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

[distance-does-not-matter]

and i feel validated in this clinical setting

[brucebocchi]

Spring 2025 anime, Pt. 1: Ongoing/returning anime and mixed bags

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as this is a labor of love. all of my seasonal reviews and end-of-year rankings are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

Holy shit, I actually got one of these out on time!

Spring was an absolute banger of a season for anime, and I wound up watching way more than I expected. Before I get into the absolute gold, though, let's start off with the familiar stuff as well as the stuff that was... not as great.

As always, OP linked in the show title.

Ikuzo!

Continuing & returning anime

​​The Apothecary Diaries, season 2, second cour

One of the decade’s best anime continued into the spring season in much the same way as it did in the second half of its debut season by rewarding keen eyes and revealing mysteries that had been mounting for weeks, if not months. The Apothecary Diaries’ ability to build momentum as it connects its disparate dots is unmatched, and once again the payoff is building at mach speed.

The seeds planted in the second season’s first cour, and even a couple from the first season, are bearing fruit, and some have even cross-pollinated in unexpected ways. The previous emperor’s crimes were laid out pretty starkly in the first half of this season, and he continues to haunt the narrative as it unfolds. This season can easily be summed up by the old card that “hurt people hurt people,” and his crimes are reverberating in the actions of his survivors. It doesn’t help that some of the older ones see him in Jinshi’s beautiful face (who knows what that could mean!), and the attack on him towards the end of the first cour is starting to look like part of a much grander machination.

Maomao, meanwhile, is closer to the gears of that machine than she realizes at first, and an inconvenient but surprisingly friendly kidnapping throws her right in the middle of it. Identity and playing a role are major throughlines of the second season, and more people than just Jinshi were hiding in plain sight in Maomao’s orbit. She’s always preferred keeping to herself, but simply intuiting the truth has never been enough to prevent it from blowing up in her face. Palace intrigue was never her game, but she’s far too close to too many parts of it for it to not be her problem for much longer.

The Apothecary Diaries has been a tough show to write about following its first cour, mostly because I don’t like spoiling stuff, but also because everything I’ve been saying since its debut has held true: The cast is tremendous, the setting is enthralling, and every last little detail matters in ways you can rarely predict. It’s a wonderful soap opera, period piece, and mystery series all in one, and it’s been appointment television for me for over a year and a half now. It’s been enough of a hit that it’s being represented at Universal Studios Japan now, and it deserves every last bit of its success.

It’s also apparent that the anime adaptation has just about caught up to what the manga has adapted up to this point. Guess I’m gonna have to just go ahead and read the novels now.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger, season 2

I was pretty let down by this series’ first season, in part because my patience with its absurdly sporadic pacing never felt like it was properly rewarded. I���d anticipated more episodes than we’d gotten in 2024’s spring season, and as a result I declared a year ago that I’d reserve judgment on Loser Ranger until its second season. I went in with an open mind and reasonable expectations, and I was let down all over again. This show is a goddamn mess.

Having passed the Ranger exams in his Hibiki Sakurama disguise, Fighter D is conscripted alongside Angel into the Green squadron, much to his consternation, under the watchful eye of the temperamental, sukeban-ish Kanon Hisui. Green Keeper’s forte is stealth, which D should be ecstatic about, but it’s gonna be that much harder for him to take out Red from over there. Hisui, along with her new underlings and mercurial informant Chidori, investigate a high school that seems to be the epicenter of a string of disappearances. Instead of the truth, however, they find themselves in a Groundhog’s Day situation, trapped in a loop of an endlessly-repeating day of high school. D has to try to find a way out without divulging his true identity.

Shit completely hits the fan after this arc, in terms of both plot events and how atrociously they are portrayed. It became clear midway through the season that the studio realized there wasn’t going to be a third, so they opted to rush through dozens of chapters’ worth of material in the span of just a few episodes. The problem with this is that what we ended up with was a series of world-shattering events happening in the span of just a few minutes at a time, with zero gravity given to anything going on. The real Hibiki is back. There are kaiju everywhere now. There’s a monster liberation movement and they’re stepping in on D’s territory by threatening to expose the Dragon Keepers. D’s identity is basically out in the open now and half of the cast is just cool with it. Major character deaths, massive twists, double-crosses, a complete upending of the world as we knew it, sure why not, throw it all on the pile. We gotta get to that big epic ending somehow.

Loser Ranger’s first season already had an infuriating pacing problem, and it’s made that much more flabbergasting that this whiplash-inducing string of events comes after we’d spent basically a season’s worth of consecutive episodes between a parking garage and a high school. Major characters are relegated to side plots while others pop up at the very end like “hey remember us? We’re here too.” I stopped bothering with trying to keep up or even follow the plot, because it was clear that the people slapping this shit together did too. Everything was piled on with the purpose of giving the show some semblance of a climactic ending, which was fine, but then it had the gall to keep the door open just a crack, if only to remind us that it’s based on an ongoing manga series. The only thing that hasn’t completely scared me off from someday picking up the source material is the knowledge (or hope, call it what you want) that no manga as incompetently slapped together as Loser Ranger’s second season would have ever been successful enough to warrant an anime adaptation.

I’m not fully letting the source material off the hook, though; I do take issue with the concept of an ostensible liberation movement acting as a Trojan horse threatening to wipe out humanity; that can be read in the worst possible faith as a disgusting analogue for real-world liberation movements trying to end actual atrocities in the present day. It doesn’t help either that our protagonist jumps in and goes “hey, I think BOTH sides are bad and crazy!�� Maybe it’s not something the mangaka gave much real thought to, or hey, maybe this adaptation is just so incompetent it accidentally made it look much worse than it actually is. I’m at the point where I don’t really care to find out for myself anymore.

What a letdown. I was intrigued by Loser Ranger’s premise when it debuted last year, but if I’d known going in that it would be such a slog to actually watch, I’d have saved myself the nine hours I wasted on this show. At least the OP and ED are good again.

Wind Breaker, season 2

One of 2024’s more surprising shonen hits came back with a bang this spring season, picking up exactly where the debut season bafflingly left off. The boys are back in town, and it’s time to beat some ass.

Wind Breaker’s second season picks up with Haruka and the Bofurin boys infiltrating a rival gang’s hideout to rescue a classmate’s friend who’s been extorted. He’s kicking butt like normal, but something new is holding him back: He’s starting to get hung up on the idea of his allies getting hurt. Wind Breaker has largely been the story of Haruka learning to accept that he’s wanted and cared for unconditionally, and though he’s a far cry from the angry loner he was at the start of the serie, he’s still grappling with this acceptance just as much as he would any street tough. Helping him along his journey is a senpai who has mastered the art of self-actualization: Tasuku Tsubakino, one of the school’s vaunted Four Kings and an avid fan of makeup and cute, feminine clothing. Haruka, as you can imagine, is frequently flustered.

An early Tsubaki appearance in the first season piqued my interest, but here in the second they immediately became one of my favorite things about Wind Breaker (Tsubaki’s gender identity isn’t addressed head-on; they attend an all-boys school but use the very feminine “atashi” first-person pronoun, so rather than typecast I will refer to them with gender-neutral pronouns). They are an absolute delight of a character, and far from a slouch in a fistfight. Their own journey to self-acceptance, as depicted in this season’s masterful sixth episode, runs wonderfully parallel to Haruka learning to recover from his own ostracization, even if the latter doesn’t involve lipstick and heels. If Tsubaki can become their true self by loving what they see in the mirror, surely Haruka can become what he’s meant to be by simply accepting that the people around him actually want him there.

Another unfortunate parallel to Haruka, however, rears his head towards the end of the season in the form of what looks to be the Big Bad for the foreseeable future, Yamato Endo, an ex-Bofurin ronin of sorts who takes an interest in the first-year after fanning the flames of a massive street brawl in what looks an awful lot like Kabukicho. Endo left Bofurin to pursue his own self-interests, and he recommends Haruka do the same. Though Haruka’s commitment is tested, anyone who knows him by now knows that he’s never been the type to back down. Hell, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from like three other fights right before that. Once again, a season ends on a “welp, here’s the new bad guy” reveal, but this season’s ending feels more like an intriguing teaser than the debut just ending at the start of the next arc for some reason.

Pacing was already an issue in Wind Breaker’s first season, and the second takes a surprisingly leisurely pace for a while. And just like the first season, the back half of this season is monopolized by an arc that lasted probably an episode too long. While the fight animation is typically great, there was enough time spent outside of fisticuffs that I started doubting whether the show’s animation was as good as I remembered it. It doesn’t help that some crowd scenes are rendered in low-quality CGI just distracting enough to remind me that this is the same studio that botched the 3D effects in the otherwise eye-popping Elusive Samurai last year. Overall, though? Can’t complain. Everyone still looks adorable, especially when they get all blobby for gag purposes, and I was just happy to spend more time with my punchy boys.

Another uneven but eminently enjoyable season for Wind Breaker is in the bag, and I’ll wait around patiently for another. This season’s lesson? Dudes don’t always have to look like dudes in order to rock.

Mixed Bags

Catch Me at the Ballpark!

I recognize that if you’re reading this far into several thousands of words’ worth of anime reviews, you likely don’t care much for sports. Maybe you only care about sports through the lens of anime; there’s plenty of great series that revolve around basketball, volleyball, boxing, and the like. I happen to love baseball a whole lot, and I love anime a whole lot, but I’m yet to find a baseball anime that really caught my eye. I bounced off of last spring’s Oblivion Battery after just a couple episodes, partly because I’d already had too many other shows to write about, and I’m yet to find one that really grabs me.

I’m not happy to report that Catch Me at the Ballpark hasn’t broken that streak, but I did like that it took a more casual approach to sports anime, and in a way that reaffirms what I love about baseball. Most sports anime tends to focus on the drama and camaraderie innate to competition, but baseball is a slower-paced spectator sport. There’s a lot of downtime, and much of the act of attending a baseball game is secondary to the on-field product. It’s more of a picnic with a few thousand friends, and I love seeing that atmosphere cross cultures. In this regard (and unfortunately just in this regard), Catch Me at the Ballpark gets it. 

It’s an ensemble slice-of-life that largely eschews the on-field action and drama in favor of the goings-on around the stadium, spanning dozens of segments following the fans, vendors, stadium workers, reporters, WAGS, mascot, and yes, the players. The fictional Chiba MotorSuns are an historically futile club with a dedicated fanbase, one of whom being the dead-eyed young salaryman Kotaro Murata, who finds refuge at the ballpark after long days of fucking up and apologizing for it. His relaxation is tempered a bit when he orders a beer from one of the roaming vendors, the rowdy gyaru Ruriko, who takes the opportunity to push his buttons. We’re left assuming this is the start of some bog-standard romcom shit, but it turns out Ruriko is just excited that she managed to talk to a customer without blowing it.

Setting us up with a ballpark Nagatoro situation is not a great start to the series, but the focus fortunately hops around to various parts of the stadium from there, showing us the ecosystem of disparate elements that come together to bring us the experience of every baseball game. Catch Me is a lovely cross-section of all the little things going on to make the day-to-day of baseball what it is, and the ways they interact with one another: The security guards help a lost child to ensure her memories of the ballpark are good ones, Ruriko advises the stadium announcer on quirky calls, and the devastatingly attractive 40-something clubhouse cook makes sure a younger player feels included and is fed properly. Sun-Shiro, the adorably plump salamander mascot, not only engages the fans but helps out just about everyone in the park with written words of encouragement, professional pointers, and sick wrestling moves. A ballpark is ultimately a community, and Catch Me’s portrayal exhibited just enough charm to keep me watching.

Although not much of the show is dedicated to the on-field action, plenty of time is spent with the players, and the ones that get more focus are pretty darn likable. The aging veteran slugger Kojiro gets a lot of screen time as a hometown hero, as well as his wife who learns to love baseball through the adoration of the Chiba crowds. My favorite is easily Dennis Young, the beefy gaijin trying not to slum it in his exile overseas after flaming out in the American majors. He’s a Chicago native wearing #34 and an ex-Cub, so I have no choice but to stan. There’s a small running subplot surrounding his commitment to the team, but I don’t care about that nearly as much as I care about him peppering his inner monologue with over-enunciated English (a gag I will always love) and horribly pronouncing basic Japanese in an awful American accent. Hell yeah, get our asses.

The moribund MotorSuns are making a push for their first-ever playoff appearance in the background of all this, and the Chiba faithful are catching that baseball fever. In addition to Kojiro’s wife, we’re watching plenty of people get swept up in the hype of the suddenly ascendant team, including a middle-school musician finding community in the cheer section, a reporter whose assigned hit piece turns into fluff, and of course Ruriko herself, who began the season not knowing shit about the sport. There are life lessons to be learned from baseball, especially in the hopeless optimism and perseverance you learn from rooting for a historically middling team, and the playoff push towards the end of the season does a solid job of portraying this. Though it may sound insane from the outside, there is genuine community to be found in a futile fandom, and it makes the eventual successes feel that much more rapturous. Again, I would know, I’m a Cubs fan.

Here’s the part where I undermine all my poetic waxing about baseball: This show just plain isn’t very good. It looks like an equally-cheap anime from 15 years ago, the voice cast is largely wasted, and the pacing is often brutal. I liked Ruriko just fine, but every segment with her and Murata was like nails on a chalkboard; they have negative chemistry and he is the biggest drip imaginable. It’s a wonder that this is from the same studio that nailed Train to the End of the World a year ago. The most praise I can heap upon any one part of Catch Me at the Ballpark unfortunately damns the rest of it, by which I mean that the ED is easily the best part of the show. “Ballpark de Shake! Don’t Shake!” is a blast of a song, if standard anime fare (I’m a sucker for opening and ending themes performed by the show’s cast, especially when Fairouz Ai is involved), and the presentation is the most eye-catching thing in the whole series. The vendor girls’ dances in front of the foamy, bubbly beer background make economic use of a limited color palette and smear frames, bringing an irresistible amount of personality that the rest of the show was sorely lacking. It looks like it was animated in Flipnote in the best of ways. It’s a shame that nothing from the preceding 22 minutes could match this energy.

So no, this isn’t the best show, but I can’t help but be romantic about baseball. I firmly maintain that beer and baseball are two of mankind’s greatest creations, and I’m pretty high on anime as well, so it’s a shame that a melding of the three didn’t quite reach the potential it could have. I do still have a soft spot for this one, but much like Heineken, the Toronto Blue Jays, and Catch Me at the Ballpark, wonderful things can still be sadly mediocre.

Lazarus

By all accounts, this should’ve broken Adult Swim’s streak of original anime misfires. All of the right pieces were in place: The programming block’s run of Cowboy Bebop during its early days cemented the series’ legendary status among western anime fans, so running it back with a shiny new Shinichiro Watanabe original was a no brainer. MAPPA, the prestige anime studio, was tabbed to produce it, with Gainax and Trigger veterans among the animation directors. Contemporary jazz stalwart Kamasi Washington (best known for playing saxophone on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly) joined electronic producers Floating Points and Bonobo for the soundtrack. Hell, they got John Wick director and former stuntman Chad Stahelski to supervise the action sequences! This had to be a slam dunk, right?

Welp.

In the not-too-distant future of 2052, three years after introducing a miracle painkiller and dropping off the face of the earth, Dr. Deniz Skinner resurfaces in a recording to confess that the drug has an unforeseen drawback: Everyone who took it will die three years after the first dose, and thanks to its popularity, humanity suddenly faces certain extinction. A mysterious woman assembles a suicide squad of sorts to track down Skinner and try to schmooze him for a cure, front and center being wisecracking prison escape artist Axel Gilberto. He and the rest of the crew of ne’er-do-wells, assigned the name Lazarus, have only 30 days to track down the reclusive doctor before the first dominoes start to fall, and they do so in an extremely roundabout way, hopping to abandoned labs, nightclubs, cult compounds, and oil rigs, en route to way too many dead ends.

Unfortunately, that synopsis makes Lazarus sound way more cohesive than it is in practice. This is Watanabe’s first show since the passing of frequent collaborator and scriptwriter Keiko Nobumoto, and her absence is groan-inducingly palpable. Lazarus exhibits some of the same freewheeling, episodic feel that helped make Bebop a classic, but at the expense of the actual overarching plot. We’re thrown to all corners of the earth for a new wacky adventure every week, but each one is a dead end on the quest to, apparently, save all of humanity in just a month. I cannot believe how much time this show wastes fucking around. If it weren’t for the “X days until extinction” card at the end of every episode, it’d be pretty easy to forget that this show is supposed to be a race against the clock.

Seriously, it doesn’t feel like anything actually happens in Lazarus, even though I saw stuff happen with my own eyes across 13 episodes. It seems to trade entirely in vibes, and while the vibes are lovely, it seems to be the only thing this show has going for it. Everyone is well-designed, the animation is gorgeous, the action scenes are (mostly) exceptionally choreographed, and the soundtrack is lovely, but all of it feels like it’s in service of precisely nothing. Watanabe’s never been for a lack of Something to Say, and he’s been open about the story’s conception being rooted in the opioid crisis in the US, but everything seems to be lip service with little if any actual thought put in. Little things peppered throughout like crypto traders being accurately portrayed as sleazy dirtbags, AI fanatics being in a literal cult, nods to the human cost of climate change, and the matter-of-fact inclusion of a trans character are all things designed to make a lefty sicko like me go “hell yeah” (and I did), and nothing more. I gave Lazarus the benefit of the doubt that maybe this was all headed somewhere, that all these dead ends and red herrings were placed intentionally to lead us to a sensible conclusion, and it turns out I gave it way too much credit. Every attempt at pathos and meaningful character beats falls flat because these characters do not fundamentally exist outside of their names and faces. I was completely stone-faced by the finale. Lazarus is a whole lot of beautiful nothing.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind that only the English dub was available each time a new episode dropped, but I wasn’t crazy about this dub in particular. I wasn’t immediately familiar with any of the names in the dub cast, but they had more anime chops than I’d initially realized. There’s a good amount of Oshi no Ko, My Hero Academia, and even the rebooted Urusei Yatsura in there. I also didn’t realize that Chris’ voice actress, Luci Christian, voices Nami in One Piece and Yukari in Azumanga Daioh. I owe you an apology, queen, I was not familiar with your game. None of this really matters, though, because the voice direction is no bueno. Everyone speaks in a disaffected, languid tone, like they were purposely directed to emulate the old Bebop dub. Combined with the laid-back pacing, the vibey soundtrack, and the weirdly staccato rhythm of the dialogue to match the animated lip flaps, the aural element of the English-dubbed version threatens to turn Lazarus into televised Ambien. The real shame of it is that the Japanese cast is exceptional (Mamoru Miyano, Maaya Uchida, Makoto Furukawa? Say less), but I have no desire to go back and sit through this nonsense again just to hear it.

If there is one area where I have to give Jason DeMarco credit as an anime producer, it’s that he frequently nails the musical aspects of the otherwise mediocre series he manifests (Mori Calliope in last year’s Suicide Squad Isekai notwithstanding). If you can’t get Yoko Kanno back for a spiritual follow-up to Cowboy Bebop, you can do several orders of magnitude worse than Kamasi Washington. But a jazz virtuoso isn’t enough to save Lazarus from the growing heap of disappointing crap bearing DeMarco’s name, and we can’t keep blaming it all on Zaslav. I praised last year’s Metallic Rouge by comparing it positively to Watanabe’s work before promptly ripping it to shreds for being an overwrought nothingburger of a series, and here I am 15 months later calling an actual Watanabe work the same thing. I think I would have enjoyed this show more if it flat-out sucked.

Maybe it’s on me for biting on another lousy Adult Swim original anime for the third year in a row. Bring me my Fell For It Again Award. I look forward to doing this again in 2026.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

I probably shouldn’t have tasked myself with reviewing this one. I’m the dreaded new-gen Gundam fan who’s only seen G-Witch. I promised myself I’d watch the old ‘79 series (or at least the compilation movies), but I followed a baker’s dozen series this season and work full time. So here I am, up shit creek with naught but a dunce cap, trying to write about a series that expects me to be intimately familiar with Universal Century canon.

Set in an alternate UC 0085 where Zeon won the One Year War thanks to Char Aznable finding the OG White Gundam first and then disappearing, GQuuuuuuX largely follows disaffected high schooler Amate, who stumbles upon a prototype Gundam (guess what it’s called!) in the middle of a Zeon hunt for Char’s suddenly-resurfaced Gundam, and commandeers it. You can probably guess that she’s a Newtype and thus able to pilot it perfectly, but this gets her caught up with a group of junkers who decide to use her talents and newfangled machinery in an illegal mech fighting ring. She befriends the guarded war refugee Nyaan and mysterious pilot Shuji, who seems to have a deep metaphysical connection with Char’s Gundam, and takes part in these battles alongside Shuji, while the very-much-alive (and now much handsomer) Challia Bull keeps a close eye on their team in his search for the Red Comet.

Sooooo, this one is kind of all over the place. There was plenty of classic Gundam stuff packed into here with the clear intention of making longtime fans point at the screen like Rick Dalton, so maybe it’s on me for going into this for the original story. I like Amate and Nyaan just fine, and there is a decent dynamic between them that threatens to complicate future proceedings when shit inevitably hits the fan (my condolences to everyone who got yuri-baited), but for a show ostensibly about them, GQuuuuuuX isn’t exactly about them. I was of the understanding that Gundam’s strength was always in its character writing and interpersonal drama, and while it doesn’t exactly go all “Wow! Cool robot!” on us instead, I get the feeling that this show isn’t about much more than Gundam itself.

I knew going in that I probably needed to know more about the UC, and I would’ve probably skipped it ordinarily, but GQuuuuuuX is a pretty special production: Sunrise teamed up with Hideaki Anno’s Studio Khara for this production, tapped Diebuster and FLCL director Kazuya Tsurumaki to run the show, grabbed Evangelion mech designer Ikuto Yamashita to design the new Gundams, and even had Anno himself contribute some scripts and a storyboard. Having Take, the character designer for the last three generations of Pokémon games, design the new characters didn’t hurt either (some of them straight up look like Pokémon characters, and in motion they almost looked like they were ripped right out of Gurren Lagann). This is a wealth of talent with a ton of obvious love for the Gundam franchise, and it shows: It looks and sounds terrific at nearly every turn (save for the overdesigned CGI mechs, which would look right at home in the Eva Rebuilds), and just about every part of this series that deals with legacy Gundam, particularly in flashbacks, looks ripped right out of the ‘79 series, right down to the pink-and-yellow explosions. With the exception of the suddenly silver-fox-y Challia Bull, the classic Zeon characters themselves look on-model from their original designs too, which is a wild departure from Take’s rounded, colorful designs.

This contrast is neat, and it goes a long way towards underscoring the talent and love that went into this production, but it also exemplifies my main issue with it: I think GQuuuuuuX has an identity crisis. I’d say it’s caught between the past and the present, but as it went further along it struck me that it’s so fixated on the past that the present suffered as a result. Why am I supposed to care about these teenagers when the show makes it clearer and clearer that it’s pretty much all about Char, Zeon, and the OYW? In what universe does the love triangle matter when Shuji barely qualifies as a character? The common criticism of G-Witch was that it would have benefited from a longer runtime, and while the 13 episodes GQuuuuuuX got is especially short for a Gundam series, I don’t know how much it would’ve helped for there to be more of it. No matter how much more focus the series could’ve given to Amate, Nyaan, or even Shuji, all roads led back to the UC. Getting a better feel for the new characters would’ve only made the bonkers climax feel even more jarring and further disconnected from them.

I don’t know if going into this as a Gundam casual makes my observations fairer or just worse-informed, but it felt to me what it was probably like to watch the last hour of Avengers Endgame having only seen a few MCU movies up to that point. I was hoping this would be an interesting on-ramp to the larger Gu​ndam canon, as some people insisted it would be, but I just felt left out a lot of the time. I didn’t want nor expect to be spoonfed a half-century’s worth of lore, but to the uninitiated, GQuuuuuuX’s over-the-top degree of fanservice largely feels masturbatory, like walking in on a circlejerk I wasn’t invited to. I’m sure this reads completely differently if you’re a UC stan, just as sure as I am that there’s an alternate dimension out there somewhere where I’m unambiguously gushing over this show. I can see this one being a huge inflection point for longtime fans.

Either way, I’m still probably gonna buy a GQuuuuuuX Gunpla when it comes out. Cool robot.

[isa-ko]

Random little things abt Mortier according to the biographies by Léon Moreel and Frignet-Despréaux

So today is Mortier’s birthday which gives me permission to go all out and yap about him. Idk how this list got so long but there’s a lot of free space here soooo hope no one minds🥺

* Léon Moreel describes Mortier as a “big boy.”

* He is literally his dad's clone. His dad was also very honest-natured and everyone liked him. His dad also was involved in merchant and farmland business. His dad also served for a time (before getting arrested)

* His mom was English. Mortier became fluent in English from the college he went to. One of his possible jobs after he was fired from his first one was a maritime job be he spoke english

* Mortier's first job was in a merchant's office in Lille. He got fired because he couldn't tie knots on the messenger bags well TT

* Mortier loved horses. He created a stud farm later in life where he bred horses specifically for his heavy self. His coat of arms have horses. He always checks up on his horsies even when he's far away. He had a favorite horse named Le Favori who went on 12 campaigns with him. He lets Le Favori retire on his land and live off his income until old age. Then he makes an epitaph for Le Favori when it passed away at age 28.

* In his retirement, he also created his own farm with crops and animal stuff too

* Mortier once got very mad at his drunk valet and called him a pig I know that's not uncommon for people in general but it's rare to find mad-Mortier moments like these

* Mortier and Louis-Philippe become good friends for many years. They first meet when Mortier was still just a volunteer in the army around 1792. Louis-Philippe was wondering what time it was and saw a huge Captain over there so surely that guy knows

* Mortier and Lefebvre are good friends too. One time Mortier found an enemy carriage by luck and sent it as a gift to Lefebvre. He also let Lefebvre take all the honor for capturing Danzig even though Lefebvre offered to enter the city together (according to Moreel, Mortier declined)

* Mortier and Soult are good friends too. Unofficial pen pals? For example, Mortier telling Soult what his new livery would look like lol

* Mortier and Moncey also seem to be good friends. They write to each other about farming techniques in retirement, and Mortier got a very sweet letter from Moncey that he cherished after returning from Russia as the ambassador

* Mortier and Bernadotte seem to be good friends too.. possibly? They hunt together and have lunch. Bernadotte writes to him that they’re besties at least

* Mortier once became Josephine's temporary window shopper in Hamburg 1806. And then he stole (???) from the Emperor of Russia's Chinese collection for her (????)

* Mortier's literal army baby is the 23rd cavalry regiment. Before he took command of it, he was not yet involved in cavalry and would dream of that position. Once he finally got it, he found that this regiment was suffering from something of an "inferiority complex." It apparently seemed too much like the King's Regiment and was once under suspicion and lost its rank. Mortier did his best to bring them back up. Even after Mortier had to leave his command there for higher ones, he always kept tabs on the 23rd and would try to provide for it and keep it close to him. Eventually it did get removed completely though...

* When he first got appointed Chef de Brigade to 23rd regiment, he got a whole new army fit so his first order of business was to go home to Le Cateau and show off the fit. He then takes a 2 day detour to Coblenz to show off his fit again but this time to his to-be wife Anne Eve Himmes

* The golden retriever comparison works so well. My guy is golden retriever personified. He is very loyal and very obedient to his boss and colleagues, a bit too much gets him in trouble at least twice

* Mortier would rather most anything else than have conflict on the same side. He fears a Vendée. He haaates internal conflict.

* He's generally very respectful to cities/states that are to be captured and governed. This is shown by all the gifts and letters that those places give him when he leaves and sometimes when he comes back :) A few of these places: Hanover, Hamburg, Anclam, Silesia, Saragossa, Talavera

* Hanover specifically gifted him two cannons with his initials E. M. on them. One of the biography authors, Frignet-Despréaux, is the greaaat nephew of Mortier and has written that he had fired these same cannons with Mortier’s grandsons. They were fired every year on August 15 at a Château de Sceaux.

* After Battle of Paris in 1814, he stays at Fontainebleau ready to be called on again by Napoleon. Once Napoleon abdicates, Mortier still stays with Napoleon, from April 10-12. However, that showed some offense to others, so on the 12th in the morning he gets recalled back to Paris by the Minister of War, but Mortier decides to stay with Napoleon for the rest of the evening anyways

* Mortier staying with Louis-Philippe (and Louis XVIII) even as Napoleon returns from Elba in 1815. When Davout sends his ADC telling Mortier to arrest him, he lets Louis-Philippe know and lets him leave. Then after he leaves and releases Mortier from his orders, Mortier gets called to Napoleon. Napoleon accepts Mortier but Mortier still tries to let him know that he had went against Davout's message 👉👈

* Mortier gets sciatica and is immobilized and cursing in his bed when Ney visits him to borrow horses for Waterloo lol

* Mortier having a “mini club” in Paris of people from his home region that he sometimes attended in person and they called him their president

* He was a 1.95 m farm boy. Can't forget that one. At the 23rd cavalry regiment on a staff map, he wrote down his height and scribbled, "promising to grow still further if that is the will of the Almighty.”

Frignet-Despréaux

Le Maréchal Mortier, Duc de Trévise (1768-1835) by Léon Moreel

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Hiatus announcement.

Hi friends. I've got some stuff I need to focus on in my personal life right now, and I'm not able to balance that with keeping up with Tumblr and Discord. I'll be taking a hiatus starting immediately. I'm not sure when I'll be back, but hopefully it won't be too long. If you have submitted a request for a fic, design, or artwork, please know I'll do my absolute best to fill it when I'm back, but for now, I need to be present in my real life.

I love you all, and I'll miss you, and I can't wait to come back! I'll put a few more details below the cut in case you're interested. CW for medical issues.

My partner has been unwell recently, and this week, we discovered that they have a blood clot in their leg. Further testing revealed they have a serious heart condition. Unfortunately, they also have a preexisting vascular condition that makes blood thinners risky, but their PCP went ahead and prescribed a three-month course of medication for the clot since it's an immediate issue. We are waiting to hear if insurance will cover the meds; apparently this prescription gets rejected by insurers frequently due to the cost. (Thinking about the fact that some analyst in a cubicle could decide that my partner's life is worth less than a three-month course of medication is making me feel absolutely sick.)

They have more appointments scheduled with a cardiologist and a vascular surgeon, so for now, we're just kind of stuck in limbo. Their PCP gave us a long list of, "If x happens, go to the emergency room immediately. If y happens, go to the emergency room immediately. If z happens - you guessed it - go to the emergency room immediately."

At this point, I'm still trying to come to terms with it. My partner just turned 44. We have an active lifestyle; we eat healthfully; we don't drink to excess. We just got fucked over by genetic risk factors.

The scariest part is that we wouldn't have found out about any of this if they hadn't gone to the doctor for a completely unrelated issue. I'm trying not to think about it too hard, or my imagination starts to send me into a spiral.

Please allow me to get sappy for a moment:

If you've read much of my work, you probably know my partner better than you might think, as they inspire a lot of my characterization, either directly or indirectly. If you enjoyed the way I wrote Waxer in "The Sixth Language" or Jesse in "In Which Jesse Gets What He Deserves," then you have a good idea of their personality. They are extraordinarily kind and patient, funny and sweet. They have been here for me consistently for twenty years, first as my friend, and later as my everything. They've held me when I cried, and they've made me laugh every single day since I met them. They know me better than anyone in the world, and I trust them with my soul.

They are the only person IRL who even knows that I write fanfiction, and they have read every single fic I've ever written. They've served as my guinea pig when I needed to work through the physical mechanics of a scene, and they've listened to me ramble for hours on end about plotting and characterization. They've supported and encouraged me in this and so many other areas, and now it's my turn to support them through this.

If you've read this far, I just want to say thank you for all the love, support, encouragement, and kindness you've given me over the past year. This fandom community has truly changed my life, and I am more grateful than words can communicate. I hope to see you all again very soon, hopefully with good news. But in the meantime, please know that I love you all.

May the Force be with you. 🩵

[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...

[weebsinstash]

So how much was the estimate for taking care of your kitty's teeth?

Well :(

This is the "high estimate" which includes certain 'geriatric care' because he is 12 years old in May. They basically have to run bloodwork and certain heart tests before they put him under anesthesia to make sure he would even be healthy enough for the procedure. The discount is only active if I take him back within 30 days of this last appointment, so if I wait longer to scrounge up the funds, I would have to pay more, and it might be really hard to get that money together within that amount of time depending on how many shifts at work I get

The thing is, I just have one payment left on the previous payment plan and then I can open a new one, so if you take that $1631 and deduct 70% (because on the payment plan you only have to pay 30% up front), it becomes a cost of about $489. But there's also a chance they would need further procedures done after the dental xrays so it might wind up more expensive

I'll be honest and say it would make it insanely difficult for me to afford May rent. I'm only barely going to make it this month, but at least I'm lucky enough my hours are only being cut minimally :( I had to cancel a planned hangout with a work friend because she wanted to go to an event that had $40 admission and I'm trying to save every penny, and I'm constantly running the numbers on how i can afford everything. You know, doing stuff like counting how many shifts I have left in the month, checking my bank account, mentally running down my list of monthly expenses like a phone bill, electric bill, etc. I often have to use an app called DailyPay to forward my money before my paychecks, and apparently the more you use that feature, the less they let you forward as time goes on

I'm still on the lookout for a second job but the time window I would be able to work is so small I'm not really hearing back from anyone :( and if Allister loses too many teeth he would have to be on wet food which is significantly more expensive than the dry food and I would also have to pay to have it shipped

Ngl I'm pretty anxious about all of it. I'm doing all that I can but it's been pretty tight every single month. I was doing a lot better affording all of my expenses before he needed to keep going back to the vet over and over again, but I love him and don't want to lose him, so... just going to keep doing my best I guess :(

[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?

[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.”

[whoredersupreme]

Storm Chasing, Mind Breaking

Summary: Chapter 1 - Shadows in Sunagakure

Summary: As she navigates the complexities of the village’s expectations and her own ambitions, Sorano faces internal struggles about her role and identity, and gets closer to a breaking point.

Word Count: 3,650

Warnings: Self harm, coerced suicide and suicidal tendencies, mentions of death and murder, at best morally grey main character. I don't think anything hugely out of the norms for Naruto but please tread carefully if those sound offputting.

A/N: Self indulgent Naruto/Akatsuki OC story - will there be a second chapter? Doubtful, but hopeful. I wanna get to the good stuff.

Chapter 2 ->

Almost seven months have passed since the last death, and tensions in the desert-village are still high: threads of anxiety and a morbid excitement taught through everyone with something to lose. Sorano plucks the thread, vibrating the questions already ringing about her mind. When would the next be? Where? Who would be left in mourning? Would the collective anxiety shatter into relief, or sharpen?

Skin sticky from the pervasive and oppressive heat, she lay staring at the sandstone ceiling, scrunching the plain white bedsheets between her fingertips as she contemplates the questions surely on the mind of every Sunagakure resident. She should expect this kind of heat by now, with the many years she had lived here. She should be used to it. No one else seemed to mind it very much. Of course, they kept out of the direct sun in the middle of the day - the only time the temperature felt worth it to her - and most left their window open a crack at night, but they were born in the desert, and the desert was a part of them.

Sorano was not born here.

Aggressively, she pushes her hair up above her head, pulling out a few thick, red strands in the rough attempt to free herself from the feeling of being suffocated. Anything for any relief. But she wasn't surprised when no relief came; she was stifled by more than her hair, and more than the heat.

A dull thumping sound begins from overhead, pulling her from her intrusive thoughts. A moth bumps against her lampshade repetitively, leaving a light dusting of its precious minute scales. Beige, like everything else in the small government-appointed apartment. She slips her bare legs off the side of the bed and stands to open the window. The moth needn't be trapped like her, but it will have to find its own way out. She stretches her fingertips out into the dark night, just barely able to graze the outside wall of her building. The walls in Suna are thick, apparently to help keep the insides of the buildings cooler. It seems to her that at night they have the opposite effect, because there is a pleasant breeze brushing against her fingers which certainly doesn't make its way into her room. Even the thickness of the walls feel claustrophobic, separating her from the eddies of air dancing outside.

As usual, she can hear distant conversation from the streets below, some jovial and some argumentative. She can feel the faint buzzing thrum of their minds pushing on the periphery of her senses, but thankfully they are too few and too far to pay any notice to. A peel of laughter cuts the air, reminding her that for most there is still the opportunity for fun in the middle of the desert; for a social life with drinking and dancing and eating and singing with friends.

It does not help her to be this bitter, nor would it help her to have friends.

The floor is rough under her feet as she pads back to her bed, laying on top of her sheets once again and twisting her fingers into the pillowcase so tightly it might cut off her circulation, and biting her lip so hard it might bleed. But not quite that tight, or that hard. She is practiced at this ritual for sleep.

She is hurting herself, more than anyone she actually wants to hurt, with her resentment, but it builds inside her nonetheless. It is an uncontrollable thing, twisting and tumbling around her stomach, boiling like a wild sea in a storm and making her sick sick sick sick sick every time she is called upon by the village. Every time she catches a glimpse of furtive whispers shared between those few acknowledge she exists. Usually, holding onto it only hurts her. But the hurt is hers, and it feels like it could be power, so she holds on anyway.

❈❈❈

In the daylight Sorano walks with a very purposeful look of casual comfortability to the office of the new Boy-Kazekage. More Shinobi than usual appear to be on duty, in an effort to prevent another suspicious inexplicable death, and she supposes to put the civilian population at ease. Foolish. Not a single body had been found in the streets, and the deaths all appeared to have happened at night. Then this must be for appearances alone. There had certainly been more foreign envoys since the former scourge of the sand had taken office, so the need for apparent safety made sense. And it did seem to be working, tension visibly melted off families catching sight of this increased surveillance, full of joy to be together, and for this effort to keep them safe, even as they cast wary glances her way. Hypocritical, given the Kazekage himself was the source of that same fear only a handful of years ago.

She glances at a mother and daughter with hair almost as red as her own, catching the woman brush some dust from her daughters shoulder in a moment of casual comfortability that Sorano lost almost eight years ago. Even her own family couldn't stand to be around her after a certain point, so is it really any wonder these strangers mistrusted her? The buzz of mental energy is worse at ground level, amongst the comparative throng of the night, but if the deaths had caused even more passive aggression towards her on the part of the villagers, it has at least kept the streets, and therefore her head, clearer. Perhaps this is in part why it had been so long since the last...

The thick soles of her oh-so-practical shoes slap with a dull thud against stone steps as she climbs towards the thick wooden doors of her keepers office. She is quite sure he doesn't see himself as her keeper. Perhaps he thinks himself benevolent, embracing this outsider in a way his father never did. Too little, too late. She is to meet her teammates outside before they enter to receive their next mission. Her next mission would be more apt. She is only called upon when absolutely necessary, so in reality the task is hers, and her companions will join as back-up and support. To keep tabs on the liability is more like it. As Sorano understands it, it is unusual to receive missions directly from the Kazekage, but it is the norm to her. She needs to be monitored - perhaps well meaning, perhaps malicious, but either way it is another watchful eye to keep her in line. As far as anyone knows she has never stepped over, or even near the line, it's simply not an option available to her. The line is unnecessary ball and chain around her ankle. Around her throat.

Two pairs of feet come into view above the top of the stairs, close together and angled towards each other, but just far enough away from where Sorano will emerge to know that it is purposeful. She hears their clandestine whispers, and digs her fingernails into her palms as hard as she can, taking a sharp breath of relief at the outlet for her anger, grounding herself with the pain. Plastering a deliberately mild expression on her face she rounds the last few steps and stands a few feet away. The tall man and woman before her have been on her team for two years, but she can count on one hand the number of times they have spoken to her outside of work. She knows from what they think are secret smiling glances, from the way they mirror each others stance, and better yet from her intrusions into their minds, that they are a couple, or at least something akin to it. There is little need to bother themselves forming a bond with her, when every mission gives them time as good as alone.

"Good morning, Goro, Jun." Sorano says curtly, her lips curling into something like a smile because she knows they will never use her given name, and they do not like her to use theirs. Far too familiar.

Goro nods. Jun sneers.

"Morning, Hōraku." Goro is also curt, but it is an acknowledgement, at least.

If she is entirely honest with herself, she hasn't given them, or anyone else in Suna, a fair chance in some time. In years. Earlier efforts to integrate fully or better yet to make a connection have fallen flat shortly after beginning, if they haven't imploded... But they hadn't given her a fair chance either, and in this case she is quite sure that two wrongs do make a right.

"Squad 18, please enter." A flat, almost breathy voice cuts through the tension and Jun pushes the door open, leading the way into the domed office. Many round windows reveal bright and searing light outside, but the room itself is dark and calm, with a lingering scent of sandalwood. For the leader of one of the Five Great Nations, the Kazekage keeps his workplace simple and unassuming. There are a few plants, mostly succulents that can handle the heat, a few shelves stacked with papers and books, and a large wooden desk sitting on top of a small rug. The pleasant scent is the only thing that has changed since she first set foot in here, more than ten years ago.

She would do so much with the space, if it were hers.

Standing side by side with Goro and Jun it is all she can do not to glare at the boy sitting before her. It isn't his fault she's in this situation, but knowing she's here to be used by a child tastes bitter, regardless of how accomplished he is. She is reminded again that just a few years ago he two received fearful glances in the streets, and moreso than her. Now he is the golden boy. The reformed monster. What it is they want her to reform about herself she doesn't know.

"Thank you all for coming, Goro, Jun, Sorano." The Kazekage speaks so softly, it is clear he has never had to raise his voice to command attention. Is it because he used to be so feared, or because he is now so respected? Whichever it is, she envies him both.

"Of course, Kazekage-sama!" Jun speaks lightly, rocking forward on her toes. She looks so pleased and girlish in the moment that despite being half a foot taller than Sorano, she seems small.

The Kazekage smiles slightly, "We have a B-rank mission requiring your talents as a squad." He pauses, and Goro's brows shoot up, just for a moment. The Kazekage spots it the same moment Sorano does. "You may feel a B-rank mission is below you, and in usual circumstances you would be correct. But this is no reflection of the importance of your task, I simply do not expect a need for combat."

As suspected, the mission was for the foreigner.

“We have received intelligence that a high-profile mob boss from the Land of Rivers will be travelling through the southern borders of the Land of Wind a few days from now. You are to ensure that does not happen.” She inclines her head slightly, waiting for him to continue. “This request comes from myself, rather than the Land of Rivers. It will strengthen our relationship to rid them of their problem.”

Goro frowns slightly before speaking low, “So this is entirely pro-bono?”

“If that’s how you would like to think of it.”

Jun jumps in, “It doesn’t matter much what it’s for Goro, an order is an order.”

Sorano can't help but agree with Jun, knowing better than most that realistically they have no choice, but of course Jun would jump at the chance to show the Kazekage how well behaved she is. Sorano is a hypocrite in both her mind and her actions, because she says nothing.

“No, you deserve an explanation,” the Kazekage murmurs, and Sorano feels a small amount of warmth towards him for shutting down Jun’s boot-licking, “it is pro-bono. However, there are many benefits to the village. Allowing him to travel through our land unhindered may appear weak, and as I said, this will strengthen relations between us and our neighbours. You should not underestimate the value in that, simply because it is a smaller land.”

Satisfied, or perhaps mollified, Goro nods.

“He is due in five days. Your squad should leave tomorrow to ensure there is room for incorrect intel. You will receive a packet with a full briefing this evening.” He gives another small, almost tentative smile, before looking back down at his papers and flipping a page. He doesn’t dismiss us, but the effect is the same.

Sorano turns on her heel and leaves the room behind her comrades. Colleagues? They are about to walk down the stairs when Jun looks back, just for a moment, and Sorano, blank-faced, raises her hand in something like a wave.

“We’ll meet by the gate at midday tomorrow.” Jun says sharply, snaps her head forward once more and side by side, she leaves with Goro.

❈❈❈

Sorano's room feels like a trap, about to spring any second. The staticness and stagnation it reflects in her is the trap, and if anything were to spring it would be a breath of fresh air. Her building is unusually busy, a party for someone or others birthday on the floor below her, and although the thick walls dampen the sound to a low thud like that of the moth, the mental noise is too much toomuchtoomuch!

Quick as a slap she takes a knife from her kitchen draw, slicing the blade across her thump deep enough for the blood to flow steadily. It wouldn't do to truly injure herself before a mission but oh, oh relief. She heaves a sigh, flopping back limply on a hard wooden chair and letting her eyes flutter closed as she focuses on the sweet throbbing in her wounded digit. The buzz still intrudes on her, but it is manageable now, lesser than the pain.

Picking up the light brown envelope from where she cast it on the desk a few hours ago, she unwinds the fastening, wrapping the soft white string around her thumb as she does so, stemming the blood flow and increasing the pang. Her skin below the makeshift tourniquet is almost as white as the twine was before the blood soaked through, a hard contrast from the peachy tan of the rest of her hand.

Distraction and first-aid in place, she must read the report and prepare for the mission. Goro and Jun can probably go without, and likely will, since combat isn't expected, but for the lonely woman a strong understanding of her target is essential. Ideally she would have had the chance to watch him and write the report herself, but either he is too unpredictable, or the village leaders think she is, so the task was assigned to someone else.

It quickly becomes clear that while the mission will be a difficult one, the target himself is nothing extraordinary. Not a shinobi, but skilled in combat nonetheless, he has been causing issues at the Katabami gold mine and neighbouring villages since the death of Kurosuki Raiga a few years ago. No matter the tyranny of having such a skilled, albeit deranged, ninja at the head of their operations, the protection he offered must be missed by the locals now that multiple gangs are running rampant. Better the devil you know. At only thirty-three years old, Aoyama Kenta has been making a name for himself as a brutal, inhumane, greedy, mob boss interested only in profit and hedonism, with a single exception of his infant son.

How touching.

Sorano could work with that.

She flicks through the pages a few more times, savouring the smooth surface of the paper under her fingertips and seeking out any minute bumps. She already knows she hasn't missed anything of importance: she is meticulous, and she must be to show the people in Sunagakure she is worth keeping around, to keep their already probing minds from looking any further.

Almost seven months have passed since she last stretched her Kekkai Genkai to the depths of its abilities, but she has been sure to keep it limber.

She lays back on her bed and closes her eyes, letting sight and touch and smell fade away and instead seeking that painful buzzing static of minds. The buzz grows louder and somehow as she embraces it it becomes her whole, the sound of synapses firing all around her, fuzzy, iridescent, shapeless forms moving in and out of her minds eye. They thrum with life energy, a melting pot between chakra and mental signatures, bright and loud and beautiful in their joy, or their despair. She feel where there is a greater depth of emotion, and although she wants to go looking in many directions, following all those threads of thought and chemical signatures, she focuses inwards. The rest becomes a far-away tinnitus-like buzz around her as she finds the mind she is listening for, and attunes to it. This is a rich well of emotion, one she has been working on and cultivating for months. His thoughts sound as a despairing violin, his mind's iridescence closer to that of an oil spill.

It isn't quite the workout or the challenge she would usually chose, as her upstairs neighbour has no genjutsu training to speak of - or any shinobi training for that matter - but he was so dispassionate about everything save for his disgust for his foreign neighbour before she started work on him, and just look at the range of his feeling now. Beautiful.

Through many solitary nights in her apartment, listening to his mind as she was now, she has come to know the man well. Much better than he knows, or cares to know her. People like comfortability, and easy paths through life. Assuming the new neighbour from another village, still just a small girl but holding a power you won’t bother to understand, is a threat, is easy. Certainly it’s easier than welcoming her into a frightening new home when her mother and her siblings disappeared. Than accepting that as a child, she will only become as much of a threat as everyone makes her. Him and many others have taken the easy route.

He is in his late forties, not particularly notable for anything - he works in a weapon manufacturing workshop in the village. He also spends most nights alone in his apartment, and apart from proximity to Sorano, he was perfect content with that. Passing through life like a ghost. He was friendly with many, friends with few, but he didn't mind. He was passive in his own lack of life force. But she had helped him the last few months, to make something of himself. To long for more and to really feel something.

She doesn't always, or even usually, take this length of time with her work, but for the vitriol he has spat at her, for the daily discomfort he has caused, she considers it her return gift to him.

As she listened from the back corner of his mind, he pours himself an over-full glass of sake. It is quickly downed, topped up, downed again, and the remainder of the bottle poured to half fill his cup. He looks at the floor, for a short moment boring venomous holes at the wood and plaster separating him from his secret tormentor, but quickly his eyes fill with tears blurring his vision, and his mind is scattered into misery. It shines brightly to Sorano.

She is about to push a little further, to leave a little calling card to help the story she wishes for to play out, but as soon as she does she realises she will barely have to, it would be heavy handed, even if enjoyable. The probing, parasitic vine she planted, tended, and loved, has done it's job so well, tearing apart the tree it wrapped around and thriving on the remains of its trunk.

--There's nothing here for me. What am a doing drinking alone every night? Nothing I haven't done before. All I've ever done, what's the fucking point?--

Slowly, oh so slowly, she edges into his mind. He must not know she is here, but with his lack of training there was never really a risk of that. With a voice like honey, just under the surface for him to find on his own, she leaves the spark. Would anyone even notice?

--No one would even notice. What do I mean to anyone? What do I mean to the village? Nothing...--

With a finality that certainly brings him relief he stands, and like a whip she comes back to herself, following one floor behind up the stairs to the roof. The sky is a dark inky blue, unmuddied by clouds, and with a waning moon. It will be gone tomorrow night. His silhouette is only visible because the stars cannot be seen behind where he stands, up on the precipice of the building, arms out and eyes closed with his back to the drop.

Guessing that she only has seconds she makes her way over to him, silent as any member of the ANBU. As she raises her hand, hovering it just over his chest, she sees the culmination of her work. Abject despair giving way to joy that he has finally decided on a way out. His brows unknit and a serene smile spreads across his face as only one content with their imminent death can.

This is perfect.

At the height of his relief, she gives him a firm push, and for a brief moment in the second it takes him to fall they are united in ecstasy.

This is art.

[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.

[slipp3ryslop3]

My bro in-law is apparently going through the trenches with his depression rn. He’s been skipping work and therapy and not telling his partner about anything. I feel so bad for him I wish I could help. Mental illness is such a bitch

I think the family is considering a psych hold/evaluation for him since he is refusing to go to his appointments and just seems to be getting worse. Really sucks that only you can help yourself in this times like these, and depression makes you think why even try or what’s the point

S is going to his place tomorrow to spend time with him and other family who came down to support him. I told S he has the green light to discuss my mental issues and share about the treatments and stuff I have tried. The last 3-5 years have been relatively SO MUCH better for me mentally, and I hate to admit that consistent psychotherapy and medication management has helped. But like, also I came from a shit poor and moderately abusive family so I feel like I would be easier to talk to about hard things. My partners family has their issues, but I think not many of them really understand severe mental health struggles and trauma processing

Like hey, if you wanna talk, I guarantee we can find commonality

I think he is especially dwelling on his best friend’s suicide that happened ~9 years ago. Whack how the body processes trauma at whatever rate it wants, and shit gets stirred up at random sometimes

[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.

[ask-postcrash-curly]

(The dragon wakes up and shakes themselves like a dog)

Ok Im now we'll rested, that trip really wore me up

Anyways...huh?

Ah!

Well, apparently, as of the time I'm sending this, you are going into surgery more or less in 12h

I...have had experiences with surgery myself, I can tell you how anesthesia feels even if you technically had some before

To me it felt like this:

First off, you feel...not dizzy, but like your head it's floating, it becomes a little hard to move your limbs, like they are heavy, you would probably feel that but in the stumps

Then your vision starts getting blurry, just a bit

And then suddenly, the world turns off, it is not like falling asleep, I like to describe it as if someone suddenly flipped a switch and everything dissappear and appears just as quickly

You kinda already felt this, but they are many types of anesthesia, so it may feel different, but then you wake up groggy, you are very much tired, even if you weren't before, your brain didn't shut off after all, only..."you", did

It is strange, but you will be fine, i promise

Before i forget, this is the photo of the skin graft that I told you about, technically, at the time of the photo, the kid is 10 years old

And yeah, it's public information, from the national library of medicine, I got quite a bit of gnarly pictures, you have to get desensitized to this kind of stuff when you work in medicine, if you want to see more

That aside, about the money...I cannot make you want to take it, but if you want my point of view...you really should, I know it wouldn't really make that much of a difference, but it's something, and if you think about it, you can see this as the last act of the old Jimmy, the one that was your friend, not the one that did this

And, because you are probably thinking it, i...don't know how the other would react if you offered to give the money to them, most of them didn't really know Jimmy, and all of them got into intense pain because of him, especially Anya, I..don't think it's such a good idea

Of course you can just, use it to pay for their stuff and not tell them, your choice

But just so you understand, it's not blood money, you didn't kill him, he caused his own death

(The dragon smirks)

I do have to go soon, and before i forget, heres the video: https://youtu.be/UGYny6uI2bA?si=beSYALYt1wQfA720

(The dragon's smirk turn mischievous)

And with that, you wait until after surgery to discover who is that, that's some cliffhanger yeah?

Talk about being daft by the way, they had one job!

I...

???

Ok yeah, I have to go, sorry for just leaving like this, but i have an appointment with someone, you are gonna be ok in the surgery, I promise

(The dragon nuzzles you and sprints to somewhere in the distance)

Hello!

It's sure coming up, yeah.

My limbs are already hard to move and my vision's been blurry, so that shouldn't be a problem.

It's okay! I've had experience. Thank you, though. ...Admittedly, they're a little concerned about how I'm going to react to the drug, because whatever the medics on the ship gave me apparently took me out for longer than it was supposed to, but if something does go wrong? I'm in a hospital already. Couldn't be safer if I tried.

Ah. That's not bad at all, honestly. Thank you.

You think so...?

...But that's exactly why— He hurt them, didn't he? If anyone should have his money it's them.

I'm the one who brought him onboard— Nope, sorry, forget that. I know. It's just... it's hard.

Whoa. That animation looks great. ...Hmm. Music's good, but eerie. And he's falling asleep... Jeez. Why can't he just toss the bag?

Well, shit.

Oh, sure. You're going to be real sorry if I die. ...Sorry, bad joke.

Hm? No worries. Hope everything's good. See you on the other side!

[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.

[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!!!!!