#this is what suffering looks like

[rainbowberriesandcookies]

Pain is being an ulquihime shipper but having to block/avoid most of them because they are weirdly anti-Orihime, anti-bleach ending, or "anti how Kubo wrote Orihime" even though she's one of the most consistently and well-written female characters in Shounen as well as the fact that they try to make Ulquiorra care more about Orihime than he actually did in the manga or even god forbid try to say that Ulquiorra cared more about Orihime than Ichigo did.

[fonulyn]

we finished the third Gears like seven-ish hours ago and i have all these emotions about it and no outlet for them 😢

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[gascreates]

a new star

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

real talk having the 2nd worst new years eve yet 🤢🤢🤢 (throat infection, twisted neck, banged-about-foot, ego AND the rest o' me all bruised like misjuggled peaches 🍑🍑🍑)

im bent outa shape and suspectin the universe owes me 8 buck if anyone wannsa chip in

[opens-up-4-nobody]

:-P

[trauma-bot]

patron saint of never growing old

[keferon]

Odds of Survival Part 3

Unstoppable forces meets immovable objects.

Or Prowl finds new reasons to be concerned.

———————————————————————

While Prowl had destroyed the bombers attacking their end of the bridge, the other side had no such saving grace.

The opposite end of the sky bridge had broken off from the Commerce Tower and was now swinging downwards, creating a miles long ramp to obliteration.

There was a 4% chance Prowl could technically survive the impact. However he’d almost certainly be reduced to a sputtering spark trapped in a compacted pile of scrap that had once been his frame. Without instantaneous medical intervention, he would most certainly perish even in the event of the 4% survival chance occurring.

4% halved to 2% when Tacnet registered Jazz magnetizing his hands to Prowls frame.

Tacnet spun wildly and without traction. Whatever actions Prowl could have taken to mitigate the incoming damage was removed by Jazz’s inescapable hold. Every possible strategy terminated instantly in a flurry of error messages as Tacnet tried to factor for the impossible.

Physically, Prowls servos moved on their own, driven by some core deep coding for self preservation that had him frantically clawing at Jazz’s back for either a hand hold or escape as Tacnet spat out a single coherent plan:

(Brace For Impact)

The Praxian briefly wondered if he’d crash before they crashed.

The mechs jolted as Jazz made contact with the bridge turned ramp. A fountain of sparks spraying from his pedes as Jazz hit the bridge upright and began skating down the buckling surface.

Jazz wasn’t just passively sliding along either. Prowl felt powerful legs tense and thrusters make quick adjustments to narrowly avoid lethal splinters of braking pipes and metal sheets.

Odds of Survival 5%

Odds of Survival 6%

Prowl watched the impossible as Tacnet slowly ticked upwards. Through some stroke of insanity, Jazz was controlling their descent. Analyzing the white mechs motions, Prowl concluded they were practiced. Unbelievably, Jazz somehow had previous experience with similar circumstances.

On what Fragging planet does somebody regularly go careening down incredibly steep slopes at high speeds with only their own athleticism to keep them alive?!

Skill alone wasn’t enough however, because Jazz was slowly loosing control. As the sky bridge swung inexorably downwards, their ramp was steadily becoming steeper. Prowl could feel one of Jazz’s legs beginning to involuntarily shudder under the continued strain. The obstacles kept coming faster and faster, the visored mech barely keeping pace.

If he dropped me, Jazz has a 23% chance at saving himself.

Prowl caught sight of a chunk of bridge breaking outwards that spanned the total width of it. No getting around it. The jagged edge lifted just high enough to bisect him just below the wings. Prowl turned away.

Jazz leapt.

The deafening vibrations of metal on metal grinding suddenly stopped. An instrumental segment filled the gap.

Gravity ended their short reprieve.

This time when they collided with bridge, Prowl felt Jazz land wrong and then suddenly the sky was whipping past his optics.

Stars, moon, bridge. Stars, moon, bridge. Stars, moon, bridge. Stars, moon, bridge.

Tacnet greedily took in their current velocity, rate of rotation, and angle of the sky bridges decent to inform Prowl that Jazz and his combined weight would land on his helm.

Thank you Tacnet, I hate you.

Jazz shifted and Prowls vision went white.

Despite Tacnets certainty to the contrary, Prowl was not unconscious or dead.

ERROR, moon, ERROR. Stars, moon, bridge. Stars, ERROR, bridge, rubble. Stars, moon, bridge, rubble.

They were flipping through the air again.

Jazz landed on his feet this time but couldn’t stop their rolling. Prowl felt fast painful scrapes against his servos and peds.

Stars, bridge, rubble. Stars, bridge, rubble.

Tacnet took in their velocity and rotation again. Calculating their distance to the wreckage at the end of their fall.

Impact Survival 74%

Impact location Doorwings 87%

At least his doorwings were already offlined.

By then, the two mechs were no longer bouncing, but rolling fully across the remains of the bridge. Prowl locked himself around Jazz and braced for impact.

Collision was instant and deafening.

Prowls sense of balance was rubber banding. The instant stop after what felt like vorns of spinning out of control was just as disorientating as the fall itself.

In a lapse of memory, he onlined his doorwings.

Prowl remembered why he left them offline a click too late and sucked in a vent.

Except. They were functioning. The edges stung and the tip’s were badly chipped but both sensors were fully operational.

Blunt helm trauma. He must be having a severe processor malfunction. Prowl unlocked protesting joints and looked over his shoulders at his doorwings.

They were only lightly damaged, fully functional, and only a servos width from the pile of rubble he was being held above.

A black and white arm extended past his wings, buried wrist deep in the wreckage.

Jazz still had a death grip around his waist, visor pressed into Prowls shoulder.

“Jazz?�� Prowl tried. If he put his vocalizer against his audial, the sound should carry. The music played out its final notes, leaving the silence of the moon in its wake.

“Jazz?” Prowl tried a little harder, pulling at the servo still magnetized to his back, unhooking his peds to kneel on the rubble. They had fallen into the 90 degree crook of the second cylindrical extension. The bridge had come to rest at last, kicking up enough moon dust to obscure their survival from any searching quintessons. For now.

Jazz slurred something in his native language, before repeating in common, “Gimme a click. I’m gonna throw up real quick.”

Prowl flared his wings, scanning the area. It was a relatively short drop to the moons surface. Once there, Prowl could transform and carry the both of them at speed to the outpost. Clearly, Jazz had no trouble holding onto him.

Speaking of, Jazz finally, slowly began to uncurl from Prowls frame.

He looked terrible. His visor had splintered crack’s across one side, the isolated fragments independently flickering. One horn was stuck pinned against his helm, sparking where shrapnel was jammed into the gap. He was visibly wobbling, and even with an em field Prowl could tell he was badly disoriented.

Jazz stared at Prowl for a while, before looking to his hand still buried in rubble. He tried pulling it free gently and when that didn’t work, got a completely ruined and mostly toe-less ped braced next to it and yanked

Jazz’s hand came free. At the same time something important looking snapped and fell out of his shoulder. The limb going limp.

Prowl didn’t have the bandwidth to process that at the moment.

Instead, he plucked up the chunk of shoulder into sub space. Tacking that onto the growing list of injuries they’d both needed tending to.

Cautiously, Prowl reached up to gingerly touch the back of his helm, fully expecting to feel exposed and crushed circuitry. Instead, he felt several dents, aligned in parallel. Very tender, but most certainly not as damaged as it should have been.

How?

Tacnet answered by mapping the contours of the dents, drawing Prowls optics to the back of Jazz’s obliterated servo.

The remains of the sky bridge shuttered.

Odds of Survival 45%

Prowl got Jazz’s attention and began pulling him towards the ledge they’d need to descend. Effectively deaf, probably blind, down an arm and forced to walk on two severely injured peds, Prowl only felt some relief when he finally wrangled Jazz to rest on top of his alt form.

Watching him struggle down the ledge was utterly disturbing to watch. Jazz limped along as if he was completely desensitized to pain, behaving as if he was more annoyed by his injuries than agonized.

Package secured, Prowl gunned it for the outpost. Even injured, he trusted Jazz to stay magnetized to his frame with whatever he had left to hold on with.

Out of the dust cloud, Prowl was intimately aware of how exposed they’d be. Confident he wouldn’t loose Jazz, Prowl focused entirely on plotting the most efficient route to the outpost.

The moment it came into view, Prowl pushed his engine past the redline as he registered sniper shots firing just past and above them.

Pursuing quintesson wreckers 78%.

Sure enough, a dead wrecker crashed into the moon dirt a short distance to their left.

Prowl managed a drifting slide past the out post gates, losing exactly enough momentum to match the speed of a running mech, then transformed back to root mode in the same maneuver. An exceedingly useful technique when chasing criminals and a damn effective way to shoulder someone on your roof through a door in the most efficient manner possible.

[Bluestreak, I’ve made it inside the outpost. I have an injured mech with me.]

[Heya Prowl! I saw you tearing it up out there with your backpack buddy! I’ve got a few more stragglers to take care of but you’re welcome to use the medic case I’ve got with me in here. I’ll ping the door for you.]

The primary medkit should be in the outpost storage closet. That is unless Bluestreak pulled it into his snipers nest to tend to his own injuries (22%). Or because Bluestreak pulled it there to force Prowl to bring his “backpack buddy” within conversational distance (92%).

He felt a tap at his shoulder, “Are we safe here?” Jazz yelled in the thin atmosphere. Visor flickering worse than before and visibly making an effort to stay balanced upright on eviscerated peds.

Priorities.

Prowl ignored his annoyance. He hit the trigger to pressurize the airlock and pulled Jazz’s good arm over his shoulders to stabilize the other mech. He had easily a dozen lines of questioning queued up in the backlog of his processor, every single one tagged with Jazz as the subject line. As much as Prowl itched to piece together the puzzle of why he was “Like that.” It’d have to wait until they were both in more stable condition. At least now his vents could actually do something to start cooling his overstressed processor.

“For now. We are somewhat safe.”

Prowl muttered quietly in addition, “Against all odds.”

———————————————————————

Bluestreak, seeing Prowl with some very obvious hand prints and very specific paint scratches: “What in the pit did he do to you?”

Bluestreak, seeing Jazz walk in after him with a broken arm, busted horn and an utterly torn up paint job across his back: “What in the pit did YOU do to him?!”

Either one or two parts left, next up Jazz pov.

-SSTP

OH HELL SSTP LET ME HOLD YOUR HAND REALQUICK THIS IS A FIVE STAR MEAL FOR MY SOUL FKKDJFG I JUST. I NEVER FUCKING GET TIRED OF THE WAY YOU WRITE I know I'm probably repeating myself at this point BUT IT'S JUST WHAT MY TRUTH LOOKS LIKE OKAY. EVERY TIME I SEE AN ASK FROM YOU AND START READING IT I GO "Oh M A N the author cooked so hard they should've made Ratatouille 2 about this way of placing words."

[benevolenterrancy]

Scholarly peak is catching up on recent literature

[kosatsatosh]

A regular occurrence for Sounders & Screamers…

[rystiel]

that annoying moment when getting left for dead in the trunk of a car in your 20s comes back to haunt you 40 years later (take a shot every time ford says “stanley”)

[s0dabeach]

was possessed by the need to draw something related to @jellynut's bill still au it's such a cool au and I'm not normal whenever he posts art of it

also did kind of a comic:

[inkskinned]

i wrote an interactive poem for my girlfriend in 3 parts. she said you need to read it.

go here: take only the final quiz or take all 3. i don't mind. it's sad, though. this is a poem about choice. about fate and mental illness and how love fits inside of all of it. this is a poem about a long dark hallway. mostly this is a poem about mango sushi rolls.

good luck. i love you. despite it all, i'm hopeful.

[moghedien]

Minthara says “in Her name” when you first meet her and she’s following the Absolute but when you recruit her and she expresses that she no longer follows any god, but she still has an intact paladin oath, and she says “in your name” occasionally because she’s no longer Lolth’s paladin or the Absolute’s paladin, she’s your paladin

[choccy-milky]

finally drew clora and seb's kids!!🙌🙌

Celeste Sallow: OK THIS IS THE NAME IM SUPER PROUD OF BAHAHA because not only does the name celeste relate to the stars (in typical ravenclaw fashion...clora picked the name) but celeste sallow is also an alliteration. BUT, its an alliteration that begins with a C, which means clora gets to match with celeste in the form of both of their names starting with a C, whereas sebastian gets to match with celeste because both of their names are an alliteration/they're alliteration allies🥹ITS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!🥳

Lewis Sallow: as for lewis, if you've read my fic then you know that seb has a vendetta against names that start with an L bahaha, but 'lewis' was actually HIS idea. when celeste was born, seb wanted to find a muggle story to read to her, since clora's favourite story is ALSO a muggle one (sherlock), and he wanted to stick with tradition. so he ended up finding alice in wonderland, which he loved because of how adventurous and clever alice was and of how much she reminded him of clora and celeste (both personality and looks wise). it became his favourite for those reasons, to the point that when they had lewis, sebastian overcame his L-name hatred by naming their son after lewis carroll.

Houses: celeste could have been sorted into either gryffindor or slytherin, but ultimately ends up in slytherin because she wants to be like seb. kinda like how clora also probably could have been in gryffindor, tbh. as for lewis.....him being 10000% in ravenclaw doesnt need any explanation BAHA, just look at him.

Appearance: since clora has a tiny bit of veela blood in her, thats obvs passed down to their kids, too, and so they mostly take after her as a result of it. but there's still little bits of seb that shine through in each of the kids: for lewis its his brown curly hair, and for celeste its her complexion/freckles. and the fact that celeste looks so similar to clora only doubles up sebastian's stress/protective instincts when he watches her BAHAH. he's ofc still proud that she takes after him so closely, but seb also cant deny that he wishes it had been their SON that had taken after him instead, to keep her out of danger.

Celeste & Lewis: for celeste and lewis’ relationship, celeste is a super proud big sister, and treats lewis kinda like how seb treats clora. if there's anything that needs to be done, she offers to do it for him. and although she doesn’t have the patience to read stories herself, she loves playing outside and having lewis read to her in the background, and loves to act out/use his stories to fuel her imagination. and lewis makes sure to pick stories that he KNOWS she’ll like (which mostly involve heroic and daring feats of adventurers or pirates. he's tried to read more classic fairytales and romances to her a few times, but celeste always gets bored). she loves to draw though, so sometimes when lewis reads books that have no pictures, she'll draw them herself.

Celeste & Seb/Clora: celeste is a daddy's girl LOL and always tries to impress seb with the stuff she does, especially after hearing how HE was at her age, and so its half to impress and half because shes competitive that she wants to do the same/be just as good. and seb always gets a kick out of hearing her feats in the crossed wands club, or in defense against the dark arts class, and he also goads her on, telling her she'll have to do better than that if she wants to be as good as HE was. and whenever celeste gets detention, clora always stresses and asks why, whereas seb just tries to keep the smirk off his face. as for celeste and clora, clora also reads to celeste, and bakes and cooks with her, which is something celeste actually likes doing. not only because it keeps her busy and she likes to help and get messy in general, but also because she likes the fact that it results in good food afterwards LOL, and constantly asks when things can be taken out of the oven. also, for as tomboy-y as celeste is, she honestly doesn't mind/likes the clothing that clora puts her in and likes when clora dresses her up, bc it makes her look like one of the princesses from the storybooks, and it just amuses her more than anything else. once she enters hogwarts, though, its mostly trousers. but she still DOES like the occasional girly clothing.

Lewis & Seb/Clora: lewis is a momma's boy LOL and unlike celeste, doesnt care about duelling or of proving himself or anything like that, and is only concerned with stories and his future studies. so ofc clora had to show him sherlock, which he naturally loved. it even inspired lewis to want to write his own stories, so that he could challenge his own skill and see if he could, but also because he wants his mom to read them, and likes the idea of writing his own sherlock-esque story with equations and mysteries to be solved that he can offer her. lewis also wants to write a book for celeste as well, bc although he wont admit it, he basically wants to write a story tailor-made for her and her interests. one that he thinks will have everything she’d love in it. and part of it is genuinely because he WANTS to do it for her, but the other part of it is also for his ego, and to see if he CAN write a compelling story, and write something that would actually get THE hyperactive celeste to sit down and read it in its entirety (not to mention of her own volition). as for with seb, lewis looks up to him more than anyone else, due to how well-rounded he is and how hes so good at practical stuff AND studying, and he kinda sees seb as a main character/protagonist from one of his books, and uses sebastian as inspiration for his own stories. if hes stuck on what he thinks the dashing main character should do next, he'll ask his dad what HE would do, which results in seb getting very weird questions that he nonetheless is always happy to answer. also, when lewis is older and finally learns the full story of what happened with clora and seb and ranrok and rookwood, he writes their story in novel form, except he just changes their names/some of the details, and it becomes a best seller LOL. and i didnt know where to put this, but the four of them all read a story before bed every night, with lewis in the middle and seb and clora on either side of him. though celeste stands at the foot of the bed, basically doing a charade/mime show of what theyre reading, and putting on a little play to go along with it BAHHA.

OK thats all i can think of for now ive yapped enough😩 if youve read all of this ur a real one.... ive also considered giving them a 3rd (and last) child, which would be a boy that looks exactly like seb, and seb would just be praying like please.....let this son take after me🧎‍♂️🙏 BAHHA

[tzarrz]

This came to me in a dream - PART 2