#this has the energy of someone getting him diagnosed in a hospital and is really trying to be proffetinal but loses it slowely

[geronimomo-spd]

alright here we go!

Every Time the Eighth Doctor Got Hurt (in the audios) and How it (Possibly) Scarred/Mentally Effected Him from Storm Warning to and including Terror Firma

warnings for some fucked up injuries, a couple of Suicidel mentions and spoilers for most of season 1-2 of charley and 8 audios, and the divergent univerce, and terror firma, but its divided to episodes so its easiler to avoid spoilers (episodes that have their name at the top are where he got hurt, episodes that have their name at the end are ones where physically nothing is wrong but mentaly probably something happend)

1. (Storm Warning) - he cut his arm for Ramsey the Vortisaur to suck on the time, probably left a scar on his right arm! like a bite scar!!, (personal headcanon that his arm could be leaking time :) espeshelly with all of anti time stuff that comes later into play) 2. (Stones Of Venice) - got punched in the head a bunch of times, once to render him unconscious, but its all ok in the end for him because he got to drive a gondula 3. (Minuet in Hell) - …a bunch of amnesia, his mind getting transferred out of his body and him basically getting tourtured mentally for not remembering anything, then he found his missing thoughts and transferred them back into his brain, could be another couse for constent headicks and amnesia if you ask me lol 4. (Chimes of Midnight) - …ok so, he sort of died? like someone choked him to death, but he got better, he died so he can talk to charley who was on the verge of dieing herself, kinda complicated, but it sorted itself out and both Charley and him were fine, so like… possible scars along the neck from choking? (i tried not to give too many spoilers for anyone else reading this because i highly recommend this one)

5. (Seasons of Fear) - got tourterd by a dagger, not said where, but i think he got stabbed in the chest a bunch of times, and his hands, Charley cleaned the wounds and stuff, he did almost passed out after all of it, so he might have a nervousness around knifes and a bunch of scares on his chest from the stabbing, and he was in an actual killing mode because Charley got tourtured right next to him, but she was at a better state. - then he also got stabbed pretty much in the same place later on at a sword fight, almost to the point of regeneration, at least he thought he was going to, but he was ok, got mad about the holes in his shirt. he probably has a scar from it on his chest :) - creatures named the Nimon tried to suck away his energy (at least i think that's what they did), but only for a sec to show power, but it really hurt him. oh yeah and then he flew through the time vortex, he changed his mind into a Gallifreyan Lotus to avoid getting hurt, and then he falls from the sky, but he seemed to be unaffected by that. (i headcanon some particals of the time vortex have stuck to his form and now they just vibe inside of him, sometimes making his glow in the dark. man seasons of fear is such a ride, i love it)

6. ok he wants to get hurt here but never actually does, a lot of emotional hurt from seeing Charley almost losing her eyes in pain and almost destroying a whole peacefull race, but Charley knocked some sense into him that him wanting to die for this is not actually gonna save anyone - (Embrace the Darkness) - man i love this one) 7. (Neverland) - had to almost kill Charley because she saw how everything is dieng because she was alive, in the prosses admitted that he loved her, she got turned into a portal to travel to an unknown univerce and It hurt to see it, then in the end he exploded himself with A BUNCH of anti time, making him into Zagrues and slapping Charley, (mostly emotinal hurt in this one accept for the end) 8. (Zagrues 😁) - ok so… get possessed by Zagrues, realizing his can distory the univerce now and trying to fight it, then fucking Rassilon shows up and captures him, torturing him mind and soul in the prosses to make Zagrues completely take over so he can make the doctor to his personal murder weapon. Makes him watch as he burned the tardis into a crisp, and a living amalgamation of his tardis (that looks and sounds like the brigadier) tourtes him also, but its not spesefied how. Seeing the tardis dieing tips him into the edge mentaly and get zagrues take over, Rassilon is littiraly "on your knees my creature :)" really messed up stuff fhfghfgh, he once again in too much pain to live (and a danger to the entire univerce), and so asks Charley to kill him, which she does, by stabbing the sword the mind controlled doctor made out of the remines of the tardis right through his chest (ok he definitely has a scar from the sword right in his chest now that I think about it) he gets better :) through Doctors supporting each other. Which at that point the brigadier tardis (who is nice now) brings him some anti matter from the heart of the tardis. (no but this one messed him up so MUCH lol, boy wanted to die truly, pretty ruff stuff but i can say that here he got like, activly Suicidel. hfghfgh I love this one so much its not even funny, my poor baby boy)

ok Divergent Arc! (throught all of this he is in pain from not having time in this univerce so a lot of mental health problems and physically migrans):

9. (Scherzo) - ...alright so, held hands with Charley until it got transphormed to be the same hand, same body right at the end... that could be concidered an injury, constent headache from the lack of Time, also yeah his vocal chords got exposed but they were fine. Charley and him could have matching scars on the hands they held together :), he has a scar on his throat from it. Also maybe mental pain and an aversion of people repeating after him

10. Ok in this one its mostly Charley getting hurt unfortenetly, but the doctor had to go through the mental struggle of almost losing her completely to her turning into a slug monster to give birth to a lot more slug babies, they managed to find a salotion and Charley does not remember any of this happening, luckily for her, but I headcanon her to at leasy suspect something happened (Creed of the Kromon), I really hate this one, also this one is where C'rizz joins in)

11. (Natural History of fear) - ahhh I guess almost drowning? But not majorly, it was mostly being scared for Charley and C'rizz's lives, they were alright though 12. (the twighliht kingdom) - almost got absorbed completely into being part of a living building, but someone else volunteered last minute, but it did couse him a lot of pain in his brain 13. (Faith Stealer) - got smacked in the head, and almost got squished to death with Charley in a closet (ha ha) but apart from that nothing (Faith Stealer my beloved) 14. (the last) - ahhhhh definitely died from an explosion, only to come back to life, only he remembers that, Charley and C'rizz died as well, also got burred under a crushed building and got a nasty hit on the head, but it doesnt seem like the death affected him much 15. (Caerdroia) - got time sickness from being so close to the tardis after so long, fainted just because of that. Got split into 3 parts (is this an injury??? no clue), then got trapped in between a gaint bell and almost died by the shear noise and pain from that (overstimulated), but got rescued last minute, he was pretty dissociated by this point though until they found the tardis (probably did not help his "but who am i really???" thoughts, ie dissociation)

Post divergent univerce

16. almost… ended his own life hut didn't but was really traumatized by what happened to his two former companions, but managed to save the day - (Terror Firma)

and that's it! this guys needs a break (he is not gonna get one) (here it is! @laden-fruits , @violentlywaftingcurtains , @keepthemacramesecret , @zagreuses-toast , hope it was alright to tag! that would help you guys find it if and when you need it)

[necroromantics]

So it’s not Toby I headcanon with BP, it’s Jeff. And it’s kinda the reason why I feel hesitant to write him. I’ve been reading up on stuff recently about BP and how to write characters with the condition, but I was wondering if you had any tips? I don’t want to contribute to any misinformation.

ALL ABOUT BIPOLAR DISORDER + WRITING IT

Warning. This is a very very very long post. LMAO

Ok so when it comes to writing any character, you need to understand that they aren't a real person, they're a storytelling device. They don't really work on the same logic systems of reality like we do in the real world. So when you're writing a character with things like mental health issues, it's important to view it as "How does this contribute to my story" or "How does this fit into the unique logistics of my stories reality"

But in order to bend (not break) the rules when it comes to portraying mental health issues, you need to first know the rules, and then work to weaving that framework of the real world into your fictional world/character.

For example, my OC Tobin has bipolar disorder, but it doesn't really come up in the Creepedverse story cuz it just doesn't fit in as a storytelling device. In reality, throughout the story, Tobin would have at least an episode or two over the course of the year the plot takes place. An important thing to consider is how a characters mental health issues contribute to the story you wanna tell. And if it doesn't, its ok for it to just be a lil side thing you know about.

Now for actual information on Bipolar Disorder (which is shortened to BD, NOT BPD. BPD is a completely separate disorder called "borderline personality disorder", they are very different though people constantly mix them up due to terminology similarities)

There are two main types of bipolar disorder that someone may be diagnosed with, (theres also cyclothymia which is like diet bipolar with hypomania/mild depression, and schizoaffective bipolar which is like schizophrenia and bipolar mixed, but Im not getting into those today). When writing a character with BD, its very important to note how the disorder actually effects them. Remember, a disorder is something that causes a person significant dysfunction and impairment in their day to day life. It negatively impacts them in many ways such as personal distress, their relationships, job, finances, etc.

Bipolar Type 1: The requirement for being diagnosed with type 1 is the presence of an episode of extremely high energy/moods that lasts more than a week, OR ends up being so severe the person gets hospitalized. This lengthy period of high moods is called a manic episode, which Ill get into later. You only need to have experienced one manic episode to qualify for a bipolar diagnosis. Thats why you can only experience mania if you are bipolar, cuz the moment you're manic, you fit the bill for bipolar type 1. Make sense? Most, but not all, people with type 1 also experience periods of extremely low energy/moods called a depressive episode. These lows are not required for a diagnosis, but they are very prevalent. They may last weeks to months. The main thing about type 1 bipolar is the manic episodes they experience that cause them significant distress in life.

Bipolar Type 2: Type 2 is diagnosed if someone experiences a hypomanic episode that lasts more than 4 days, AND a depressive episode (not at the same time, but within the same year). Hypomania is a mild form of typical mania. If someone experiences extreme mania, they will be diagnosed with type 1, never type 2. In type 2, its the depressive episodes that cause a person the most distress, while in type 1 its the mania. Depressive episodes are typically more severe and last longer in this type, and the hypomanic episodes are typically mild and short-lived enough for a person to not even notice theres a problem there. Both hypomanic and depressive episodes are required for this diagnosis.

Now you know the two different common presentations of bipolar, but you need to understand exactly what a bipolar episode looks like. The WORST thing you can do is to misinterpret them simply as mood swings. In reality, its more like a merry-go-round where youll drop and stay down for awhile, or youll go up and stay up for awhile, or youll just relax in the middle without any ups/downs for a bit.

Manic Episodes: Manic episodes are only prevalent in type 1 bipolar. A common misconception is that you can experience mania without bipolar disorder, but that isnt true. Mania is the hallmark feature of BD, so it isnt associated or experienced with any other disorder. It isnt a symptom, its a defining feature. But what are the symptoms of a manic episode? Remember that mania is very severe, and causes significant impairment in someones life, often the person ends up hospitalized. The common symptoms are a lack of sleep (~0-2 hours), very high moods/euphoria, racing thoughts, talking very fast and often not making sense to others, and taking dangerous risks/being impulsive/irresponsible without any sense of judgement or forethought. Mania presents differently in a lot of people, but generally its like very very high energy coursing through your mind and body to the point you feel like youre zooming or gonna explode, jittery. You might laugh a bunch at nothing, act very erratic, irritable, say shocking or distasteful things cuz you cant slow down enough to even think about what youre saying. You might ruin relationships, scare people, quit your job/get fired, get into trouble with the law, drain your bank account. Psychosis is also something people may experience with mania, such as delusions (grandeur ones commonly) and hallucinations. You might feel like you're completely untouchable, overly confident, like youre the king of the world. Its like everything is moving in hyperspeed, your body, your thoughts, your mouth, and its pretty overwhelming. Very commonly, a person in a manic episode doesn't realize they're in a manic episode. They might question it, but they brush it off as "its fine, I feel good" or "this is just how I am" or "Im not manic Im just in a good mood"

Hypomanic Episodes: Hypomania is like mania in the sense that the person experiences high energy/moods. The main difference is that hypomania is mild, and not severe enough to require hospitalization or immediate psychiatric treatment. Type 1 may experience hypomanic episodes as well as manic episodes, but this is not required for that diagnosis. In type 2, hypomanic episodes are required. In a hypomanic episode, someone might suddenly be very happy and social, they may get very productive in life, optimistic, and a bit eccentric. Due to the high energy, you don't feel as if you need as much sleep to function (~3-4 hours), and you might begin to talk a lot, overshare, ramble, go on nonsensical tangents. You might get more irritable and antsy. Risky and irresponsible behaviour is common too, such as impulsive decisions without regard for consequence, carelessly spending money, high sex drive/unsafe sex, etc. Cuz hypomania isnt as extreme as typical mania, most people dont even realize when they are hypomanic, its very often brushed off by being in a good, productive mood, or that a person is simply extroverted, or energetic. Bipolar people tend to have unhealthy relationships with both manic and/or hypomanic episodes, almost glamorizing the high moods they experience, especially during depressive episodes.

Depressive Episodes: Depressive episodes are a period of extremely low energy/moods. They typically last longer than mania, ranging from weeks to months. Sometimes a short period of depressive symptoms occurs right after a manic episode called a "crash", but this doesn't necessarily mean its a depressive episode. Bipolar depression is typically regarded as a bit different from typical depression, due to the nature of the disorder. The common symptoms are hopelessness, oversleeping, fatigue/tiredness, slow thinking, lack of concentration, irritability, feeling worthless/bleak, and a loss of passion/interest in things. Its like the other side of the same spectrum as mania, with similar changes such as appetite, sleep patterns, energy levels, irritability, etc, just in different ways. Depressive episodes can cause someone to socially isolate, or experience suicidal thoughts. You might feel more emotionally sensitive, or like nothing will ever get better. Its like suddenly a filter of hopelessness, negativity, and sadness gets put over your brain and eyes, and the world loses its colour, and everything sucks so bad all you wanna do is lay in bed and rot. It feels physically heavy, like youre dragging weights. When manic you might feel very fast and light, when depressive you might feel very slow and heavy.

Mixed Episodes: A lesser known episode that may be experienced is a mixed episode. Any type can experience this type of episode, but it is not required or considered for any diagnosis. Its sort of like something that happens instead of something thats a hallmark feature of bipolar. In a mixed episode, someone will experience both symptoms of depression and mania at the same time, or in rapid succession/back and forth in short bursts. This is typically regarded as the most distressing and severe episode to have because of the combination of both episodes. You might feel like your thoughts are racing, or like youre going crazy, but at the same time youre so tired you cant get out of bed. You might feel very very energized, but have thoughts that youre hopeless and worthless. You might laugh, and then start crying, like youre being shot up into space and then thrown into the bottom of the ocean. You might feel very jittery, but a pain in your chest, or an exhaustion you cant shake. You might also experience a burst of joy, laughter, very high energy where youre talking super fast and speaking nonsense and acting erratically, and then immediately you start to feel very sad and slowed down, like everything hurts, and is meaningless. Mixed episodes are very painful to deal with, because youre being constantly thrown around, and you cant get a grip. Rates of suicide are higher during these periods. Not everyone with bipolar may experience mixed episodes, and it will present differently for everyone. It may last a couple days to even weeks.

So theres a rundown for the different episodes. To write a bipolar character, think about the type of bipolar they have/how it presents, and then think about how their episodes may impact them contextually. If a character is manic at a certain point in your story, what actions may they take, or thoughts, or interactions, that will show this? Can the people around them tell when theyre in an episode? What gives it away? What behaviour cues show their episodes? For me personally, my fiancee can always tell when Im in an episode, cuz of my eyes/behaviour. She says my eyes get more wide and sorta erratic looking when Im manic and I move around very quickly like Im restless, and when Im depressive, my eyes get more heavy/tired looking and I move very slowly and less expressive. Remember that someones episodes, especially mania, will have an impact on the people/world around them, not just internally, it causes issues externally as well. Someone might cause a lot of destruction or drama or get into fights when theyre manic and impulsive, they might do crazy or ambitious shit just to drop it, they might socially isolate and sleep all day when depressed, or not show up to work or school.

Another thing to consider is the persons cycle. This is how many episodes a person experiences in a year. If they have proper treatment, they may experience ~0-2 episodes a year, if not, they may experience ~1+ a year, typically in the 2-4 range. This means that someone who is treated with the proper medication may not experience any episodes at all, or they might experience milder, shorter lived episodes a couple times a year. Someone who isnt treated is very susceptible to experiencing more extreme and lengthy episodes, and more often in a year.

Rapid Cycling is when someone with bipolar experiences one episode after another. So they might be manic for a week or so, and then immediately experience a depressive episode right after for like a month, and then back to being manic. Typically, someone with bipolar will experience plenty of time in a year in between their episodes without any significant manic/depressive symptoms, like periods of stability.

Triggers for a bipolar episode are usually lack of sleep, stress, alcohol/drug use, and even changes of seasons or life events can trigger a high/low in someone. Everyone has their own unique triggers that is important to recognize when it comes to treatment and preventing episodes. Think about the triggers your character might have, and what they might be exposed to in your story that could cause this. Episodes may come on as a gradual up/down climb, or very suddenly.

Thats really all I got for information on bipolar. The biggest issue I see is just the way people write bipolar episodes as mood swings. It's not being happy and then suddenly really angry or sad, its not changing your mind really quick, or suddenly switching up. Its moreso long periods of high/low energy. Thats why I say "episodes" instead of "mood swings", cuz its not a mood swing at all, its very literally just random periods where you'll experience an episode of mania or depression. The classic "mood swings"/switching up thing is more closely related to borderline personality disorder which is VERY different from bipolar, despite them being mixed up so often.

This was very long but feel free to send in more asks if you need any specifics. I just tried to cover all bases cuz its good to know what youre working with before you work with it.

[sabbathbloodysabbeth]

This was a quick write and I put in my own experiences in. It’s a bit rushed but I ended up writing more then what I meant to 👀 pretty much I’m projecting my overstimulation on Eddie, plus I love to think Steve doesn’t just babysit the group but other smaller kids as well and he becomes very aware of their needs.

Just- Eddie gets overstimulated all the damn time and has to either bites something or does his overwhelmed bat hands. Flapping them aggressively as he runs away from a situation making Goblin noises. Before he’s putting his hands to his ears and just letting all the noises off from his chest. The amount of times he’s just done that with the group of hellfire boys, it’s become a normal thing. Garett, Jeff and Grant all got used to this years ago. So they knew about how the other got.

Meanwhile Dustin, Mike and Lucas could all get a tad overwhelming. Which is why the other boys all just decide to try and teach them that Eddie gets overstimulated really easily and it takes him more effort to understand peoples tones. Because he puts all his energy into that his tone sometimes doesn’t come off as friendly, and he doesn’t realize it half the time.

But anywho back to the being on course. All of them are somewhat used to it, and they are all shocked by how well Eddie is handling everything in the upside down. Besides a few clicking noises and popping noises he doesn’t run away from them. And when he looks like hes getting overwhelmed he has to close his eyes and rub his head back to hold himself back.

So when everything is finally done and the other is in the hospital. He’s so fucking overstimulated that he’s not even crying because of the pain anymore. The doctors don’t know what to do, not until they start to catch on and they try to help the other be as comfortable as possible. Then Eddie’s ok for a bit.

Then when he leaves the hospital, that’s when everything hits him all at once. It had always strained him a bit to hold himself back from doing what normally helps him with being overstimulated. So he has on and off days but soon enough it’s all good days and he’s with Robin and Steve. The two are energetic just like him but today he can feel himself getting overstimulated and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself. Though something on the radio turns to a high pitched static and robins making noise that doesn’t make since jumping up and down and holding her ears as Steve is quick to shut it off. Quickly and gently not touching her the best he can, moves and has her sit in the back room in the dark with a window open so she can breathe. He moves back out apoligizing to eddie who is really trying not to do the bat flap and just run away with goblin noises.

Steve looks at him and raises a eyebrow. You see he’s been helping Robin out for a while, plus he’s been babysitting smaller kids for a while and he doesn’t know what it’s called but he knows when someone’s getting overwhelmed. He moves over closer to the other as he hums. “Are your stims loud or are they quite?” He asks curiously. That’s what one of the parents used for their child, who was in the process of being diagnosed for autism. And it seemed to be the only word that would fit Robin and Eddie at the moment.

“My what?” Eddie asks confused.

“Stims? Oh shit sorry I have this kid who gets overwhelmed really easily, and well he does these things when he is. He does a bird flap with his hands, starts to click his tongue, whistle or just say certain words over and over again because he likes how they sound. His parents call them stims, and Robin has them as well when she gets overwhelmed and you have the same face that the kid I babysit gets when he’s trying to act normal so- that and the kids told me you apparently turn goblin sometimes.” Steve explains looking at the other with curiousity.

And if Eddie wasn’t about to cry from how overwhelming everything was he would shamelessly fall in love with the other. No one’s ever treated what he has done normal for the first time he does it in his life. Though he’s quick to stammer out a sentence. Breathing picking up. “I get loud.”

“Well, Robin gets overwhelmed by loud or i else I would let you chill with her.” Steve frowns. “What normally helps?” He asks curiously. And Eddie flushed.

“I don’t know.”

“Ok- um come here. The kid I babysit when he gets overwhelmed really likes to cuddle. Maybe you’re the same?” Steve hums and Eddie’s face is flushing as he moves shamelessly over. If the other thought he could help then he would take it. He would cry if it didn’t work.

Steve moves letting the other in and he pulls the other into a warm hug gently rubbing his back and playing with his curls. It was a little overwhelming at first but when Eddie finally lets himself have a moment to close his eyes and breath, Steve’s the first person to properly bring him down. Though Steve does ask him what it means for him to turn “goblin” so he does end up making the noises he normally does acting as if he was saying normal words. Steve doesn’t laugh and nods his head as he helps the other to the best of his abilities.

When Robin comes out shes a little tired but a lot better. Eddie finally lets go when he feels better and Steve hums. “Weighted blankets normally help that kid I was telling you about, if you want I have a extra if you want it.”

And boy does Eddie fall in love.

[lexxiie]

Hi! I’m kinda new here and I read a few of your works and I just read you rules so I’m sure I’m not breaking any, but I was wondering if you could write how Chisaki would react o take care of his S/O who has cancer? I was recently diagnosed and it would make me happy to have my fav character take care of someone who has the same thing as me. Love your writing! I hope you have a wonderful day/night! <3

Hello, darling! I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through something so difficult, I truly hope everything turns out just fine for you. Sending you a hug and my best wishes. I myself had a close person to me suffering from cancer, I hope i'm able to write something decent.

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Kai Chisaki x Reader

Kai and you found out that you had cancer about a year after you started dating. He had never experienced love before you. One morning he just found himself realizing that his whole life now belonged to you; his dreams, hopes, thoughts, and his soul. All of them yours, only to wake up the next morning being met with the news that it could all go away.

It's really... weird to think about how someone who is now a part of you, someone who you view as so strong and lively can actually just disappear. Logically, he knows no one is immortal, but you are just so bright and present that somehow it's almost impossible to believe that you could ever leave.

Upon your diagnosis, you tried to be positive and strong. Optimism was important to you, knowing that if you lose hope, then you'll lose everything. You made the choice to try to live as normal as possible the moment you saw the look on Kai's eyes when the doctor said "cancer". You had never seen him so... vulnerable? He had always been a man who reflected strenghth and power, there was a time when you would've sworn he had no feelings at all, that he was just an empty shell of a man. Of course, you now know that he could, in fact, feel. You knew he loved you, but this was something completely new. You realized that if you were to crumble, he would to.

Kai isn't stupid, though. He knows you are trying so hard because of him. During the first few weeks, he started researching everything there was on your condition. He would memorize every single appointment you had, every medication needed, one of his worst fears being the thought of how much pain you were going to face. The treatment is certainly not easy, it takes up so much energy off of anyone, and though you tried hard to remain strong, the change was impossible to ignore.

Kai had once been a man who lived for himself, no one was as important to him as he was, but right now, he just wished there was a way of trading places with you, he wouldn't think twice. If there's someone who deserves all of this, that's him. One thing I can assure you, though. He won't let anything happen to you. Whatever it takes. If he has to travel across the whole world searching for someone with a quirk that can cure you, he will. If he has to take you to a hospital at the other side of the globe to get you a better treatment, he will. He'll do anything. And once he sets his mind on something, he can't be stopped.

He argues with doctors from time to time since he gets frustrated whenever you have bad days where you truly are hurting. He sometimes wishes he had become a doctor because he's convinced he would do things better. Going in and out of hospitals disgusted him because of germs and all, but that fear is now his last priority.

He totally tries to make your life as comfortable as possible, he doesn't want you to get even more tired than you already are. If you are honest with yourself, you kind of feared that he would get away from you once he felt like this was all too much, but if anything, it has just brought you closer, he never leaves your side. Of course, you are much weaker that before, on some days even more so. That's when he'll take care of you the most. He helps you shower, or even dress in hopes he can be useful. And though it may be hard to imagine, he constantly reassures you. You are everything to him. No amount of changes in your attitude or even your body will ever change that, and he's confident that one day, this will all go away and you´ll be able to fulfill all of your plans and dreams for your future together, this is just a rock in the way.

Onto some other small details on what he does for you, he totally carries you through your home so that you don't waste energy walking. I truly believe this man has always cooked for himself because of germs, however he wasn't great at it, but he learned just to cook for you everyday. He'll read to you whenever you feel too drained, to distract you. Also trying to hide the fact that he's absolutely terrified so that he won't terrify you. This whole situation has given him perspective. He wasn't one to constantly show affection or say I love you, but now he sure does all the time. Overall this has just helped him realize how much he needs you in his life, for the rest of his life, and he's not gonna let anything or anyone change those plans. You will be fine, he'll make sure.

MASTERLIST

[munchflix]

MUNCHFLIX - HALLOWEEN ENDS

IMDB BLURB: The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in the final installment of this trilogy.

WARNINGS: The usual blood and guts slasher stuff, plot holes, discombobulation, facepalming, psychic linking, the elderly, old Michael Myers. Some cheesy gore included in the review.

RATING: You are finally safe from Shia Labeouf.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: All reviews are done solely for humor and should not be taken seriously ever. If you cannot handle cursing, crude humor and probably some offensive things, pls do not read this.

Munch: This is going to be full of so much of us just ranting. I hope you fuckers like reading, because we have some things to SAY. There's so much going on in this movie, and absolutely none of it made ANY sense to me. I don't understand why this was a trilogy when the only thing the movies had in common was Jamie Lee Curtis. The first movie has nothing to do with the second. The second movie felt like a two hour long trailer for the third, and the third movie completely ignored everything that happened in the two previous movies. This movie is an absolute clusterfuck. HOWEVER! My one unforgivable sin for a movie is that it is BORING, and my friends....my beloved friends...this movie is sure as shit not that.

Biscuits: I think you're frontloading this with way too much information. There's no real way to preface Halloween Ends and honestly there's no real need to.

M: Fair. The movie opens with the introduction of one Corey Cunningham, who is obviously not a collection of tumblr sexymans all crammed into one pathetic waifish sad little man.

B: He's basically like...dollar store Will Graham. He's perfect. He's tumblr sexyman bait 101. A textbook poor little meow meow

M: He was not, however, mentioned at all in any of the previous movies.

B: No, but he's here.

M: And he's a babysitter, replacing the entire Tommy Doyle storyline in the second movie.

B: Disclaimer, I don't remember anything about Halloween Kills except evil dies tonight.

M: The entire last movie was about Tommy Doyle!

B: I remember Laurie was in the hospital and a guy got killed and maybe we were the virus the whole time!

M: Corey really is like...the most pathetic. He's getting his ass handed to him by what...a seven year old?

B: He looks like young Patrick Wilson in this intro. They're watching The Thing! In the original Halloween, they did watch a movie called The Thing, although the John Carpenter version wouldn't come out for a few years. However it’s still a reference to the original.

M: Corey gets yelled at by this punk ass kid and goes to drink some choccy milk, because he's a baby.

B: As someone who drinks chocolate milk...wait, am I a baby? Beer? NO. Choccy milk. And there's a NOISE.

I diagnose you with babey.

M: Jeremy has staged a home invasion, because he's literally the worst little shithead kid.

B: In the old days kids in movies were like, “oh poor little Tommy Doyle, he’s just a nice boy who likes comic books” and nowadays kids in movie are always cursing and beating people up. Kinda boomer energy if you ask me. Anyways, Jeremy is going to really impressive lengths to make Corey think he's getting murdered or some shit. He's committing to the bit I guess.

M: Unfortunately for Jeremy, he's underestimated the poor little meow meow's claustrophobia. After locking Corey the babysitter in the attic, Corey begins to FUCKING FREAK OUT. Which, I understand. And then the parents are back, it's been like ten minutes.

B: There was an implied time cut but it feels really fast.

M: Jeremy is taunting the panicking Corey directly in front of the door and Corey then kicks it down, screaming about how he's gonna kill Jeremy and then kicks the door somehow hard enough to send Jeremy flying over the railing to his death.

B: That's honestly impressive considering that Jeremy is about as tall as the railing. Maybe don't live in a 20 story house, what can I say. The house doesn't even look that tall from the outside?

Funniest shit I’ve ever seen

M: Anyway, kid dead. Right in front of his parents. Corey bad. I wasn't expecting that at all the first time, it honestly was one of the few moments of this movie where I was like - oshit.

B: Corey IS bad, we establish that later, but he didn't mean to kill the kid so right now it's just like, well that sucks for everybody. 

M: The intro is cool though, the title screen with the pumpkins is cool. 

B: It does feel wrong to have the opening credits in BLUE. They've always been in that weird yellowy orange. Is John Carpenter alive? 

M: Yes!

B: I feel like we had this conversation last time, when Halloween Kills came out. Wes Craven is dead, right?

M: *laughs* Yes. How did the audience score get up to 57 percent?

B: Everyone was like OH MY GOD CUTE BOY. 

M: Laurie comes on the narrate the entire history of this particular timeline, conveniently leaving out the entire second movie except the death of whatserface, her daughter.

B: Including footage from the first movie, over 40 years old, which looks better than this movie. Halloween kills felt like it was just setting up this movie and they don't even reference it except with the lady who got stabbed in the neck. Laurie owns a house in Haddonfield now, which she bought with all her money from doing....something. She lives with her granddaughter now and she's writing a book. 

M: I guess she's been in therapy now. She's a kinder, gentler Laurie. 

Laurie Strode is in this movie, I guess.

B: Every movie has a different metaphor and none of them ever get fully fleshed out. They always feel like first drafts, even in the 2018 Halloween. I don't know why they keep trying to this hashtag deep stuff. Just make a movie that's GOOD and the metaphors will come naturally.

M: Try viewing a Jordan Peele movie, he's a master at it. Anyway, back to Corey, this pathetic wet man is now an adult or whatever but he's still a huge wuss. 

B: He was an adult! They said he was 21! So now he's ....25? These radio segments are giving me ptsd. 

M: I have no idea.

B: He works at a garage with his dad, who gives him a motorcycle. He is now me. He likes chocolate milks and motorcycles and wears flannels and I'm gonna sue them for putting my likeness in this movie. 

M: Cut to Allyson, who is still here for some reason. And her shitty almost boyfriend cop guy? 

B: He's into her or...he's flirting with her or...hey there's a guy. Hark a vagrant! Horror movies always gotta have a creepy homeless guy. It's kind of a gross stereotype that homeless people are insane and evil. I feel like the day has passed when we need to use the creepy homeless guy trope.

M: Corey wanders into a convenience store for some choccy milk and gets harassed by some fucking senior high schoolers who want him to buy them beer.

B: These are the unrealistically shallow bully stereotypes, which I also thought we'd moved past.

M: They even have the slightly reluctant bully character. None of these dudes look they'd be hanging out with a football jock. But here comes Laurie! 

B: Kind of like Henry Bowers, except Henry was an older kid picking on younger kids and these are kids picking on a grown man and causing him bodily injuries. Laurie shows up and has her ONE moment of seeming like a badass and they slash the bullies tires. This Laurie will never show up again. 

Laurie woke up this morning and chose violence. Unfortunately, she will not choose violence again.

M: The characterization is SO bad, everyone changes constantly. Why is my Laurie suddenly so soft and easily injured?? All I wanted was for her to kick ass this entire movie and she absolutely does not do that. She has little flashes of being the Laurie from the first movie, but overall she is so torn down and deadened. 

B: This movie has similar themes to Halloween Kills but they never reference the events of Halloween Kills, like the town forming an angry mob and killing an innocent man. That could have some parallels to Corey’s situation, maybe the town would’ve learned a lesson about jumping to judgments and mob mentality... but it kinda just seems like everybody (including the writers) just kinda forgot about that shit. Honestly if it wasn’t for Karen being dead, this could’ve just been a direct sequel to the first one and it would’ve made just as much sense.

M: Probably more sense, actually. Allyson is at work and Laurie comes in with Corey and suddenly OH MY GOD. Allyson is like - you are the tumblr waif I have been waiting for all my life. 

B: Also, gonna screech about how much this boy looks like Will Graham. His hair, his glasses, the way he dresses, they deliberately styled him this way. Just do that guy from Hannibal but put him in this movie. Also, Corey's arc makes no sense. They so heavily coded him as autistic in the first part of this that it might as well not be there at all. But then he jumps to being a nasty boy who enjoys murder like...really quickly. It spirals out of control so fast.

M: Everything in this movie does. Let's talk about pacing! Like so many movies we've reviewed recently, pacing is a major flaw in this one. 

B: Does Hollywood even know how to make movies anymore?

M: No. The first part of this movie goes SO FAST. There's no build up, it's just thrown in your lap, in your face, at mach speed. Corey and Allyson have had a super major bonding experience in 12 seconds over him getting stitches and now they're in love. 

B: Allyson is hitting on him and he has no idea how to react. 

Behold: the human uwu

M: Now Laurie is back at home with Allyson and this random tarot reader chick.

B: I will give this movie one thing, Allyson pulls out the death card and they say IT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN DEATH, fucking THANK YOU. It's a pet peeve of mine. 

M: No you're right, it doesn't actually mean death in tarot but it says death and looks spooky so....Laurie has another little moment of being cool while she's making pies or whatever and talks about showing your tits to grief.

B: Corey's parents are a piece of work. Really just his mother. His dad or stepdad or whatever seems fine but his mom is awful. An incredibly overbearing and controlling parent, which I guess is maybe supposed to be influenced by his trauma? Or his neurodivergence?

M: Corey's dad is awesome tbh, I was rooting for him. Allyson is suddenly back at the junkyard with Corey and they're gonna have a lesson or something but it's just fodder for their stupid burgeoning pointless relationship side arc. 

B: We also get the obligatory bully's dad doesn't really love him moment but it's so irrelevant. Speaking of irrelevant, Laurie has a whole bit in a supermarket with Frank but at least these two have some chemistry. 

M: Frank being the cop from the other movies, and honestly I was kinda rooting for them. It's kinda cute and I liked the idea of Laurie actually being happy for a change. 

B: It feels genuine, the two play off each other well. Unlike Allyson and Corey where she's like HELLO I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU NOW and he's like.. Okay.... You can't just take this guy home, you gotta do your research.

M: Also for no real reason, Laurie is accosted outside the supermarket by the family of someone who was assaulted in Halloween Kills. This is one of the only references to Halloween Kills. Now more bullshit radio exposition. Allyson did not do her research, and takes her poor little traumatized autistic boyfriend to a crowded party at a public bar full of people who don't like him.

B: You can't just take one home cos it looks cute in the store! It gets bigger than you thought it would, it needs too much attention, it doesn't get along well with other dogs... This is how they end up in shelters Allyson!

Being a black cat, she really should be more conscientious of these things.

M: Or in the sewer. Introducing alcohol to a boy who only drinks chocolate milk, also not a good idea. Corey is, however, getting the fuck down. This isn't gonna go well. 

B: The first time I saw this, I legit thought he was having a seizure.

M: CONVENIENTLY, the mother of the kid he accidently killed is at the bar and drunk! Can you spell McGuffin?

B: She's still a little pissed about that one. There's another implied storyline in that Corey killed someone and was found innocent... wonder how that went. Might’ve been an interesting premise for a movie. Maybe they’re trying to imply that he got off because the defense used his neurological deficiency as a defense but they didn't want to SAY it. Maybe I'm reading too much into this?

M: Allyson chases Corey into the street where he yells a lot because he's massively overstimulated and upset and Allyson doesn't know how to take care of her new pet. To be fair, he's got points. They do not see him and Allyson in the same light. 

B: You can't leave them alone! He needs constant supervision! You think you can fix him but you can't. You don't know him like I do, I can fix him.

M: ON CUE, the bullies from earlier show back up after Corey walks off to harass him some more. For no reason. Also they have not changed their clothes. They start beating the shit out of Corey, as is his lot in life thus far. 

B: Another plot point, EVERYONE in Haddonfield is a fucking asshole. Corey, already angry and prone to outbursts of emotion, confronts the jock and they throw him off the bridge. Like for real. Corey accidently killed a kid, but these guys are just dicks.

M: They assume he is DEAD and just leave him there. And this is where...things start happening. Oh god. Corey is dragged offscreen into the sewers by what we must assume is Michael Myers. This raises some obvious questions. Why is Michael living in the sewer? What's he been doing down there for four years?

B: He just disappeared at the end of the Halloween Kills and just went to go live in the sewer? .....Why? 

M: Why hasn't he killed anyone in those four years?

B: This movie would imply that he, the same man known for his supernatural strength and endurance, suddenly became old and feeble.

M: How's he been feeding himself this whole time? Rats? Old Mcdonalds?

B: Maybe the vagrant has been feeding him? Maybe he doesn't survive on conventional sustenance. Also this movie rips off IT a lot. Everyone is an asshole, irrationally evil bullies, and weird monster living in the sewers. Except this monster is old man Michael Myers. I don't know. 

M: We are 1/3 of the way into the movie. 

B: Allyson is sad because her boyfriend got angry and left. Back in the sewer...Corey wakes up, there's rats. He's fine. Maybe a little head trauma. 

M: Michael Fucking Myers just....left him there. Just laid him down and went, aight. You just rest. I'm gonna stand over here and stare at you while you sleep. Then I'm gonna grab you by the throat and all of the sudden we're gonna psychic bond.

I...I got nothin'.

B: He chokes Corey nearly to death and there's a rapid fire dream sequence of Corey's entire life and now he's infected with the Michael Virus tm. (we forgot to mention that Laurie said something about being infected with evil earlier, this will become relevant-ish ) *laughter*

M: I don't even wanna type this out. This is really happening. There's been absolutely no evidence of Michael having psychic powers. There's been no evidence of Corey having these abilities, but here we are. There will not be another moment of this type of thing happening again. 

(Dib: They're having a bro moment. A Broment.)

B: Maybe it’s not like a psychic powers thing. It could just be...really bad editing?

M: It's implied that he's seeing all this through Michael's eyes! And then he just lets Corey go. Corey gets out of the sewer.

B: He's infected Corey with the Michael virus and now he's using Corey to do his bidding!

M: But that makes no sense because Michael goes out and does his own shit too! 

B: I'm trying to make it make sense! I’m trying rationalize this when the simple answer is that it just isn't rational. 

M: I can't believe you're sober for this one. The harbinger vagrant from earlier shows back up and is like- WHY DID HE LET YOU LIVE?? That's a very fucking good question, my guy, but it's moot because Corey is gonna stab him to death.

B: The vagrant pulls a knife on him but he turns it back on the vagrant and that's accidental death number two, and then he yeets the knife but now he's been infected with Michael Myers lycanthropy or whatever so he can go enjoy murder now or whatever. He has his crazy person Will Graham staring in the mirror moment, sweating and washing the blood off himself. 

M: All we're really missing here is a wendigo. 

B: Oh yeah Allyson's friend got a promotion and she's mad because she wanted it but that's not really relevant but I'm not sure what IS relevant. Laurie does a lot of monologing in this movie. 

M: That's kinda her entire role in this film now. Gone is my badass kickass Laurie. But there's Corey, standing outside her house like Michael Myers. 

“Hey who’s feeding this guy tiers?”

B: He's trying to farm Tier 3 off her. And then she comes out and Corey is like oooh sorry I'm sorry I got jumped and got my ass kicked. This is your sexy murder boy, this tiny boy who can't finish a sentence. 

M: To be fair Allyson, you kinda were a dick to him. But now he's infected and we get a Laurie slow mo where she's like HEY WAIT I SMELL EVIL. 

B: And Corey's just like - hey I killed someone is that gonna affect our relationship? But not really. They go to the house where he babysat for to show Allyson where he killed a kid. 

M: Perfectly normal relationship things. Just go to a murder site and tell your new girlfriend about it. There's still bloodstains on the floor ffs. But she's like - no it's cool, I heard about it and I was like - I know this boy, he's looking for me. 

B: Whatever the fuck. Laurie goes to visit Corey's mom and she's more than kind of a bitch. Why does this sound like a parent teacher meeting? " I know he's had his difficulties..." 

M: It doesn't go well. Now Allyson is at a restuarant with Corey where she trauma dumps and is like - I wanna burn Haddonfield down. Now she's suddenly all edgy in this movie. 

B: Allyson goes through like seven 180 turns in this movie. 

M: You're not afraid now, Corey? This entire town's been kicking your ass this whole movie. Then the fucking cop ex boyfriend CONVENIENTLY shows up in the middle of their dinner to also provide some rising action. 

B: Most of these people have no reason to be this awful! They're just horrible awful stinky people. It's just a town where everyone sucks. 

M: Corey's a badass now, because he's got Michael Myers virus or whatever so he's gonna get up in the cop's face, but the cop is a huge dick anyway. Also he is now wearing a blue jumpsuit. They leave and go on a romantic bike ride to her house where they're gonna kiss kiss make out. 

B: But Corey's like, nah, I'm gonna go. And this cop guy, instead of LETTING IT GO gets in his cop car to go beat the shit out of Corey, as is the town's national past time, but Corey knows what he's up to, so he's gonna feed him to Michael Myers. Because Corey is a murderboy now. 

M: No really, this is what happens. Why does Mikey need someone to bring him people to kill??? 

B: He needs to regain his powers or something.

M: BUT HE DOESN'T DO THAT. It makes NO sense. The cop guy find the dead vagrant and goes oh noes, but Corey is there and attacks him.

B: It doesn't go well though because Corey's still a little bitch but he runs into the sewer and this fucking cop GOES INTO THE SEWER. It's not worth it, homey! Your masculinity really so fragile you gotta kick his ass because he likes your ex girlfriend. 

M: I still don't get why Michael needs this shit. But there he is, and Corey's just gonna stand there because he likes to watch. " Show me how to do it!" Corey says like a fucking murder virgin even tho he's killed two people at this point. It ain't hard, bruh. You just stab. Michael is looking pretty rough tbh, he can barely even fucking walk. 

B: It looks weirdly sexual.  He's really horny for MIchael Myers, but he can join the club because a lot of people are horny for Michael. 

M: I think it's intentionally sexual tbh. It seems to be implied that Corey is in some way getting off on this. Corey runs back to Allyson and is like WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME, WE SHOULD BANG. 

B: He's just badly written Will Graham, that's all there is to it. 

M: Laurie sees them going upstairs and Michael apparently left the sewer to go stand in the bushes and stare at Laurie but now he's gotta go back to the sewer. Oh my god, we are only halfway through. Nobody talks like these fucking people in real life.

B: "I keep seeing his eyes, Michael's eyes in Corey." He's got Michael Myers eyes...like Betty Davis eyes, but not.

M: I want some ice cream, you type for a minute. Oh god, we're only halfway through.

B: WHOOOAA we're halfway there, o-ooh~

M: Michael in a chaiirrr. Or something, I dunno. Oh yeah, Laurie goes to the same bar Corey had his breakdown in, because it's the only bar in town, so we can further this stupid infection storyline - which was not hinted at or built up in any of the previous movies.

B: The dad of the kid Corey killed is rambling on about how Corey had the devil in his eyes. He looks like an angel, walks like angel, talks like an angel, but we got wise.

M: Everyone in this movie shows up at the exact moment they're needed for the plot.

B: Oh yeah, the shitty doctor is fucking the nurse who got the promotion at Allyson's work and they gonna get SLASHED. Finally, some cheesy gore in this fucking slasher movie.

M: OKAY - so all of a sudden, in this next bit Michael, who has been shown to be a feeble, barely-functioning sewer gremlin, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is still very strong and very murderous. But after this scene ends, they throw that all in the garbage.

B: Bla bla bla get to the murder already. 

M: Corey has to...initiate things, for some reason. Corey has to do the foreplay.

B: Also, the scarecrow mask looks dumb. They couldn't have gotten anything mildly more sinister?

M: I love this scene where you can see Corey in the background stabbing the doctor like 18 times. Corey is basic bitch-ing this shit.

B: Corey is not very good at murder. But thankfully, daddy lion is here to show baby lion how to hunt.

M: SEE! Michael fucking holds her up by her throat! He stabs her clear into the wall! This is not a feeble old man! Meanwhile, Corey is like mentally masturbating. Or...just masturbating.

“You’re a murder tramp, murder tramp...”

B: He's very excited. 

M: Now I guess he went and got Allyson again so they could go on another ride.

B: They're speeding down to the radio station roof like two punk kids who don't give a shit for some exposition. 

M: Allyson just says infected for no reason? 

B: I think she's commenting on his wound but...it's like wow you're infected with Michael. Evil does not literally work like a virus! I understand the allegory but like...you don't get infected with it from someone else who is evil. 

M: The radio dj comes out and like everyone else in Haddonfield, he's a huge dick. So he sits there just berating Allyson and Corey for no good goddamn reason. 

B: They could just...leave the situation. But they just stand there and let him insult them until he tells them to leave. This is not how real adult people react to these situations. Corey's feeling overprotective. Laurie is stalking them. 

M: Back to Corey's house where his unbearably overbearing mother is slapping him and berating him and then his dad's like - I hope you find love. Wtf. And now it's Halloween. Corey is asleep on the floor of the murder house. 

B: Laurie is there! She's got a paper airplane, aka a reference to the beginning of the movie. Inside of you there are two wolves, Corey. One is gay. The other one is gay. 

M: Laurie can just smell the Michael, and she again mentions infection. But they never really elaborate on that. They never come out and say - hey Michael is infecting this town. 

B: Laurie is threatening in this scene almost to the point of seeming evil. She's like - Allyson didn't read the manual, she's not equipped to deal with you so we gotta take you back to the shelter, buddy.

Stop dating my granddaughter, grungy little murder hobbit.

M: Corey makes the incredible mistake of saying - if I can't have her, nobody will, and demands that Laurie just give up and let herself just drown in misery until she DIES. 

B: But then she's not there.

M: Her Laurie senses were tingling.

B: Or she didn't wanna listen to Corey's sudden and unwanted slam poetry. Which also doesn't make any sense. I'm trying to commentate on the dialogue but it's just nothing. It's a nothing sandwich. Corey calls Allyson on the phone sounding like fucking Ghostface. 

M: Why not throw another reference in there? 

B: And he's like - your gramma is trying to kill me and Allyson is just like - yes that is absolutely true. 

M: And then this fucking shit. Corey just zooms on back to Sewer Michael, and just kicks the ever living shit out of MICHAEL MYERS, THE UNKILLABLE KILLING MACHINE, THE PERSONIFICATON OF EVIL, THE MOTHERFUCKING SHAPE and takes his mask. Yeah okay. The same dude who was strong enough to pin a chick through a wall in the last kill. 

B: Corey is sapping his strength now?! Because of the Michael virus?? I'm trying to engage with this movie on it's own level.

(Dib: You tried to read this movie's terms and conditions?? WHY??)

M: This is such utter bullshit and I hate it. 

B: They have this whole drawn out scene of these two wrestle. There's no tension at all, it's just like two drunk dudes duking it out outside the 7/11.

M: Michael sits up though after his ass beating. 

B: The dumb teenage bullies, still wearing the same clothes, and Corey has scratched up their car or whatever so now they're gonna kick his ass again. 

M: Allyson is leaving Laurie and Laurie is like no he's crazy and murderous, but to be fair I don't like anyone in this movie. Laurie is obnoxious, whiny and preachy Allyson is dumb and doesn't pay attention to anything. 

B: Also again, it's utterly out of character for Allyson to just suddenly to be like no grandmother you are psycho bonkers crazy. 

M: The bullies have been led to the junkyard where Corey works which is obviously a fucking trap, but people in a horror movie never realize they're in a horror movie so they gon' die. 

B: They're gonna fuck up his bike but actually they're gonna get slashed and stabbed and shit. There's not even that much murder in this movie. 

M: There's almost no Michael Myers in this movie. 

B: Billy Bully gets stabbed in the eye and then they run away from a speeding vehicle in A STRAIGHT LINE, just go between the cars or anything?!?! 

M: Corey's dad is working late though and Jock Bully is like OHMIGOD HELP US and so dad goes out there but Corey's still murdering people but now with the Myer's mask on. And unfortunately for Corey's dad, the one not totally awful person in Haddonfield, he gets shot through the brain and dies. 

B: The kid crushed under the vehicle is still alive but Corey fucking BLOWTORCHES this jock bully and then crushes the other's head like a grape because he's apparently super stronk now. 

M: Corey's gotta go home now and kill his mom. Because we need more Halloween references since Michael's not even in this fucking movie. And then we're gonna go kill the radio guy because he was also an asshole. Corey's gonna be fucking busy if he's gotta kill every asshole in Haddonfield. 

B: Do not disgrace these old fucking retro jukebox songs with your terrible movie. 

M: Corey also kills his assistant, Darcy the mail girl. Also this kill is hilarious and they had to realize it looked fucking stupid and silly. No points for that shit.

I apologize but words could not do this justice.

B: The rest of the movie is not silly. Tone? Never heard of her. Allyson magically shows up right where she needs to be, in the town's one diner waiting for Corey but he stood her up to do murders. 

M: Laurie keeps calling because I guess that's building tension or something but not really because we already know Corey's gonna go after Laurie. I'm too sober for this. Laurie, however, went to the school of 'already lived through like seven Halloween movies' and she's not dumb.

B: She's gonna mope around her house and they're gonna set it up like she's gonna commit aliven't. Commit gun-head. As they say in Roblox, go commit stop living. But it was just a ploy?? I don't get it, why does she do this?

M: Because, like Michael has an evil virus, Laurie appears to have some sort of precognitive ability of her own when it comes to evil, and she knows what's about to go down. Also to fake out the audience. As if we really believed she would just off herself in the finale. 

B: She doesn't need to fake out Michael.

M: Michael who? She's faking out Corey. Michael has no part in this movie. 

B: She didn't really need to fake out Corey. She shoots him and he falls off the railing. 

M: What's the opposite of foreshadowing?

B: Dumb. 

M: She empties the gun for no real reason and then says LET'S GO BITCH to the dying Corey.

B: He makes ugly cry face, realizes Allyson is back and then pulls a 5000 IQ move. He is playing 5d chess. He stabs himself in the throat and then Laurie pulls the knife out just in time for Allyson to walk in and see her standing over the corpse of her boyfriend!

Oopsie daisy.

M: Laurie doesn't even try to explain herself. Also this is bullshit. Why did we spend the entire movie building him up and Michael's fucking successor only to have him OFF HIMSELF at the end of the movie just to one up Laurie?!??!

B: Corey deserved better. As I've said, Tumblr's manic pixie dream boy had the whole movie building him up just to give him such an ungraceful ending. I was banking on him sacrificing himself just to save someone else, probably Allyson. And that would ahve been a fitting fucking tumblr fucking meow meow ballering ending for him so everyone could be like OH NOES HE WAS A GOOD BOY ALL ALONG but no...they just end him. They just put him down.

M: Y’know maybe we souldn’t have spent all that time talking about how autistic he is and then constantly referred to him as a shelter animal. 

B: I'm allowed to make these jokes. When a bunny calls another bunny cute, that's okay. 

M: Allyson does not at all suspect foul play, she's just like oh god grandmother killed my boy. She doesn't call the cops or anything she just goes outside. 

B: And disappears from the movie for a little bit. 

M: And now Laurie is sitting there like oh bum. But again, her Laurie senses are tingling because suddenly FUCKING MICHAEL MYERS IS HERE and he wants his mask and his goddamn knife back but Corey has to be like HAH FAKE DEATH TROPE only to have Michael break his neck.

B: Why did they even have him come back to life if they were just gonna have Michael kill him? Because Mike doesn't need him anymore? Or he's angry that Corey betrayed him or whatever?

Godnight swet prins

M: We've never been given any indication that Michael has feelings. Let alone betrayal. He's just a shell full of evil. But anyway he's here and now we're gonna have the uh....climactic showdown?? 

B: Why did the cops call Allyson?? Why didn't they just go to the house where Laurie called???

M: This time Laurie doesn't have a house full of traps this time, but she does have....uh.....um....big kicks. 

B: Michael spent four years living in a sewer just to lull Laurie into a false sense of security. 

M: Not only does our boy know how to drive cars, he also knows how to use a garbage disposal. Also....again...this is not the feeble old man who got his ass kicked by a 25 year old twink. This is STRONK Michael, he is kicking Laurie's ass all over the place. Is he fucking old and sick or strong and unkillable??? 

B: Also why did they set up the whole Michael virus thing and him passing off his virus to Corey if they were just gonna kill off Corey? Also Laurie pins Michael to the table and stabs him a lot, pinning him to the table and she monologues again. 

M: And takes his mask off and now he's all old and sad and feeble again. Maybe the mask is the source of his power? 

B: Of all the confrontations these two have had over the course of the series, this is honestly the least climactic one. 

M: But then we get a montage of more climactic confrontations.

Maybe it’s supposed to be like...their lives flashing before their eyes or something?

B: Allyson just runs back in from nowhere and breaks Michael's arm and also apparently when Michael chokes people, they have flashback montages. Little known power of his. But fucking......but all of the sudden, because of that PHONE call I guess...Allyson has another 180 and is like Oh my god you were right, Corey is evil and I believe you and I was wrong and I'm gonna help you kill Michael. But WHY!??!? For what reason??? 

M: They filet Michael like a pig, making sure all his major arteries are compromised because it's not like the 90000 other ways they tried to kill him worked. The cops show up and they're like OH SHIT THAT'S MICHAEL and ignores the other dead guy on the floor because yanno. The soundtrack is good, but c'mon. 

B: I have a theory. 

M: Okay.

B: They wrote the ending first, then realized they had written the entire movie about Corey and then killed him off because they realized it didn't fit in the movie. They tie Michael to the roof of Laurie's car and have a huge Michael procession of the entire town to the junkyard. 

Dib: How does nobody record this and upload this to LiveLeak?

M: *laughs* Nobody's gonna tell because it's Michael. But tbh this would never happen. Laurie was writing a fucking book about it. Suddenly everyone in Haddonfield is here. 

B: An entire town of deplorable humans. 

M: This entire movie is so terribly lit btw. It's so dull. 

B: They crowdsurf Michael's body to the garbage grinder or junk grinder or whatever. Industrial shredder. 

M: If he's infected, his blood is getting on EVERYONE right now. 

B: This is my favorite scene in the whole movie. 

M: Laurie, standing triumphantly on top of the grinder, rolls Michael into the shredder and they grind him like so much fucking sausage. 

The SFX in this movie are like...really good.

B: How many millions of dollars did they spend on this movie? How many bags of PopRocks could you have bought with all that money and THIS was the best y’all could do? And then Allyson is like hey you were right about Corey this whole time WHAT???

M: Her and Laurie are all good now and Michael is definitely 100 percent completely dead this time. Super dead. He has been killed dead and Allyson moves away and moves on and Laurie writes her book but she leaves it open for a sequel. Please let it die. 

B: We get a footnote where she and Frank have a little mo' where he brings her veggies so we can remember their budding romance. 

M: I just wish like...any other movie had been made. This was so anticlimactic. Michael is barely even in it. Laurie is reduced to just...a whimpering mess, Allyson is whatever they want her to be in the moment, Corey is...pointless and yet the entire movie surrounds HIM. This is the antithesis of what I, and a lot of other people, wanted from a finale, but here we are. 

B: I adore this movie. It is terrible, it's an absolute trainwreck of a film that makes no sense and goes off the rails so many times you're left wondering if there ever were rails to begin with. It's is full of obvious 'cute-murder-boy sexyman-bait uwu' moments, but hell, I'll bite. It is a perfect storm of garbage, like a tornado in a landfill.

In our Halloween movie tier list, I made mention of Michael Myers being sort of a metaphor for the Halloween franchise as a whole, and honestly I think Halloween Ends is the best setting for this metaphor:  creature once powerful and feared has become old, embattled, and toothless, and barely able to claw out any relevancy in its own context. It tries to come back for a thrilling final showdown to prove it is still as strong as it once was, but ultimately proves to be a pushover and ends up getting shredded like the garbage it is. In many ways, Michael Myers is Halloween. And the fact that Corey Cunningham is the one thing from this movie everyone is hyperfixating on really proves that Halloween isn't even really relevant to Halloween anymore. But for all my words, I think this movie itself delivers the most poignant and quite possibly the most important message about the Halloween franchise that there could be, in the form of an unambiguous two-word poem: Halloween Ends.

Is it the ending we wanted? Hell no. But it’s probably the one we deserved.

Munch and Biscuits out, yo.

[nightcall99]

Notes from 27.2.24

It's funny that your HS said that. I was wondering again last night about what the point of coming back to the chat was when I can't feel anybody in there. If we're not here then when are we coming back? The answer came but it was like one cell coming alive in a body that's dead, I couldn't hear. You answered it aloud so that I could.

Dream was weird. Being slung over someone's shoulder is how it feels to be an NPC. Like I'm there but not there. I'm there but I'm trying not to make a sound or any movement. And I'm not paying attention to what's going because it feels irrelevant.

The two ladies who look the same. I can't tell the difference, but they do look different. There's no energy signature to hone in on and play compare and contrast with. It's matching nothing to nothing. It reminds me of the other week where I did stocktake at work. We had an external company oversee the task and I was reporting to the lady in charge who was named Helen. I kept bothering Helen because I didn't know how to use the barcode scanner and maybe the 3rd or 4th time of coming to her to ask, I mistook someone else to be her. I was literally staring into this other person's eyes, not realising it wasn't Helen until the lady finally said Hey, I'm not Helen. They physically looked very similar.

I dunno what the split up is about. It doesn't feel literal, the bunch of us aren't in disagreement in the other realm or anything. It's something to do with the HS and the NPC. My earring showing up is trying to show me something about this too (beyond the obvious that reality is glitching). This morning my mum randomly showed me a picture of the fancy birthday cake I had when I turned 2. A cake literally shaped in the number 2. She also showed me a picture of the record card that was given to her in the hospital after my sister's birth. Just a simple card with stuff like room number, birth time, birth weight, parent’s names etc. She said the doctor was the very same doctor who delivered me. I looked him up. He died last month at age 91. I had joked yesterday (was it yesterday? Recently.) with AL that I wanted to find the doctor who delivered me and file a complaint about being born (lol).

I've been lending a few thoughts here and there toward the recall. Nothing forced, just a gradual release of the perimeter around my brain, that will eventually lead to the breaking of a dam. You see, for ages now I've completely and utterly blocked out anything to do with the vaccine and the plandemic. The NPCs in my life are to believe the official narrative, I did not want any experiences suggesting otherwise. And this has been largely the case, save for maybe less than a handful of instances but they were all within well within the limits of what I can handle and no more. I work in healthcare, so it's kind of funny in a way. I've simply refused to see anything about it and that's that. There was this one time before I decided this, before my one year off, where a hospital cardiologist happened to be in the pharmacy to purchase a blood pressure monitor and overheard a conversation between AL and I. I hadn't had it yet, and never would, but AL was complaining about the chest pain she'd been getting after her second dose. This doctor warned us not to have anymore, speaking of the things he'd witnessed. I subconsciously decided then and there that I didn't want anything like that to happen again. Not out in the open. Maybe it's cowardice. I just knew that my co-workers looked really uncomfortable while this was happening and it felt really low-vibe. I don't need to be absorbing other people's feelings of regret. I could barely deal with that. So there was no way in hell I was going to sign up for being the shoulder to cry on for people with new cancer diagnoses and pericarditis and cerebral palsy and sudden adult death syndrome, all of that. That's fucked up.

So I've been letting up a bit with that. I still don't want to be having any low-vibe conversations about it but if it's all controlled by me anyway, a little comment here and there is all good. I know what I want and I can make it happen. RAT tests are out of stock from the supplier again and my neighbour was telling me yesterday about how three doctors from the same local clinic have quit. They were touting the reason to be retirement but she kept saying these doctors, 'they'd had enough.' Something about how they were under pressure, and something about how covid anti-virals are being paid for through tax dollars. I dunno. I wasn't paying attention. Maybe the doctors are feeling pressure to prescribe something they don't want to. I'm purposely creating things to be vague and easily deniable to start off with I suppose. I'm feeling things out. My neighbour is the worst, so why not start with her, since I can easily discount anything she says as the ramblings of a senile old lady.

But it doesn't have to be so slow, either. As I said, I'm feeling things out. It can start as whispers getting closer in auditory distance, and then all of a sudden, a clear announcement on a PA system. It's up to me.

[ask19thcentury-doctorgilbert]

"I still don’t know enough about traditional Asian medicinal practices to form a solid opinion on the matter --- I’ve tried asking Herr Honda to give further context to what I learned from China in the previous century, but he’s adamant at keeping his focus on the advancements of today rather than the practices of the past, which I can respect.

I have asked Andres and Klarencia regarding practices in their homeland, however, and they were happy to share! From what I gather, the Spanish did introduce western medical practices when they first colonized the country though a lot of the population still hold true to the old ways. I wonder if the same held true for the other Asian countries and what medical practices were like in the ones that remain untouched by western influence. Perhaps one day I could learn more,”

side note: thank you so much to everyone who left a kind response to my little mini-rant last night! your pointers did help narrow down my search and now i know that 1) the qing dynasty was in power from 1644-1912 and b) men of the time wore what was called a changshan and I based Yao’s fit from this photo here! thanks again, you guys are awesome~! as usual, more rambling under the cut!

European medical practices were first introduced to Japan in the 16th century by visiting Jesuit missionaries and later again in the 17th century by Dutch physicians who’d come to Japanese shores. In the later half of the 18th century, the government made a policy to fully adopt the western model of medicine, which paved the way for the foundation of medical schools and a growing interest in medical research! Prior to that, however, young aspiring physicians were normally sent to China for an extended period of study; as such, the two countries had many traditional practices in common. The oldest known piece of Japanese medical literature, the Ishinhō; completed by Tamba Yasuyori in 982, detailed different diseases and how to treat them and was based on older Chinese medical works!

Klarencia is my Philippines OC and since Phili became canon recently, I decided to go ahead and make them siblings because why not. And as far as I know Phili doesn’t have a canon name yet, so I went ahead and gave him the name Andres! They’d stowed away on a ship and wound up in the German Empire, hoping to catch up with their friend: Dr. Jose Rizal, the man who would come to be known as their national hero after being executed for his anti-Spanish and pro-independence sentiments.

Speaking of Rizal, this man has travelled all over the German Empire but he did live in Berlin for 6 months from November 1886 to May 1887! During that time, he pursued his ophthalmology training at the Charite, worked as an assistant to a Dr. Schweigger, and attended lectures in the University of Berlin; all while also completing his novel Noli Me Tangere which criticized Spanish rule and the corruption of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. 2000 copies would end up bring printed in a print shop in Berlin and though it was officially banned in the Philippines, copies were still smuggled back. Rizal had also sent a copy to his friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, an Austrian teacher. I headcanon that Gilbert also received one of those original copies of Noli Me Tangere. It was Rizal’s way of thanking him for his friendship while he was in the city but also for looking out for Andres and Klarencia after they came all the way out here to find him. Unfortunately, Gilbert can’t read Spanish which was the language the novel was written in. When the French translation in 1899 came out, however, he got a hold of a copy and read it then. The original still sits on his bookshelf in modern day.

While the Spanish did introduce western medicine to the Philippines and established hospitals and pharmacies, traditional medicine continued to be practised alongside it. Herbal medicine, hydrotherapy, massage, and the involvement of different healers (of which there were many types depending on which region of the Philippines they were located in. growing up, i mostly heard about the albularyo [which was kind of a general practitioner, they could diagnose patients, prescribe herbal cures, and perform rituals to get rid of any evil spirit or negative energy that could be making someone ill] and the manghihilot [someone who specialized in using massage, though ‘hilot’ could also be a local term for the midwife, as is the case in my mother’s dialect]) were common facets of traditional medicine. Priests from different religious orders did attempt to learn from the local healers in order to familiarize themselves with the herbs and medicinal plants local to the area. However, they publicly still condemned them for being superstitious and dismissed them as nothing but quacks. ( Here’s a paper linked to one of the wikipedia articles I was skimming through if you’d like to read on! I’m still in the process of going through the whole thing myself but it’s great so far!)

I have to share this because it’s really cool  but the Philippine Embassy in Germany has this awesome map that traces Jose Rizal’s journey through the country in the late 19th century!

[ivanabaqero]

Since I just returned from rehab, here is my.. idk, emotional journey on my chronic illness + mental health or wtf ever u wanna call this. This is the most personal thing I have ever posted but I need to get it out. 

Before you read, I guess I gotta tw this for suicidal thoughts and descriptions of my symptoms.

I don’t even know where to start. It feels like all of this happened in one week and at the same in a span of several years. But no idea, time just kept passing and more shit happened. 

Last summer was pretty cool. I worked hard and made a fuckton of money - not really considering the consequences of the fact that I overstepped the boundaries of my body every single day. Either way, I regret nothing it was pretty cool and another experience I am glad I could make. Well, but when I came back home, I started to notice a few things. Among some weird shit nobody wants to know about, I noticed a change of my eyesight. There was a cloud right on the vision on my left eye and it got blurry. At first, it started with minutes and then it passed. But I knew my body responded to exhaustion in an odd way so I let it slide. As doctors have instructed me, only when it lasts over 24 hours it’s an actual episode/flare and I should go to the ER -- to elaborate this further, I have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2015 and have not had any bigger flares since, only the regular symptoms like fatigue, etc.

 I got treated with the regular medication; cortisone. This shit gave me some energy boost for a few days and then, things went back to somewhat normal. The blurry thing in my eye has changed into a weird ass thing called nystagmus. Basically, my eyeball was twitching. It was better than the blurry sight and my doctors told me that physical therapy was the only thing to help me with that, and up until some weeks ago this didn’t stop, at the moment it’s gotten way better though - a relief because that caused me mad headache and made reading really difficult.

Anyway, that was the smaller problem. A few months later, in December around Christmas, I have gotten really weak and have been constantly dizzy. As usual, I let it slide for some days. Up until that point when I couldn’t move from the bed or look at anything else but right up at the ceiling or I would get fucking dizzy. Back to the ER again, the same procedure began. Cortisone  resulted in a massive push of energy that lasted for some days, but after that, all the symptoms slowly returned. Not only that, but it started to get worse. I have been dragging and limping with my left foot since months but I still managed somehow to walk and get around. In January I had a major panic attack when I noticed that I couldn’t walk on my own to my doctors, which is merely an 8 minute walk away. I had to call my mom to bring me back home because I couldn’t go any step more. My doctor sent me to the ER but the next day, I decided that I was fine and being over dramatic and everything was perfectly fine. The whole thing kept getting worse, I could not walk anymore, I kept feeling dizzy all the time unless I was staring at only one spot: my laptop or phone. So that was what I did, ignore my symptoms. Adding to my chronic fatigue, dizziness, inability to walk and my eye problem, a sensitivity problem spread all over my body from the chest downwards. My hands hurt and my fingers cramped up and got stiff, I lost all feeling in my feet. I had an appointment at the neurologist thank god, or else, I would have let it gotten worse and kept telling myself that I am being over dramatic and nothing is actually wrong. Delusional? Maybe. I don’t understand myself there either.

The neurologist decided to keep me in hospital for a whole ass week, getting cortisone every day. I got in there with the ambulance in a wheelchair and left out of there walking again. Not perfectly, but I thought things were looking up. Of course, once the high dose of steroids begins to wear off and you slowly come down from it, you first catch sleep. Steroids this time have been given to me five days in high dose instead of three and in addition, I had to take pills that I had to reduce slowly over another two weeks. I did not sleep in those three weeks more than 3-4 hours per night and then I finally could. To make this more understandable; my brain was tired but my body was buzzing. I also had a tremor that has still not entirely left me as a wonderful side effect from the medication. 

That time stationary they finally put me back in a MRT and found 2 bigger new lesions. One of them in my cerebellum and the other in my spinal cord. Each of them causing me all those massive problems. Back at home I had physical therapy every day, but despite all of it, I had to rely on a wheelchair. I got my wheelchair in march and named him Otto because he is the best man ever. Next time in hospital, I was mentally and physically just fucking done and tried to just ignore how much my mental health was going downhill along with my body, the neurologist offered me stationary rehab at a very well known center where they treat several physical as well as mental illnesses. I said yes, and luckily got a place in July.

The initial plan was to stay there for four weeks, but the doctors suggested to extend to six. I did. And good that I did. I made slow progress. Very slow. To imagine, in twenty minutes at the first day I could barely walk 130m with four  breaks in between, with walking aid and what not - and my last day I made 640m in the same time with no breaks. I know this doesn’t sound like a lot but fuck -- I made it out of a fucking wheelchair. I am walking again. Not perfectly or any good, but my legs are used for their purpose again; to get me through this world. For someone who loves hiking and going for little walks alone, this was such a big deal to just not be able to anymore. 

The day I had the panic attack was the day I realized that in 2015 I made a promise to myself that if I ever have to rely on other people, I would end it. But I felt selfish for not wanting to end it. I felt selfish  for wanting to live and being a burden to people. I know, none of this is my fault and I am the first to give good advice, but am I good at handling my own shit? Absolutely not. 

With all the physical therapy I did for six weeks every day, I also had a psychologist that helped me understand myself better and deal with the trauma this experience brought me. I have to find another psychologist at home as well, because I didn’t feel the one I have helped me at all. I had to make a lot of promises to myself, such as accepting and asking for help and that it’s no shame in doing so. I feared losing my independence and I still do. But fuck, this experience was an eye opener in so many ways. I made new friends in rehab as well, which was one of the coolest things. And I got hit on by two attractive men - can you believe? I was in a wheelchair, dressed like absolute shit and not making any kind of deal of how I look! But yeah, my interest wasn’t really there to get involved in anything. I’ve got a lot of love to give but I need to give it to myself rather than pour it out on someone else.

I learned so many lessons, about my body and about my mind. My brain is an idiot and I have so many fears I was never even able to see until now. I thought optimism could beat everything and well... while it helps me a lot to get through every day life, every now and then I just need a slap in the face to look at things in another light. Not everything is fine if you tell yourself it is, no, you are not over reacting and you are allowed to feel sorry for yourself when life is dealing you a bad card. It doesn’t matter that other people have it worse -- it doesn’t mean your own shit is any less valid. And with that, I am going to wash my face and stop crying. I am still in a shock of reality state because I am  back at home now and everything is different. And I got to admit, I feel a little lonely. But I don’t want to reach out to my old friends at the moment with whom I felt like the “sick friend”. I want more friends in similar positions as me so I don’t have to feel bad for... well, feeling bad, and I don’t want to hear any more optimism monologues from healthy people who have absolutely no idea what it is like to have chronic pain, fatigue and overall; an illness. Whether it be mental or physical.

If you really read all of this, thank you. There was no need to, but I appreciate it. I honestly just needed to let it out. Because I haven’t done so properly since all of that started. 

[casualmaraudering]

the marauders gang ft medical condition headcanons

for once without remus cause a lot of the times only remus has any medical conditions so i started thinking about some stuff others are dealing with, just to give rem a break from all the misfortune

cw: anaphylactic shock, almost dying via peanuts, foggy glasses, herbal teas

-Sirius-

severe peanut allergy

used to forget to carry an epipen cause he was a rather forgetful little kid - got scolded by adoptive mom so many times when she saw the epipen lying on his desk rather than in his bag or in his pocket

which is why James always carries an epipen on him too, even well into adulthood, just to be safe

the first time he had an allergic reaction he was 10 and it was at a playground cause someone gave him a candy bar that supposedly had no peanuts in it. he started feeling weird, passed out, almost died, all the fun stuff. when he woke up in the hospital after the fact and his parents or James weren't there, he was so scared that he cried

& the first - and so far only, thank god - time his friends had ever seen him have a reaction was when they were 16 (Sirius was 17) and went to a milkshake place after school. they assured him there was no peanuts in his milkshake but someone probably didn't wash the equipment or something cause yeah, they were with their shakes outside just having a jolly time and Sirius is starting to feeling weird, someone points out his eyes are looking puffy, bam. epipen, ambulance, hospital

they reacted fast and he didn't even pass out that time until much later but everyone got very spooked either way. no one really eats peanut butter much anymore

by the time he's in college he's been to the hospital cause of his allergy at least six times

"no nut november? more like no nut every month cause I'm allergic to peanuts"

-James-

near-sighted

he's always had bad eyesight but didn't even realize until he was 7 and asked Sirius how the heck can Sirius even read the whiteboard from where they're sitting and Sirius looked at him very strangely cause "dude. we're in the second desk what the hell"

yea turns out James is blind as fuck. like. very blind. -4.00 prescription at age 10 kind of blind

he can move about without his glasses, yes, but the world is a blurry mess so he'd much rather have them on at all times

holy fuck the amount of times he broke his glasses tho. he's always been a very high energy kid, plays football, generally goofs around. yea. So many broken frames and shattered lenses.

by the time he broke them for the third time (once via getting hit with a ball in the face, once via falling off a tree, and once he accidentally sat on them cause they got lost in his bedsheets) his parents started keeping a spare pair in the house

generally really hates contact lenses but puts them on for football practice or exercising

it's really surprising how often he doesn't know where his glasses are considering he needs them to see

tho most the times it's cause Sirius nicks them and puts them somewhere else

his least favourite thing in the world is being outside in the cold and then going into a warm place. or drinking a hot drink. foggy glasses. not a fan. (also not a fan of Sirius breathing on his glasses, which he very often does to annoy James)

-Lily-

insomnia

started around the age of 15, but she thought it was just a teenage thing, yknow, teens stay up til late hours, that's what they do right?

yea except a lof of the times she couldn't fall asleep even if she tried

or she'd often wake up at night, multiple times

whenever she can't sleep for several hours, she'll go for an intense run and that usually tires her enough that she can sleep

very grumpy if she's not well rested = she's very grumpy a lot of the time

can't fall asleep during the day or with the light on at all. so if she wakes up in the morning and it's already bright, there's kinda no way for her to fall back asleep

she got really close to Remus cause of it cause her insomnia and his adhd go hand in hand, often they're both awake at fuckall o'clock when no one else is

she usually gets at least a few hours of sleep per night but it's not enough and so she's tired and grumpy and generally in an awful mood

reaches peak during first year of college when she has so much to study and so she stays up studying but then can't fall asleep and yeah. not fun

James often goes running with her at night. he doesn't mind if it's 3am or whatever, he doesn't like the thought of her being alone in the middle of the night (she can handle herself, yes, but also the world is a shitty place and a woman isn't safe running at night). and he's generally not a bad workout buddy

she has the biggest stash of herbal teas ever, like oh my god. when she sees a new mix or flavour she'll buy it in hopes it'll do something. it very rarely does. so she's left with a whole box and just shoves it into the cupboard. and that's why lily evans has a cupboard of 94 different herbal teas

-Regulus-

iron deficiency & anemia

gets up too fast and oh hello, the world is spinning. that's not normal

casually leaning against the wall after he gets up cause nope he's definitely not dizzy and seeing weird blobs everywhere haha what are you talking about

he doesn't like exercise in general but when he exercises he feels like he's honestly about to die, thank you lack of red cells, very cool of you

and I mean. he kinda looks like a sick victorian kid cause he's That pale. the Blacks are generally very pale but Reg is on a different level

when he got diagnosed with it, Sirius became a dietician overnight basically. and now whenever Sirius cooks, it's always shit that's rich in iron & vitamin C cause hello, gotta take care of his little bro

Regulus generally doesn't have a huge appetite tho, which results in a lot of bickering and Sirius basically being a mom with the whole "eat at least half or I'm not letting you leave the table" thing

Euphemia brings him snacks a lot just to make the kid gets the right vitamins into him

she also forces him to sit in the garden for at least an hour every day - it won't necessarily help the iron deficiency, but hey, maybe he'll gain some colour on those ghostly cheekbones

cold hands and feet so he sleeps with socks on, because his feet are really ridiculously cold to the point it bothers him so much he can't fall asleep

Sirius and James call him a vampire for it which doesn't even make sense to him but it stuck, and his brothers are dumbasses. so now this is his life

[zeldasayer]

I transcribed and translated Pedro’s interview from GQ Germany for all of us. I tried translating as good as possible but bear with me, English is not my mother tongue. By @sixties-loser

Pedro Pascal, the star from “Game of Thrones”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Mandalorian” talks about becoming an adult, film, fashion, corona – and a painful surgery in the exclusive GQ interview.

It seems almost eerie how empty the streets of LA are in the sunshine. Meanwhile a new normality seems to be coming to Europe, most people in L.A. are still cutting their own hair. Many have not seen their friends for half a year. The pandemic is out of control. The reaction towards it too. Inviting someone into their garden for a “distance drink” can cause the same distress as suggesting to switch spouses.

Therefore, it was particularly surprising that Pedro Pascal immediately accepted. He accepted the drink, not to switch spouses. He is one of the rising stars and newcomers this year – if it wasn’t for corona sending the whole film industry into a forced vacation, there would most likely not have been time for said drink. After having his skull crushed in “Game of Thrones” followed the lead role as a DEA agent hunting Pablo Escobar in “Narcos” in 2015 and now he is stepping towards big Hollywood films. From the 1st of October onwards the Chilean-born actor will be starring in the blockbuster “Wonder Woman 1984”. Moreover, the second season of the “Star Wars”-series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ starring him as the lead is going to air in October this year – but he will be underneath a helmet. Well, we all are under a helmet in 2020 in one way or another. We want to meet the man who a few years ago still worked as a waiter in New York, whose parents were political refugees who found asylum in Denmark and settled in Texas and whose son one day signed up for a theatre group in High School.

Then, the cancellation! While we were in the middle of fixing up the house and the garden for the drink with Pedro and organizing the fashion shoot, which was not easy considering the safety measures in L.A., his management called with an unfortunate message: Pedro – no, not sick with corona – had to get emergency surgery because of a damaged tooth and was lying in bed with a swollen face that was hindering him from speaking and taking pictures. The sun is shining onto empty streets. And our empty garden.

A few days later he nonetheless arrived at our front door without a swollen face but still with threads in his mouth. He was not chauffeured by a limo-service but he came with his own car – he even picked up his make-up artist. He is helping her carrying all of her utensils into the house and declares: “I’ve got time today!”. What a celebrity! It seemed like we did not want to ask him how he made it to the A-List of Hollywood but he wanted to ask us how we made it to the A-list. Pedro Pascal! Yes, what kind of a celebrity?

Pedro Pascal: Sorry for messing with your plans. The surgery was an emergency.

GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling wasn’t the product of a secret visit to the plastic-surgeon. Apparently, they are drowning in work because of the quarantine in Hollywood.

PP: I have to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I was rushing to the hospital with a fractured tooth and the worst pain in my entire life – a hospital in which treats people with severe cases of corona. I was unable to reach any dentist! Right in front of the parking lot a specialist called me back. The pain was hell despite the ten injections I got. The doctor said I was not an exception because a lot of people are grinding their teeth because of all the stress.

GQ: What are you most afraid of at the moment?

PP: How the government is handling the pandemic is worrying me more than the virus itself. This shortage of intelligent management of the crisis is a moral shame. The leadership crisis in this country is turning us all into orphans – destitute and abandoned.

GQ: How did you spend your time over the last few months?

PP: I spent it with frozen pizza and sweatpants in Venice Beach. I live in a rear house that’s in a family’s garden. Actually, there are a lot of good takeout places nearby but for some reason I just love pepperoni pizza from the supermarket.

GQ: That does not really sound like movie star-lifestyle. What does it feel like being suddenly stopped from top speed to zero?

PP: Regarding what is going on around the world one should hold back one’s own mental turmoil. I would be lying if I was saying that I am not disappointed. The whole team put a lot of heart and work into the production of “Wonder Woman 1984”. We had a lot of fun on set. I wished to travel around the world and introduce the film with the same lively energy.

GQ: You come from a politically engaged, socialist family that fled from the Pinochet-regime in Chile. What do you remember from that time?

PP: My sister and I were born in Chile but I was only nine months old when we first found asylum in Denmark. From there we quickly came to San Antonio in Texas where my dad started working as a doctor at the university clinic.

GQ: Texas is not known as a socialist utopia. How did you assimilate?

PP: San Antonio is not a Cowboy-town but very diverse with big Asian, black and Latino communities. I remember it as a romantic place, culturally open. The culture shock only came as we later moved to range county in California. There the atmosphere was suddenly white, preppy and conservative.

GQ: How were you received in California?

PP: I’m still ashamed of the fact that I did not correct my classmates when they kept on calling me Peter. I am Pedro. Even if I didn’t grow up in Chile the country and the language are still a part of me. I was very unhappy in that environment. However, I was fortunately able to go to another school close to Long Beach where I felt more comfortable. Through the theater group at that school I found my way.

GQ: Were you able to visit Chile as a child?

PP: Yes, when my parents made it to the list of expatriates that were able to travel to Chile without consequences. First, there was a big family reunion and then my sister and I stayed there for a few months with relatives while my parents went back to Texas. They likely needed a break from us. They got us when they were very young, had a buzzing social life and my mother was obtaining a PhD in psychology.

GQ: Was your mother a typical young psychologist who wanted to apply her theoretical knowledge at home?

PP: You mean, whether I was her guinea pig? For sure! I remember strange tests and sittings that were disguised as games where someone was watching me react to different toys. I cannot have been older than six but I was already aware of the dynamic. My favourite thing was being questioned about my dreams. That was a wonderful opportunity to come up with fantastic stories.

GQ: Was that your first performance?

PP: Of course! My mother worried about my strong imagination because I was living in my own fantasy world rather than reality. I hated going to school. I was always categorized as the troublemaker. At one point, the topics at school became more interesting and my grades also went up. There are so many kids that are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be abhorrent. Why is it so accepted to be bored in class when there are so many stimulating ways to convey knowledge?

GQ: Considering al that has happened this summer around the world: Do you believe that we can seriously demand social change now?

PP: I Hope so. After lockdown, the first time I went out was to protest for “Black Lives Matter” on the streets. The energy was peaceful and hopeful until the police provoked severe conflicts. Nevertheless, we cannot run from problems like we used to this time and we cannot distract ourselves from them either. It seems like the pressure of the pandemic led to a new clarity: We cannot go on this way.

GQ: The “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer revives the optimism of the 1980’s. From today’s point of view, it seems almost nostalgic.

PP: That’s right. You really are happy for two hours. The director Patty Jenkins created a film full of positive messages. We shot in Washington D.C., then in London and Spain – this sounds like I am talking of a past time.

GQ: Do you miss traveling?

PP: I’m just now realizing the privilege of just packing up one’s stuff and being able to fly anywhere. An American passport used to guarantee unlimited travel. And that’s why it the small radius of our lives is actually unimaginable. Over the last years I often retreated for a break after shootings because I was constantly on the move and overstimulated. My friends were already complaining I had become too comfortable. We all took social contact for granted and are only realizing now how dependent we actually are on human contact. Over the last weeks I often longingly thought about all the parties and dinner invitations I declined.

GQ: In L.A. people spend more time at home or nature than in other metropolises that are more geared towards public life. Could this city become your second home after New York?

PP: My Real Home are my friends. I have been a nomad since I was little and I do not have a place where I have put down roots. Up until not long ago my physical home was a place in between departure and arrival. Therefore, it was something I did not want to complicate through the accumulation of stuff. On the contrary: Without having read Marie Kondo’s book I have freed myself from excess baggage over the last few years and I lived relatively minimally.

GQ: Is there nothing you collect or something you just can’t throw away?

PP: Books! I even still have the literature I read when I was a teenager and when I was in college. Recently, I stumbled upon a box full of old theatre manuscripts and materials from my time at the New York University. I also cannot part from art easily, just like I cannot part from lamps or old photos. On the other hand, I can easily get rid of furniture and clothes.

GQ: Do you remember roles that were really only completely defined through the costume?

PP: Yes, I am particularly thinking about “Game of Thrones”. At that time I understood for the first time what it meant to be supported by a look. This is thanks to the costume designer Michele Clapton. She created very feminine robes and brocade coats for my character that nevertheless looked masculine when worn and I felt very sexy in them. Of course, Lindy Hemmings power-suits and Jan Swells bleached hairstyle for the tycoon-villain in “Wonder Woman 1984” were very important as well. At first I did not really see myself in the role because the cuts and colors of the 80s do not really fit my body. I’m more the 70s type.

GQ: Do you incorporate those inspirations into your personal wardrobe?

PP: In my free time I choose comfort over a cool look these days. Sometimes I miss the times when I expressed myself through a certain style. It is hard to imagine that I went to Raves as a teenage in the 90s; I was a real club kid with ridiculous outfits: overalls, balloon pants, football shirts and a top hat, like in Dr.Seuss’s “Cat in a Hat”. Later in New York I was hanging out with a group of people that felt it was very important to have a certain style. The fact that I am basically only wearing sweatpants everyday is actually tragic.

GQ: whoever plays roles in comic book adaptations becomes a bodybuilder and eats ten chicken breasts a day. You don’t?

PP:My body would not agree with that. It is hard enough to stay in shape normally. When you’re in your mid-forties you have to live with a lot more discipline. Up until before my tooth-incident I worked out with a trainer in my garden multiple times a week to keep the quarantine body in check.

GQ: Apart from the personal trainer, are you in a steady relationship?

PP: I am not ready for that yet. Maybe at some point I will be but until then I’ll let it be. I can’t even offer you absurd corona dating stories.

GQ: What would annoy you the most if you were your own roommate?

PP: I can be quite controlling. I have to conjure all my humanity to prevent myself from going through my entire film collection. When I don’t want something I cannot keep it to myself or be passive-aggressive, I always have to take it to the frontlines. Other than that, I tend to have tunnel view: when I am not feeling well I cannot imagine to ever feel better again. I have trouble relativizing my emotions or to wave off problems. Method-acting would really not be for me. This is why I try to only work on projects that feel good, where there is mutual support and encouragement.

GQ: When we were trying on the clothes earlier you spoke of a lack of self-confidence. How does that get along with a career like yours?

PP: Isn’t it interesting how these characteristics and circumstamces relate? Self-worth comes from inside but it is also influenced by what society values because we often internalise the public gaze. I have lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and made a living by working as a waiter until my mid-thirties because the theatre and film jobs I got did not pay the bills. There were so many times I was almost there. The disappointment of having missed the perfect role or opportunity by a hair’s width can be crushing. When should you give up and what is plan B? That is a question that is not only on many actors‘s minds but also on many others minds who struggle for a living – no matter how much potential they have or how close they seem to be to the top. We are seeing now how our narrow definition of success destroys society. At the same time, we are realizing that where we come from and the color of our skin still decide whether we can exist with dignity.

GQ: What are the positive aspects of a relatively late success as leading-man?

PP: I feel like I can decide over my own life without the pressure of having to accept projects or to have to present a certain identity on social media. This is for sure also because I am a man. Regardless of age, Women have to try harder to stand out.

GQ: Life always consists of risk management – now more than usual. For what would you risk losing something?

PP: Generally, when you never risk something you might never get ahead. That is for friendship, love, work and creativity. I have to be ready to take risks for the things that really matter to you.

[samwenahetbait]

Supernatural, Season 7, and the Positive and Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia/Psychosis

I just finished season 7 of Supernatural. Season 7 and Sam’s arc, and later Cas’ arc, interested me a lot because I’m schizoaffective (schizoaffective being schizophrenia plus a mood disorder, either bipolar or depression, in my case depression).

I’ve done a lot of research on the disorder and spectrum of disorders and when watching the beginning of honey!Cas I thought this would be a really interesting way to show the ways the show does and doesn’t portray psychotic disorders well.

I’ll be using both Sam and Cas, Sam for positive symptoms and Cas for negative symptoms, and evaluating them for how accurate they are to DSM 5 criteria for psychosis, criteria for schizophrenia (understanding that neither of them could be diagnosed due to duration and the magical nature of their problem), and accuracy to personal experience (not all psychotic experiences are the same, obviously, so this is not the most accurate test, but lets do it anyways lol)

This is gonna be long, so more under the cut!

So a bit of background of the DSM 5 criteria for schizophrenia and DSM 4 criteria for psychosis not otherwise specified, which is still in use in hospitals and doctors offices and would definitely still be used in 2012. The DSM 5 criteria for schizophrenia includes two or more of the following, with one having to be one of the first three: hallucinations, delusions (things that you believe as true even when presented evidence you’re false), disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms. The duration must be for six months including prodrome (mostly negative symptoms), with at least one month of active symptoms.

The DSM 4 says psychosis not otherwise specified includes delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior about which the doctor cannot make another, better diagnosis.

Positive Symptoms

“Positive” and “negative” symptoms are a bit misleading. what they really mean are positive symptoms are things the disorder adds that aren’t there originally (hallucinations, delusions, disordered speech), and negative symptoms are things that are taken away (blunted affect, poverty of speech, avolition or lack of energy)

[ID: Sam looks to the left. He says “he’s singing “stairway to heaven” right now.” End ID]

Sam is our character who experiences positive symptoms with Hallucifer. There are multiple types of hallucinations, the most common being auditory. Combination auditory and visual hallucinations are possible but they’re more rare than the media makes you believe.

Sam has a stereotypical case of what an outsider with no research may think psychosis or schizophrenia is - he has a voice that will not let him sleep, that constantly bothers him. Sam qualifies for Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified in that he has a prominent hallucination and does not qualify for another disorder.

What’s interesting about Sam’s psychosis to me watching, though, was the hallucination was the only sign of psychosis he had. It was severe and caused depression, derealization, dissociation, and insomnia but he never had delusions outside of the hallucinations, never had disordered speech outside of sleep deprivation, never had bizarre movements or disorganized behaviors. The only way to get a schizophrenia diagnosis with only hallucinations is if you have two or more voices who talk to each other, which he does not have. Sam would absolutely not qualify for a schizophrenia diagnosis.

As for personal experience - I’ve been hospitalized because voices have made it impossible for me to sleep so this arc hit close to home. I thought at times he was a little too well put together and honestly think there were moments in the season the writers forgot he was actively hallucinating. I thought that besides only having hallucinations and it being the Hollywood hallucination Sam’s arc with his “voice” was fairly easy for me to empathize with - but not easy for anyone else to treat him with respect. Here’s a link to a quiz I made about which ableist phrase used against Sam in season 7 you are

Negative Symptoms

[ID: Meg, in a nurses outfit, crosses her arms. Castiel’s profile is seen. Meg says “He’s been like the naked guy at the rave ever since he woke up.” End ID]

Cas, when absorbing Sam’s hell trauma, originally has his one positive symptom - hallucinations of Lucifer. However, after he wakes up from his coma he has one and a half noticeable positive symptoms and one and a half marked negative symptoms.

Cas experiences some form of hallucination (he tells Sam that he “sees everything” when asked what he sees) but it’s unclear what he means by this. He has noticeable disorganized speech however in that he will end conversations during important discussions and change the topic, which is an aspect of disorganized speech.

I would also argue Cas experiences a negative symptoms known in disorganized schizophrenia particularly, although anyone with psychosis can have it: inappropriate affect. Some people with schizophrenia will laugh during moments when they should be crying or show inappropriate emotional responses, uncontrolled. Cas doesn’t seem to have control over his emotions and will make jokes and laugh during tense or upsetting situations. Part of that is also due to his complete disconnect with reality and what is happening in the situation. It could also be argued he experienced disorganized movement or catatonia, as we see him staring blankly and sitting still at the end of 7.17.

Castiel definitely qualifies for PNOS through his disconnect with reality, possible hallucinations, and disorganized speech, as well as with inappropriate affect and possible catatonia. Despite having more on the list than Sam he still doesn’t qualify for schizophrenia.

This is getting longer than anticipated so I’ll try to make this section shorter. I don’t think honey!cas was written to be psychotic. I don’t think he was written with an illness in mind. I don’t think either of them were. I think Cas was written to be funny crazy and Sam to be scary crazy. But in writing a funny crazy character the writers accidentally hit somewhere personal as someone living with the cognitive and neurological effects of schizoaffective. I watched honey!cas on a bad cognitive day and sobbed when they were mean to him because I related to the disorganized speech and the inappropriate behavior. Is it good representation? No. It’s exaggerated and ridiculed. It’s deeply ableist. And the way the writer’s treat him and have others treat him is deeply ableist. But I did find myself relating and rooting for him.

Fandom Response

I haven’t been in Supernatural fandom long (four months) and being involved with fandom while watching the show has been interesting. I’ve had pretty much everything at least somewhat spoiled so I was excited to see honey!cas and psychotic Sam in something other than gifs. I’ve seen maybe three people talk about sam’s psychosis, maybe because I don’t follow enough sam blogs, but it’s not something I’ve seen a lot of. everyone i’ve seen has been psychotic and made it clear he’s a psychotic character or been supportive of viewing him as psychotic. But honey!cas is very popular and...sexualized?

I’ve seen two responses to honey!cas: he’s so crazy or he’s so slutty. I’m going to ask both of those groups of people to see the character as a person experiencing cognitive issues and a break from reality. Not saying not to talk about honey!cas - he’s interesting, but please don’t sexualize him for being quirky when by quirky you mean delusional and please don’t do the opposite and demonize him for being vulnerable (and if that’s crazy. you should see me off my meds)

[tarlosprompts]

What about Carlos hurt on a call and TK freaking out and more or less moving in after Carlos gets home from the hospital bc he doesn't want to leave him alone for a second. Sorta a makes him realize how deep his feelings are and how much he loves him and can't live without him kinda deal

Claimed by Red💋

Part 2 of another prompt! Here’s Part 1

Warnings: past violence, high anxiety, slight dissociation

Anxious Nights

TK didn’t want to leave Carlos when the ambulance rolled up to the hospital. Carlos hadn’t woken up on the ride to the hospital and that had TK on edge. Michelle had tried to explain to him that the shoulder wound would heal up fine, it didn’t seem like there was much damage...except for the fact that there was now a hole going from his boyfriend’s front to his back. What if Carlos didn’t regain full motion of his arm? 

Michelle had also tried to explain that Carlos probably wouldn’t wake up on the ride to the hospital because of how hard he hit his head. She tried to explain that head wounds bleed more and that it wasn’t that serious. She tried to explain that Carlos would probably only have a mild concussion, but TK couldn’t listen to her. All he could hear were the bad thoughts, the what ifs. What if Carlos hit his head hard enough to forget him? What if Carlos damaged his brain? What if Carlos didn’t wake up?

Watching Carlos get wheeled through the double doors where he couldn’t follow was almost as bad as watching Carlos go down on the scene. TK didn’t really know what to do with himself. He stood in the middle of the floor, staring at those doors. 

A small hand rested on his shoulder, “TK, you with me?” TK turned his head to Michelle, a frown on his face as it had been for the past thirty minutes. “We need to get you checked out, TK.”

“I’m staying here,” he muttered, staying in place.

“As soon as they know something, they know to find me. Carlos would want you to get yourself checked out.”

“I’m staying,” TK responded. 

Michelle rolled her eyes at the stubborn man. “Fine.” She turned to her radio, “bring me an ambo bag, I need to check TK out after his escapades today.” Turning back to TK, she led him over to a chair that faced the double doors. “I need you to take your turnout off.” 

TK followed her instructions and proceeded to sit down as Gillian placed a bag next to Michelle. “Go ahead and head back to the station. Do you mind having someone bring over mine and TK’s bags?”

“You got it, Boss.”

Michelle pulled out a light and flicked it in front of TK’s eyes. She did most of the exam nonverbally as TK’s anxiety showed itself through his extremities moving rapidly. “Does anything hurt? And I need you to be honest, TK.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “I have a mild headache and some sore muscles. Nothing that won’t fix itself.” 

Michelle studied him a moment more before nodding to herself. “If anything starts becoming unbearable, you need to let me know.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

_____________

Three Hours Later

TK’s leg hadn’t stopped bouncing since he’d sat down. He’d tried pacing the room, but his dad had put a quick stop to that when he arrived with his and Michelle’s bags. Now he was stuck between the paramedic and his father as he waited for any news on Carlos. 

TK ticked his fingers as he looked up at the clock on the wall. How long did it take to let people know their loved ones were alright? It shouldn’t take three hours for someone to assess Carlos and let his friends and family know. 

TK tensed as a doctor walked through the door. “Family of Carlos Reyes,” he called. 

TK was immediately on his feet. “Is he alright? Can we see him? How bad was it? Is-”

“TK,” his father placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Michelle Blake,” the doctor turned to the woman.

“That’s me. Anything you want to say, you can say in front of my friends.”

“Very well. Carlos sustained a through and through in the right shoulder. We cleansed the wound and exrayed it to make sure nothing was broken. We sewed it up and it should heal fully in four-six weeks. Mr. Reyes also sustained a head wound from his fall. That required four stitches but should heal just fine. We also assessed for a concussion. Because he lost consciousness we have diagnosed him with a Grade 3 concussion. He will need to be monitored closely so we have admitted Mr. Reyes for the next twenty-four hours. If all goes well, he should be able to return home within the next day or two as long as he has someone to watch over him. If there are no questions, I can lead you to his room.”

Seeing no questions, the doctor turned and walked them through the double doors. As they walked, TK could feel his anxiety climb. Concussions were nothing to joke about. Would this affect Carlos later on? As they approached the room, the doctor turned to him. “He was awake thirty minutes ago but he may not be now. He does need his rest, so please, do not wake him up. Visiting hours are technically over, but I can let a nurse know that one of you will be staying the night. The other two would need to leave in the next thirty minutes”

Michelle smiled at the doctor, “would you mind informing them that TK Strand will be staying with him tonight?”

The doctor gave her a kind smile and nod. “Will do. He is in room 740. To enter and exit the building use the main entrance, not the emergency doors.” With that, the doctor was off. 

TK, Owen, and Michelle walked the rest of the short way to Carlos’s room in silence. Michelle was the first to the room. She quietly opened the door and peeked her head in. She motioned for the Strands to be quiet as they entered. Once in the room, TK could see Carlos sleeping peacefully on the hospital bed. He immediately went to Carlos’s bedside, hands fluttering once again, not knowing what to do with them. He didn’t want to wake Carlos as he did need sleep to recover. 

TK heard a quiet shuffle behind him before he saw a chair appear behind him out of his periphery. TK sat down, hands finally settling on clasping Carlos’s left hand. TK couldn’t take his eyes off of Carlos’s face and chest. Carlos was alive. He was breathing. He was resting. 

“He’s going to be okay, Son.”

_____________

Two Days Later

“Tiger, you don’t need to stay with me. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you a doctor? Hell, are you a paramedic? No? Oh that’s right, your a stubborn ass cop. We were told you needed to be supervised at home for the next week and that is what we are doing...unless you want to go back to the hospital?” TK raised an eyebrow as he parked the car in front of Carlos’s house. Seeing his boyfriend’s grimace, he responded, “I thought not.”

TK helped Carlos out of the car and into the house. He moved to take Carlos to the bedroom, but Carlos stopped. “I’d like to sit in the living room and watch movies with my boyfriend while he pretends like he isn’t trying to coddle me.”

TK’s glare held no heat. “Fine. Sit,” he ordered. “Don’t even think of getting up. Let me go grab our bags.”

In no time, TK had their bags in the house and pillows and blankets brought out from Carlos’s room and piled around the man. “Do you need anything? Water? Pain meds? Food? Should I get more blankets or-”

“Tiger, Baby, calm down. I just want to cuddle with my amazing boyfriend. That’s all I need.” Carlos’s brown eyes pleaded for him to concede. 

TK nodded quickly. “Yeah, yes. Yes, I can do that. I can totally do that.” TK quickly turned around before heading to the couch, “let me just grab some water and snacks. That way we don’t have to move. Can’t let you get dehydrated. I’ll bring over you meds too so that they’re in reach. We can’t stay on the couch for the rest of the day, you’ll need your rest in an actual bed to get better, plus the couch isn’t that comfy. Should we just go to your room? I can pull up movies on your laptop. It would be more comfortable and better for your recovery and we could still cuddle. We should-”

“TK, Tyler...Tyler I need you to breathe. I’m alright. If it would make you feel better, we can go to my room,” Carlos hated that TK was becoming more anxious by the second. He didn’t know what he could do to ease that anxiety. 

“Okay, yeah, okay. Let’s do that. Let me-let me come help you up.”

Carlos didn’t fight TK’s need to help him get up even though Carlos was seventy-five percent sure he could get up by himself. He let TK mother hen him into the bed and fortify him with pillows. He didn’t even object to the snacks that TK brought in, though Carlos never was big on eating things in bed. As TK straightened up to go get something else, Carlos caught his hand. “Baby, this is everything we need. Please lay down with me.”

Carlos could see the energy buzzing beneath TK’s skin. The last time he’d seen this much energy tightly coiled in his boyfriend had been the night he’d first called TK over for dinner that turned into a disaster. He didn’t like this side of his boyfriend. 

_____________

TK tried not to fidget in the bed, but he felt like he needed to be up and moving and making sure that Carlos was alright and bringing him anything he needed. He needed to be busy. After his hand started tapping on his leg for the fifth time, Carlos reached down to lace his fingers with TK’s. “I’m alright, Amore. I just want to relax with my boyfriend. I am fine, I’m going to be fully healed in a matter of weeks. There’s no need for you to worry yourself sick.”

“I’m not-I’m not worrying myself. I just want to make sure you’re comfortable.”

“Babe, you literally can’t sit still. I don’t want you to be anxious over this. I’m fine.”

“But you weren’t! What if he had shot you in the head? He aimed for you and I couldn’t do anything and then I couldn’t see you. When I did-” TK’s voice cracked, “when I did see you, you weren’t moving, Carlos. You were not fine!” 

“In my defense, I did hit my head and I was unconscious.” Carlos was trying to lighten the mood slightly, but the look TK gave him, sobered him. “I watched you fly five feet through the air when the propane tanks blew. You didn’t move for a couple of seconds. I was worried about you, but you’re alright. You’re sitting here, talking to me. And I’m sitting here talking to you. Tyler, it’s alright to worry about me, but you don’t need to be in fight or flight mode because I’m not in danger. I’m healing.”

TK was silent for a while and all Carlos could do was look at him. He couldn’t tell what the man was thinking. TK extracted himself from the hold Carlos had on him. “I’m going to make some sandwiches and change clothes to be more comfortable in bed. Do you want to change or are you alright?” 

“Tiger,” Carlos sighed.

“Right, I’ll bring back a sandwich for you.” TK darted out the door.

_____________

Six Days Later

“I’m not an invalid,” Carlos sighed.

TK rolled his eyes in return. “I never said you were.”

“Yeah, you just treat me like one. If the roles were reversed, you’d be verbally fighting me about it.” 

“I just want you to heal correctly. Is that too much to ask?”

“You are allowed to go home now. You don’t need to watch me anymore.”

TK turned his back to Carlos as he pulled his shirt off to change. “What, so you’re kicking me out? For caring?” When Carlos didn’t respond, TK turned with his new shirt in his hands to look at the man. Carlos’s eyes were wide. “What?”

Carlos stood up, walking towards TK. “Baby, your back,” Carlos whispered, turning him around to run his hands over the healing bruises. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

“It didn’t really hurt. Must have been the blast’s force. I’m fine. I had more important things to think about.”

“Tyler, you should have at least told me.”

TK turned back to face Carlos, “so you could refuse my help? I don’t think so. It really didn’t hurt that much, ‘Los.”

Carlos shook his head. “We’re partners, Tyler Kennedy Strand. We tell each other when we’re hurt. That’s how this works. You need to think about yourself too, not just me and my injuries.”

TK broke eye contact. His breathing was beginning to become uneven. “You could have...If that gangster had better aim, he could have killed you, Carlos. And I don’t-I don’t know how to live without you anymore. You-you’re my rock and I don’t know if I could stay sane or-or sober if you were gone. I love you...God I love you so much. I didn’t even realize how much I loved you...I don’t want to live without you. I don’t like it when you’re hurt. I can’t focus on me when you’re in pain because I want to fix it. I love you so much that when you’re hurt, I’m hurt and-and not just this time because I was also hurt, but-but because I care so deeply for you that it scares me. I’ve been so anxious because I wanted-I wanted to make it so you weren’t hurt. I wanted to take your pain and your injuries because you don’t deserve them.”

There was a shine in Carlos’s eyes as TK stared at them. A small smile was on the man’s face. “I happen to love you just as much. I feel your pain because I care so much for you...but it’s not scary because I know that you feel the same way. With our jobs, we can’t promise not to get hurt, Tyler. But we can promise to try out best. I think-I think we need to work on your anxiety, though, because it isn’t healthy to spend seven or more days filled to the brim with anxiety. I love you, so much Cariño.”

TK licked his lips as he leaned closer to Carlos. “Does this mean I can stay?”

Carlos bit his lip as a smile began to form. “However long you want...you already have a key, Baby.”

[iluvromance]

alright, welcome back to júlia ( @harryhoney-bee​ ) and i read the princess diaries. we finished up the fifth book, princess in pink, a while back and here are our thoughts:

- mia needs therapy

- lilly needs therapy

- boris ESPECIALLY needs therapy

- why did it take mia so long to finally realize that being friends with lilly is chaotic as hell?? when will she APPRECIATE TINA HAKIM BABA?!

- we need to have a discussion about michael’s music taste, because the stuff his band played at prom was FRIGHTENING and someone needs to introduce him to like, idk, taylor swift because he needs to calm down. good pun eh?

- we would never ever ever like to have a conversation with prince phillipe, the White Man, but michael sucked it up and did it and i think that’s beautiful. homie got balls or whatever

- MICHAEL HAS A PLANETARIUM MEMBERSHIP CARD. HUH

- so we were just randomly thinking this: who does michael talk to when he needs to rant about mia? he can’t talk to lilly. MAYBE he talks to boris, but i (sarah) think he does this in the later books. so is michael just slowly going insane thanks to mia?

- THE BRACELET SHE’S EXPECTING FROM HIM DFGKHDFK NO. NO WE DON’T HAVE THE STRENGTH TO TALK ABOUT THAT.

- michael is the bass player, but does he also do vocals? THIS IS IMPORTANT. i feel like mia would say something about his voice if he did.

- do you think michael’s bandmates make fun of him for writing songs about his GIRLFRIEND?

- in addition to the previous question, what do you think michael had to do for the band to convince them to get detention for some freshman?

- no we have to revisit the bracelet thing

"hey, maybe you can get me a bracelet or something?" -mia

michael perks up. "you want a bracelet. i didn't think you'd want it on account of you never wearing jewelry"

"yeah, but i guess there's a specific one i want." - mia

"ah, the dowager princess said no to it? your birthday is coming up so this is great. what bracelet do you want?" - michael

"oh, i want one that says property of michael moscovitz." - mia

"..." - michael

"so we can go to pandora or something to get that engraved." - mia

"... mia." - michael

“why are you turning red?” - mia

michael falls over laughing

then he pisses himself

"gwhat the fuck is wrong with you?" - michael

and scene.

- WE DON’T KNOW WHO’S SIDE WE’RE ON ABOUT THE PROM THING BECAUSE ON ONE HAND, MICHAEL SHOULD JUST SUCK IT UP, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, MIA IS SO ANNOYING PUSHING THIS ON HIM

- michael: is the coolest guy ever

also michael: h-here’s your birfay present mia

- THE NECKLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- maybe he talks to maya about mia, but maya doesn’t really listen and just nods along to whatever he’s saying

- the globe scene. the fucking GLOBE scene. i hate lilly, but i also hate boris during this part.

- we had a whole discussion about what curse word we think michael said. i think it was “motherfucker!” or “fuck!” but júlia thinks he isn’t a “motherfucker” kinda guy.

- ayo fuck lilly and jangbu

- THE NECKLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- MICHAEL CALLING THE CHILI GUY A SUCKA. KING!!!

- then we had a heated discussion about what michael wears, because i (sarah) thinks he wears regular fitting jeans and nice sweaters, but júlia thinks he has a more nerdy look that is more fashionable.

- i never thought rocky was a weird name until júlia pointed it out, and she is absolutely right. who looks at a child and says “ah, yes. rocky.” WHO??

- LOL WHEN MICHAEL SAYS THEY COULD BE DOING MORE OF “THIS” WHEN THEY’RE IN THE CLOSET, HE IS NOT REFERRING TO MAKING OUT LITERALLY IN A CLOSET. HE JUST MEANS MAKING OUT, BUT MIA DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THAT.

- i’d love to go bowling with mike and beat his ass-

- mr. g getting all worried about helen :((( that’s so sweet :( i think i have a crush on mr. g

- and i know damn well that if mr. g ever said he was proud of me, i’d start bawling right there, and that’s on <3 daddy issues <3

- why does helen ONLY have mia’s number in her phone. isn’t it supposed to be the other way around???

- MICHAEL RUSHING TO THE HOSPITAL WHEN HELEN FAINTS

- oh LORd i am fucking single

- not mia self diagnosing-

- boris tracing lilly’s face on the screen is SO FUCKING FUNNY PLEASEEEEEEE THAT’S SOME TINA ENERGY WHEN SHE CHANGED HER FONT TO BLUE WHEN SHE WAS SAD. I’M CONVULSING-

- THE NECKLACE!!!!!!!!!!!

[timextoxhajima]

HOSTIS, Chapter XVI: Adsumo, Claim

Previous Chapter (XV: Vetus Flamma)

Member: Lee Hyunjae (tbz) ft younghoon and eric

Genre (by chapter): drama, angst

Category: Short Novel/Long Series

“i knew i wasn’t the person you needed”

kim young hoon.

you remember the way he always offered to carry your bag or books, though you were well aware he’d rather not. 

younghoon was always known for his cold, aloof demeanor. 

that is, until you start talking to him. 

the first time you met younghoon, this strange feeling of queasiness and anxiety wrapped itself around your stomach, and it really wasn’t great timing when it was right after a full meal you decided to stuff yourself before extra class. 

being at a buffet just a few days earlier had literally poisoned your blood and your system; it was just hidden for this period of time.

so when the food you had for lunch poured out through your lips because of the food poisoning you were yet to be made aware of, only to land on younghoon’s shoe in school, it would’ve been the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you.

if you hurled on lee hyunjae, you would’ve been happy to be be diagnosed with food poisoning. 

but this was kim younghoon. 

his popularity was matched with lee hyunjae though he was nowhere near as intelligent -- or scheming.

girls around him started shooting you looks of disgust and low whispers of you being inappropriate or inconsiderate began to drown your senses out.

the regurgitation also forced out a lot of your energy, and your legs were slowly turning into jelly with every passing second. 

but before you could make a second stumble that would’ve allowed gravity to pull you into the concrete floor, younghoon holds your arm and keeps you upright. 

watching him crane his neck down and lower his back to see your vomit painted chin was both reassuring but terribly harsh on your pride. 

“are you alright?”

the loss of ego keeps your head hung low, and he takes it as a sign that you really weren’t feeling well.

ignoring all the girls staring at him dragging the smartest girl in school across campus to the medical bay was such a sight to behold, even for lee hyunjae. 

you wish you could’ve seen it for yourself from a third person perspective. 

not many people were aware of your little crush on younghoon, but you were always too busy trying to outdo lee hyunjae to even spare a second to day dream about him. 

sometimes you felt shallow and materialistic for choosing younghoon to wear your emotions on, since you haven’t really spoken to him. 

but if he didn’t know, it didn’t matter. 

there was an expectation for younghoon to stay clear of you, especially when you were already known as one of two areses in school. yet younghoon found reassurance in that, in the way you stood out from the crowd against your will.

younghoon’s face and personality did it for him. 

your competitiveness and ability to be the only person who could stand up against lee hyunjae did it for you.

lucifer had the best of both worlds, which made him all the more hate-worthy.

younghoon’s choice to invest in your friendship with him came as a surprise, but it felt like sunrise after a long night. 

for six years you’ve been wasting your energy on proving yourself better than lee hyunjae, so having younghoon becoming both a source and and outlet for your energy to channel to and from... 

it was nothing short of magical.

there was absolutely no way you could’ve forgotten the satisfaction that filled your lungs and your heart when the school found out you were dating the kim younghoon. 

you never really figured out why it was such a shocker, though you were pretty sure the school was just surprised you chose kim younghoon, a not-so-smart student, in comparison to your must-top-the-class persona.

most of the time spent with younghoon was either spent tutoring him or having nonsensical conversations with him before you slept. those were the times you felt relaxed, you felt loose, you felt like you didn’t really need to win.

there was nothing to win anyway, not with younghoon at least.

you had convinced yourself that younghoon was sick and tired of your never-ending battle with lee hyunjae, one that drove a scandalous picture of you and the lab teacher all over the internet like it was a freeway. 

younghoon must’ve known that the picture was just edited, for the teacher never got into trouble for it, only mild investigation.

but at least he was smart enough to save himself from the walking fire of fury, that was you, and he used this chance to run.

love was never really a priority in your life until younghoon came along, so even when that beautiful, flowery garden part of your life had gone, your priority naturally fell back on beating lucifer at his own game.

or a game that the both of you thought was a great idea to start. 

love was just a fickle thing, and all it did was to make you weak.

and if you were fighting ares himself, you had to be your best ares.

ares is not weak. 

ares is brutal and cruel and you had to be just that in order to beat another. 

sitting across younghoon, five years later, in your favourite cafe with the evening sun disappearing behind the buildings of the city, felt like a fever dream.

a dream you yearned had happened five years ago, not now. 

two bowls of soup and a bowl of truffle fries get served to your table, and younghoon thanks the waitress with a slight nod. the waiter recognises you, so she just gives you a small smile.

younghoon being the gorgeous man he is, catches her attention again, and you smile at your food when you felt her reluctance to leave the table.

“i must say,” he hands you a soup spoon after checking it for shitty cleaning. “i have high expectations for this chowder.”

“i just had this yesterday,” the pepper bottle shakes in your hold. “surely that must mean something?”

the slightly amber lamp dangles above your table, and the heat from the lightbulb was making the skin on your nose and forehead feel warm despite the early autumn wind gushing about outside. 

the pillars inside the cafe make it feel like you were in a warehouse, so every time someone appears behind a pillar and walks somewhere in your sight, younghoon would always look up to see if you were looking at anybody you knew. 

there was a bell hung on the door of the cafe near the cashier’s counter; which was located behind the wall you were sitting against. 

the sound makes you wait for someone new to show up in your span of vision, and if nobody appeared, you’d know that they ordered takeaway. 

“how’s working at the hospital? i heard you say you’ve been working with uncle for about a month?”

“i think it’s about five weeks or so, yeah,” the tiny circles of oil on the soup gets pushed around while you stir it, and younghoon adds pepper to his serving after tasting the truffle fries. “it’s alright... i mean, it’s just everything i expected.”

“so, no surprises?”

surprises.

“oh,” a snort runs through your throat as you take one mouth of your soup. “there was one big surprise--”

“lee hyunjae?”

the name strikes a chord in you, and you weren’t too sure why. 

“god must hate me to put me in the same room as him... we started working for the hospital on the same day, and his office is right next to mine.”

“huh,” younghoon hums, blowing on his spoon of soup before having it. “you must’ve been really upset when he showed up.”

“‘upset’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe how much i wanted to shove a pen down his throat. consider disgusted, angry, furious, disappointed, resentful, hateful--”

“should i be worried you work in an environment where those feelings should not be involved in--”

generous laughter escape your lungs and younghoon’s smile encourages you to return to your food.

“but otherwise, it’s a blast. i love my patients, i love my mentors and the nurses and the colleagues-- they are all so endearing and patient.”

he nods while chewing on the ingredients in the chowder.

“what about you? what are you doing now? i mean, we haven’t spoken in five years.”

“i’m a salesman, guess i figured out a way to use my face to the best of my ability.”

“oh, god,” a chuckle rings in the air between you as you dip your spoon into the bowl again. “that must’ve worked in some magical ways. has anybody tried to get your number?”

“do i really want to answer that when you already know?”

a cheeky smile greets you when you look up from your food, and you shake your head when you realise you could still read his eyes the same. 

“i don’t suppose you’re romantically involved in anybody now?” he asks. there was an absence of... care and concern he used to have back then. 

he wasn’t nonchalant about it, but you could tell that five years was adequate for your relationship with younghoon to turn completely stagnant. 

there was no longer any hint of love in it, even if he did still care for you.

he could still love you, but if he was, he was doing a damn good job at hiding it. 

but that question. 

what does ‘romantically involved’ really mean to you?

on one hand, you believed your heart belonged to the lovable, enthusiastic intern who was going to leave in about three weeks. 

yet your body resigns itself to another man, one whom you’ve hated nearly half your life, the same man who took younghoon away from you, even if it wasn’t completely his doing. 

“uh... define ‘romantically involved’.”

younghoon looks at you with slightly furrowed brows and confused eyes, sending one piece of truffle fry into his mouth.

“...it worries me that you had to ask that. i’ll rephrase it; do you have anybody you’re interested in?”

“well, there’s this really cute intern working at the neuro-research department.”

“intern? he’s younger?”

“age is just a number.”

“fair play.”

the jingle of the bell hanging on the entrance door rings gently, and your eyes travel down to the soup.

“he’s super enthusiastic and there’s just something about him that’s so... comforting. i see him and i think about nothing but sunshine and warmth and laughter. he’s just... so cheerful, compared to whatever i’ve been used to.”

a pause, and you look up at younghoon, your peripheral vision not seeing anybody walk out from the wall you were sitting against.

“he sounds like someone you really want in your life. i’ve known you long enough to know what kind of person you’d might be attracted to. i guess the man’s lucky enough to have attracted someone with a complete opposite personality.”

eric’s face comes to mind, and your heart starts to do tiny flips when you recall the way his eyes fold when he smiles. the warm rumble of his voice when he speaks. the harmony that he sings when he laughs.

“that sounds strange, doesn’t it? we kissed at a party once and--”

“you kissed the intern?”

“it was at a party and we were all slightly drunk--”

“i don’t recall the last time you had enough to be drunk--”

“let me live, younghoon!” you feign a hit across the table, and he chuckles softly, dodging your little attack. 

the bell rings again, and a teenage couple walks in this time. 

“frankly, i am surprised about one thing,” half his bowl was empty now, and you reach over to jab at some fries with a fork.

“what is it?”

he pushes his air out from his eyes and presses his fingers into his cheek, leaning one elbow on the edge of the table. 

“that you didn’t end up with lee hyunjae.”

the scoff that came out garnered the attention of that young couple, but you couldn’t care less.

“lee hyunjae? of all people, why would you think--”

“because he’s the only one who was ever able to be on the same... pedestal as you.”

pedestal. potential. day one. 

“without him, i don’t know if you would’ve pushed yourself so hard. i know you always had a thing against your parents not spending enough time with you, i thought you’d break the tradition of becoming a doctor because of that.”

“yeah, well...” the chowder calls out to you. “hyunjae or not, i would’ve become a doctor anyway.”

silence. 

it drags on long enough for younghoon to finish nearly the rest of his soup, and there was a weighted feeling of... fear in your chest.

your heart was thumping, though not at a fast pace.

eric’s smile was floating around in your head, but the way younghoon looked at you when he said that name planted a seed inside you. 

you worry for awhile if that seed meant anything at all.

“y/n, i have to be honest with you about something...”

the truffle bits melt in your mouth as you sit back.

“i didn’t dump you because i believed you were with the teacher.”

“oh,” a gentle giggle exits through your lips as you lean forward to get another fry. “i know that. you dumped me because you were sick of me always at lee hyunjae’s throat and we were always fighting--”

“no, i dumped you because i knew i wasn’t the person you needed.”

the muscles and nerves in your body halt, and your eyes slowly travel up from the fries to his. 

“and i highly doubt this intern is going to be it either.”

the words come together in your head, but they felt so alien on your tongue.

“but you just said that he’s someone i want--”

“i was not what you needed, and he isn’t either. you want him, but you need someone else.”

a gulp pushes itself down your throat and your temples tighten as you pull away from the bowl of fries, and your eyes return to the bowl to finish whatever was left in it.

“i’ve got no clue how neither of you saw it, but there’s literally nobody else better for the two of you than each other.”

your lips either remain entertaining the spoon that was travelling in and out of your mouth, or pursed so tight, you cut off the blood circulation to them.

“the only reason why the two of you could do so well in school was because you had each other to push both ends. i had my fair share of interactions with lee hyunjae, i’m well-aware of the kind of person he is when he’s not trying to get one score higher than you, even when you’ve already scored full marks.”

“do you still want the rest of the fries? i--”

“y/n,” he pulls the leftover fries away from you, and you hiss childishly at his move.

“so don’t listen to me, but you’ve been avoiding talking about lee hyunjae for the last twenty four hours and believe me when i say this, if this was five years ago or any time before that, you wouldn’t have missed a second trying to convince me that he’s the shittiest person on earth.”

“maybe i just decided he’s not worth my time--”

“so why were you wearing a male’s dress shirt yesterday?” 

oh, fuck.

“it could’ve been someone el--”

“and the foundation on your neck doesn’t do much under this lighting, especially since it’s been a long day for you.”

your face was heating up not because of the lamp above the table, but the fact that younghoon was able to see right through you.

even you couldn’t see through yourself.

“but whoever said it was him who di--”

“there’s literally nobody who would have the damn guts to do things like that to you besides him. i’m pretty sure not even your sunshine intern would do it if he’s as cheerful as you make him to be.”

stop.

“if it’s anything i learnt about you, it’s that you wouldn’t let a man do anything to show that he claims you.”

please stop talking.

“but someone’s gone ahead and did just that... and when i heard uncle talk about a doctor lee yesterday, it just... hit me.”

stop. talking.

he finally stops and returns you the fries that you no longer had the appetite of finishing. 

“so, it wasn’t hyunjae. you haven’t said one bad thing about him since i saw you yesterday. tell me that if this was you five years ago, you would’ve done the same.”

i wouldn’t. because i hated him.

the silence starts to eat you out when the confusion sinks in even further. 

why must he say all those things to mess you up even more?

there was nothing he said that wasn’t true, though you wished you could flat out deny everything.

but he’s seen it all without even telling him anything, and you start to wonder if it’s been there all along, but you chose to ignore it.

all you wanted was an aphrodite, but why does she seem like she’s drifting further and further away?

by the time younghoon returns you back to the safety of your house, he was well-aware that the conversation from before had some effect on you, for he pulls you into a tight hug after walking you to your door. 

his scent wafts through your nose and you shut your eyes to take it all in. 

what would it have been like had hyunjae not torn him away from you?

then again, younghoon was the one who tore himself away from you on his own accord.

“call me if you need anything. anything at all.”

he releases you, hands still on your shoulders. 

“i’ll still love you the way i always did, but i know for a fact that i’m not the one you need in your life.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter XVII: Et Universum Parallel

A/N; welcome to hell guys this is where shit starts to roll i hope you guys are ready cause my ass isn’t LMAO. 

[leam1983]

On Grief

This is a long one. You're under no obligation to push further if you don't want to. It's a personal post, so I'll more than understand if this isn't to your tastes. The normally-scheduled pedantry, commentary and memes will resume shortly.

One of my relatives was diagnosed with ALS. What started as an odd case of palsy in her left set of vocal cords that could've been far more benign was just confirmed by her referred physician. It's Lou Gherig's, and with her age and current condition, her prognosis is of three to five years, tops. Sure, Stephen Hawking blew his own prognosis out of the water, but a combination of notoriety and luck enabled him to eke out as much existence as medical tech could've possibly allowed.

We knew things were suspect when my aunt, a marathoner with a monthly sub to Runner's World, stopped running. Her food intake dropped like a stone, and she soon took to increasingly simple painting and drawing styles. At first we thought it was just her wanting to explore simpler rendering techniques, but then...

Then we noticed the twitching. How awkwardly her pens and brushes were set in her hands. She was in great shape and didn't mind living in the ass-end of Sutton, basically in the open country and with a path leading up to her front door that was all in rough cobblestones. She broke a hip against them, last year.

Her speech started to slur, lately. Her last bike trip also landed her in the ER. She doesn't bike anymore. She doesn't run, and being a gourmand by nature, feels obligated to restrain herself, for fear of gaining weight. She's aggressively vegan. Not towards others, but towards herself. No meat, no eggs, nothing. Most of us ovo-lactos and omnivores in the family know her constant snacking meant her seventy-plus body is desperate for energy.

From the look of things, it feels like the diagnosis broke through her bullshit reasoning for being vegan. She wasn't vegan for the sake of limiting her carbon footprint or making more responsible choices at the grocery store, but because she, as a lifelong anorexic, thought she was ugly and needed to lose weight. That's been a constant with her. Age catches up and skin sags? She mistakes it for a love handle, cuts out virtually all sources of protein and carbs safe for tofu, seitan and bean-based preps. Of course, like a lot of anorexics, she'd have bulemic episodes. I used to sleep over at her last bachelor pad, as a teen, and I remember her pantry was loaded up for bear with Danish cookie tins, Nutella jars and whipped cream. I remember she invited me over specifically when she intended to cheat. Then it was back to yoga, pot-smoking, meditation and shopping runs - and she probably kept her purging for when I was gone.

So yeah. I'm betting Belgian Asshole (see one of my previous posts) convinced her to break her vows and went looking for a "slice of authentic Tikka Masala", to quote his email. The entire family is made up of ethnic food diehards, so we spam-flooded his inbox with recommendations. Looks like she'll be eating meat again, soon. Her own email mentioned concerns of strength and stamina, so I get it.

Otherwise? We're gobsmacked. Imagine spending an entire weekday both at work and off work, aggressively goofing off because you're trying as hard as you can not to think of your favourite aunt's mention of assisted suicide as an option.

Three to five years. Maybe one, or two good Christmases. After that, her condition should probably have started to deteriorate quickly.

I'm not close with a ton of my own family. I love them all, but it's more a sense of polite respect than anything involving solid bonds. The only two folks I know I'll be devastated for when they'll die are her, and my youngest cousin on the other side of the family.

I'm mostly okay now. No doubts, no crisis of unbelief, no anger, no rage... But then I'll see her in a more diminished state, one of those days. How am I going to take to it?

Part of me keeps a tally of the deaths in the family. First, it was my uncle on my mother's side. Ruptured abdominal artery, with a leak small enough to pool into the gut's cavity for months. Decay settled in, guy got anesthetized for an intervention...

They didn't even bother sewing him back up.

Second one was my other paternal aunt's new husband. First one was great, but left the country in the seventies to go live in Stockholm with his medical assistant. Second one was a geologist and physicist at the same campus she taught as. French guy, the son of innkeepers four generations down. It showed, too. Our Christmas tables haven't been the same since he left us his recipie books, all his corny jokes on provincial eating habits, and his obstinate focus on turning every 25th of December into a Roman orgy probably befitting of the old Saturnalia traditions. I mean, when's the last time you've had an eight-course meal, outside of Thanksgiving?

Tumors in his mesenteric artery lined the blood vessel's inner walls, deposited virtually everywhere in his body. He was diagnosed in June and dead by August. He'd always been the lanky type, bone-thin even if he hoovered food like he'd never have enough. He looked even thinner in his hospital bed.

Then, my maternal grandpa bit it. Decades of casual alcoholism, cirrhosis more or less jumping on him around his seventy-sixth year. He looked a bit like John Keston, the actor who played Gehn in CyanWorlds' Riven. Same hairline, same hawkish nose, same eyes - just more Cajun and less New England-esque. I don't know if it was youth or stupidity or - anything, really, but I dropped by to see him, just two days before he died. I didn't realize he was tallying my life, asking me if I had everything in order, if things were planned.

Now, I understand.

Next one on the chopping block is Aunt Doris, still on Mom's side. She of the serial mooching, she of the concept of not needing much to get by if you were the cute one of the family. She was pretty enough in her prime, sure - if by pretty you meant "cigarette-butt blonde with a discount Farah Fawcett blow-up and an unfinished High School degree". First husband was an abusive ass who gave her an uncommonly sensitive son, second one figured she'd stick to the minimum-wage circuit while he tore out rotator cuffs or busted his C7 while on his outboard like clockwork. By the end, she roped my grandmother into living with her, spent her days sloppy-drunk and died on her ratty couch while falling asleep and choking on her own vomit.

Before them all, the youngest of my uncles died at age two. Cancer. Never knew which one, was told it didn't matter. You didn't survive much of anything cancerous, back in the late fifties.

Ping-pong this back to three years ago, and my oldest paternal uncle dies. Paul, who smoked like a chimney for most of his life and successfully stopped after discovering Champix. He got to live five great years as the high-IQ oddball he'd always been, smoke-free. Paul was the weird bird in the family, the type to remember a really engrossing story at two in the morning and making a note to call you up first thing in the morning to share it. He always had a project of some sort to work on, like a simulated investors' tank for young entrepreneurs looking to learn the ropes, or a Byzantine arrangement of coaxials allowing four of his lakeside neighbours to pirate his cable sub. He'd invite us over for dinner, gather all the ingredients we'd need for whatever it was he wanted to treat us to - and then he'd let us cook it - just sitting by the sidelines, chatting away.

He was also a bit of a narcoleptic, and looked a bit like William Howard Taft if you'd worked him out of these old sack suits and into modern shirts and suspenders. He fell asleep practically everywhere, with his more wakeful environments being his workshop and his property's dock. He took me out fishing, once, and knew what the entire family expected.

"Oars're here, Gremlin, fish're that way. Wake me up when you've got a bite."

At this point, it wasn't even a point of concern; it was just an Uncle Paul Thing, the exact thing you'd have expected out of this kind, eccentric blob of a man whose idea of fishing involved pushing his hat over his eyes and basically all but ensuring that his roaring snores would scare prey away. He'd been a supposedly high-IQ type, terminally bored with almost everything, only really getting agitated and interested back when I asked him for help for my Junior High Computer class's Javascript calculator. Once the syntax hit something familiar and he realized that JS has some similarities with FORTRAN, he was on a roll, acting like someone had snuck a Red Bull in his coffee.

Well, fibrosis caught up with him. His last hours were spent directing us on how to cook what would've been his last meal. I think he really just wanted to know we were alright, that we still could exchange laughs around the kitchen counter. He clocked out the way he always did, except he had an oxygen tube running under his nose. His head bobbed down, he snored loudly for a few minutes, then turned increasingly quiet...

And that was it.

And now there's Isabelle. The marathoner, my partner-in-crime when it comes to professing to have a healthy diet while occasionally cheating in glorious, weekend-defining means, my gateway to cannabis and also the first person who took my cringy self-insert fanfic fodder and went No, that's worth it! Push it, develop that universe of yours!

I wouldn't be almost two-thirds of the way through my first decent manuscript, if not for her, and I wouldn't be shopping for publishers with the same energy you'd reserve for weekend-grade Facebook putzing-about. I owe her part of my self-acceptance, and part of my discovery of what defines my routine to this day. Isabelle was my first meditation coach.

And in three to five years, she might be gone.

I just thought grief might be... noisier, is all. Louder. Right now, it's just germane to confusion, and it's sitting there. There's a pinch of fear in it, too. My parents are in their mid-sixties. How long do I have left with them?!

And the family and I just covered that up with jokes and, well, cooking. I've been told I'd make a half-decent therapist but - navigating your own emotions is hard work...

I don't know. I guess I needed to put this down somewhere.

[teddybeckham]

charles melton, cis male, he/him, silver hey have you seen TEDDY BECKHAM ? HE let me borrow his PAINT BRUSHES . oh, you know them! they’re 27 and they’ve been at Roy G. for THREE YEARS. They are known to be a total SCORPIO. no wonder they’ve picked up the nickname THE BLACK SHEEP ! i’m surprised you haven’t heard them blaring STACY’S MOM BY FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE all night. they remind me of PAINT SPLATTERED JEANS, A LONG TIRED SIGH AND GETTING HIGH AT 3 AM. anyway, let me know if you see them ! (rachell, 23, she/her, mt, n/a).

ok hello omg im rachell and this is my lil shit teddy who just needs love ok? i haven’t gotten to play him in awhile and i’m really excited to play this new kinda version of him here?? this whole thing maybe kind of all over the place cuz we’re kinda figuring it out as we go lol but yes pls love us, this whole post is a lot so i apologize im--

tw cancer, tw death, tw depression, tw alcoholism

teddy was born november 3rd, 1993, as an only child, and though a sweet and happy kid he had always struggled with school, being diagnosed with adhd dislexia at a pretty young age causing him to learn at a different pace than the rest of the kids at his class

tho this was pretty hard on him and caused him to grow frustrated at his assignments more often than not, his mom was always there with the patient and supportive smiles, ready to give a hand wherever she could 

things were ok with his dad for the most part the boy was just easily more attached his mother, it being as clear as day to anyone who knew the beckhams

it threw everyone in the small family for a loop when his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer by the time he was six, soon growing familiar with the visits to the hospital and seeing her in a way he never wished he’d have to

as the years went by and his mom now practically stayed in the hospital, the small boy was completely at a loss on how to cope, one day he had to put together a creative piece for school, and being completely fed up with everything, he just painted out everything he was feeling, not giving a shit on how it looked or what he was supposed to have done instead, completely caught off guard when his teacher absolutely loved it, saying she saw great potential in it and him, it being the first time he had actually felt good about smth in school

his mother passed away by the time he was 10, causing teddy to be a lot more closed off and withdrawn from his peers at school, growing frustrated a lot quicker, with art being the only thing that really kept him going as he even pushed his dad away as well, the pair never having been good at talking about their feelings

the death took a big toll on his dad as well, soon falling into a depression that costed him his job, at times not being fully capable of caring for teddy on his own, bringing in the boy’s aunt to help out when she could as he spiraled into borderline alcoholism....that is, until jasmine’s mother came along, slowly helping him come out of his dark place with each moment they spent together, supporting him through therapy and alcoholics anonymous 

teddy found it difficult to be as happy for him as his aunt was, considering how it felt as if his mom was somehow getting replaced, let alone the seemingly perfect young daughter this new woman in his dad’s life had along with her. his dad never really took his love and passion for art all that seriously to begin with, now he had someone else to compare his son to, despite the age gap between the two and he couldn’t really stand it, causing him to give the new people in their life a difficult time at the beginning of them all getting to know each other that was pretty difficult to shake

by the time jasmine’s and teddy’s parents officially got married, the boy was around a freshman/sophmore in high school, at this point warming up more to his new step mom, able to see what his dad saw in her and over all grateful for all that she’d done for him, tho his new step sibling was still smth to adjust to, teddy being too awkward and feeling too much like he was living in her shadow to open up too much, on top of their differences with her as pretty much the golden child and him still not caring much for school and more throwing himself in his art instead of really socializing or getting to know others

fast forward to now with the 2 siblings having been in florida for 3 years, living together and still struggling to understand each other while also getting on each other’s nerves in between. their family at this point is a real one in teddy’s eyes, despite how much he feels like the black sheep when they facetime. call jas his step sister and he’ll sock you. over all there’s sm love there despite how difficult it can be to admit out loud or in general really

about him

takes meds for his adhd

there is nothing that he loves more or is more passionate about than his art, it’s his escape and his way to let out his emotions he doesn’t know how to communicate otherwise

his and jasmine’s place is filled with wips that he’ll just start cuz he got inspo, was bored, or was stressed out

kind of hard for him to sit still and can be pretty anxious but usually puts up a hard exterior so it’s kinda hard to tell 

he is tired all the time, stays up too late to work on his art and relies on coffee to keep him going, someone stop him

is pretty hard to warm up to i wanna say but he’s such a lil shit and has chaotic dumbass energy but like...lowkey lol, very loyal tho, he kinda keeps others at arms length but will appreciate you sm if you become one of his ppl

can be reckless if he’s comfortable w you and around the right ppl

swears too much

extra awkward once finding out he likes someone, will be gruffer than he means to bc he’s just like ew why?

projects this sort of intimidating, confident kind of aura but is actually v insecure

trust issues *finger guns*

usually has paint stains on his jeans but he couldn’t really care less? and he’d dare someone to say smth to him about it

actual name is theodore but he hates it sm call him that at your own risk

stubborn AF and can be pretty judgmental of ppl who come off as snobby and entitled??? hates those kinds of ppl

is so so protective of jasmine despite usually being a pain to her, that’s his baby SISTER

where does he work? idek man maybe at like a tattoo place or smth, ill figure it out