complicated or that someone does not themselves understand gets treated like it’s actually secret and a conspiracy.)

And here I know I have to include some disclaimer about how this is not to discount individual cases of suffering or struggle, which are real, or that there are indeed some really awful things happening in the world right now, which there are, but you know what?

I’m tired of doing that. People with reading comprehension operating in good faith ought to be able to deduce that general statements do not obviate particular exceptions, and people who cling to their doomerism as a kind of emotional life raft do not generally argue with me in good faith.

Sometimes doomerism is a load-bearing pillar of their politics, which I think is dumb—I think you can be a leftist or a progressive without being a doomer! In fact I think doomerism is antithetical to useful politics!

Sometimes they are just depressed and treatment-resistant. Sometimes they are just angry misanthropes who want to feel justified in their misanthropy. Some doomers are themselves in bad circumstances and feeling hopeless about that—to them I am enormously sympathetic. Though a lot of doomers will admit they personally are doing OK—this does not seem to be most doomers.

But I think in general cynicism and doomerism and a worldview dominated by a general nebulous air of Everything Is Awful and by abstract nouns with threatening auras is not conducive to wisdom or understanding or useful politics or leading a happy and fulfilling life.

[veltana]

The winter rebound

✦ Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Fem!Reader

✦ Word count: ~3,6k

✦ Rating: Explicit

✦ Warnings/tags: Avengers!Bucky, alcohol consumption, fluff, pwp, smut, oral (fem receiving), piv sex, safe sex, dirty talk.

✦ Summary: You go with your friend to Stark's holiday party

✦ Note: This was the first thing I wrote and published when I got back into the marvel fandom, so it's a super self-indulgent piece! But I hope you like it anyway! As always, please comment and/or reblog! Asks are always welcome!

Masterlist | AO3

It was Friday. You watched yourself in the mirror and told yourself that you would have fun tonight. Forget about your ex of five years who broke off your engagement a month before the holidays, whom you had spent the last three weeks crying over.

Tonight you were accompanying your best friend to the annual Stark holiday party, and you would not think about him once during the night, while you danced and drank yourself into a stupor.

Standing outside the huge compound made you anxious. Maybe it was too soon to meet the real world without him. No! Don’t think about that asshole! You cut yourself off before your thoughts started to spiral.

“Come on!” your friend Lily laughed. Her genuine smile was contagious and you returned it, squaring your shoulders and forcing every dumb thought down before you took her arm as the two of you made your way down the gold and red carpet. At the end, two large glass doors were opened by life-sized mechanical nutcrackers.

“I sure hope those don’t spring to life and ruin this party too,” you mumbled. Lily giggled, “Don’t worry, I helped with the software, unless Mr. Stark went a completely different direction there should be no worries.” “So there is a possibility,” you joked as the doors closed behind you.

If she answered you didn’t hear because you were too busy taking in the amazing winter-themed party. The waiters were also dressed as nutcrackers and there were dancers in amazing outfits performing all over the floor. Music played in the background and some were moving to the beat while others stood around and talked.

Honestly, you had expected more people, like at least two hundred but there were only about fifty in the huge hall. Not only the regular people, like your friend, who helped with software, hardware, management, and the day-to-day running's of the compound, but it was impossible not to notice the heroes also in attendance.

Not all of them were there, no sign of Thor or Loki, or the Guardians, but this was your first time so close to any hero ever, you would take what you could get.

“Come, I’ll introduce you to everyone,” Lily said and started to pull you along while you gazed at the shifting decorations adorning the walls, obvious to the blue eyes that followed you with interest from the bar.

Too many names spun through your brain, accompanied by the alcohol your friend had been plying you with.

Everyone you had met so far had been incredibly nice and friendly and hadn’t minded when you asked all the dumb questions about working at such a place.

Finally, it came down to the big event, meeting Mr. Stark and maybe the rest of the Avengers currently there.

Lily stepped up to her boss and greeted him and Pepper Potts like they were friends rather than her superiors and then introduced you. Not a lot of people got to shake hands with Iron Man and Pepper Potts but now you had, and it was totally normal.

“Interesting hair color,” Tony Stark pointed out. “Is it meant to look like that?” It was such an old man thing to say you could only laugh as Pepper elbowed him in the ribs. “I am sorry,” Pepper apologized but you waved it off.

“He is paying for everything I drink, so if he wants to make fun of my hair, it’s fine.” Pepper gave you a relieved look and was about to say something else when a voice interrupted.

“It looks like the Aurora Borealis.”

Bucky Barnes had appeared out of nowhere, like the skilled assassin he had been trained to be. It was like he had materialized out of thin air at your side and you jumped when he spoke.

Before you knew what you were doing, you reached out, slapping your palm against his hard chest, and said “For fuck’s sake,” while your other hand rested over the heart trying to work its way out of your chest.

Then you realized what you’d done and pulled back your hand quickly, covering your mouth. Bucky stared back at you, mouth slightly open, while Lily and Tony both cackled in amusement. “That’s what you get Barnes,” your friend pointed out.

With a crooked smile, Bucky just said, “How about I buy you a drink to make up for it?” and held out his arm. “As long as it’s crazy expensive since the old man made fun of my hair,” you shot over your shoulder at Tony as you took the offered arm.

Your friend winked at you before she returned to her conversation with Natasha Romanoff, whom you would just have to say hello to some other time.

Bucky led you the short way to the bar and you eased your way on to the chair, making sure not to get tangled in your long dress, as Bucky leaned over the bar and asked for the most expensive champagne they had.

“I’m Bucky,” he said. “I know,” you smiled at him before introducing yourself too.

In no time there were two flutes in front of you, he offered you one, saying cheers before you took the first sip. The unabashed moan that left you wasn’t meant to be sexual but Bucky stopped his glass halfway to his lips to just stare at you. It cracked you up, “Sorry,” you said, “I’ve never tasted champagne this good before.” He also took a sip, his eyes widening a little, and when he’d swallowed all he said was, “Wow.” “I could get used to this,” you took another mouth and closed your eyes.

When you opened them again you found him looking at you and it made a shiver go down your spine. For the first time in a long time, you felt desire pool in your lower belly. “Will this make up for Stark’s comment?” he asked. “It will absolutely!” you promised. “I think your hair looks great and I’m like twice his age so…” he trailed off.

“My friend, Lily, has told me about these crazy old super soldiers, but you look spry for your age,” you winked at him. “You can only imagine,” he flirted back, and your cheeks heated. You had forgotten about this, about the utter intoxication of flirting with a man and having it returned to you.

After several weeks of drought, your body suddenly knew what arousal was again and flooded you with it, making your heart beat twice as fast and your skin flush. “Oh, you want me to think of everything you can do?” you asked with a raised eyebrow. “Anything you want, doll,” he leaned forward, “But I’m sure your imagination won’t hold a candle to the real thing.” “Are you going to show me?” “If you want to,” he smirked and you felt yourself grow wetter by the second.

You leaned in too, unable to resist him and not wanting to either. You wanted to get lost in him for as long as he would have you. He finished off the rest of his champagne like it was a shot of liquor.

“Come on, I have just the place,” he smiled, holding out his hand. Not even second-guessing yourself for a moment you finished your glass and let him lead you away.

Bucky took you through a side door, into a corridor that led to the heart of the compound which was now deserted, and finally into a large room with a domed ceiling.

It looked like a cinema almost, except the screen was the whole ceiling, and in the middle of the floor was an enormous sofa-like thing that easily fit several people.

After Bucky pressed something on a side panel the room lit up with the Aurora Borealis.

You let go of his hand, staring with huge eyes at the display. Maybe you had misinterpreted his intentions and they were actually pure, not at all the filthy things you had thought this would end up being.

Never had you been happier to be wrong.

This time when he appeared out of nowhere he didn’t scare you, he gripped your waist with the vibranium arm and spun you into his chest, before using his other hand to pinch your chin between his fingers.

“I’m going to kiss you, tell me if I should stop,” he breathed. Instead of answering with words you surged up and crushed your lips against his, wrapping your arms around his neck, and pulling him impossibly closer.

It was almost like he expected you to be timid or something because, for a few seconds, he didn’t move, but then he rushed into action, moving his lips and kissing you like a man starved.

Desire flooded you, making every one of his touches feel like fire even through the fabric of your dress. He moved you backward until your knees hit the oversized sofa, and you laid down.

Bucky’s face was burning with desire as he looked down on you, before he could move or say anything you grabbed your skirt and pulled it up until it bunched around your waist so that you were able to spread your legs without restraint.

The growl erupting from his chest made you smile and you crooked your finger toward him. He knelt between your legs, grabbing your thighs to spread them even more before he leaned down over you to capture your lips again.

The action made the hard cock in his jeans brush against your heated core, making you moan into his mouth.

He pulled back, eyes wild, “Your sounds make me fucking crazy.” he groaned, moving his hands down your naked legs, caressing them and gripping them, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be rough or gentle.

“Hope so,” you smiled and started to tug at his suit jacket, needing to see his body. He obliged by sitting back and ridding his upper body of clothing. As soon as you could your hands splayed out across the expanse of his naked torso, feeling the hard muscles under the soft skin.

Your eyes grazed over the scars on his left shoulder but didn’t pay it any mind. The man had trauma, that was no secret, but tonight you didn’t need to delve into that. Instead, you sat up, kissing the skin you could reach and licking at his nipple, making him moan most deliciously.

He reached around you to unzip your dress and you whined when you had to move away from him to let him pull it off you. Now you were almost completely naked with the super soldier, except for the thong you wore that did little to hide anything from him, and your heels.

Without another word, he stood up and unbuttoned his pants, peeling them off and kicking off his shoes in the process, before he was back over you. Now it was his turn to taste your skin and when he closed his mouth around a nipple, using his vibranium hand to pinch the other, you released a high-pitched mewl you never heard from yourself before.

That only spurred him on, alternating between sucking and licking at you, squeezing or pinching your sensitive buds. The pleasure was too much, like you would implode or maybe even come from just him playing with your tits. You fisted the fabric under you, pushing your chest even more into him as moans and words tumbled from your lips.

“Bucky, please!” you tried forming a coherent sentence but failed. “What do you need, doll?” he asked, lips shiny with his spit as he looked up at you. “Touch me, make me come, please Bucky,” you didn’t want to wait another second for the pleasure you had missed for a lot longer than the weeks since your break up. This temporary connection with a stranger was already better than what you had experienced over several years.

“Can I taste you?” his voice was husky, filled with restrained want. “Yes!” you smiled and raised yourself on your elbows.

You watched as he kissed his way down your form, pulling off your thong and throwing it away. He grabbed your thighs and spread them wide before letting the thumb of his vibranium hand slowly drag up, separating your folds, groaning, almost whispering “Fuck, your pussy is perfect,” and leaning in to carefully lick up your spread lips. You fell back, staring up at the beautiful display as Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, one of the Avengers, ate you out with perfection.

Every move he made sent sparks through your entire body and pulled cries from you. Your hands tangled in his hair, not pulling or pushing, just needing to anchor yourself on something. Nothing would hold a candle to this for the rest of your life you suspected, because even though you had just met, Bucky Barnes took his sweet time, caressing his hands up and down your sides, down your legs, and back up again, using his tongue and lips to make your body blaze.

Your crescendo built steadily, as did your voice, the closer you got the more you pleaded and begged, even though he was doing exactly what you wanted him to. When two fingers on his right hand breached you with no problem your back bowed, the pleasure rushing through you, and when he crooked them and moved them inside you, it was everything the dam needed to break and the coil inside you snapped.

You screamed his name as the orgasm hit you like a freight train. What was even better was that he worked you through it, coaxing every last drop of pleasure out of you before you had to instead beg him to stop.

"Too much," you whimpered when the uttermost tip of his tongue gently floated across your clit. "No, darling, not enough. A man could get addicted to hearing you scream his name."

You whimpered again, your body rocking with overstimulation at every pass of his tongue. It was wonderful to hear him say those things but you needed more.

"Please tell me you have a condom so you can fuck me," you groaned and that made him stop, staring at you from between your legs before kissing up the side of your thigh to sit back on his heels before he got up. He freed himself from his underwear before he bent down to grab his pants and pulled a condom from a pocket and that gave you a chance to admire him. His cock was hard, glistening, and a lot bigger than what you were previously used to, but that only sparked more excitement in your lower stomach.

"Hands and knees, baby," he smiled and made a twirling motion with his fingers. You wasted no time rolling over, and getting into position. His flesh hand slapped your ass playfully when he knelt behind you and when you moaned he chuckled. "You like that huh?" he asked as the tip of his cock started to press into you.

He was big, you whined and whimpered with every inch he pressed into you. Maybe why he took his time eating you, because he needed you to be as aroused as possible for it to fit. You clawed at the fabric, feeling like you were having an out-of-body experience with how he filled you.

"So good, taking it all," he praised when his hips were finally flush with your ass. Trying to answer him with words was out of the question, instead, you rocked your body, feeling his cock press against everything inside you, giving you the most delicious sensation you probably ever felt.

His hand landed on your ass again and that spurred you on, starting to move a bit faster. "Look at you, fucking yourself on my cock," he sounded a little breathless and you wished you could see him. "Do you like it, darling? Do you like my cock filling you to the brim?"

Fuck, Bucky Barnes had a mouth on him you had not expected. He grabbed your hips and helped you along, starting to fuck you deep and hard, pulling almost all the way out before shoving back in again.

With every move, you cried out in sheer ecstasy. Bucky kept on telling you how good you sounded, he didn't mind at all that you were loud.

The pace was hard but not hurried, he seemed to like taking his time, not rushing through the action just to get to the finish line. But it was driving you mad, it felt like you were at the precipice constantly, ready to tip over but needing something more to do it.

Then he grabbed you around the waist and pulled you up until you were flush against his chest, his pace never stopping. "Hi, sweet thing, enjoying yourself?" he wasn't even winded and you were a panting, whimpering mess, feeling like you were about to lose it.

"Yes, Bucky, please touch me, make me come again." He kissed your shoulder, "My pleasure," was his answer and his left hand descended on your aching clit.

A shudder and a scream passed through you when he started to rub small circles over it. Suddenly you were so close to the edge you could almost taste it, and Bucky knew it too.

"That's right, come on my cock, doll. Can you do that for me? Be good and come for me?" he said between kissing up your neck, moving the arm around your waist up to grab your jaw, and turning your head to the side. The kiss was sloppy but delicious, and with the aid of his fingers and so full of his cock the orgasm took you by full force, making you shake in his grip.

He released your mouth and let the sounds you made fill up the room, pressing his mouth to the side of your head and telling you over and over again how fucking good you felt coming around him.

If he hadn’t held you up, you would have collapsed no doubt, but Bucky had no problem keeping you up as he found his own release, pressing his forehead against your neck and mumbling obscenities, his hips stuttering against your ass.

Now he was breathing heavier, holding you tight against him with both arms, letting his fingers draw random patterns on your skin.

You were in a post-orgasmic haze, only existing in that moment with no past or future, only his warm body, and a sated need. "Gonna need to let you go now, darling," he said in a low voice "Lay down." His arms loosened around you and you braced yourself with your arms and eased yourself down on your side.

Bucky got up, probably to dispose of the condom, before laying down behind you. You hadn't expected him to want to cuddle, but he draped his arm across your side, pulling you flush against him.

"You okay?" he asked in a whisper. "Fan-fucking-tastic," you answered with a small laugh and felt a million times lighter all of a sudden.

After a few minutes of laying there, you felt like you'd been gone from the party long enough, but judging by Bucky’s heavy breathing, he had fallen asleep behind you.

He didn't wake as you gathered your things. When you found the thong, you looked at it, looked over at his gorgeous form laying there, and giggled as you found his pants and stuffed the thong down his pocket.

With the help of some items in your clutch, you patched up your make-up and fixed your hair before slipping out and closing the door behind you.

It was a small miracle that you could find your way back to the party but you did and immediately went to the bar for a drink.

Lily found you minutes later and she just raised an eyebrow, you shrugged and tilted your glass towards hers, clinking them together, and then you both burst out laughing.

*

Monday rolled around and it was hard to work because you kept getting lost in the memories of Friday night.

His eyes, his scent, his voice as he said those things to you. You squeezed your legs together and stifled a low moan.

Suddenly your phone chimed and pulled you back into the real world. A text from Lily.

[So, Bucky Barnes just came by and asked for your number. I gave it, of course, just so you know!] [Okay? Did he say why he needed it?] [Apparently, you left something(????) here on Friday and he wanted to return it.] [Hmm, okay, thanks!] [What did you leave?!?!?!?] [Don't be so nosey, go back to work!]

Your stomach did a flip when the next message was from an unknown number. It had a picture attached, your thong tangled in his fingers, and the text [You left these.] For a second you imagined him using them as he got himself off. You bit your lips as you responded. [Keep them or throw them away, I have more, don't worry.] even added a little wink-emoji.

[I want to return them, personally. Are you free this afternoon?] His response was quick and very to the point.

A wonderful shudder traveled through you at the thought of seeing him again. You had meant for this to be a one-time thing, something to get you back into the world and learn to exist without your ex but there wasn't any harm in seeing where this could go, and hopefully, you would have a lot more amazing sex on top of it.

[Sure, I get off at five.]

[rosenclaws]

Stronger || Logan Howlett x Reader

summary: after failing your last mission you start to over train yourself in secret but Logan notices the bruises and cuts and wont leave you alone about it.

warnings: angst to fluff, patching up fic, the reader is very hard on themselves, injury, blood, insecurity, sweet logan, reader pushes themself too much.

a/n: I had this idea at like 1:30am last night and I wrote it when i woke up oops. I just love fluffy patching up logan fics what can I say.

There it is again. Logan's nose twitches as you walk by. You smell like dirt and sweat but most of all blood. He locks eyes with you as you walk past the kitchen door.

Theres a limp in your step. It's subtle but there. You're wearing long pants and long sleeves despite it being hot outside and you're hiding your hands in your pockets. There's bags under your eyes and the smiles you give people aren't real.

Logan narrows his eyes at you and you look at the ground. Hurrying away from his pointed gaze. He wants to go after you but he hears your door slam and lock.

No one else has picked up on this except for him. He brings it up in passing but he's brushed off every time. Something is up with you and he's going to figure out what.

You sigh as you lean against your door. Your body aches like crazy and all you want to do is collapse onto the bed and sleep. But you force yourself to the bathroom. You need to scrub off all the evidence of everything from the night before. The blood and grime washed off but the bruises stayed.

"Damn." You mumbled as you took in the injuries from this time.

The person displayed in the mirror looked like a stranger. Your eyes were sunken, bruises on your body, you looked tired and felt worse. But you had to keep going. You needed to be strong, to prove yourself and this was the only way.

At least that's what you think. You crawl into bed and pass out the moment your head hits the pillows. Unfortunately the nightmares start then too.

You're back on your last mission. The whole reason you've been pushing yourself so hard. You were weak, lost, a burden to the team. You weren't like everyone else at the mansion. You didn't come here as a kid.

In fact you were well into your adult life when Professor Xavier found you. You had no training, no experience. You got stuck into classes with kids who had already mastered their powers. You felt silly, a fool to think you could be apart of this world. You didn't belong.

So when you got the chance to go on a mission you were excited. It means they thought you were ready, that you had something in you that could help.

The mission went terribly. You were overwhelmed and could barely keep up. Tackled to the ground you cried out in pain. A sharp blade against your neck caused you to freeze. You tried to conjure your energy blasts but a foot on your wrist stopped you. It was digging into you, crushing you. You closed your eyes as you braced yourself for what was to come.

It never does.

The pressure is released all at once as Logan tackled the man who was on you. Digging his claws into him until he's limp on the ground. He runs to you, checking you injuries. You couldn't speak. You couldn't warn Logan that someone else was coming. Then it all goes black. You're too late.

You sit up, Logan's name on the tip of your tongue as you wake up. Fuck. You take in your surroundings and try to calm down. Slowly sinking back into your bed. Reminding yourself that everything fine.

That the last mission didn't really end that way. Logan is okay, you're okay. But what if things had played out different.

If you could have held your own then Logan wouldn't have had to come to your rescue. He carried you back to the jet and while everyone was nice, you knew that you disappointed them.

You haven't been asked to go on a mission since. It hurt, you wanted to go. To be apart of the team. So you took it upon yourself to train. Your powers were trained in lessons with the professor but he never lets you go past a certain limit. So instead you decided to sneak out at night to the nearby forest and train there.

Honing not only your powers but your hand to hand combat as well. Trees were your only partners but it worked. They were strong and sturdy. Every night you'd sneak out. Practice with your powers which drained you and then practiced everything else after. It left you bloody and bruised but in your mind it was worth it.

Glancing at the clock you see that you've slept through most of the day. The sun had already set. Quietly you get dressed and sneak down the hallways. Most everyone was already in bed and if they weren't they were socializing in the living room. All you had to do was sneak by and you were home free for the night.

Laughter is the perfect distraction as you sneak past the doorway. Opening the door slowly and sneaking outside, running to the safety of the woods. What you don't notice is someone following you.

Logan caught your scent the second you stepped out of your room. Whether he wants to admit it or not he's always searching for you. He smelled your shampoo wafting past the door and eyed you outside. You were quick but he could still see you. Enough of this. Whatever the hell you were doing was killing you. Slowly but surely it was ruining you physically and mentally. He slipped away from the rest of the people in the living room and followed you.

As he got deeper in the woods he became worried, just what could you be doing out here? His ears perk up as he hears you. Peaking through the trees he finds you in a small clearing. You were clearly exhausted but you kept pushing. Creating energy from your finger tips and blasting them at a tall redwood.

Logan smells the blood that trickled from your nose. You were pushing yourself too hard. He's about to reveal himself when the loud creaking of a branch stops him.

You were too wrapped up in conjuring another blast that you don't notice a large tree branch cracking from the force of your powers. Logan springs in to action.

"Watch out!" He growls as he launches himself at you. Grabbing your body and wrapping himself around you the best he can. The branch falls right onto his back. It snaps in two as it falls to either side of you.

"Logan?! What are you doing here?" You ask as you stare at the fallen branch. Kicking yourself for not noticing it fast enough forcing Logan to put himself in danger for you again.

"What am I doing here? What the fuck are you doing out here?" He yells as he lets you go. Taking in just how bad you looked.

"What the hell is wrong with you? What if I wasn't here? What if that branch fell and hit you and no one would know that you were bleeding out in the fucking woods!" Logan snarls. His fear and worry being masked by anger. How could you be so reckless? So stupid?

"I didn't ask you to fucking follow me!" You bite back. Shame creeping up as he scolds you. Logan scoffs and grabs your face firmly.

"Do you even see yourself right now?" He grabs your wrist and holds it up. Staring at your bloody knuckles. It fucking hurts. It hurts for him to see you like this and it hurts him that you were doing this to yourself.

“You're tearing yourself apart, why?" The anger starts to fade, his real feelings breaking through.

"Because I'm weak." You admit, your voice cracking as the adrenaline starts to drain. Instead being replaced but complete and utter exhaustion.

"What?" Logan asks in disbelief.

"I failed the last mission, I could have gotten you hurt, I was a liability. If I got stronger, If I was better."

"Stop. Just stop. You really think all that?" Logan has let go of you by now, his eyes are looking at all your bruises. All the damage you've done to yourself.

"You don't?" You ask, afraid of his answer.

He doesn't say a word. Instead he takes your holds your hand, you try to ignore the butterflies growing in your stomach as he leads you back to the mansion. Taking you up to his room where he pulls out a first aid kit.

He doesn't need one but every room has one, of course you had already used up all of yours. Silently he patches you up, wrapping your knuckles in bandages and wiping up the blood from your nose.

"If you wanted train you could have come to one of us, to me." He should have noticed sooner, said something. Stopped you from doing this to yourself.

"I thought I had to do it on my own."

"You don't. It took me a while to figure it out too but you don't." He would be a hypocrite to scold you for going off alone but he doesn't really care.

"I'm sorry." You mumble. Logan cups your face and to your shock kisses your forehead gently.

"Don't ever do this again do you hear me." Logan can help you, he can protect you.

"I won't." You promise him. He smiles and picks you up.

"Logan!" You yelp as he drops you into his bed.

It smells just like him and you can't deny the instant comfort that comes over you as you snuggle into his sheets.

"You're going to rest for the next week. Anything you need you just call alright?"

"But what-" He stares at you and you stop talking, he wasn't fucking around about this.

"When you're healed and rested. Then we can train together." He doesn't leave room for argument, not that you wanted to argue with him anyways but still.

"Thank you Logan...You didn't have to do this."

He could have turned his head, pretended he never saw anything. Its what you expected him to do if you were being honest. But he didn't. He saw you struggling, pushing yourself and he couldn't let you hurt yourself any longer. He cared about you, a lot.

"I know." He says simply.

"Will you stay, while I sleep. I've been getting these nightmares and well..." Logan nods his head.

He shuts off the lights and crawls into bed with you. Kind of, more like he's half hanging off the edge of the bed. But you're comfortable and that's good enough for him.

It doesn't take long for you to fall asleep. The comforting aura of Logan was enough. He hums as you curl closer to him. Logan chasing away any nightmares that threaten to hurt you and for the first time in a while your dreams are quiet.

A smile on your face as peace finally overcomes your dreams.

[callipraxia]

Lots of interesting stuff here; the one point, aside from how I love the phrase “ship of Theseus-ing himself,” I can comment on…somewhat succinctly is the “learning that maybe it’s just better if he shuts himself off from the world so nobody has a chance to hurt him.” I think it partially was as a self-defense measure…but also partially due to his shift toward “mission-oriented” behavior.

We know Stan is a social creature. He craves connection. Not all that long before he went to Gravity Falls, we saw him trying to befriend his cellmates in a Colombian prison. It’s also well-established that he likes women and has had (tumultuous) relationships with them in the past, but by the time the Lazy Susan B-Plot happens in s1, he’s clearly been out of the game for a while. We see no evidence, in fact, that he ever had any relationships in GF in thirty years of living there…because how could he? He couldn’t tell a love interest who he was or what he was doing with his free time, because if that relationship didn’t work out, that person would have epic blackmail material. And if he had a love interest and let her continue to believe he was Stanford Pines, well, that was going to get awkward when he definitely rescued the real one any day now, wasn’t it? So, between needing to lie about who he was and the simple fact that dating would take up time which could otherwise be spent on his mission, having even a girlfriend, never mind a wife, would have been tantamount to giving up, which is…not an option in his world usually, because the “stubborn” bit stuck no matter what else about him changed. Having friends would also introduce the same problems, to a probably lesser extent. So, therefore, there was nothing to do but shut himself off from the world, which became a self-reinforcing habit that progressively made him more and more cynical and bitter about his position in life as everyone learned he was emotionally isolated from other people and therefore not someone they liked or trusted….

Aaah, this reminds me of a fic I never wrote. We know a little about Carla McCorkle and Marilyn, but the rhyme at the end of “Roadside Attraction” also mentions a “Beatrice” who “slapped him for being a cad.” We never hear anything else about Beatrice, which made her fair game, so a plot idea I had involved Stan - since this was early into his career, before he had fully shifted the public idea of Stanford Pines away from “the science guy in the woods” - more or less accidentally getting recruited to help judge the science fair, despite how he knew relatively little science at that time and also really, really hates science fairs in particular. Cue light romantic comedy with a Beatrice also associated with this event during the lead-up to it/his efforts to sabotage it so it doesn’t ever happen…which then, of course, naturally all has a bad ending when he realizes that oh, yeah, right…his life is fake and he has a top-secret, all-important mission in his basement, time to deliberately behave badly until Beatrice breaks up with him and the ending is discordantly sad and angsty. Never wrote it because I could never figure out how to write and pace the romantic comedy bits, though.

Something I think about so much is just how different the Stanley Pines we see in ATOTS is from the Grunkle Stan we know in the rest of the show.

Like, have you ever noticed just how much more expressive Stan is in 1983? The guy wears his heart on his sleeve so much more than he does later on. At almost every moment you can tell exactly what he's thinking and feeling just from his face, something that will become a lot rarer for him. Even setting aside the portal incident scene itself, have y'all ever watched the Dusk 2 Dawn scene and just watched Stan's face? He looks so… openly sad.

It's not just his expressions. Here's a detail that only just occurred to me: you guys ever think it's weird that Stan doesn't just try to steal the bread from Dusk 2 Dawn? Like, you'd think his stealing habit would've originated from his years on the street stealing to survive, but no— he tries to pay for the bread, and then when he doesn't have any money, he figures out how to get some. It's surprisingly honest.

And just like… I don't know, his whole vibe is so different. He's come from this life of hardship completely willing to talk things through. He's emotional, he's open, and not exactly what you'd expect to see when you imagine what a younger Grunkle Stan might have been like. In fact, his vibe is so different that, in Journal 3, Ford writes that when he first saw Stan, he assumed he was just in another alternate dimension rather than the one he came from.

Anyway, it just makes me think about the transition of how, exactly, he went from one to the other. How we go from the "stubborn, frostbitten vagabond" to the "carnival barker" he is by the show's present. I think about that in-between Stan a lot. Realizing that the hole in his heart, the one he thought was caused by his circumstance for so long, hadn't disappeared even now that he had money and a steady place to live. Growing more bitter and grumpy by the day, learning that maybe it's just better if he shuts himself off from the world so nobody has a chance to hurt him. Seeing himself aging and finding himself no closer to saving Ford. Ship of Theseus-ing himself into the carefully curated asshole that maybe even he thinks he is.

[yazzwrites6962]

Chaos and Cure ♡ Jinx (Arcane)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Arcane Jinx x GN!Handy!Reader ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Author's Note: UNEDITED! This could be interpreted as a platonic relationship, or the buildup to something romantic. It's up to you! I do not own any characters/images!

Genre: Fluff

Summary: You are a quiet, handy, hardworking Zaunite who is used to fixing up broken tech and gadgets. Your life changes completely when, one day, the infamous Jinx storms into your shop.

Word Count: 1137

Warnings: Mild mentions of exlopsives and destruction, mentions of trauma

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

The first time you met her, it was quiet. Not in the literal sense, of course. Nothing about Jinx is quiet. You were in your workshop, huddled over a broken panel from some long-abandoned tech. Suddenly, the door slammed open like a gunshot.

You didn't flinch. Not because you were brave, but because you had grown used to Zaun's chaos crashing into your life uninvited. That's just how things were. However, the girl who stormed in wasn't just disorderly. She was the embodiment of madness.

Bright blue hair, wild eyes, and a grin that sat crookedly on her face. You recognize her instantly. She's Jinx. Her reputation is infamous, but nothing prepares you for how real she feels. How alive she truly is. Your mind goes silent for a moment.

"Hey gearhead, fix this!" She chirps, dropping something metal and smoking onto your worktable. The piece clatters, nearly knocking your tools to the ground.

"What is it?" You know better than to expect any sort of formal introduction, although the nickname surprises you. You also know that Jinx is mechanically brilliant. At least, from what you hear. You wonder why she can't fix the gadget herself.

"it's supposed to be a trigger mechanism." She crosses her arms, unamused by your hesitation. "It caught slightly on fire. Don't worry. It'll probably only explode if you're really bad at this."

You blink, picking up the damaged device with careful, gloved hands. The metal is warm and warped. There is a faint smell of smoke lingering in the air. You examine it thoroughly, turning it over and over in your hands.

"You overloaded it." You mutter, glancing up at her. She tilts her head, giving you an almost offended expression, like a curious crow staring at a shiny stone.

"Overloaded?!" She scoffed. "No, I improved it! Just... too much..." You resist the urge to roll your eyes. "Relax, gearhead. I'm a genius! I just need someone to keep up. That's where you come in."

"Give me an hour." You smile at her dramatics before turning back to the device. "It's not unsalvageable." She raises an eyebrow; a sharp and disapproving look on her face.

"An hour? Are you that slow? I heard you were supposed good at this." So, she had heard of you from somewhere. Her tone is a bit rude, but it doesn't seem to carry any real malice.

"Do you want it fixed, or do you want it fast?" You reply without missing a beat. Her laughter bounces off the walls of your dainty little shop.

"Alright, gearhead. An hour." She chuckles, headed for the door. "Don't blow up!" You don't dignify that with a response. You're already focused on disassembling the smoking pieces of the device.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Jinx returned an hour later, and then she never really left.

It started small. More gadgets needing repair and weapons she swore shouldn't be jamming. You wonder, at first, why someone like her would come to you. Surely, she could handle all these simple repairs herself. Yet, she keeps showing up, slamming the door like she owns the place and sprawling across your workshop like a cat who refuses to leave.

Her presence is overwhelming. She chatters while you work, her voice filling every quiet corner of your shop. Sometimes, she even sings. Once, she threw a wrench at you to see if you would have any reaction.

"You're so weird." She told you one day, hanging upside down from the pipe which ran across your ceiling. "You're not really scared of me. Most people are. They treat me like a ticking bomb that could go off at any second."

"I know." You mutter without looking up from your work. You feel so opposite to her. She's loud, vibrant, and always moving. You, on the other hand, are quiet. You own a little shop on the edge of Zaun, living out your days monotonously.

"Why?" She swings back and forth, like a pendulum, watching your gentle movements with her electric eyes. "Why are you not all freaked out about me?"

"I think..." You pause, considering how you want to word your thoughts. "I think you're smarter than most people give you credit for. You're a genius, Jinx. Just like you say. Sure, maybe you're a little reckless sometimes, but I've seen the things you bring me. The things you make. I doubt most people can dream up designs like yours."

She is silent. For the first time since you met the girl, there is a long stretch of silence between you two. You look up from your work, worried. You see something shift in her expression, like a crack in a mask you didn't know she was wearing. She looks vulnerable. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone.

"You like me." She smirks, pointing a finger at you as if she were accusing you of something. "You think I'm pretty and smart and you like me."

"I think you need to be more careful." You chuckle, returning to the gadget you were repairing. "Someday you may end up blowing yourself up, along with everything else."

"Maybe that's the point." She mutters under her breath, so softly that you almost don't hear it, but you do. You choose not to say anything for the meantime, turning back to your work as silence once again stretches between you.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Over time, you became her calm. You don't know when it happened, or why. Jinx storms in and out of your life like a hurricane. Yet, you are fond of those rare, quiet moments when you get to see glimpses of something softer. Something she doesn't show to anyone else.

One night, she sits on the floor of your workshop, surrounded by blueprints and half-finished creations. For once, you have nothing to do but keep her company. You watch her tinker with a clockwork bomb, trusting that she won't blow you both to pieces.

"You really think I'm smart?" She asks suddenly. You take a deep breath in, leaning back in your uncomfortable wooden chair.

"I do. Of course I do. I wouldn't lie about that. I wouldn't lie to you at all, Jinx." You say calmly. She doesn't respond right away. Instead, she picks at a smear of grease on her palm. Her expression is impossible to read.

"Everyone else thinks I'm just crazy." She whispers, looking up at you. There's no teasing in her eyes. No crooked grin. She doesn't feel like an insane criminal. Just a girl who doesn't know how to take a compliment. "You're weird."

"And you're a genius. Don't forget that." You smile. She says nothing else, but you can see the soft smile on her lips. The real smile. You wish you could stay that moment, where the chaos feels a little quieter.

[thedeskofaltoclef]

How I became The Desk of Alto Clef.

My response to a SCP Group designed around Hate and Bigotry who have targeted me and others in this community.

Nah, man, my daughter is dead.

It has been brought to my attention that there is a group of people on the internet who are fascinated with my fascination of Alto Clef and Meri. Hurtful and yet cute in a way so I think now I'll choose this time and these screen grabs from their discord to explain how I came to be 'The Desk of Alto Clef'.

My Daughter died six years ago and it sent me spiraling deep into the bottom of whatever bottle I could find.

I was completely prepared to take my own life and even had the things to 'finish the job' because my life had no meaning at that point. What was another statistic going to matter anyways, right?

It was in one of these dark, drunk moments with a gun when I fell across the Volgun's video on 'reality benders and you' and fell into a rabbit hole.

Drunkenly I fumbled around the wiki and learned more about this broken man known as Alto Clef.

A man whom I could relate to in my own way. A man who, no matter what he did, could never see his daughter as I will never be able to see mine. So thus, I became a very, very shitty cosplayer.

I like to believe that over the past four years my acting ability has increased to a sustainable level and as much as I joke about things I do try to stay humble about it. Though I like to think I've become better but I digress.

I love the lore of Clef and Meri, on or offsite, to the point that I am weird about it I know, but that's how I stay connected to my daughter. Writing the Deskverse is how I stay connected to my daughter.

I am also autistic which causes me to hyper fixate on Clef as a coping mechanism.

Because of this group of people I have greatly considered leaving the community and going back to my own personal solitude. Acting, Voice Acting, Cosplaying as Clef gave and still gives me something to live for again. I may not be this group's cup of tea but I do like to believe that I have helped others. My main goal has always been to uplift those who need uplifting. I do not want anyone to ever feel how I felt in my lowest and darkest moments.

The main story in the deskverse is about a father and a daughter torn apart by the actions of an abusive mother. My real life story.

I also have ZERO clue as to why I am being involved with misogyny or yuri things. If I have offended you in any way I do apologize.

I do not plan on posting the more 'suggestive' or 'lewd' responses they have made. Overly sexualized content does make me extremely uncomfortable.

This group of people have broken my heart into pieces. Seeing this list of images and names dragging me through the mud has already smashed my unstable self-esteem as it is.

At this time I do not plan on releasing any names associated with all of this because I am honestly tired of reliving the most horrid event of my life over and over because I, for whatever reason, do not fit what this group feels is acceptable of an actor/writer/fan.

I cannot say the same for the others in which they were assaulting.

In summary Alto Clef is an outlet for the pain I live with every day. I can never see, hold, hear, smell, or speak to my daughter. I have scars on my body from her mother that will never allow me to forget that life I had. I will always remember the taste of gunpowder but thankfully my drunk ass was too weak. If your going to be bad at something, be bad at that I suppose.

I will leave all of this with a final image from the copious list and the one that honestly hurts me the most. I am honestly a shy and reserved person and frankly it takes a lot for me to get out of my comfort zone. Not long ago I went to another SCP discord server because I wanted to meet new people and someone in there was awesome. I truly enjoyed my time with this person and just found them amazing. They were kind, open, willing to listen to my ideas, and gushed over Numberonedoggo. I thought I had finally made a new friend on my own. I was apparently wrong.

Art, from some of my favorite artists, was made for the sole reason of mocking me specifically. To laugh at me for finding joy in something that gives me purpose. Something I use to drive away the darkness.

No age, disorder, illness, or reason at all can be acceptable for anyone to act in this way. You are all a mockery of everything the SCP community should stand for.

-TheDesk

[boysbeware2]

all the old tptm girl journal entries w the new (if anyone wants to see them again and compare them)

please proceed with caution as many of these could be upsetting to read

disposable girl (jordyn)

(old)

i cant fucking stand this. i try so goddamn hard to make friends, to be attractive to people, to be even somewhat appealing to them etc etc. it never works. i thought it would get better the older i get. thats what i was told. guess what! i was fucking lied to!!! im alwasy left out of EVERYTHING i never get invited to shit and my own friends ignore me all the time. everyone looks at me weird. i cant go in public anymore im so fucking terrified of everyone. nobody fuckinf wants me, man. im so close to doing something stupid i feel so gross and ugly and dumb i should actually just die id be doing everyone a favor LOL

(new)

man, i havent been on here in forever. the internet is kind of dumb. what is there to say? my friend group celebrated our outpatient graduation anniversary the other day, that was pretty nice. we’re all trying to figure out housing stuff, nora’s been helping with that. freyja + mayra + kairi found a place already (how are they so responsible??) and the rest of us are trying to find places near them so we can visit more often. i never expected to have such a big group of friends. if you told me 2 years ago that i’d be living like this, i wouldn’t believe you. it’s still surreal to me. i’m not sure what i did to deserve them. same goes for my girlfriends. i don’t wanna say who just yet, we’re still figuring things out, but i’m just so thankful for them. i feel so lucky to have a second chance at life. i really didn’t believe people when they said it would get better, and then it did. how funny…..

irreverent girl (kairi)

(old)

I do not want God to see me anymore. I do not want anymore eyes on me. This is near unbearable. I have no one to turn to. My mother is in the church. Many of my friends are in the church. They would tell me to find hope through Christ. They would tell me to pray to Him. They would tell me that He will save me. He must not remember He made me, and if He does, He simply does not care. I know this is unbecoming of me, and I don't mean to be dramatic. I am simply depressed, nervous, and I cannot tell what's real and what isn't anymore. I know I'm supposed to hear God speaking to me, but I do not, and I am tired of straining my ears. I just want to see a doctor. I want some kind of tangible solution. I do not want to pray anymore. Praying hurts. I only do it when I am afraid, but I am afraid much of the time. I don't want to be unheard anymore. I do not want to hold out hope for someone who does not act like they're there. I am hurting. I am hurting. I am hurting. Belief is hurting me. The idea of God is hurting me. I need an out. I am hurting.

(new)

When I have a job and money and I can move away from my shitty Mormon parents

splitter girl (tahira)

(old)

theres something so broken in me thats beyond saving. so i dont know why i keep trying to be saved. i meant to kill myself when i was 18. i didnt. all ive wanted to do lately is kill someone or something. i havent. im too much of a pussy to plan anything concrete, no matter how much i hate everyone around me. no matter how much i get off to videos of people dying or how much i love cutting myself i cant actually take action against other people. i am fucking purposeless. i was born from evil and i will always be evil and i cant even live up to that. i hate myself i hate myself i HATE myself and the universe hates me too. i dont know what to fucking do at this point. i talked to one of my friends about wantingto die and they said smthn about hospitalizing myself. maybe. i dunno. i dont know what else there is for me/. my eyes are fucking burning from lookign at my computer for so long adn not getting any goddamn sleep. i am not a good person. i dont think i can be helped but i just dont wanna fucking keep goign to school and being around people and pretending like everything is norma;l. i cant keep doing it. what the fuck is wrong with me whagt happened. why cant i be loved or feel love for other people when did something change in me that switched the aggression and affection parts of my brain. im hyperventilating ill be back. maybe

(new)

getting myself onigiri from this one good boba place 2nite bc im 8 months clean…… its the little things~ ^^

fainéant girl (freyja)

(old)

i know i dont hate being disabled... i just hate being disabled in a society that makes existing difficult... but sometimes i really just dont want to be disabled anymore. i dont want my family to lecture me about how i could be helping out more, or how i should get a job. i dont want teachers to keep asking me whats wrong or the fuckin uni counselor to try to get me hospitalized. i dont want to be in so much pain anymore, to feel so exhausted that i cant even do so much as prepare food for myself, let alone do anything meaningful or fulfilling. its not fair. i shouldnt have to stay inside and sit in the dark all day,. i should be able to have friends. to talk to people and to go out with them and to feel like i am alive. its lonely and traumatic to suffer through this and on top of that no one around me understands, and they never fully will. i am tired of trying to justify my existence to everyone, to explain the pain that i am in and why i shouldnt have to experience it. i know the problem isnt me. i know i live in a world that isnt built for me. but if the world cant change then sometimes i truly feel that i should just stop living in it. my lifespan is already shorter than everyone else's anyways. what difference does it make

(new)

my qpps didnt seem to appreciate me playing Alien Kids Alien Rap for them. Do they even love me

caliber girl (nora)

(old)

唉～It is 3 AM and I should go to sleep but I can’t. I have a work zoom meeting early in the morning and I gotta hit the gym also because I haven’t done leg day in like… weeks. Oh well, it doesn’t even matter. My value is depleting but I don’t think I care anymore. The turnaround date for my code is also in a couple of days and I haven’t made any progress. I keep getting the same error and I’m too tired to figure out what’s wrong. I might get fired at this rate LOL(笑). If that happens, I think I’ll just consider ending it all. Not that anybody will miss me. God I sound so weak and pathetic right now. When did it get like this. How did it get like this. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse before and this is nothing. Ugh, why is it so hard to breathe? My chest hurts and I feel like something is wrong but I don’t know how to make it go away. Should I call someone about this? No. No one is awake or around to help. I’ll be fine. I’ll just sleep it off. Shake it off… shake it off…

(new)

My Tamagotchi beeped during a meeting fml

chocolate box girl (morgan)

(old)

i thought i was doing better but i cant stop thinking about them. their touch, their interests, their smile, everything. the worst part is that i miss them, after all of what they've done to me. i was 13. i dont even feel justified calling it rape since our relationship was so muddy... they never yelled at me or was angry at me, they just got so sad when i tried to speak my mind, and got all my friends to hate me when we finally broke up. i never said no so i feel like im insulting actual survivors by feeling violated. i wasnt even trying to get into a relationship with them, it just happened... i feel like everyone around me wants me in the same way they did, even though im an adult now and i dont even try to make myself appealing. i wish i could trust people not to take advantage of me, and i feel disgusting and selfish for feeling like everyone has ulterior motives of getting me to fall in love with them, or worse. that's so self centered of me. i dont know how long i can keep doing this

(new)

girl help i cant stop looking at anime figures on japan yahoo auctions !!!!!

taxidermy girl (mayra)

(old)

I don't remember ever not having a sex drive, is that normal ? I was born and then it was all downhill from there, something happened to me sexually i think, I don't know what happened, because I don't remember much, but something happened and I was beaten for it and yelled at and my mother hated me, and now I am an adult and I try to have sex, and I'm not there mentally, even if my body is participating, I feel like I am in the past again, being beaten and yelled at . I want to keep trying, I want to have fun, to feel safe in someone else's arms, to reach the heights of pleasure, but my mind scares me so much, I haven't been able to eat anything today because I feel so horrified by my body . If I was good I would have been born as a nonsexual being, no parts, no desires, no instincts, a blank slate, too empty to be enjoyed . Do you know what it feels like, to have your mother tell you people want to sexually abuse you when you are a child, and then to be made fun of by your peers for being so ugly, to have your middle school and high school classmates joke about how much they don't want to have sex with you ? I am illicit and undesirable at the same time, I am everyone's last option, I am nothing and still too much, rotting deer meat on the side of the road . I wish I had been born as something beautiful and pure, I wish I could start over, that whatever that initial sin was had never been committed .. I want to start over

(new)

Went to a kink event the other night and everyone was so nice … The low lights were fucking with my vision so one of the hosts helped me navigate the place . I ❤️ you random disabled ally with a pup mask on

chemical girl (joy)

(old)

LMAOOOOO im too angry and miserable to be around. i think i just need to give up at this point because theres clearly like. something broken inside me that cant be fixed. that has 2 be it because i try to talk and i just sound cold, i try to make a joke and it comes out overly edgy and unfunny, i try to be like everyone else but its too much. i cant even be a collection of the positive traits i see in others, i try to replicate it and it comes out warped and wrong. im either fucking enraged or in abject misery or way too happy and nobody can keep up with me. the thing is i dont even blame them. i wouldnt want to be around me either. do u know what thats like? being someone you wouldnt want to know? i keep hoping that one day ill wake up and suddenly be normal, the mood swings will be gone and everyone will like me and i wont do stupid shit that pisses them off. but i know that day isnt coming. theres no hope for me and i want to say sorry to everyone who has ever had the misfortune of knowing me but i know it wouldnt do anything. theres nothing i could ever do to make myself right

(new)

i need to convince my gf to take me to Round One again soon

refraction girl (nataana)

(old)

i don't want to do this anymore. i'm going somewhere better

(new)

talked with my psych and i’ll be starting TMS soon, it’s some thing where they put magnets to ur brain and it’s supposed to treat depression.. trying to temper my expectations bc i’ve tried so many treatments that just do nothing for me, but i’d be lying if i said my hopes weren’t riding on this. i want to confidently say i’m glad to be alive. i feel like i’m getting closer to that

nurse parallel/machine girl (xiomara)

(old)

I am so excited... Tomorrow my experimental outpatient treatment plan begins!!! I'm beyond delighted. I have complicated feelings about my DID being in remission, but it's nice to feel stable enough to be in charge of something this big, and to not have terrible gaps in my memory anymore. I still don't remember everything that happened to me, but maybe I don't need to. At this stage of my life, I feel content. I can confidently say everything was worth it. I want to help others feel that way, too. I think I can.

(new)

I’m meeting up with a new friend tomorrow… I feel nervous, but it’s a good nervousness, I think!

[lululuzzz08]

I STAND by this (btw i wrote this 23 military time so it might be messy and a bit crazy, i don’t have sources but.. most of the proof i got has been talked about on Tumblr, i’m not someone who thinks about this stuff without some sort of base. Unless it’s something i really wanna think about.)

I love Snape, he’s so intriguing and the only character i can properly relate to. I get what it feels to make bad choices that other people never forget. I feel like Snape is the perfect morally grey character that all us 2 thousand mistakes losers can relate to.

I hate how the marauder fandom hate Snape cause he’s mean to children and is “ugly”.. Like my guy is literally a rockstar with how he’s described!! HES NEVER EVEN CALLED UGLY. And then these curtain lovers (yes that was a Stranger things ref, link at bottom) Stan and bow down to characters with half a page of info! Don’t get me wrong, i love Eileen Prince (which i don’t see enough of) and Regulus black, all of that sort. But come on man… Barty jr is not an angel compared to Snape! Thats a canon fact, he’s a cold blooded murderer. Snape feels remorse! For Lily OR not, it wouldn’t matter cause the same was with Regulus. He betrayed Tom for his house elf, not muggleborns. Snape betrayed for his MUGGLEBORN childhood friend. Pretty similar huh?

Just because Snape is weird and had unrequited feelings who he never forgot doesn’t mean he’s a creep?? Also saying Snape would touch Harry like THAT if he looked like his mother is HELLA icky. Don’t take traumatized characters with flaws and make them worse. People who have been in Snape’s situation will feel like shit. If i hear one more person saying that crap I’m gonna go insane. Because it connects to a much worse problem in real life. Curtain lovers (i cant find a better name, its just so broad) have always blamed the “Losers” for unordinary or bad situations, stuff that doesn’t fit well. Or stuff the Curtain lovers messed up on. An example would be the past belief that witches lived among us. Now, i don’t want to bring real life situations into this, but hey, at least I’m not saying that Death eaters ARE the Nazi’s…

“Witches” consisted of people the curtain loving in command people (i would say government but idk if it was called that back then, oh well. I’ll just say curtain lovers) found a threat. People that were out of the ordinary. People that thought differently, that were WEIRD and easy to miss-understand. The curtain lovers would blame misfortunes on witches. Uncle Sam’s crops died? Sweetie call the priest cause it’s another darn witch! Oh I’m sorry Rebecca? You like books? As a woman?? I need to call the priest you filthy witch!

I know this might be a bit too deep for some god darn children books but saying Snape would SA Lily is such a dirty way to say you hate a character that you don’t even try to understand. It really dives into what type of person you are.

Also, hating Snape for being weird is SOO hypocritical. I mean, have you seen the other Harry Potter fans? Eughh.. I don’t even wanna think about the Tom Felton fans 🤢. That poor guy.

My point is that undermining a character is the least diverse thing you could do.

And the thing og blog said about Snape looking Jewish really adds to it. People really pick and take favorites. Leaving others to rot.

Hope you like this text. I might make a more proper argument in the future, its too darn late rn.

Marauders fans just be having double standards on the point they proud themselves the most on: Diversity

They be like "let's make James brown" (ik that it's in the whole fandom in general but ykwim) and reject the Jewish-looking guy

They be like "let's make Lily obese" and reject the underweight guy

They be like "let's make Regulus abused" and reject the canonically abused guy

They be like "let's make Regulus get groomed into joining the DEs" and reject the canonically groomed guy

They be like "let's make Barty's actions look right by saying it was for love" and reject the guy who did everything for the girl he loved (platonically or not)

Double standards, double standards everywhere.

Diversity only exists if Snape is not involved

[bossuary]

Neve is painless. Rook is real.

Lucanis likes Neve because she represents what he is desperate to regain. He wants to feel normal, to work and cook and focus on the things he used to enjoy (such as they were) before the Ossuary. He wants capital R Romance, right out of a book.

Most importantly, he wants to get rid of Spite. He wants to pretend that he is the man he was...not this abomination.

Without truly knowing her, Lucanis believes Neve is a pathway to all of that. He's attracted to her, and she to him. Their flirting has an edge, but it's also friendly. She dislikes Spite, and her presence makes Spite disappear.

Neve will tell Lucanis that he's still himself, and that Spite doesn't change that. She will never be the one to reconcile Lucanis with Spite, to get them to accept each other. So, yeah, he gravitates to the charming, flirty, warm person who (through no fault of her own, really) feeds his desire to pretend he's not an abomination.

Even early on, I think he's smart enough to know that accepting Spite is his only option, but he...just... can't. With what tools? Nothing in his life has prepared him to deal with this. Rook does that. When denial tears Lucanis apart, Rook puts him back together with acceptance. Rook accepts the reality of Spite, and deals with it head-on every time.

Neve will remind Lucanis that she's not going anywhere. She'll tell him to open his eyes and look at facts, but she (probably) won't be the one to push him out of his own prison. Lucanis knows this, so Spite knows this, and therefore Spite will not look to Neve for help.

It's important for Lucanis to accept that Spite has changed him. But when it's Rook who says it--for whom Lucanis has developed real feelings, not idealized ones--well, it destroys the fantasy Lucanis clings to so vehemently, the one where he isn't this.

For me, the Lucanis/Rook romance feels the way it does NOT because the writers "preferred" that Lucanis and Neve get together, but because Neve is simply easier for Lucanis to accept. She's easier to talk to, unchallenging. Easy isn't bad! Comfort isn't bad! God knows they both deserve some comfort.

Loving Rook is a profoundly complex choice. There's not a lot of cute ways to work that profundity into sexy banter. It makes sense, then, that Lucanis doesn't have as much dialogue for a romanced Rook as he does with Neve. What he can do is cook, make small gestures. He can, heartbreakingly, tell Rook, over and over, that he doesn't have the words to express how he feels. That's such an awful state, knowing that the person you care about needs to hear words you simply cannot locate. As soon as he does have the words, he shares them.

Rook is real. And real is not easy.

To Lucanis, Rook represents a difficult path to recovery, a path he has to keep choosing to follow, every day. At a time in his life where he is incapable of seeing Spite (and his own PTSD ) as anything but a 'distraction' to shove aside, Rook shows genuine interest in helping Lucanis heal. Rook takes consistent action toward that goal, particularly when it's clear that Lucanis doesn't know how.

Lucanis also has to believe that he's worth the effort, his own and his love's. Neve is great, love her, but I don't see this struggling cynic, this chronic worrier, being very helpful in the self-worth department. No, people in a relationship do not have to perform therapeutic roles. But, partners do have to respect each others' boundaries and needs.

Of course Lucanis goes all-in for Neve, romantically, even while he and Rook are dancing around each other. Accepting how much he loves and cares for Rook means looking at himself the way Rook does. That is so much harder than whatever will happen with Neve.

The fact that Lucanis isn't afraid to pursue Neve, even if Treviso is blighted, tells me that Neve is an indulgence for him. Again, that's not a value judgement. If they treat each other with respect, then the merits of the relationship don't have to fall on whether Lucanis 'heals' as a result. Sometimes not hurting all the time is enough.

BUT. Contrast the ease he feels with Neve with his feelings about Rook:

"When I was afraid to want you..."

That is a powerful admission.

What was he afraid of? The annihilation of neglect, worthlessness, and shame. The awful but knowable pillars of his existence.

Wanting Rook means that Lucanis wants to dismantle everything he knows in pursuit of something he doesn't. To love Rook is to love and accept himself, exactly as he is.

Then...then...Lucanis finds real comfort.

[cripplecharacters]

Is it fine to write a Deaf character who received a cochlear implant in early childhood if I use it as a plot device for their eventual integration into Deaf culture? I would make it so that the implant fails and they reject any and all further attempts to integrate them into mainstream society with audism.

Hi!

It is fine to make a character who uses hearing aids or CI, full stop. And it is fine for those devices to work in some capacity. That is the lived experience of many d/Deaf individuals. You don't need to justify the character's aids or "offset" it somehow by having them not work.

Hearing assistive devices are not cures and do not make people magically hearing. But just the same, hearing assistive devices not working (or someone not using them) doesn't extra-validate their Deaf identity.

The Deaf pushback against CI (and hearing assistive devices in general) is that hearing parents often treat them as "cures" for their child's deafness and provide no other aids, or only provide support for their child to pass as hearing rather than giving the best access to information. Additionally, CI is an invasive surgery and can be dangerous, though it usually isn't.

There are plenty of Deaf people who use and like their CI or hearing aids. There are plenty who don't. It's such a broad community with so many different lived experiences. You don't need to feel like you must write a d/Deaf character one specific way. The guidelines we give here are to avoid inaccuracies, and things we'd like to see more of.

One thing I would love to see is someone who has CI or hearing aids and uses them when they want but has also had access to Deaf community and sign language from a young age. I know many people like that in real life and yet that's not representation I've ever seen in a story.

Your character's CI doesn't have to be a plot device. It can just be an aspect of their character. Have them involved in the Deaf community, absolutely! But you don't need to "make up for" a Deaf character who uses CI in any way, because hearing assistive devices and Deaf community are not antithetical.

Mod Rock

[exhelluvafan]

As someone who’s dad cheated on their mom multiple tomes and even was out making out with other women while my mom was birthing me all alone in the hospital, I fucking hate how the fandom is villainizing Octavia rn. I’ve seen people say she deserves to be physically abused by Stella just for telling her dad off and it makes me sick. This is how people are treating teens who are tired of their parents’ lies and tired of being hurt by them? Honestly, disgusting. I hope nobody in similar situations gets treated like this, its so dehumanizing. Just like in real life, I get told its somehow my fault my dad went off and cheated, or that I should still keep in contact with him despite the fact he was never there for me. Disgusting. Disappointed.

First of all, I'm so sorry to hear all that, Anon, I hope you're doing just fine as of today and managed to get away from that piece of shit.

Now, I'm sadly going to admit that I, along with almost all the critical community, surely was seeing this hate coming, ever since the Octavia song and Sinsmas's section featuring Octavia and Stolas got leaked, we KNEW that the standom would explode, but despite that and no matter how mentally ready I got for it, it was still a blow because I wasn't expecting people to actually fall that low, but it seems that having any expectations of decency over this fandom is a waste of time and energy in the end.

Still, if you need any advice, Anon... Run, run away from that fandom, these shows and Viv, block any stans and fans who are unapologetically victimblaming Octavia, don't tolerate their bullshit and cut the problem straight from the root, because this shit can genuinely get triggering if you are exposed to it for too long and these people clearly won't change or apologize for saying that shit, so please, feel free to curate your feed and block all those sheltered idiots with horrible takes, because this won't get any better since Viv will keep feeding her toxic fandom to stay in their worst behaviors, so please do not look back and do not feel bad for blocking any of those dumbasses.

[wat3rm370n]

Jay Bhattacharya is anti-vax.

He's anti-vax for the same reason that Florida Man Ron Desantis is anti-vax even without Joe Ladapo.

https://wat3rm370n.tumblr.com/post/768897389699432448/florida-man-is-anti-vax

Being anti-mandate is anti-vax because vaccination is a community level public health measure. High uptake is what stems transmission. It’s how vaccines work best for everyone. So being against vaccine mandates is anti-vax. Being pro "natural infection" is also anti-vax.

Jay Bhattacharya AND Marty Makary also cavort with all sorts of anti-vaxxers, and someone pro-vax would not do that. If pushed, these people will go with the anti-vaxxers, because they already have, after all.

https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/trucker-convoy-adjacent-symposium

They all seem to be funded by the same big money too. All connected to fossil fuel at the heart of everything on the right and the money could explain a lot of that.

https://heated.world/p/ai-is-guzzling-gas

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ifcx5e6vwjvy2oqoynshleqv/post/3ldppcl2gpc2k

The connections are truly dizzying, and I've spent way way too much time connecting these dots, and most people do not want to hear it.

https://medium.com/@watermelonpunch.com/lefty-zine-promoting-right-wing-pseudoscience-protocols-of-an-expensive-concierge-clinic-f73b758dbbff

https://medium.com/@watermelonpunch.com/vaughn-what-team-is-he-actually-on-c4df1a3a8ae8

Generally eugenics is also anti-vax, because of pseudoscience fantasies about "evolution".

https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/eugenics-as-an-ideology

The pain point here is that there are MANY Republican politicians and conservative voters who want vaccines and do not buy into anti-vax nonsense and want protection for themselves and their family.

Some of these pro-vaccination conservatives live in my neighborhood in Scranton Pennsylvania in fact. I remember many loud conversations in my neighborhood over hedges back in 2021, in fact. The average Republican who voted for Trump didn't vote to get rid of vaccines, they're not even paying attention to that extremely online crap. They just thought none of it mattered anymore because they're steeped in pro-biz disinfo and didn't think more broadly than "covid is no big deal anymore" (not realizing that it's partly because of vaccines that most Americans got initially but which wane in effectiveness over months and certainly years, and also partly because the entire political spectrum decided grandma had to be sacrificed to the false god The Economy, to appease violent anti-maskers, or at least in order to justify Fridays at the packed nightclub).

https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/journalist-trusts-right-wing-covid-denial

But one of the biggest problems is that the coalition is not so much a coalition of cranks, it's a coalition of high demand authoritarian groups (aka cults), many which favour eugenics ideology, and many that are anti-science unfortunately, and even worse, are run by a lot of people making money on selling quacky products linked to anti-vax disinfo. And these people are clearly ready to to sell their own snake oil.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/trump-fbi-director-kash-patel-vaccine-detox-supplements-rcna182434

MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy - Thinker-Fest: Session 1 - Fireside Chat - How to Fix the “Splinternet” Mar 3, 2023

But as they say, online is not the totality of real life.

People need to start talking about vaccine uptake with their neighbors over the hedges again. We need billboards more than we need tweets or facebook ai slop and interacting with bots on bluesky while trapped in info cocoons and echo chamber silos created by manipulative block and subscribe lists.

https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/grass-is-not-much-greener-on-blue-sky

https://www.rauhauser.net/p/blueskys-bubble-blues

https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/225469

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

There was never any question as to whether Trump would implement Project 2025, the 900-page brick of terrifying and unhinged policy prescriptions edited by the Heritage Foundation. He would not implement it, because he could not implement it. No one could. It's impossible.

This isn't a statement about constitutional limits on executive authority or the realpolitik of getting bizarre and stupid policies past judges or through a hair-thin Congressional majority. This is a statement about the incoherence of Project 2025 itself. You probably haven't read it. Few have. Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking mess that thing is:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of thier proposals have to be included in a document like this:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics – far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.

Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/

The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/

However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. Marty Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). Jay Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines (he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). Then there's Janette Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. That's how he won the 2024 election. But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

The Trump coalition is a coalition of *cranks*. I'm using "crank" here in a technical, non-pejorative sense. I am a crank, after all. A crank is someone who is overwhelmingly passionate about a single issue, whose uncrossable bright lines are not broadly shared. Cranks can be right or they can be wrong, but we're hard to be in coalition with, because we are uncompromisingly passionate about things that other people largely don't even notice, let alone care about. You can be a crank whose single issue is eliminating water fluoridation, even though this is very, very stupid and dangerous:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-fluoride-debate

Or you can be a crank about digital rights, a subject that, for decades, was viewed as by turns either unserious or as a sneaky way of shilling for Big Tech (thankfully, that's changing):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Cranks make hard coalition partners. Trump's cranks are cranked up about different things - vaccines, culture war trans panics, eugenics - and are total normies about other things. The eugenicist MD/economist who wants to "let 'er rip" rather than engage in nonpharmaceutical pandemic interventions is gonna be horrified by total abortion bans and antivax. These cranks are on a collision course with one another.

This is on prominent display in these public health appointments, and we're very likely about to get a test of the cohesiveness and capability of the second Trump administration, thanks to bird flu. Now that bird flu has infected humans in multiple US states, there is every chance that we will have to confront a public health emergency in the coming weeks. If that happens, the Trump public health divisions over masking, quarantine and (especially) vaccines (Kennedy called the covid vaccine the "deadliest" ever made, without any evidence) will become the most important issue in the country, under constant and pitiless scrutiny, and criticism.

Trump's public health shambles is by no means unique. The lesson of Project 2025 is that the entire Trump project is one factional squabble away from collapse at all times.

[legendary-69420]

☆o( "He Should Slow Down 🥺" — The F1 Driver Group Chat Chronicles )o☆ Genre: Fluff, Humor, Friendship, Lighthearted F1 Fanfic Warnings: none I guess

a/n : This is part 6 of the series (You can also read it without reading any previous part). This is not the part of my story racing hearts but is another AU for my character. Hope you enjoy it. _________________________________________________ (for context Mark has starred in a short film where he has played the part of a menacing psycho killer)

🏎️ Group Chat Name: "I Can't Lose Him 😭😭😭" 🏎️

[10:00 AM]

Lando: OKAY. I’M SAYING IT. THIS IS UNFAIR. Yuki: Nah bc HOW did he do that. Carlos: This man is a menace. Max: “This man has unreal power.” Oscar: I’m watching it again. Lando: SAME. Carlos: SAME. Yuki: 6th rewatch, let’s go. Max: I can’t believe that’s MARK. OUR MARK. Lando: OUR????? Yuki: YOUR?????? Max: I MEANT THAT AS A GROUP THING. Carlos: He’s not YOURS, bro.

[10:10 AM]

Oscar: But nah, let's be real. Oscar: That solo shot of him… Carlos: OH WE SAW. Yuki: 👀 Lando: 🔥🔥🔥 Max: I HAD TO PAUSE. Carlos: THE HAIR FLIP. THE MENACING CHUCKLE. THE LOOK IN HIS EYES. Oscar: Why did he lowkey look like he enjoyed being unhinged. Max: Not “lowkey.” He 100% enjoyed it. Yuki: That shirtless scene?? Nah, that scene changed me. Oscar: The world has been permanently altered. Carlos: THIS MAN TURNED GAY WOMEN STRAIGHT AND STRAIGHT MEN GAY. Max: 📢📢📢 Lando: I just know my For You Page is COOKED for the next 3 months. Yuki: Thirst edits incoming. I can feel it.

[10:15 AM]

Lando: MARK. Mark: What. Yuki: EXPLAIN. Carlos: NAH. DROP THE EXPLANATION RN. Max: HOW DARE YOU. Oscar: HOW LONG DID YOU KEEP THIS A SECRET?? Mark: Y’all acting weird again 💀 Lando: OH WE’RE THE WEIRD ONES??? Yuki: YOU'RE A PSYCHO IN THE FILM AND IN REAL LIFE. Max: THE HAIR FLIP, MARK. THE. HAIR. FLIP. Mark: 😂😂😂 Carlos: I HOPE YOU’RE LAUGHING IN HD CAUSE WE ARE NOT. Yuki: Liar. I’m watching it again.

[10:20 AM]

Charles: … Lando: oh. Carlos: OH. Yuki: he’s here. Max: Look who finally decided to join us. Oscar: What’s up, Charles. Carlos: Charles, did you watch it? Charles: ... Charles: No. Lando: LMAO. LIE AGAIN. Max: BRO’S IN HERE QUIETLY STARING AT HIS SCREEN. Oscar: I bet he’s on the spicy scene rn. Lando: THE SPICY SCENE. I KNOW IT. Carlos: Charles, you need help. Charles: I'M NOT WATCHING IT. Yuki: I CAN HEAR THE SCENE PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND. Mark: Charles, you good? Charles: SHUT UP. Mark: ?? Lando: Bro is FUMING 💀💀💀 Oscar: Man is REWATCHING IT RN AND WE KNOW IT.

[10:30 AM]

Max: “Mark you trying to steal my girl?” Carlos: “Mark you trying to steal MY man?” Yuki: Mark, you trying to steal EVERYONE?? Oscar: Stealing hearts like it’s a hobby. Lando: Nah, Mark woke up and chose violence. Charles: Y’all are so ANNOYING. Lando: OH, WE'RE ANNOYING?? Carlos: Bro, you’ve been on the same 20-second scene for an hour. Max: Every time I refresh my feed, IT’S THE SPICY SCENE. Oscar: IT'S EVERYWHERE. Yuki: Every edit is just that one shot. Carlos: We lost him. He’s gone. Mark: Lost who? Lando: Charles. Yuki: Gone forever. Oscar: Charles Leclerc, 1997-2024, cause of death: thirst trap edits. Max: Rest in peace, king. Charles: BLOCK ME. Mark: Bro, what did I even do?? 💀💀💀

🏎️ Race Day — Post-Race Chaos

[3:00 PM]

Yuki: P3 FOR MARK LET’S GOOO Lando: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Oscar: YOU DID THAT. Max: Look at him. Podium prince. Carlos: Rookie where??? I don’t see one. Lando: BUT WHERE IS HE GOING LMAO. Carlos: BRO JUST FINISHED THE RACE AND SPRINTED AWAY. Yuki: THE MAN DIDN’T EVEN CELEBRATE. Oscar: LITERALLY WENT “GG” AND LEFT. Max: He’s running like the cops are after him. Lando: IM CRYING HE’S TAKING OFF HIS RACE SUIT WHILE WALKING. Yuki: SHIRTLESS MARK RETURNS. Carlos: THE PEOPLE ARE GONNA EAT THIS UP. Max: Nah, bro is smooth with it. Unzipped, tossed his top, and kept moving. Charles: WHERE IS HE GOING. Carlos: TO HIS MOVIE PROMOTION, OBVIOUSLY. Yuki: HE JUST GOT P3 AND NOW HE’S DOING PRESS FOR A MOVIE. Max: "This man never rests." Oscar: "Booked and busy." Lando: MOVIE STAR LIFESTYLE. Carlos: He’s literally switching between “F1 Star” and “Hollywood Star” in 3 minutes. Yuki: Dual threat. Oscar: Name one man smoother than this. Max: I’ll wait. Charles: He should slow down. Lando: AWWWWWWWWWW. Carlos: NAH. Max: THE CONCERN. Yuki: 🥺🥺🥺 Oscar: Let’s frame that. “He should slow down.” Lando: Charles, you’re so soft for him. Charles: SHUT UP.

[3:30 PM]

Mark: What did I miss? Lando: BRO, YOU JUST DID A SPEEDRUN OF "MOST SUCCESSFUL PERSON ALIVE." Carlos: RACE FINISH, MOVIE PROMOTION, AND A THOUSAND THIRST TRAPS. Yuki: Multi-tasking at its finest. Oscar: HOW DO YOU DO IT. Max: Are you secretly five people? Lando: THE SHIRTLESS WALK. THE SMOOTHNESS. THE MOVIE PROMO. WHAT ARE YOU MADE OF. Charles: He should slow down. Mark: What. Lando: HAHAHAHAHAHA. Carlos: GOT HIM. Max: BUSTED. Yuki: "He should slow down" you’re so in love, bro. Mark: 😳 Charles: STOP TALKING.

[4:00 PM]

Carlos: Anyway. Yuki: Anyway. Oscar: Anyways. Max: "He should slow down" will live rent-free in my head forever. Lando: Making it the new chat name, give me a second. 🏎️ Group Chat Name Changed to: "He Should Slow Down 🥺" 🏎️ Charles: I’m leaving this chat. Yuki: You’ll be back. Mark: Always are. Carlos: GOT ‘EM. Oscar: ETERNAL.

______________________________________________________________ (If you want to know more about Mark...you can read it here in my story Racing hearts)

[mashpotatoequeen]

!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are so right!!!! I noticed the eyes and how it really characterised all the kids in a lovely way, but I didn't have the words for it until you explained it and WOW that's so obvious now. Of course. Of course!!! Eyes are the windows to the soul, after all. :D

I love when artists and writers get inspiration from people they know in real life. I use that trick too! Sometimes when I meet people I imagine trying to introduce them as a character in a book and what details I would include! I really really love how your Reynie looks. He's adorable and grown up and young in a perfect balance. And I love your thoughts about colour, especially in regards to Sticky and how deep blue represents vastness, like his knowledge!

I love how you show ages, too. Constance DOES look younger than everyone, and the shape of her face and that wispy bonde really does help with that. As someone who's worked with toddlers, I definitely recognise that hair type! And Kate absolutely looks a little older, and I love how you see her as a wise old soul. She's got a lot going on!!!

This is so lovely. I'm one of those people who marathons the behind the scenes features for Lord of The Rings trilogy, so you KNOW that I love hearing and learning about how people make their stuff the way they do! The why determines the how, and the amount of thought you've put into it is so awesome and interesting!!! Thank you SO much for taking the time to share, and if you want to talk about the different steps I will also listen with wide eyes because I am a writer foremost and an occasional doodler at best!

Thanks for indulging me <3 You deserve all the praise!!!

THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY!!!!!!

i’ll be posting most of my stuff chronologically so enjoy my journey

[ID copies from alt text: four headshots of the four society members: reynie is smiling calmly, his hair is sweeping left over his forehead. he is wearing a green sweater vest with a line of little sprouts on it over a button down. sticky has a nervous expression, he is fully bald. he is wearing a blue sweater over a button down. constance looks peeved and has wispy blonde hair with red hair clips. she is wearing a red coat over a yellow shirt. kate is excited and winking, her gold blonde hair is in a high ponytail. she is in a red and white striped t-shirt. all 4 have emphasized lines around them in their respective colors: reynie has green flowers, sticky has blue sweat beads, constance has red jagged lines, and kate has yellow radial lines around her. ]