#this is apparently the year of Just So Much Stuff and So Many Appointments for me

[bam-bi-buck]

9-1-1 Lonestar SPOILERS

Aw Jonah and TK 🥺

Mama “I bet that car costs the same house in some places”

Owen and Enzo are this close to acting like school yard boys 🙄

Poor Judd trying to do business stuff and Owen going off

Owen offering to break bread and TK does not believe him but he’s still hopeful and then Owen turns to Judd and was like I’ll show TK and rub it in Enzo face

Weren’t you just it saying that TK and Gwyn fell for it when Enzo was manipulative???

Wyatt using his story to save her life 😭😭😭

Nancy with Tommy at the appointment 😭

Dang girl

My mama “dang she don’t mess around”

I like that Izzy seems comfortable with Nancy which implies that maybe Nancy (and hopefully TK) hang out with Tommy & the girls

Tommy that’s too much pressure

On yourself and Nancy

Mom got a kick out of Enzo knowing Owen’s rent

TK and Jonah having a contest 🥹

I love TK, he’s such a sweetheart, especially with kids

My Mama never watches the sneak peeks and as soon as they started talking about the arm wrestling contest and then TK was like let’s just let it go my mama goes I dont think they’re gonna let it go lol

Bleh 🤢

That’s a nasty break

$350, 000 car

My mama “DAMN we could buy condo for that”

Carlos really still wants to be on Owen’s good side lol

TK snapping at Owen 😭

To be fair though, Owen needed to hear that

Nancy trying to help get Tommy rest days 😭

And Tommy not wanting Nancy and TK to get stuck with an awful temp-boss 😭

Tommy snapping at Nancy 💔

Aaaahhh 😭😭😭

“Nancy WALK”

Mama “She is STUBBORN”

Did TK just appear? Did he run ahead of the others?

Aww for that guy and his future stepdaughter

Oooh god, I really thought we were gonna have another burst gut (911 last week)

And mom was like dang why is that getting popular because apparently it also happened on Chicago Med or Fire recently

I wonder the whys on that

TK’s party is really cute

I love Carlos calling TK out and bringing him on stage with his baseball song

Omgod TK bringing Enzo and Owen together

Them singing together 🥺

Oh gosh darn it

At the PARTY?

Booooo 😭

Also Owen reassuring TK that even if Enzo is bad for the things he’s done to others he’s still good for raising TK right and I think that’s really important for him to hear

Oooh, Carlos really wants to get him that car doesn’t he, lol

Owen and Carlos are so gonna come together to buy a RED mclaren next year lol

Also how many parties/get togethers has that been that’s been runined/tragic for them all now?

Tommy stop, please

You’re gonna hurt yourself

And that’s exactly what happened

Tommy!!!

Oh poor Izzy and Evie

They’re doing so well and Wyatt is coaching them so well 🥺

I’m not sure they know they’re talking to Wyatt so being told “my dads gonna meet you at the hospital” is probably really out of the blue lol

Tommy telling Judd to call Nancy 🥺

I’m sorry, this is so silly but why did she give Judd her purse? Is she not allowed to have it?

The girls being asleep on the hospital waiting chairs and Judd watching them

The Ryders and Vegas are an extended family unit fr

Tommy 😭

Nancy trying to reassure Tommy 😭

“You’re wise and patient, which is more than I can say for myself right now”

My mama “that’s for sure”

I love Tommy wanting Nancy being interim paramedic captain

Promo:

I know people have been calling it for a while but I really wasn’t expecting them to go down the adopting Jonah route

The ceiling is bleeding?

Soup man got shot?

[distance-does-not-matter]

and i feel validated in this clinical setting

[goron-king-darunia]

Eggtober 3rd, 2024

"Anxieties and Anger" Fried Egg in Monochrome

(Krita, soft chalk default brush, 10 colors/values of red, 20 minutes.)

Inspired by life kicking my ass recently. A bunch of things didn't go right this year, I got sick for the first time in years, and I've just generally been dealing with being unwell, anxious, busy, and all around not managing well. I'm trying to take better care of my health, but it's difficult to make time and track down help because the earlier part of the year was all insurance nonsense, and now it's trying to pin down doctors that take my insurance. My dentist did make an appointment decision for me, which was actually helpful since I kept putting it off due to other stressors. But I haven't been in for a physical lately and I'm having emergent symptoms along with stuff I've been putting off getting looked at or considered. I am wondering if I should start treating my ADHD again, among many other things.

It's just hard to cope with the realities of adult life sometimes, especially with ADHD, and it's frustrating having to manage so much. Life stops for no-one, and certainly there are people dealing with more than me, some even better than I am dealing with my own problems, but it makes it no less frustrating. I wish it was easier to just ask all my dumb anxious questions and not get billed for things that aren't treatable problems. I don't know how true it will be with my new doctor, but with my old doctor, you could get billed extra for bringing up new things that the appointment was not about which is wild to me. What do you mean it basically has to be a different appointment for all 15 new things I'm worried about even if they're probably nothing?!

It doesn't help much that medicine really is such a new and wiggly field of science. It doesn't feel like it is, because we have so many sophisticated medicines and machines for caring for so many things now. But it wouldn't take doctors decades of study to be good doctors if just anyone could tell the difference between "that perfectly normal mole and a really sneaky melanoma" or "that symptom could just be stress-induced and will go away if you calm down" versus "you are actively dying of a disease that's incurable because you waited 1 day too long" or "you literally have a known vitamin deficiency and this symptom will improve with supplements" versus "this symptom is actually new and while it can happen because of your vitamin deficiency, you're actually having a more serious problem."

Of course I'm one of those idiots that goes to Dr. Google for things and then freaks myself out over nothing. But the fact remains that I don't make time to see my doctor enough. And I should. So I will try to do that moving forward.

Whatever happens, I'm doing my best to make time to enjoy Eggtober. It's one of the few things I do for fun as a little "just because" and it's helping me take my mind off things for a bit.

Hoping to see my new PCP soon and start handling my body and health, and with luck, other things will improve bit by bit. There are other things that can't be solved that easily, but without a healthy body, I'm never gonna tackle everything life has decided to throw at me. Wish me luck!

Tagging @quezify as customary, and also because apparently Tumblr is having a bug where art won't show up in the tags without a transparent bar of pixels in it because Tumblr is a functional website...

[profoundbondfanfic]

Having fun this Christmas? Need a break from all the running around and stuff to prepare or family to meet? Or maybe you need a little pick-me-up because we all know how tough this time of the year can be as well. Then dig right in.

And Even In The Quiet Night by KelpietheThundergod [General audiences, 7k words]

He couldn't answer with the truth when Jody had asked him, concern bleeding through her typical gruffness, “You okay, kiddo? Since when do you care about Christmas?” He doesn't, of course, not really. It's just that Christmas is a widely accepted excuse to cook enough food for an entire baseball team, then eat too much and lounge on the couch surrounded by family and argue about which movie to watch. Or so Dean thinks. Really, it was just a stupid – it's not like Dean is lonely. Sam is here, Cas is here, and the others are – well, mostly not here. But really, it should be enough. Dean is a grown-ass man, he can deal with being alone on Christmas. (Or, the one in which no one cares about Christmas but Dean)

Dance Real Close by Maleyah (Katherine_Kat) [Explicit, 5k words]

For the umpteenth time tonight, Castiel swallows and clenches his teeth, hard enough that he might just need a dentist appointment once this horrendous evening comes to its inevitable end and he has what he came for. Good thing the company has excellent health care. He forces his gaze into a faux-thousand yard stare, a wilful attempt to get lost among the many twinkling lights and ornaments. Just off of the shoulder of the man who is his current, last and most annoying obstacle. Dean Winchester. Dressed to the nines in a suit of snowflake white, he fits in at this high-end Yule Ball as if he hasn’t done anything else in his life. Top of his class and generation, ten years Castiel’s junior, much too skilled for his own good at nigh anything from close combat to subterfuge to extraction, his competition, who is, for some unfathomable reason, flirting with Castiel on the mission.

From Your Secret Santa by ILoveLucey [Teen and up, 26k words]

Dean and Sam have had a tough year. Their dad died, leaving them parentless, and Dean has had to pick up the slack to make sure his little brother is fed, clothed, and has a roof over his head. To say that Dean is not in the Christmas spirit this year is an understatement. That is, until Dean gets a secret Santa who wants nothing more than to make the brothers' Christmas a cheerful one. The mysterious gift-giver apparently plans to do that with twelve days of cheesy poems, dorky activities, and, okay, some actually really nice presents. Dean hates to admit it but before the twelve days of Christmas are over his mood is effectively turned around. The only thing is, he's pretty sure his secret Santa is actually more of a secret admirer. It could be anyone from the Roadhouse trivia teams but there is only one person he wants it to be - his brown-haired, blue-eyed, oh-so-sexy best friend who has been there for him through everything and who he has a major, secret crush on.

Here's to Many More by wincechesters [Explicit, 15k words]

After a blowout at his parents' house on Christmas Eve, Castiel resigns himself to a lonely, miserable holiday. On his way home he finds himself at a dive bar, spilling his life story to the handsome, charming bartender he's just met. It's an unlikely set of circumstances, but when the bartender invites him to come home with him, Castiel says yes—and it looks like he might not be spending his Christmas alone and miserable after all.

I Love New York by followyourenergy [Explicit, 44k words]

When Dean’s brother can’t go on their planned trip to New York City, Dean goes alone. He meets Cas, a man who’s there to “do things differently” and invites Dean to do the same. Through their adventures, Dean expands not only his palate, but his idea of who he is, who he can be…and who he can be with.

Orna-meant to Be by MalMuses [Teen and Up, 5k words]

It's been a long year, but Castiel and his vampire boyfriend Dean have finally reached their first Christmas together. The first of many, if Dean has his way. A fluffy holiday timestamp in the Bat Dean 'Verse.

Snowy Blue by Kitmistry [Teen and Up, 3k words]

On the brink of a new year, Dean runs into an old friend.

The Prince Switch by teacass (Fushigi) [Teen and up, 12k words]

Castiel couldn’t see much in the dark, but there was a silhouette of a tall person standing in the room opposite of his. Judging from the depth of the voice, it must have been Dean Winchester, Jimmy’s best friend, sous chef, and co-owner of the bakery. “Hello, Dean,” Castiel whispered. Even he heard it sounded way too official and too much like his princely self, so he quickly corrected. “I mean, hi. It’s just me. Go back to sleep.” “What are you doing up?” Dean asked. Oh, it’s nothing. I just snuck out of the palace in the middle of the night to switch places with your best friend, Castiel thought. “I couldn’t sleep,” Castiel said out loud. “Too excited about the whole competition thing.”

[connectionterminated13]

Hey hey hey can I have jessica and Sammy headcanon? Like with their relationship and stuff

Oh yeah definitely because I love them!!

- Jessica's the most physically affectionate in the relationship pre Sammy getting set on fire and nearly dying. After that Sammy is a lot more kissy and huggy and generally physically affectionate because he nearly died and He does not want to waste any of his precious time on earth not hugging his wife

- They tried for years to have a kid to the point where Jessica was half convinced they couldn't and then Charlotte came along and they were both so happy.

- Back at the start of faz Bears entertainment boom because of Sammy There's a lot of unlicensed restaurants just like using the brand Willie Nelly, So Jess and Sammy used to like to get on a plane go to the location and like Visit it make fun of it and then take it down legally.

- Sammy waits like about 2 years before proposing to Jessica. Mostly because of his father's like quick proposal and marriage To his mother not being really well thought out. Sammy vows to himself that he will never ever be his father in any way including his marriage.

- Jessica usually stays up later than Sammy when it's time to design a new animatronic. Generally Sammy is not very good at staying up late and many a night Jessica has spent hours working on new character designs and blabbing about them to Sammy just to find out that he's been asleep for the past 20 minutes.

- Jessica kind of knows about some of the shadeer parts of fazbear entertainment But she knows that that's just part of the company and Sammy make sure it's not actively hurting anyone so it's fine...

-The worst days of Jessica's life were directly after the fire when Sammy was in the hospital. 5-year-old Charlotte was crying and terrified for her Papa and Jessica couldn't even comfort her because she didn't know if Sammy was going to be okay. And even after Sammy got out of the hospital he was on so much painkillers he was basically a foggy mess. He'd like go to sleep in random places and then wake up screaming it was horrible for everyone. Even after all this time Jessica is very very worried about Sammy and Encourages him to take Doctor appointments regularly.

- Pizza simulator was basically just one prolonged panic attack for Sammy. The idea of his father coming back and opening up a pizzeria Close to the pizza plex that Jessica and him were planning to build, And hiring Michael who has been apparently dead for the past 30 years And just letting those metallic freaks roam around His town is horrifying. Every day he's terrified that when he comes back home Jessica and Charlotte won't be there. He only works like 2 times outside of the house after pizza simulator opened. He also lets Charlotte stay home from school, And Biggs Jessica not to go out if she doesn't need to. Jessica doesn't really get it But goes along since you can tell something's really really concerning Sammy.

- I mentioned before that Jessica took Charlie too Pizza simulator when Sammy was out doing some work Since they had basically been cooped up inside all week upon Sammy's begging so Jessica thought it good to get out. I also mentioned the Jessica ran into Michael and they had like a very boring chat about the weather and the fact that Jessica has kids. When Sammy finds out about this he is so scared. He has this whole like kind of sob yelling rant and Jessica eventually just like hugs him and tells him that everything is ok well he's still crying. Like logically Sammy knows that Michael is harmless but.. He's one of them He has the same face as the Spring trap the thing that nearly killed him and took him away from his wife and daughter.

- Early into their relationship Jessica joked a lot about how sexy Sammy would look with the beard and And Sammy had trauma flashbacks about his dad.

- Jessica for a long time really tried to like get to know Henry and like take Charlotte to see him. After all she is Charlotte's Grandpa and her father-in-law. But Jessica doesn't know what it is with that man but she cannot stand to be around him. Every time she's in a room with him she feels like she's going to explode. After every visit and Jessica like shivering in the car From just like the sheer awfulness of being in Henry's presence, Sammy gives her the most annoying I told you so look.

- Sammy is a very compact sleeper and usually sleeps curled up to Jessica.

[bots-and-cons]

I feel bad that I've been venting so frequently lately, but I don't really have anyone to talk to irl right now. Feel free not to read, but if you do, thanks

I'm feeling so damn overwhelmed. I have so many things I'm supposed to be doing, but I can't seem to get started on any of them. I really should start my swedish course, because it's the last summer course I have. I finished the other two courses last week, but I don't really feel any sense of accomplishment and it fucking sucks. There's apparently not really much to do with the swedish course, because one of my classmates got it done in under an hour, which is fucking weird, because it's a 5 credit course and one credit is supposed to be 27 hours of work. I hope it's actually that easy.

I've been having a lot of really weird and violent nightmares, which is also not fun. Also my intrusive thoughts seem to be sort of coming true in my dreams? In addition to the nightmares, my intrusive thoughts have gotten pretty bad and very violent. That has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and I just keep trying to ignore it. The intrusive thoughts just give me a lot of anxiety, and they scare me pretty bad, especially when I'm around other people. Lately it's also been pretty bad with the whole "kill yourself" thought when something goes wrong. Like I drop a spoon and my brain is immediately like, "omg you're such a failure, kill yourself". I don't understand why, because I'm not suicidal atm, not even close, I'm just stressed and overwhelmed. (I put the tw in the tags anyway though)

I hurt my foot like a month ago, probably a stress fracture or something of that sort, but it's now starting to feel better. I refused to go to the doctor about it, because a) I would have had to walk there and b) they would've most likely blamed it on my weight and hadn't actually done anything to help. I'm not saying my weight has nothing to do with it, of course it does. I'm fat, that's just a fact, but often doctors blame everything on my weight and don't look any deeper. It's fucking infuriating, because I know there's something wrong, but the only advice I get is "you should lose weight". I'm sure that would help some of the stuff that I've got, but some people treat it as some miracle cure.

I'm probably not going to do practical training at all this autumn, because I honestly don't feel like I can. I'm wondering if this whole school thing is really even worth it tbh. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to hold down a full-time job. I would love to be able to work some day, at least part-time, but Idk how realistic that even is.

I've been able to manage school for a year and a half now, and I'm starting to feel pretty burned out. I don't know if I'll make it to next spring without having to take sick leave. I'm honestly fucking scared. I don't want to go into a depressive episode or trigger a more severe psychotic episode again. I've been having some hallucinations lately, and I'm pretty paranoid about a lot of stuff. It's not fun. One thing I've been wondering is what my psychosis actually is? My best guess would be psychotic depression, but I should probably talk about my psych nurse and psychiatrist about it.

I have a hairdresser appointment tomorrow, and I'm kinda nervous, because it's a new place, and I'm gonna have my hair dyed so it's gonna take a while. I'm not very good at spending time at places I don't know or where I haven't been before. The last time I got my hair cut was about a year ago so it's time to do it again. I want my hair shorter again and I decided I wanted to dye it purple. Probably a pretty dark purple because I don't know if I want to have my hair bleached first. Anyway, I feel a bit better having written this out, and I hope I can get an actual fic post out later this week too.

[mwolf0epsilon]

Ok i'll bite, tell me more about the superhero AU please? (I need to know how you're doing the clones without them being clones or related to Jango)

I know this has been in my inbox for a few days now Anon, and for that I'm sorry! Just had a lot of stuff come up that I had to finish before I devoted attention to this ask.

But oooh boy, what a can of worms you've opened up! I'll keep it under a cut because it's gonna get long.

Ok so, the premise for the Superhero AU is a simple one: It's a modern world AU where the Jedi are people (and sometimes creatures) with superhuman abilities bestowed upon them by an unknown entity known simply as the Force.

They live and train at a monastery, and are raised on core values that are designed specifically so that their powers are put to use for the betterment and safety of man kind, instead of being misused for personal gain or chaos. Basically the Jedi are Jedi, even in this world. They just also have regular lives outside of the monastery so that they are more connected with the people they're meant to protect.

(Examples: Obi-wan works as a science teacher at the high school Ahsoka and Barriss are studying at, Mace is an acclaimed actor at a theater, Plo Koon is an archeologist that collaborates with the local museum, Anakin is just starting Uni, etc...)

They're the guardians of their quaint little planet, and it's their sole duty to defend it from villainous intentions. Something that doesn't really appeal to recently appoint Mayor Palpatine, who has a world domination agenda he'd very much like to get on with.

He needs to get rid of the Jedi but he doesn't really have powers of his own. Just a lot of money, connections and political favour. He does, however, also have something else: Access to an otherworldly being that possesses a massive amount of power.

In this world Jango Fett is essentially the equivalent of Superman gone bad. He belongs to a now extinct species of humanoids who had extraordinary abilities that allowed for them to adapt to any kind of environment (making them into great terraformers and warriors, which inevitably got them into a lot of conflict with other alien species and caused a terrible war that destroyed their planet), and who was sent out in a pod as a baby to escape the end of days in his homeworld.

He was found and raised by Jaster Mereel, living a pretty calm existence for the first 12 years of his life. But, as he began to slowly develop his powers, it became apparent that being raised outside of his native planet lead to these abilities never really stabilizing, essentially turning Jango into a conglomerate of all kinds of insane powers that many of Jaster's less morally sound acquaintances wanted to exploit for their own gain.

Things quickly went sour after that. Despite his best attempts to protect his son, Jaster was brutally murdered in front of Jango, and the young boy ended up imprisoned and brutally tortured for several years to "break his spirit" so that his captors could then control him. Unfortunately for them, Jango being subjected to the worst possible treatment and then forced to witness all kinds of corrupt and morally bankrupt behaviors had the opposite effect of what they wanted.

Disgusted with how vile humanity could be, an enraged Jango Fett annihilated his captors and vowed to destroy both those who'd wronged him, as well as wipe out the entire planet (and himself by proxy). And he nearly succeeded, had it not been for the Jedi managing to subdue and trapped him in stasis in collaboration with several nations.

For years Jango Fett has been kept in stasis. Mostly because the Jedi do not agree on killing him, and the military hasn't figured out a way to do it (aside from being nearly indestructible his healing factor is far too strong) that wouldn't also risk causing a ecological catastrophe. And now that Palpatine is in power and has the military in his pockets, he has access to Jango. He isn't foolish enough to wake him up of course, but he does still very much want all of Jango's powers under his control.

So begins a military project that is designed specifically to harness and control abilities that could rival even the Jedi's own connection to the Force. Perhaps even be used to destroy them.

The first iteration of the project (which has Lama Su as the head chief) does indeed involve cloning. But rather than the refined Kaminoan level of cloning that exists in the SW universe, what happens in this world is a little different.

Boba and Omega are the only clones that end up being created, but they age at a normal pace and their powers come well after puberty. They are thus deemed as a failure and a waste of time, and relegated for testing and studying as they slowly grow up in a lab.

The second iteration of the project (with Hemlock in command of it) is much more successful. It involves extracting Jango's DNA, distilling it, and basically creating a concoction of sorts contained within a spherical glowing capsule, that can give people powers if they were to consume it.

The initial tests were conducted on animals and were seemingly successful. Common household pets and pests such as dogs, cats, rats, insects, etc, having become highly dangerous and unusually intelligent beasts (these creatures were subsequently stored for later military use).

It was after the initial testing was conducted that Hemlock's assistant (Emerie) decided she didn't feel comfortable bestowing Palpatine with powers he clearly shouldn't be trusted with, and tried to pull the plug on the project... With disastrous effect. Several crates full of the capsules ended up falling into the river adjacent to the military research facility, and they were carried out towards the unsuspecting city.

And this is where things get interesting...

In this world, the clones are not clones (aside from Boba and Omega as stated previously). They aren't even related to Jango Fett. They're regular men, women (and even children) who were just living their own lives before coming across "strange glowing orbs" that exploded on contact after being poked or messed with.

Rex Lawquane only just moved to the big city from his home in the country side, after getting a sports scholarship. He's striving out on his own for the first time after practically living his whole life with his mom (Suu), dad (Cut) and two younger siblings (Shaeeah and Jek).

He's also only just figured out he's trans, and is both coming to terms with reinventing himself, and trying to figure out how to earn enough money to transition (as well as how to break it to his parents, when he's so far away and sending a letter saying 'Hey ma and pa guess what? I'm actually a guy!' doesn't really feel that great to him). Luckily he has his uncle Nicodemus (99) and his little cousins the 16 year old quintuplets Henry (Hevy), Christopher (Cutup), Felix (Fives), Ezequiel (Echo) and Donald (Droidbait) to rely on when he's feeling a little down.

Cody and his father Alphonse (Alpha-17) live in a little cul-de-sac in the outskirts of the city where everyone treats each other like family (to the point where Cody, Bly, Wolffe, Ponds and Fox who all live within the same community call each other 'brothers'), and run a small shop in the city that's barely making rent.

They live fairly simple lives, but overall don't want for more. Even if sometimes Cody and his childhood friends wished their lives were a little more exciting than the stagnant routine they have been stuck with since graduation.

Jesse is a Uni dropout who has taken up several jobs to provide for himself and his two brothers, Kix and Casey (Hardcase), the former having just started medical school and the latter having been struggling in school.

They're not in a great financial situation, and sometimes get into spats over the littlest of things, but they make do with what they have and would move mountains for each other if they could.

Tucker (Tup) and Matthew (Dogma) are 12 year old twins with a very difficult home life. Their older brother (Slick) ran away from home a while back to get away from their abusive father (Krell), and both they and their mother have been in witness protection for a couple of weeks due to Krell's involvement with the mafia and threats of violence against his wife and children.

Things aren't great and the twins don't have many friends, but they do their best to help their mom run her bakery when they're not in school. Both wish they were strong enough to protect her from their monster of a dad.

Hunter, Tech, Wrecker and Crosshair (yep their names haven't changed in this because they named themselves) have just grown out of the foster care system, and are trying to make better lives for themselves after being put through the grinder several times before.

Living in a crappy apartment in a shady part of town run by a rather strict and opportunistic landlady (Cid), the four 'brothers' earn what little they can through acts of petty crime like burglaries and pick pocketing. Deep down all four of them have dreams of better more honest lives, however...

As you can see, very few of them have any connection to each other. Rex is related to 99 and Domino Squad, and is the son of Cut and Suu, but doesn't personally know Cody or the other Commanders like in the regular SW universe. CF99 are fending for themselves and have no connection whatsoever to any of the other characters. Not even Cody. If anything a lot of them have only ever seen each other on the bus, or at the park, in a shop, or at the mall once or twice.

The range of ages between them also varies greatly, with Tup and Dogma being the youngest at 12, Domino Squad and Hardcase being 16, Rex, Jesse and Kix being 19, etc...

Which leads us to the orbs and their effect.

Because, even if the clones aren't clones in this world, their lives aren't just about to take a turn because they suddenly have powers. No. To better assimilate these abilities and not risking a rejection event, their DNA is also altered to the point where their appearance changes to be near identical to Jango Fett's (or as close as possible, with some of them retaining eye color, hair color, birthmarks, ailments, etc).

How each of them finds one of the orbs varies just as much as their life's circumstances. But the results are all the same. The orbs explode (splashing them with the concoction) and over the next couple of days everyone who was afflicted begins to show strange symptoms of some "unknown illness".

It starts with aches and sores which escalate into extreme fevers. Then their appearance begins to change. The afflicted are taken to doctors all around the city, but no one knows what's going on. And then one night everything takes a turn for the worst...

The orbs weren't perfect at replicating all of Jango's powers at once. They could only bestow one or two powers to whomever took the concoction, and even then there was no way to predict what power someone might get. So, all at once, the afflicted suddenly found themselves with powers they could not control at all. Some more catastrophic in nature than others...

Here are several examples of just how bad that night went:

Rex ends up destroying the apartment building he lives in when his new size-shifting abilities cause him to grow gigantic.

Cody bursts into flames in the middle of his and his dad's shop, not only consuming the entire building but also catching fire to several more as he runs down the street in a terrified panic.

Jesse's strength quadruples and he begins to break things without meaning to. Terrified he might hurt his brothers, he smashes through several walls in an attempt to run away from them.

Hardcase literally explodes, taking out an entire block in the process. He ends up unconscious in a crater of his own creation afterwards.

Kix begins to absorb electricity and causes a blackout, further throwing the city into chaos.

Dogma transforms into a kaiju and runs rampant out of sheer terror.

The entire city is plunged into chaos in such a rapid sequence of events, that the Jedi don't have time to react. The military however had been monitoring where the orbs ended up, and had been observing the afflicted after they'd accidentally activated them. They'd merely been bidding their time so they could swoop in and capture everyone who had come into contact with one of the orbs.

Several lives are upturned, with several innocent people left grappling with their new circumstances.

An identity crisis and sudden fear of their newfound capabilities, is something that Palpatine very easily exploits to keep his new army in line. Because all of these unfortunate men and women surely have families and friends that they care for, right? They wouldn't want them to suffer if they stepped out of line, right?

His superhuman troopers might not want to destroy the Jedi, but they don't really have much of a choice. Palpatine isn't giving them one. That said, to take out the Jedi there's still a lot of preparations to be made. Such as making this new group of heroes more appealing and trustworthy to the general masses. And not all of their powers are great for PR (a kaiju and someone who explodes sure don't inspire trust).

But hey, Palpatine worked in theater before becoming a politician. He can work with what he's got. If some of them can't play the part of hero, they can certainly play the villain.

I have had a lot of time to think about this AU and once again it's another 'Palpatine plays 4D chess with everyone and the clones are well aware he's a villain but don't have much of a choice in the matter and regretfully go along with his plans because they're trapped' scenario. But it's a fun one that involves them still trying to make names for themselves and figure out their own identities, with a healthy dose of 'oh god what's happened to me' thrown into the mix.

The blorbos must be put through the horrors to later surpass them and come out of the ordeal stronger and more confident!

Or maybe I'm just insane.

[dausy]

Back when the Barbie movie came out a couple of extremely girly hot-pink cafes opened. I didn't want to go by myself (when husband was deployed) because they seemed awfully crowded during Barbie and they're downtown and I hate trying to park in downtown areas. Anyway, my husband took me to brunch at one yesterday and it was fabulous. We had actually already heard the food was pretty blah but our iced coffes were all actually very good and glittery and cute. Everything was covered in pink and glitter. I'm glad I accidentally dressed appropriately. My one complaint about this city is nobody seems to believe in french pastries. Truly I want just want a good coffee and croissant. You can find a croissant but you can't get it at a coffee shop. If you do then the coffee isn't good.

We then visited the local Comic-con. I like to look but the second hand embarrassment always kills me. Its just not really the land of my peoples. I really wanted to catch glimpses of Patrick Warburton and Zachary Levi on camera but there were so many people, I felt anxious trying to pull out my phone. I was really hoping to find some sort of sailor moon figurine. I know I can purchase them online but I kind of wanted the real life shopping experience. One of my biggest con regrets was years ago, I went to a convention and somebody had a table of unique sailor moon merch. Everything from make-up to jewelry to action figures and just small collectors items. I really wished I had purchased some of the decorative pens and compacts. I've never been to another con like it. This convention, while we are in a large city, is not the biggest convention I've been to. I think the coolest booth I found was for Teeturtle. I did find this little simba figuring which Id never seen in real life before. There was another disney 100 one but panicked at the price of both figures together and didn't buy both.

after that my husband wanted to go to a Gun show ('merica!) and I think he was a little disappointed with it. I was just kind of fascinated because it was inside a freemason hall and I'd never been in one before and it was really weird. They didn't have that many guns. They actually had a lot of scentsy and those adhd bubble fidget toy booths haha. I also saw just as many porn books there as I did at the anime convention.

but in any case the weather was actually gorgeous for once. I just enjoyed being out of the house. We also had a post wide yard sale and we drove around a bit looking at items we dont really need. We also stopped at an alterations place to get my ball gown fitted. I procrastinate too much and the dress I was eyeing was out of stock so I just chose..one of the bajillion others I saved on pinterest and it came in the mail within 24hours but alas..I have short legs and its too long.

I have poor sense of time and didn't realize our ball is in like 2 weeks..and now I have to figure out what to do about my hair. Im going to make last minute hair and pedicure appointments..or do what I did the last time and just do everything myself and wonder what I would look like if I was professionally prettied.

also, we went to a baseball game last weekend and my horrible sunburn is starting to peel off. My entire forehead and ears are flaking in small chunks going up into my scalp. Its a lot of fun.

I did film for youtube and I feel like I have enough extra stuff for a life vlog which is everything I listed here so its probably ruined.

also our facility owner apparently hates me again for something he did that I didn't do so I'm yet again counting days of which its appropriate to have a gap in my resume before we move from here.

[zebulontheplanet]

Hello, I was hoping to ask about schizoaffective disorder depressive type if that is okay with you.

I saw a new therapist today and talked about past hallucinations and stuff I’ve had and whatever and it led to her suspecting shizoaffective disorder depressive type. I saw a post of you saying that there’s not much resources on depressive type and in researching today I have found the same thing to be true. I would like to ask what your experience is like having this disorder, and what it looks like on a day to day. While the disorder seems to fit me I worry that I’m faking and that I’m not that bad off… I have very mixed feelings.

Sorry this is word salad! If you do know of resources for schizoaffective disorder depressive type I would be grateful for those too, but no worries if not!

Thank you for your time and have a great day

Hi anon! There aren’t many resources on Schizoaffective depressive type, and I don’t have any that I can remember off the top of my head.

I can tell you what mine was like though. Below this cut will be talk about suicidal tendencies, homicidal thoughts, and depression.

My experience has been rocky. I started showing signs very young, and started hallucinating very young as well. For as long as I could remember I was hallucinating and having delusions. I was also showing signs of depression at a very young age, as well as very extreme depressive mood swings.

I would have these mood swings, where one minute I was fine, and the next minute I’d be crying and having suicidal thoughts and ideations. These mood swings were severe, and continued to ruin my life. Because of these mood swings, and homicidal thoughts as well as paranoid thoughts, I was hospitalized several times for months at a time throughout my youth.

My mood swings continued to get worse into my teens, especially during my period, which I at the time thought was PMDD, but later learned it was just the increase of emotions plus my mood swings, dangerously swirling together.

Although I had delusions, I almost always experienced something called “double bookkeeping” meaning I was aware of my delusions being fake, however still believed that they were real to an extent and had to act on them. This is apparently a pretty rare thing to have and do? But I’m not sure how true that is.

No doctor knew what was wrong with me, and they had thrown around the word schizophrenia for awhile but didn’t want to diagnose me with it because I was so young. Throughout the years, I learned to mask my disorder, and basically make myself look and feel ok although I constantly felt like I was faking it. I continued to have extreme depressive mood swings, but not to the point I needed to be hospitalized.

After awhile, I took a break from medications and doctors because I was quite frankly done with it and just wanted some time to breathe. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to continue my life off medication and at 19 I saw a psych who finally gave me the answers. She knew exactly what was wrong with me and I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder depressive type within the first appointment.

I feel like the diagnosis fits me well. I am on medication now and I’m the most stable I have been in a very very long time. It has taken three hospital stays, dozens of medication trials, dozens of doctors, to get here. But I’m here and finally happy.

I still experience a lot of symptoms, especially negative symptoms. But I take it one day at a time.

I hope this helps you and I hope you have a wonderful day! Sending you good luck wishes with your journey and love.

[systems-overloaded]

i dont normally talk about disability stuff here i dont think, but i actually want to right now, and its relevant to me as a whole, so whatever.

(im not being specific about dx though, parts are scared somehow that could identify us, because not all conditions are common.)

~~~~

had an apptmnt the other day, i think yesterday? it was within this week for sure.

i thought i was there for a new wheelchair evaluation, but apparently these are the people who had to refer me to the people who do the evaluations and order you the wheelchairs.

a bit discouraged, because i was anticipating this being particularly a wheelchair evaluation, not just a dr whos going to document the need for a wheelchair evaluation (which. ive needed my powerchair inside my own home for 6+ years now, and my conditions only gotten worse. im absolutely overdue for another chair. there shouldnt be even more steps then there already are.)

at the apptmnt though, i honestly thought i did a good job masking. i was able to talk enough to answer questions, but thankfully my mom was there and said upfront that i have trouble sometimes with speech, that its very tiring for me. so i was able to just kinda point to her and say "too many words" and shed said some of my medical histories for me. but i answered all the questions about my relevant symptoms and pain types/levels, etc. i definitely stumbled and fumbled some words, but i thought it was "within normal speech", just maybe "tired person speech".

but when i looked at the drs notes today, under "psych" they put "flat effect". i mean... i know i have a flat effect, some alters are definitely more expressive naturally, but there are many who are just hardcore masking all the time. i struggle with even trying to mask and make those expressions (the ones others within do). but like... i thought i did a good enough job? i thought i smiled some or made some expressions? i dont think drs have ever added that before in our charts.

idk, maybe this is just from unmasking, or because im different from the parts that used to be fronting at those appointments? im not sure.

~~~~~

and im... a bit scared to be honest. for some reason every couple years, especially around autumn, the subsystems that are the main fronters, change. and although ive been fronting for most our lives, i dont think ive ever been out this much, in such a sort amount of time.

am i (and the others i have better communication with) just the new fronters? does that mean, since we all struggle to talk alot in varying degrees, and struggle to mask or create expressions, that were now going to be even more visibly autistic? visibly /vulnerable/? (like, yeah i use a power chair all the time, but i dont view that as vulnerable. i dont think it makes ppl see me as a potential target.) being visibly autistic, being visibly someone who'll rely on AAC (even when just part time, or when i can technically get some words out), and also being visibly queer at certain times, ooph... ooph. ahhhh thats ummmmm a bit scary.

~~~~~~~~

back to the appointment though. ultimately, they documented what was shared well in the notes. there was absolutely a miscommunication, they said i used my rollator in the house occasionally (id shared that i own a rollator, and had used it in the past. prior to needing my powerchair, so there mustve been a miscommunication with how i worded my response, or their interpretations). and i think some confusion initially about my conditions (since theyre used to seeing like spinal cord injuries, or people with strokes pretty much exclusively), but in the end they said i need my powerchair to complete my ADLs and that ill need the features of tilt, relcine, leg elevation, and custom positioning seating, and they specified well for which conditions i need them for. they covered all the info needed for insurance to approve those features. so i dont think imma go through the hassle of asking them to correct it.

~~~~~

im sending hopes and wishes towards the universe, for all things to go smoothly. for everything to get covered easily and for all the things that will improve my quality of life, improve my capacity for independence, to lessen my pain, and all me to be more functional even just within my home.

any well thoughts towards this is appreciated. (well thoughts and wishes, not prayers)

[bekaroth-reads]

Gman x Reader

[Things to note: I'm just now getting back into the Half-life series after not playing it for years, so there's mostly likely lore stuff or whatever that's wrong. Also, this is kinda long and not proof read, sorry about that, I guess]

It was a nice day. During everything that was constantly happening good weather was always a blessing that everyone was thankful for. Something else that you were thankful for was the fact that you were in one of the smaller cities. Yes, you were still under the every-watching eye of the Combine, but it wasn’t as pressing as it was in the larger ones. You had actually moved, or rather were moved, to this place, so little that it didn’t even have a name, about fifteen years ago. You had spent much of your childhood and some of your teenage years in City 17, and when it was deemed that you were, “old enough,” to take care of yourself in your later teen years, you were chosen for a project to inhabit a smaller, more rural habitations the Combine had started to move people to.

While your parents were hesitant to let you go, they were somewhat happy to see you got to one of these more peaceful areas. Apparently, you had lived somewhere similar when you were a small child. Though, you had trouble remembering it as it was so long ago. Your parents had found you wandering in some ruins, and took you in. It was odd to see a child around all things considered, but as they were wanting a child for sometime and the Combine officials where they were didn’t seem to mind them having one, they weren’t going to complain.

You were part of the reason that they were moved to a larger city in the first place. It was so there were plenty of Combine approved personnel to keep an eye on you and your life; it was almost like they were expecting something drastic to happen. But, throughout all your life and all of the extensive habit studying, frequent doctors’ appointments, and the other few odd things here and there, you were just a normal person.

Honestly, while you were sad to be separated from your parents, you were more than happy to get a new start at life out here. There most you could complain about was the fact that your work was chosen for you. Most everyone out here were scavengers or sorts. Janitors might be a more fitting term; perhaps something between the two. Your job was to clear out rubble around the area to see if there was anything useful in the debris, or to try to find usable building space for whatever the Combine might want to use it for. At the moment, they were using them from makeshift housing for means of building the populous of the area.

While you and your neighbors most certain ally weren’t told what their plans were, you all figured it was to divide people even more to make control a bit easier. Though knowing the odd ways of the Combine there was no way of knowing for sure.

There wasn’t quite as much work to do today as your group had finished clearing a section of debris, and you were all told to wait for further instructions before moving on to the next step. Seeing as it would still be light for a few more hours, you decided to go for a walk before going back home. There weren’t many level places to walk, at least where you were being watched like a hawk the whole time. You had fun exploring the old buildings and the surrounding areas anyways. Sometimes you could find little bits and bobs and take them home to brighten the place up before the official team went on a search and were told to dispose of most everything.

You had found a building this time that look like used to be a work building of some kind. If you could find the place that used to be the office, you could really score some stuff. The last one that you searched had all sorts of fun things on the desks; your favorite was a little snow globe that had surprisingly not been shattered through the years. The glass was starting to yellow a bit, but the glitter still shone brightly around the little cartoon, alien figure in the middle. If only the people who made it all that time ago knew…

Much to your delight there was an office here. Looked like it was something corporate and cushy, so there was bound to be plenty of frivolities around based on the things some of the older people in your group had told you. As you looked around for anything interesting, your eye caught a picture hanging on the wall. While you thought to take it back with you just as a joke, you decided it would be better suited here as something of a monument to the people that used to work here; who knows if any of them survived.

You did have to admire, even sort of marvel at their out fits. It seemed odd to you that there was really that many different types of clothing. The most anyone had these days were their jumpsuits and maybe a hat or some other accessory made from the scraps around. These people looked like they all had full outfits with some pretty fancy jewelry, watches, and a few more accessories that you weren’t even sure what they were.

A crunch of the graveled debris put you on alert, and quickly you spun around. There was someone there…or, you thought so. Now that you were looking closely you could see it was just your imagination. Something else that told you that you were still alone was the fact that your imagined voyeur had an outfit like the people in the picture. It must have been a trick of the light, one of those things where if you look at something for too long then you see it’s ghost for a moment once you look away. After looking for a few minutes more and grabbing a few things for yourself and some for your neighbors, you decided not to push your luck any further. It’s not like there were any rules against looking around like this, as long as one stayed in the permitted region. But, it was never a smart idea to give the Civil Protection any opportunity say it was for their own entertainment.

There was something that kept gnawing at the back of your mind that you were in fact being watched. It seemed this feeling was correct as the next thing you knew there was someone standing on a ledge about twenty feet above the hall you were walking down. You took a moment to try to see who it was, but quickly decided to keep moving. It seemed that two things were true: there was a man in the office room with you and he did in fact have one of those office outfits on- a suit you think you had heard them called? In any case, he certainly wasn’t from around here; that meant there was a non-zero chance he was with the Combine somehow. No need to interact with them when you don’t have to.

Whoever that was must have wanted you to see him as there was no effort on his part to hide once he was spotted. In fact, he watched you the entire way through the hall. All you could do was to leave this place as soon as you could and hope that he wasn’t some sort of new look out and that you had seen the last of him. That last hope should be the actual case as you were getting close to where you had entered from and though you weren’t sure exactly how that guy got up where he did, it must have taken at least a bit of time get there.

“Excuse me.”

Against the odds the man you were just pondering walked from a nearby doorway, making you freeze in your tracks. Though he looked like any other person you had seen, there was something about him that seemed like it commanded more authority, almost to an involuntary degree.

“Pardon me,” the man offered, perhaps as another greeting or perhaps because he noticed that he startled you, “but… you see, I … was passing through when, I noticed something… familiar.” There was something odd about the way his words were spoken. It didn’t seem to be a stutter, at least in none of its usual varieties. It almost sounded like he was struggling to breathe with every word he said. Or, like it was difficult for him to even form the words in the first place.

“Familiar?” You question hesitantly.

“Y-es.” He replies expectantly.

“Do I… I mean- have we met?” You asked.

“No.” He responded. “Though that should not have… any bearing on the situation.”

You were starting to think this guy was more than just eccentric.

“So, we’ve never met, but you’re supposed to look familiar?”

“Not…look. It’s more of a …feeling.” Now the man looked confused. He seemed to think there was something that should have been obvious to notice, but you weren’t sensing anything.

“Perhaps… yes. I believe your… well, rather, you- have buried yourself. Though, I cannot say why.”

The man sat down the case in his hand, the handle falling down with a small thump. He then walked closer to you, raised his hands, and placed his thumbs on either side of your head to gently press onto your temples. You were still frozen where you were, though you almost felt curiosity rather than fear.

“Now- let us see what… exactly has you so forgetful.” He hummed more to himself rather than to you a split second before every thing went black in a snap like a light being switched off.

Things were suddenly zipping through your mind and past your darkened eyes faster than you could even hope to process them. Star rushing past, flashes bizarre landscapes wove their way between the spacial feeling of pressurizing weightlessness and the smell of char. Things that seemed so strange, so alien, and yet…

Just as quickly as you had blacked out, you suddenly found yourself back in the abandoned building, the man walking away from you and picking up his case once more.

“It seems like this… is a more, intensive, process than I originally thought. You seemed rather overwhelmed.” He looked back to you, his eyes that were once a striking blue now seemed to have a bight green glow from the irises, making them look almost teal. There was an endearment to his gaze, that you now seemed to understand; at least a bit more anyway. Something about him did seem familiar; it was a sense more so than a memory. Even though you did not know him, nor had you ever, it was like you had been looking for him for centuries.

“You appear to be having…difficulty, remembering. And, regrettably, I do not have any more time- to spare helping you at the moment.” Suddenly, a white light in the shape of doorway rose from the ground. “We shall be in touch again soon.”

And, and with that he walked through and the light closed.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

You managed to stumble your way back to your apartment, the first thing you did was flop down on the old mattress that you had. There were so many things rushing through your mind, but most of them were incomprehensible. You weren’t sure how long you lied there and pondered, but it was long enough that the sun had finished going down. The cool might breeze helped to calm you down and bring you out of you zoned out fog.

You sat up, not realizing until you were directly in across from the little window on the other side of the room that you had a cold sweat, the breeze cooling it further. Not doing much more to acknowledge it than the involuntary shiver that ran through your system, you walked over to look out at the night sky. Reaching over to the nearby desk, you took your little snow globe and started to fidget with it, stirring up the glitter in all different directions.

Holding up the little semi-sphere to the open window, the glitter blended with the starts and the little alien hovered among them all. Yet, it was still trapped by the yellowed glass.

You sighed, tired from everything, but still lazily swirling the snow globe.

"Did I have a past life or something?" You wondered aloud.

"I wouldn't say-"

You screamed at the voice that suddenly appeared behind you.

Whirling around you saw the man from before, the green flittering from his eyes and leaving only the blue once more. He ducked down quickly, and a moment later stood up with your tricket in hand; you must have dropped it when you were startled.

"My, apologies..." He offered before looking at the thing in his hand. A playful, almost unbelieving smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he turned the contents himself.

"Life is... full of- interesting allegories. Wouldn't you agree?" He mused as he handed the globe back to you.

You didn't have a response. That didn't seem to matter as he seemed to have more to say himself.

"As I was explaining: I wouldn't say that you- had a... past life- as much as I would say, you've had one with a... new beginning."

You felt like you should understand what he was saying; you wanted to understand what he was saying. But, it was odd to think you were anyone but who your immediate memories told you that you were- just an average person trying to live the best life that they could under the iron grip of the Combine...

Wait!

"The Civil Protection! If they heard me yell, then-"

"Do not worry. We are somewhere that... they cannot bother us."

It was then you noticed how still everything was. The wasn't a sound other than one that was familiar to the soft hum from the field of stars you saw earlier, and the breeze had stopped completely.

"Where? Where are we?" You questioned.

He made a face that seemed both amused and forlorn.

"You really have... forgotten- so much."

Before anything else could be said, it seemed like he realized something. No, it was like he was being told something in an unseen earpiece.

"It seems our current time together must come to an end. I must apologize for presuming your- continued visits. However, it has been...

It has been- welcoming, to have like company."

He straightened his shirt collar and then his jacket like he was embarrassed about something; perhaps what he had just said. Then he gained a smug grin.

"And, I cannot very well leave you... to your own devices after- introducing you to your true nature. Might be dangerous, hm?"

The light doorway immerged once more, and you new that meant he had to leave.

"You will come back?" You asked a bit more enthusiastically than you meant to. It seemed you also felt the connection he did, though you weren't even sure you knew what it was.

"Of course. Until we... meet again."

And with that he was gone, leaving you back to the real world, your thoughts, and the soft night breeze.

[autisticlee]

try to follow scripts so I can try to say the "appropriate" things so I dont upset the wrong people, but i'm actually really bad at following scripts. I wish I was better at it. I know you're supposed to say please, thank you, excuse me, etc. all those polite manners thing. answer "good and you?" to "how are you" and things like that. but I just simply can't say these things 99% of the time and don't know why!!!!! try so hard!!! hurts me to try. and hurts even more when i fail and get treated horribly because of it. sometimes think I said things but no one heard so can't tell if said it but too quiet or not at all!!!! can't "speak up" when asked and people get very angry.

I was bullied by kids and adults both growing up because of it. friends parents banned me from being their friend for it. friends parents yelled at me for being "rude and disrespectful" to them and banned me from ever going to their house to play or go places with them. my parents punished me after every interaction I had with another person because I didn't perform social interaction correctly. because adults complained about me being rude and disrespectful. because kids parents apparently bullied my parents for raising such a "horrible/evil/disrespectful/rude/etc" child because I wouldn't talk to them or their kids. and their kids whined and bullied me and it was my fault. got bullied because I couldn't ask for help or defend myself. teachers punished me. then called my parents who punished me again at home. teachers kept me from eating lunch because I wasn't allowed to leave until I said a word to them (I didn't). teachers sent me to school counselor who did ABA type thing to me. didn't work. adults watched as kids did bad stuff to me and didn't help because I couldn't ask so they think it's fine and I don't want/need help or deserve it.

I was just a small child and no one cared that I struggled so much because they only saw me as bad and evil because i couldn't talk!!! it was so scary and frustrating. no one ask me how I felt and figure out why I couldn't talk. or in their eyes "wouldn't" as if I had choice. they made me think I was choosing not talking and i beat myself up for not figuring out how choose to talk. I could never follow scripts I was taught no matter how many times was told what to say and told how important it is.

to this day I still can't follow these scripts right. cant get a job because I can barely say words at interviews. I have no friends because I cant talk to strangers to make them. cant make or answer important phone calls and will got years without important medication or doctor appointments. can never ask for help when have bad things happen in public places alone. online friends I meet irl stop talking to me because they think i'm too awkward and quiet. strangers scream and threatened me and treat me bad or won't help me because I cant say words. still struggle to say things "required" to not be "rude" and to be treated with respect by others. it's so hard. i'm so tired. I wish to have a pass to not be expected to speak and have struggle or other form of communication respected. the way people treat those who can't speak and struggle to speak is horrible and needs to change. we aren't being rude and disrespectful! we aren't not talking on purpose!!! stop assuming and being rude and disrespectful to US!!!!!

[on-my-way-to-the-woods]

Bad Decisions Roadtrip

It went well for a trip planned the week/day before to a popular event.

After a very busy week and a Friday filled by surprise medical appointments, we got up incredibly early on Saturday to start packing for a trip to see the solar eclipse. Some friends of ours live not too far from the path of totality so we were able to go stay with them and avoid all the crowds at hotels/campgrounds/etc. We met them at a market and got to poke through the stalls. I got a little dog carving for my desk and F picked up a variety of teas. The rest of Saturday and Sunday was normal hanging out stuff: talking, walks, baking (redbud flower) cookies, etc.

I didn't actually pick generally where we were going until Sunday night, and didn't pick the exact location until Monday morning. I kept checking the cloud map, but most of the area was cloudy so it was very much a 'take your best guess and hope' sort of thing. We figured even if we couldn't see well, the weather changes would still be apparent and that's enough for us.

It worked though! Years of refining my 'find somewhere that won't be crowded' skills continue to pay off. Because of the potential for crowds, I wanted to make sure there was a bathroom available for F (lines are okay, I just didn't want her to have to walk forever in search of a more private tree), so I picked a side entrance to a park with a pit toilet and a gravel lot at the trailhead. The lot was about half full when we arrived, 1 RV and 5 other cars, but we had the trail to ourselves - most people were watching from the parking lot. We walked down the trail a ways and settled on the edge of a field. Not a single other person came by despite the fact that we were literally just off the trail.

I love watching eclipses, F loves the weather change that comes with a solar eclipse, and Nova just loves hanging out outside - there was something for everyone. I'm sure many people have described it better than I, but watching a solar eclipse just has a lovely eerie awe-inspiring feeling to it. Watching the color and quality of the light change around you, feeling the temperature drop and the winds pick up, seeing the moon suddenly become a pitch black circle surrounded by silvery beams - almost like a hole in the sky sucking the light in. Agh, it's just stunning.

Though F says her favorite part is just being out in the day without feeling the sun stab her in the eyes 😂 "Why can't the sun be like this all the time?"

Nova was confused by the weather changes. I kept cracking up because she kept glancing up at the sky and looking left and right as if to say "what's going on?" She loves cold weather though and is always energized by breezy days and she had a good time exploring the field while the humans did weird shit like stare at the sun with funny glasses on. I had not considered that people would set off fireworks during totality 😑, but she handled them like a champ. Her favorite part of the day was probably just a short bit after totality when we went off on a hike through the woods so F could enjoy the last of the dim light; we ran into a patch of morels and stayed a lot longer than we had meant to. By the time we got back to the parking lot there was only one other car and shortly later two women with a grocery bag (presumably also filled with morels) appeared out of the woods and drove off.

The traffic sure was something, but also everyone follows their GPS nowadays so we were able to avoid a lot of it by driving on roads between fields that ran parallel to the highways. We had to join the lines at certain points to get under the interstate/over rivers/etc. but for the most part it was honestly a very satisfying drive. Playing music, making quick decisions on whether a left or a right will lead you back to a road headed in the right direction the fastest, and watching the fields pass by

[heymrsandman]

Wanna Try Star Trek? 3 - The Joy of Jeffrey Combs

John Startrek here, reporting in for our third entry in this beginner friendly series of Star Trek episode summaries, designed to help show all you curious tumblr users just how fun this silly little franchise can be. Conveniently enough, the Great Wheel of Trek has selected for us today a third new show for us to look at, Star Trek Enterprise. So whether you’re new to Trek, or an old hand, replicate yourself a raktajino and settle in.

Star Trek Enterprise, known simply as Enterprise in its first two seasons, is a prequel to the rest of the franchise. It’s set in the early years of human interstellar exploration, back before the formation of the United Federation of Planets to which Earth will one day belong. Our Captain this time around is Johnathan Archer, played by Scott Bakula. There’s no manual for how to handle all those Trek-y situations yet, so Archer’s figuring this stuff out as he goes.

Enterprise had an even more rough production history that Voyager did, and has never really had the best reputation. But as the years roll by, the show is being increasingly reevaluated in a positive light. This was only my second time watching this episode and yeah, it’s definitely better than I gave it credit for at the time.

So let’s get started on season 1 episode 14 Shadows of P’Jem.

We open with Soval, the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, having a rather tense discussion with Admiral Forrest over the events of a previous episode, The Andorian Incident, in which Archer made an unscheduled visit to a Vulcan monastery and uncovered a secret spy station. It was being used by the Vulcans to keep tabs on Andorians, with whom they’re currently in a state of cold war.

Soval makes a fair point that Archer is having a destabilising effect on the region after only six months, and implies that he should be removed from his post as captain of the Enterprise. Forrest responds by pointing out that the Vulcans are actually guilty of the spying the Andorians were accusing them of. He further asserts that Vulcans do not appoint Starfleet personnel, and Soval leaves to go back to Vulcan in a huff.

Science Officer’s Note: Vulcans are one of the most important and popular alien races in Star Trek, and you probably know them from the deeply logical and deeply gay Spock. In order to suppress their powerful emotions, Vulcans practice a philosophy of strict logic and emotional suppression. In Enterprise, they’re trying to act as stuffy den mothers to humanity, who by and large are not fond of the mollycoddling.

On Enterprise, Archer is having a nice dinner in his quarters with his Chief Engineer, Charles “Trip” Tucker III, a good old Florida boy. He’s talking about their next destination, an inhabited planet called Coridan. He ribs Trip that he’s not going to take him along, leaving Trip to have the most kicked puppy look on his face.

But things can’t stay happy forever, and they’re interrupted by a call from Admiral Forrest, who tells Archer what happened at his meeting with Soval. Apparently the monastery at P’Jem was bombed by the Andorians shortly after Enterprise left.

Science Officer’s Note: The Andorians are blue and have antennae, which made many of the people working on Trek to think they were too silly to be brought back after the original series until they finally showed up again in an important role on Enterprise. In contrast to the stoic and logical Vulcans, Andorians revel in their fiery tempers. Also, their antennae move like a cat’s tail to symoblise their mood thanks to an impressive blend of prosthetics and remote control work.

There’s some additional bad news, which Archer decides to deliver to T’Pol in person. T’Pol, a Vulcan who was assigned to Enterprise as the Science Officer and second in command, is being recalled to Vulcan to be reassigned. Now, Archer doesn’t like Vulcans very much, to the point of bigotry. But over the course of this season he’s grown attached to the frosty Vulcan. For her part, T’Pol doesn’t let her mask of Vulcan stoicness falter, though she does admit to feeling like the destruction of P’Jem was her fault.

After a short scene of Archer telling Trip he can’t go to Coridan for real this time so he can take T’Pol with him, we arrive at the mess hall where the ship’s Doctor Phlox tries to coax T’Pol into fighting her transfer. T’Pol remains unmoved.

In a shuttle ride to the planet, Archer tries to start up some small talk but T’Pol’s not the chattiest. She does, however, ask why she was chosen for this mission. Archer makes a decent point, that Vulcans do business with this planet but they’ve never met humans before, so a Vulcan is well suited to introduce the two peoples. He also says that if she really doesn’t want to go, they can always turn around. 

T’Pol’s excuse for staying on mission to spend some time with Archer is that it would be illogical to waste fuel by turning back now. The nice moment is broken by somebody shooting at them, which isn’t very nice. They try to fight back, but get shot down and captured.

We go right into Archer and T’Pol tied up in a cell, where they banter about Houdini until their captors show up to interrogate them. Their leader claims they’re a rebel faction, acting against a corrupt regime held in power by the Vulcans. 

He asks about their sidearms, which Archer replies are called phase pistols. When questioned about the Enterprise, Archer gives them some lip and gets smacked across the face for it. T’Pol claims that Archer is the ship’s cook, and they’re here to cook a banquet for the planet’s chancellor. The captors assume she, therefore, is the captain.

Speaking of the chancellor, Trip is third in the chain of command and so has assumed command of Enterprise while Archer and T’Pol are away. He’s on a call with Coridan’s chancellor, who doesn’t take kindly to Trip’s assertions that they should have been warned about the rebels and that the Coridans have failed to protect a pair of diplomatic envoys. He gets cut off for his troubles, and the crew look into ways to track Archer and T’Pol.

Ship Counsellor’s Note: This is followed up by a scene of Archer & T’Pol trying to escape that isn’t really worth going over in detail, except to talk about the sexualisation of female characters in Star Trek. See, in this scene, they do the whole guy falling over and ending up with his face in a woman’s boobs gag. 

While the original 60’s show was actually pretty progressive for including the miniskirt, a symbol of women’s liberation at the time, and TNG/DS9/VOY had been pretty good about this stuff, they weren’t perfect. Deanna Troy famously spent most of her screentime in low cut dresses despite being a Starfleet officer, and Seven of Nine was explicitly added to the show to look good in tight catsuits. Enterprise is the nadir of the franchise in this respect, with T’Pol not only donning her own set of catsuits, but the show contriving a lot of excuses to see its two female stars in various states of undress over and over.

Back to the plot, Malcolm Reed, Enterprise’s Security Officer, thinks he’s located the shuttle in a shanty town just a few kilometres from the planet’s capital. He wants to take an armed team in to investigate, but Trip tells him to hold fire. Just then, the rebels called Enterprise to demand 40 phase pistols or they’ll kill their hostages. Not two minutes after they hang up on him, a Vulcan ship hails Enterprise to say they’re here to pick up T’Pol. Trip gets annoyed at them too, and the captain, Sopek, gets all haughty and says they’ll take over the investigation.

Cut to later on the Enterprise, with Sopek on board, where the Vulcan captain insists on storming the compound. Trip accuses him of not caring about the safety of Archer & T’Pol, and conveniently forgets to tell Spoke their location when asked. He then tells Reed to fire up the shuttle to go rescue them themselves.

A guard brings food for Archer & T’Pol, and because of the way they’re bound, Archer is forced into a degrading position to eat anything. T’Pol refuses to follow suit until Archer orders her to do so. I know what the Counsellor said earlier about sexualisation in the show, but this isn’t really an example of that. The reason we’re talking about this scene is that Archer finds a doodad in his meal with a blinking light. Looks like somebody’s on their side.

The ship’s Communications Officer, Hoshi Sato, is on Enterprise for the customary “sorry my parents aren’t home” call when Sopek realises another shuttle has left Enterprise, and cuts him off with static.

In the shanty town, Trip & Reed have barely gone twenty feet from the shuttle when they themselves get captured. It’s not the rebels though, it’s Commander Shran, the Andorian from the incident in The Andorian Incident. He says they’re there to aid the rebels in overthrowing the Vulcan-backed government but after P’Jem, he owes Archer a debt and is planning to rescue him. Trip & Reed insist on coming along.

Ship Counsellor’s Note: Jeffrey Combs is something of a Star Trek legend. As an actor, he’s been in many projects over the years, but Trekkies love him for his two recurring roles on DS9 as Weyoun and Liquidator Brunt. He’s a very charismatic actor who commits hard to the role, and Shran is one of the highlights of the show.

The glowing doodad is a communication device, which lets Trip explain the plan to Archer & T’Pol. While the rescue is pretty successful, they’re interrupted by the Vulcan raid. Shran tells Archer hsi debt is repaid, but on their way out the Vulcans and Andorians run into each other and enter into a standoff. It’s resolved when a wounded rebel tries to shoot Sopek, only for T’Pol to jump in front of the shot.

Back on Enterprise, everyone’s crowded around T’Pol’s bed in sickbay. Sopek is clearly concerned about her, and Phlox says that her prognosis is not good. Archer tries to commiserate with him, and asks him to put in a good word for T’Pol at Vulcan High Command so she can stay on Enterprise. Sopek can’t take T’Pol with him while she’s wounded, but he does have a meeting with the High Command soon, and might have time to bring it up with them.

When a shaken Sopek leaves, Phlox revives T’Pol from her induced coma and tells her she’s not to leave sickbay for 24 hours. When Archer tells her he thinks he’s managed to sort out that whole T’Pol being transferred issue, T’Pol said he shouldn’t have interfered. Archer says she’s free to go chase down Sopek if she really wants to tell him not to. T’Pol chooses her excuse this time to be that she can’t, as that would be disobeying doctor’s orders.

This is not as good an episode as our previous two. It is one of the better ones in Enterprise’s first season, which is not really a great season of television. Something you might have noticed from this summary is a number of times when a scene transitions from one part of a discussion, to that same discussion happening at a different time or location. Take Sopek’s call to Enterprise, for example. What was really accomplished by Sopek coming aboard that couldn’t have been done over the video call?

It’s also not entirely clear whether Archer & T’Pol’s scenes or Trip’s scene really constitute the a-plot of the episode. Both have scenes that don’t really need to be there, like Hoshi’s call with Sopek, or the boobs-in-face scene. The potentially intense and complex political situation of the Vulcans and Andorians fighting a proxy war via Coridan is something DS9 could have handled in its sleep, but Enterprise passes over the opportunity.

So is this a bad episode of television? No, it’s just a bit of an underdeveloped one. Like much of Enterprise, it’s a bunch of unrealised potential with some moments of undeniable charm.

Speak to me, oh Great Wheel of Trek. Please, grant unto us some TNG. so we can go four for four on this.

Well, would you look at that. Ask and you’ll receive I guess.Now tell me, oh Great Wheel of Trek, should I buy a lottery ticket next week?

[ayliamc]

Italia

Day 5 - The Smell of the Ocean

Steps walked: 16,283

Flights climbed: 13

Vehicles ridden: 3 (two by land, one by water)

Points of interest visited: 3

Leonardos spotted: only bastardizations in tourist swag

We took our time having breakfast and checking out of the hotel, opting for comfort and taking a taxi to the train station rather than the metro. We got to marvel at the skill and audacity of Italian drivers as he cut through solid walls of traffic to get us to the station with plenty of time to spare. We strolled directly onto the train for the nearly three hour ride to Venezia. ‘Twas a relatively uneventful train ride, mostly pleasant, aside from the little boy who sat next to me for 30% of the ride who watched stuff on his phone with the volume on.

We arrived in Venezia, a sinking city, hungry. We tried two cafes at the train station who reportedly sometimes had vegan croissants but no such luck. Dan was noticeably worried because as my hunger grows, my moods become more mercurial. I insisted I’d be ok and that we could head to our hotel and maybe we’ll find something on the way. I was determined not to be the problem, as I usually am.

It was a half hour walk through Venezia to our hotel and along the way we passed a Chinese restaurant listed on Happy Cow (our vegan restaurant finder app, a necessity for every traveling vegan). I was not about to resist another break from Italian food so we had a very satisfying lunch there and I have no regrets about our first stop in Venezia being to a Chinese restaurant.

The rest of our walk to the hotel was uneventful, providing us a nice walking tour of the city, encumbered only by our luggage.

Some observations/thoughts about Venezia:

* For all intents and purposes, there are no roads. No cars. No vehicles. We walked exclusively through alleys, for lack of a better word. Ranging from wide to impossibly narrow, weaving with no apparent rhyme or reason thru the multi-story ancient buildings housing apartments, hotels, restaurants, and shops. Modern kitsch sold from crumbling brick store fronts and tourist traps next to local markets.

* How could anyone live here? It’s just fine to visit. Kind of surreal to experience. But people live their lives in this city where Amazon deliveries are brought by rolly cart and courier and emergency services take a boat to the nearest canal. Their day-to-day is spent navigating through a sea of tourists who seemingly outnumber them.

* It feels less like a real place where people live as it does a run down amusement park where there’s only one ride: a 30 minute gondola ride that costs €80. It’s all in need of a good scrubbing to get rid of that algae/fish/sea salt smell.

* You pay for water at restaurants here. They don’t do tap water.

Our hotel was directly next to a canal and gondola “start point”, of which there are many. The gentleman who ran the hotel greeted us at the door and was outrageously friendly and nice and Italian. “Buongiorno! Ciao! Welcome! You have-a my favorite room-a!”

‘Twas indeed a very nice room with windows that overlooked a canal. We unloaded our bags and went for a walk to the Piazza San Marco and the Doge’s Palace and meandered around, taking in the sights and sounds. Without having much interest in actually paying for admission to any of the museums or historic landmarks, there wasn’t a whole lot for us to do.

And here we are sighing at the bridge of sighs.

We eventually found ourselves in a gondola not far from our hotel (but not the one right next to the hotel entrance). I’d noticed that all the gondoliers were male and I did a bit of googling to confirm that in Venezia’s history, only one “female” gondolier has ever existed, and even then not really. Alex Hai became the “first female gondolier” a few years before he came out as trans. As far as I can tell, he still works as an occasional gondolier but by appointment only. He also works as a filmmaker. So we couldn’t support any women or trans-men, and were left with a traditional gondolier. He was still great and pointed out a few things on our half hour tour. My initial thought that 30 minutes was too short a ride was replaced after about 20 minutes when I decided “yeah, 30 minutes is plenty.”

Many of the gondoliers chat with each other as they pass, their long oars on the right of the boat while they use their left leg to kick off the building walls on either end of the narrow canals. It seems like an exhausting job. I don’t know how they do it. But it’s fun to watch.

We had some time to kill before our reservations. (Too late we discovered there’s exactly one vegan restaurant in all of Venezia and it was far and required reservations which we had not made. An email revealed to us that they were fully booked for the night. Our next best option was a very expensive restaurant that had a vegan menu.) We wandered aimlessly through our little corner of the city while I marveled at some of my aforementioned observations and went to our reservations a half hour early. They seated us immediately on their patio* and we immediately became aware that we were much too poor for this restaurant. We ordered two dishes each, aware that one dish would not be enough food despite the cost. Anyway it was all good. Not as good as the best meal I’ve had, and not good enough to justify the cost. But quite tasty. We had a nice leisurely dinner, hampered only by the French woman sitting next to us who lit up a cigarette right after we had our appetizers. Europeans, amiright?

I’ve also been starting to respond to every dog sighting with an ever increasing yearning for our babies back home. The best part of a vacation is knowing you’ll be ready to finish it at the end. We’re about halfway there, and that feels right.

Our hotel had given us a complimentary bottle of wine which was a sweet, mild Chardonnay which we happily enjoyed before bed, falling asleep to the sounds of splashing water and boats passing by in the canal below our window.

*the alley behind the restaurant

[bonesandthebees]

The book was Twin Crowns! It was okay, like Idid really enjoy the story and the worldbuilding, but there’s two pov characters which somehow made the ending feel really rushed despite it being 500 pages (I think it’s the chaos of having too much going on whike constantly switching back and forth between both characters). Also, it’s apparently part of a series, which I’m kinda meh about because I didn’t know when I bought it since the second book wasn’t out yet. And I’m not really sure if I want to stick with the series or not.

Yeah, there was a really long break between season 3 and season 4 because covid (I think). Tbf, animation also takes a long time. But the show didn’t get cancelled! In fact, it got confirmed for a total of 7 seasons, which it needs because it tends to tell a story over several seasons. Like 1-3 is one story and 4-7 is a different but still related story after a 2-year time skip. But yeah, I get not continuing. I almost quit after s4 because that one was a mess (they have a habit of making things canon in bonus material, which can cause for some amazing whiplash /neg when you haven’t read those), but I decided to still try season 5 to see if it was better (and it mostly was, the pacing is just still a bit all over the place). So I think I’ll stick with it for the last two seasons.

Oh and the original writing is going well! I gave myself a 200 words a day writing goal. It’s still relatively low so it’s easier to make myself write every day (mostly so I don’t drop it immediately when I don’t feel like writing, I just have to open the document and write 200 words, or 150 if it’s really not going). At the same time it allows me to make decent progress when I do feel like writing (mainly because I already have some scene written from when I was figuring out the story and characters so now I can use/rewrite those for this first draft). It’s a lot of fun and I feel like I’m actually writing something good for once. (continuously reminding myself that it’s just a first draft also helps to take the pressure off.)

Anyway, How’s your day going/gone, Bee?

-🌲

hmm yeah multiple pov characters can definitely make things feel rushed depending on how you use it. I try to avoid multiple povs whenever I can because it's just a lot to balance, but I think it can work. you just gotta be careful with it

if you're already feeling meh about the next book I'd say don't bother with it unless you hear some really amazing reviews about it. there's so many interesting things to read out there, if you've already given the story a shot and you're not into it, there's no harm in just reading the first one

oh that's cool that the show didn't get cancelled!! makes sense why I thought it did though if there was a really long pause. glad to hear they're still going strong!! though I gotta admit making stuff canon in the bonus material is. not a great way to go about it. guys cmon.

one thing I remember from that show though was that amaya could step on me and I'd thank her

that's a really good word count goal to have!! 200 words a day is really good progress but it takes so much pressure off for sure. also it's always important to remember that the first draft might end up not looking anything like the final draft so just do whatever you can to get the story down on paper. you can always edit later :)

my day's been alright! had to run some errands, go to appointments, figure out how to drag a gigantic tv box down to the dumpster in my buildings parking garage, cooked fish in an air fryer for the first time- just a lot of stuff lol