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daveslutstaine · 2 months ago

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It's been a while since I've made a proper blog post (and this is a music blog after all), so here is a band I've been wanting to talk about for a while. I never thought I would enjoy ambiance music, but this band made their way into my heart. Ladies and gents, I present to you all, Love Spirals Downwards

Beginning with their first album, and the first one I listened to by them, Idylls.

Shades of blue, the images of crashing waves, the rippling of water, immense cliffs overlooking the vast oceans, these are the images I get when I listen to Idylls. The first thing I noticed during my first listen of the album is the simple riff that starts off the first track and the calming effect it had on me. LSDs' founding member, Ryan Lum, has a talent for writing music that makes me feel like I'm floating through the air over open fields on a downcast day. The music is greatly complimented by their beautiful singer Suzanne Perry, with her ethereal voice further placing me under the music's spell. Even when she sings complete nonsense, I find myself feeling the music deep within my heart. Speaking of the lyrics, a lot of the songs have nonsensical lyrics or they are poems that, to my knowledge, Suzanne wanted to use as lyrics for LSDs' songs. In terms of my favorite songs they are: "Illusory Me", "Scatter January", "Stir About The Stars", "Drops, Rain, and Sea", and "And The Wood Comes Into Leaf".

The next album is one that I have been playing a lot lately, so much so that I can safely say that it is my favorite album by Love Spirals Downwards.

Ador by Love Spirals Downwards has been playing both in my head and on my phone for over a month now. This album is like lying in the middle of room with sunbeams and swirls of pink and white dancing all around me. Lums' guitar does its magic in transporting me to a different place, while Perry's angelic voice continues to enchant me. The opening song "Will You Fade" truly made me feel as though I were fading away into a different world. The next song titled "Sidhe" is one of my favorites! Though the lyrics are the lyrics of another song on this album played backwards, I still adore it. It almost feels like an ancient chant that's been lost to time. I remember at one point trying to search up the lyrics because I actually thought that that was the case. It just feels like something that's been forgotten, only to be rediscovered and brought to life by Lums' music and Perry's voice. And on the topic of songs that make me go AAAAAAA, the song "Avincenna" is my favorite on this album. Listening to it makes me feel as though I caught a glimpse of Heaven itself. The lyrics are Psalm 119, which is incredibly fitting considering that this song almost sounds like "Hymn of The Cherubim" by Tchaikovsky. It is much shorter than Psalm 119 since they had to condense it in order for it to fit the song, but the message and emotions it invokes is the still the same. Other songs I love are "Depression Glass" and "Write In Water". Overall it's a really good album if you want something calm but full of emotion to listen to! I cannot recommend it enough!!!

Next up is an album that I don't reach for a lot, but it's enjoyable nonetheless! This is Ever

This album seems to get pushed to the background a lot, and after giving it another, more focused listen, I think I found the reason why. It's not a bad album, but from my perspective, it's just doomed to live in the shadows of their more popular works like Flux. Maybe people see it as Flux Lite, especially since the opening track titled El Pedregal does sound like it would be better suited for Flux. Same can be said for Madras. That song almost sounds like Nova. The rest of the album sounds so toned down in comparison to the two previous albums. There's more acoustic songs on Ever than on Idylls or Ador, and Flux doesn't have many acoustic songs on it either. I will say, the inclusion of the acoustic songs on this album doesn't automatically make it a bad album. I do enjoy "Sideways Forest" and "Cay at Dawn", along with other songs on this album, but it's definitely a more chill and less energetic album. Though it lacks that feeling of an ancient and forgotten era that the first two albums have, I would still recommend giving it a shot.

And now on to their final album, the ever popular Flux

This is the album in which the industrial vibes hit you full force. Beginning with the opening track titled "City Moon", the album gives off the sensation of blurred city lights on a rainy evening. It almost feels like walking in a big city, with the whole world disappearing around you as the music envelops your senses. At least that's how it comes across to me. It's a simple track, with Perry's voice seemingly fading into the background, like a siren's call that's just barely audible. The instrumentals paint most of the picture, with a clean yet pleasant guitar sound to tie everything together. The next track, "Alicia", to me feels like a continuation of "City Moon". The feelings in the song are nearly identical, with the only difference being Perry's more prominent vocals in this song than the previous one. From there we find ourselves listening to "Sound of Waves", a song with made with all the hallmarks of a LSD song with a hint of a futuristic tone to it. This trend continues with the next song "Psyche", which interestingly enough is sung by Suzanne's sister, Kristen Perry. Little fun fact, Kristen was originally going to be the vocalist for LSD, but she never did end up being the voice of LSD. It's so fascinating to hear her sing in this band. Her voice is lower than that of Suzanne's, but for "Psyche", it's oddly fitting. And now I can finally talk about my favorite song on the album, and that is "Nova". This song truly captures the industrial feeling of the whole album, with the classic LSD dreampop sound, accompanied by an incessant, monotone beeping sound that to some people may be unpleasant, but I like personally enjoy it. It gives off the impression of concrete, machinery, and green light. Even Perry's distorted vocals work fantastically here. She sounds as though she were a beacon of hope out of the oppressive grey by being the green light guiding me out of there. It's a strange song for Love Spirals Downwards, but it's my favorite for that reason. "By Your Side" and "Ring" break that setting and go back to the city type feeling, with Kristen Perry back on vocals for "Ring". "Ring" is interesting to me in that there's this underlying anger to that song. Now I fully understand that that's probably just me misplacing an emotion onto that song, but I don't know. I guess it's just the way Kristen sings on this song, but something, something on this song gives off that impression. Maybe it's just me, but I don't know. "I'll Always Love You" is definitely the most calming track on this album. It sounds like something that would play in the background of those diner paintings, if that makes any sense? It's also kind of a grey looking song, but the hints of blue make up for that. I actually enjoy listening to it on rainy days since that's what it looks like to me. And lastly, we have "Sunset Bell", ending with a song that's a mixture of classic LSD and the futuristic vibes of Flux. More distorted vocals, but with the background more focused on the sounds from Ardor. It's a beautiful song that balances the ancient with the modern in a lovely way, and I love it immensely for that!

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed my unintelligible ramblings and hope you guys give LSD a shot some time! See ya!

#i've been in a depressive funk lately so #talking about music helps a bit and yeah #here ya go!#music posting

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eunchancorner · 2 years ago

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If you don’t me requesting for some headcanons, do you have any for the hatzgang by chance? Generic or tickle, or both, which ever you want:3

I AM LITERALLY WRITING A FIC FOR THEM RN HOLY SHIT This is actually so perfectly timed-

Regular HCs:

-Ross was pretty emo for about a year or two but grew out of it pretty quickly

-Robert has tried many times to convince his parents to get a dog, but it doesn't go very well

-In fact, him and Roy once tried to sneak a dog into Robert's room but Radford caught them. He promised to keep quiet if they returned the dog

-Remember how Ross likes bike rides? (If you didn't know this, go read the wiki.) Sometimes Rob skates along with him.

-Ross has no fucking idea how to hold a cat

-The other two would hold a cat like they held the doll in Deadly Smiles

-They have sleepovers REALLY often, but never at Roy's house

-They all have different favorite games (Ross: Mario Kart, Robert: Lego Star Wars, Roy: GTA5)

Tickle HCs:

-Getting the depressing HC out of the way first: Roy's parents never tickle him. Like, never ever. He's just their little legacy, so he never gets affection.

-Ross and Robert, however, have received many tickles in their lives

-Ross is about 40% ler, 60% lee

-Jaune thinks tickling her son is the most fun thing in the world, so Ross gets tickled almost daily.

-His worst spot is his belly, his ears coming in a close second (BEANIE OF PROTECTIONNNNNNNNN)

-He does enjoy it but is SUPER secretive about it, it's SO embarrassing to him

-Bro curls tf up like a little hedgehog when tkled and it's the cutest thing 🥺

-However, he is the most EVIL of lers. Teasing, anticipation, this boy WILL study your reactions and WILL figure out how to fluster you

-His friends love hate it

-Since he gets a little awkward about affection, sometimes he'll cuddle, sometimes it's just a pat on the back and some water

-Robert, however, is constantly getting into tickle fights with his siblings

-Usually this ends up with three of them teaming against the fourth (the fourth most commonly being Radford, surprisingly enough!)

-Half ler, half lee, all shameless tickle-enjoyer!

-Tho it does get a bit embarrassing when he's tickled in front of his friends

-He does get over it tho, and does love including them in his tickly shenanigans

-His worst spot is his sides, such an easy spot to get too, poor boi.

-He's the tallest but also the easiest to lift up bc he's a fucken STICK and it makes him SO easy to get.

-He's also SUCH a squirmer, like, you gotta pin this boi down or lift him up to have a CHANCE

-But him as a ler, oh SHIT you are in trouble

-Bro is FAST, you can't run, you can't hide, can't do shit before he catches you

-He LOVES cooing at his lee's reactions, he can't help it, he loves making his friends smile!

-He is the cuddle KING afterwards tho, he'll make sure you're nice and comfy and cozy

-If that's not your thing tho, he'll respect that too!

-Now ROY... oh god this is gonna get complicated.

-Poor boi has never been tickled until one fateful sleepover

-Twas there he learned the full extent of his ticklishness... and how much he loved it

-Ofc, he's WAY too prideful to admit it

-70% ler, 30% lee, but a glass cannon oml

-Before he knew he was ticklish, he was SUCH a huge ler oml

-He loves teasing his friends about how ticklish they are while he just fucking WRECKS them

-Cockiest little shit too like put him in his place lol

-But he CANNOT take what he dishes out.

-Worst spots are his belly and armpits, but bro is practically a walking tickle spot

-Teasing makes him turn into a freaking tomato oml

-And he just CRUMPLES too

-In short, when it comes to Hatzgang tickle fights, he's probably gonna end up losing if he gets got fast enough

WOW this ended up long, anygay if I think up more I'll probably rb this post and add them, or if you wanna add your own, feel free to rb with them, I love reading other people's hcs!

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nientedal · 2 years ago

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for the fic writers ask meme, i’m rather curious about 9 & 10; which of your fics did you find the easiest and hardest to write?

From this ask meme!

Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Each fic has its own challenges, but right now, it's probably a tie between Swansong and the Cold Fusion series. And for similar reasons! Both have complex plots - Swansong's is primarily emotional, with Megamind processing complex grief and a broken (and then new) mental link, and Roxanne processing having a roommate going through emotional turmoil, plus some mental stuff of her own...and then Metro Man's whole thing, and holy shit maybe there's still a chance, and mixing hope into the grief mix is just a fucking nightmare for everyone involved, and djf;aldjfa;ldjadflj;afjdj it's a mess. And because it's written in third person limited, rather than omniscient, there's only so much that I can tell readers directly. Which, in a story with so much happening internally, was...extremely frustrating, at times!

Cold Fusion's complexity is more events-based, but in that one I am having to balance the fact that there ARE external plotlines happening against the fact that...the primary focus of those fics is on the characters and their development. Also, for a LONG LONG TIME, I did not actually KNOW what the plot was, I was just sort of winging it, and now I DO know, and it's a lot bigger than I expected it to be? Which I think some people may not like. And on one hand, fuck 'em, I'm writing for me, but on the other hand, I do write fanfiction with my end goal being to share it with people, so my readers' enjoyment is absolutely a thing I have in mind, I'm not JUST writing for me. So, aaaaaaaaaaaa.

I am now also having to grapple with the fact that when I started writing Cold Fusion, many of my headcanons were different from what they are now. I was originally very set on it being canon-compliant, on ONLY working with things we knew from the source material and not doing my own worldbuilding more than was absolutely necessary. And then I fell into a depression hole for like 3 or 4 years and could barely force myself to write at all, and when I finally came blasting out of that hole on the Wellbutrin-fueled jet pack I titled Dive, the amount I cared about "canon compliant" had plummeted to pretty much zero. Writing Swansong helped with that, I think -- I had basically been writing nothing but Cold Fusion for AGES, and then Ramendobe slapped me in the face with that prompt, and I discovered that writing universe alterations was a lot of fun! And then Dive punted my desire to stay canon-compliant into the sun. So now, rewriting Cold Fusion as I post it to AO3, I am working with characters who are different from the way I now write them in other fics. I'm bringing some of my newer headcanons into that universe for shits and giggles, but still. It's an odd feeling.

Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Another tie! Because I cannot make decision.

By Chance, which I wrote because my buddy ElfKid dropped a prompt into my askbox when I was like, "holy shit the ADHD is BAD tonight and I wanna see if I can write a one-shot in one evening," I think...? aahahaha actually no I just went and looked it up, and I had tagged my 'weh ADHD sucks' post with #hey if anyone is reading this send me a writing prompt and let's see wtf happens when i can't motherfuckin think lmaoooo and...I basically sat down, put the best of black sabbath on loop, and waited to see what fell out of my hands. And it was that. (Here's the original tumblr edition.)

and everything emptying into white was originally just some tags I had put on an ask from another friend of mine about Megamind purring, and I couldn't stop thinking about them and that day at work just SUCKED ASS and so I copied and pasted them into an AO3 draft on my phone at work and churned that out over the course of my lunch break. And then added a bunch to it during the next couple days.

(and I gotta give an honorable mention to Dive. I basically churned that thing out in less than a week of HOLY SHIT I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING IN YEARS AND MY BRAIN JUST WOKE UP AND REMEMBERED HOW TO ENJOY THINGS adrenaline, it was great. It wasn't as easy to write as the other two, simply because it wasn't as short & sweet, but it was easy and I owe that fic a lot. So.)

#askbasket #anonymous #nonny mouse #dal is a fanfic #megamind #actually now that i'm thinking about it i think kbjones ALSO sent me a prompt that night that i meant to follow up on #WHOOPS #time to scroll ye olde aske boxe #(fun fact: like 90% of my best work has come from prompts from other people)#(i don't write all the prompts i receive but you never know)

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fraener · 3 months ago

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9/7/24

if i had the time to write, i would have. this past month was one of the hardest ive gone through. i didnt have a day off since before my last entry in here. im listening to stefans piano music in bed now, had dinner, painted for the first time in a really, really long time. it didnt give me the same level of enjoyment as it used to but i think id like to start doing that again every day. i had to leave work early today because my period finally came with a terrible vengance, 20 days late. the stress of the move nearly killed me i think. i lost even more weight im pretty sure, ive never been this thin. im going to try and get my thyroid tested again because im getting very worried about it. h told me he felt like i criticized him too much and was so ungrateful for all his help moving. i am not allowed to have any feelings about what happened in front of him because he feels this way. i told him he was right so hed stop yelling at me. its just yet another thing i cannot rely on him for or trust him for, i dont feel like i ever want to ask his help for anything ever again, at least not that big of a thing. it just doesnt seem like a good idea anymore and im almost glad i never let go of my suspicions around it. im too depressed to really be disappointed or saddened by it. this is just what relationships turn into for me, a strange dance of self suppression when faced with the continuous obstacle of being something foreign and unordinary in the face of what the other person wants and expects. i feel like im speaking a different language to most people. i feel so extant and as i get older it becomes less and less surprising that i feel that way. i wonder what would have happened had i been ordinary or had a shot at seeing the world in an ordinary way. i dont really think i have it in me to keep trying to find someone who will see me and understand me and love me for what and who i am. maybe thats a good thing. i dont really know. i want to lean into my uncommonness again. i am unloveable in my uncommonness, i think, but strong in it. tomorrow i think id like if i am able to go and paint on the hill above the bay and watch the little sailboats go by. for the first time in a long time im feeling reasons to return to myself rather than turn away. what am i here for? what do i like to do? i want to paint, i want to watch other people enjoy learning something new, i want to be included in or witness to someones passions, i want to find my friendship in the nonhuman again. i miss rosie so much. i miss all the animals i cant talk to anymore like ed and zoey. at least rosies still alive. and gigi is too, and tally. so many friends of mine are so far away now. learning over and over that i am so terribly lonely here! i think maybe im beyond sad about h. this hasnt been a very good relationship but i havent been well or strong or brave enough to end it even when its really bad or even when its not so aggressively bad but just so bald faced in its discrepancies that it doesnt make any sense to keep going. for some reason i keep going. for love or habit i do not know. i dont feel loveless like i did with m but i dont feel like the love is enough most days. im tired of writing in my journal about him. i want him to matter less in some ways, maybe just matter less in the darker matters of the heart. i saw o's play and we spent some time together. theyre so magical and i can see so pure as day why we didnt work out. exactly what i admire about them is the thing i cannot stand! funny how it works sometimes. im glad to see them a little again, a year from when we did last. always the end of summer with that one. i miss my apartment, my new house is quiet but lonely without my ghosts. the fellow above the doorframe threw the picture one last time at h while he was scolding me which was really funny but a bit naughty. not that h would know or understand necessarily. yes, tired and lonely. one day soon maybe ill feel a bit better, or at the very least, different.

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aviiarie · 3 months ago

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YAP SESSION AHEAD. INCOMING. FULL SPEED. be WARNED....

furina's wife anon lore reveal because something literally life changing happened yesterday and i need need NEED TO TELL SOMEONE ARRGRGH!!!! ALSO ALSO SORRY I DON'T MEAN THIS TO BE VENTING AT ALL!!! JUST STORYTIME. FOR THINE ENJOYMENT. Because I do believe I can be amusing sometimes maybe I Don't Know

Imagine, if you will. 1st grade. Small quiet kid with very much undiagnosed autism. Meets the pretty popular girl who is super extroverted and talks a lot to everyone and has a lot of friends and is the most stunning person in class and perhaps the most stunning person to ever person ever.

(at least in small quiet kid's eyes)

Best of friends. WHOOO WOULD'VE THOUGHT??? My first and only real friend ever AND best friend ever and. Because the gays can never have nice things. My first crush. Whoa. (But also I was like 7 and didn't know what being gay was so I ooobviously could only be foreseeing only futures for myself where we were married in a platonic way! Speaking of actually. I feel like everybody knew I was autistic before I was and targeted specifically me but WHATEVER so the mean girls in kindergarten a year earlier thought I was doing naughty naughty stuff. As a 5 year old. When I was practicing KUNG FU???? And after I tried to explain, called me gay and refused to elaborate on what that meant when I asked????)

It got to the point where physical affection was very common y'know!! Like. Hugs. Cuddles, even. I remember it happened once in 2nd and the teacher told us we had to cut it out which STILL MAKES ME LAUGH but anyway. WAIT ACTUALLY before we move on from 2nd grade there's ONE THING THAT. OOOHH MY GOD. So Crush. Liked a boy. Of course. The popular athlete. Conventionally attractive. Of course. And the three of us sat in a circle one day. The topic somehow came to race. They both said "I'm white!" and me, a naive child with a white father and absent asian mother, replied "I'm white too!" since I hadn't seen my mom since 15 months old—and GOD forbid Father teach me anything about my culture. ANYWAY. BLAH BLAH BLAH. TELL ME WHY THIS BOY FULLY TURNS TO ME. LOOKS ME UP AND DOWN. AND SAYS, "No. You're brown." SORRY THAT'S KINDA OFF TOPIC BUT I'M BAFFLED EVERY TIME I REMEMBER THAT AND I THINK IT IS SOMEWHAT COMICAL. There's so much bullshit that kids said to me as literally the only asian kid in the school but THOSE ARE STORIES FOR OTHER NIGHTS.

ANYWHO! FAST FORWARD! 3RD GRADE! Here's where it gets WICKED. So. Girl in class. Also quiet artsy kid. Somehow starts talking to Crush. And they start hanging out more. Do note, small quiet autistic child has unresolved abandonment issues due to said mother leaving. And is also very much undiagnosed. And not having friends. In the slightest. So. I see other kid as Public Enemy #1, and take Crush's casual friend-making as "oh my god she hates me and she's leaving me oh my god she hates me oh my god"

So I became possessive over her. I don't remember quite exactly what I did, but I recall having an "argument" about it right at the end of third grade. It's honestly quite embarrassing to admit now how much I didn't want her to leave. But guess what happened when fourth started? I skipped through the gates, expecting fully and immediately to see radiant blond belting off rays of sunshine directly into my eyes.

No! That did not happen! The gays cannot be happy! Guess who moved schools!

It wasn't like she didn't warn me, either. She did. Many times during the months prior. I just wasn't ready to process it until I was eye-to-eye with a searing light instead of hers.

That was the seed of my depression. It all started from there. I was going through hell and hell was determined to force other people into it through me, too. I do feel like the anger and irritability part of depression is severely overlooked. I was mad at myself and everyone except her until it festered a little and theeen I became mad at her.

A few years ago I would've looked back and seen a jealous, controlling antagonist who cared only for herself and halting her insecurities and held no regard for other people's feelings. But when I look back now, I see a child navigating complex emotions for the first time and doing what she could with what she was given.

BLALALALA SERIOUS TIME OVER. So I was halfway through fourth when covid did its covid thing!! Very angsty child becomes locked up in house oh no!!!! POINT IS. I spent 6 years absolutely TORN TF UP over my "first lesbian breakup" BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS DEVASTATING?????? MY FIRST REAL FRIEND EVER. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE US??????? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LIVE TOGETHER WITH OUR CATS AND HAVE WEDDING PICTURES SPLAYED OVER THE HALLWAY?¿??????????

To be fair, I did think I was over it!!! Like. When I say I thought of her every single day for 3 years straight I am not exaggerating in the slightest. It was BAD. Little kid was DOWN BAD. Buut then I grew up a little and stopped thinking about her as much and I was like "wow so I'm finally free!"

May 20somethingeth of this year. Prozac. DOOO YOU KNOW WHAT A COMMON SIDE EFFECT OF PROZAC IS .... vivid dreams. I thought, "oh wow it can't possibly be that bad lol what would I even have dreams about!!!!"

For the past month. I would wake with tears in my eyes after VERY MUCH HAVING A DREAM ABOUT HER. AFTER 6 YEARS????? AND NOT THINKING ABOUT HER THAT MUCH SINCE. A FEW YEARS AGO????????? anywho! So it got me thinking about her a lot recently (against my will!) and it culminated into YESTERDAY.

Yesterday. I was listening to "once more to see you" by mitski because of course I was listening to "once more to see you" by mitski and it did indeed come after "good luck babe" and "casual" BECAUSE OF COURSE IT CAME AFTER. So I found myself getting a little emo and depresspress. And I don't even know how we got from point A to point B but I dusted off my crusty old Instagram for the first time in ever and typed in Crush's name.

DO YOU KNOW WHO POPS UP. 6 YEARS. 6 YEARS. AND I FIND A PRIVATE ACCOUNT UNDER CRUSH'S NAME. WHO'S IN THE PROFILE PICTURE????? Long blond hair. The angle was set at 0.5x but to me it looked like she'd never changed at all.

One of my old friends from the area was following her too so I was like. Yeah. Yeah that's her. Buuut just to make sure because I'm a sigma or whatever I texted her like. "Is that her?" But in a very convoluted way because I'm me and I'm different!! (I just added very specific details that. Would only pertain to Crush) AND OLD FRIEND SAYS YES. I START FREAKING THE FUCK OUT BECAUSE. 6 YEARS. I HAVE BEEN LOSING MY MIND FOR 6 YEARS. 6 YEARS OF ANGUISH AND PUNISHING MYSELF BECAUSE I THOUGHT I SINGLEHANDEDLY FUCKED UP THE ONLY REAL FRIENDSHIP I'D EVER HAVE BECAUSE I WAS JUST THE WORST HUMAN TO EVER HUMAN EVER. Hehe anyway! OLD FRIEND SAYS THAT CRUSH IS ADDING ME ON SNAP. I START SHAKING. QUIVERING. TREMBLING IN MY BOOTS. MY SHIVERS WERE TIMBERED.

So. A few things happened on snap. IT'S ALMOST OVER I SWEAR THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME 🙏🙏🙏 SO. First thing that should've maybe put me off a little. Crush says "how do I know you?" Which. Okay. I aaaam genderfluid and go by a different name than I used to BUT with the other stuff that transpired It's Heavily Suspicious. So I type our elementary school name because I DON'T WILLINGLY SAY MY DEADNAME 🤬🤬🤬🤬 DUH 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 anyway. AND SHE SAYS "ohhh i think i know where this is going" LMAO and i say "YEAH...." and give a lil description of me and she's like yup that's you. Definitely.

(little side note. When I told her she LITERALLY SAID "my mom totally called it lmao" AS IN HER MOM CALLED ME BEING A GENDER SWITCHER??? GIRL.)

I wonder how much aura I lost from this conversation actually. Here's how it went.

Crush: how do you still remember all of that?

Me (sigma chad): i could never forget

Crush: what

THAT'S GENUINELY . WHAT HAPPENED. THAT'S WHAT I SAID. AND THAT WAS HER RESPONSE. that should've been STRIKE NUMBER TWO. SO THEN. I'M JUST LIKE. "there's so much I want to tell you y'know, first I want to apologize" AND SHE SAYS "apologize for what?" OR SOMETHING ALONG THOSE LINES.

Let me sum this up. I spent 6 years in Lesbian Limbo because kiddo me fucked up a little. I find Crush to get closure. SHE DOESN'T EVEN REMEMBER MOST OF WHAT HAPPENED????? 6 YEARS. I CANNOT GET OVER THIS. 6 YEARS I SPENT. AND SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER MOST OF IT.

So now here we are. It is a little freeing to know that she didn't think of it the way I did, but I can't help but be a little upset that all of that time was wasted over something. That. UGH. THIS KEEPS HAPPENING I SWEAR I'M CURSED. I KEEP GIVING PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT ME ALL OF MY TIME AND ALL OF MY MIND AND ALL OF MY HEART AND AAAARRRGRHRHRRGGHHH

But it's okay because now. After the lesbiban falling for straight bestie arc. And heartbreak arc. And depresspress arc. I AM GOING TO HAVE MY MOVING ON ARC!!!!! LIVING A HAPPY LIFE ARC!!!!!!!!! YES!!!¡!!!!!!!! (I'm still processing but I think we're getting there :])

Tea Time Over! Thank You For Listening! If this is scattered umm GELP PLEASE SPARE ME I have triple A supreme whammy package combo of amnesia autism adhd (we are Twinning!) I HOPE YOU ARE DOING WELL. And that this wasn't too much of a pain to read holy shit

SIGNED!!! FURINA'S WIFE!!!! WITH LOVE!!!!!! FURINA'S WIFE OUT!!!!!!

ANON. HELLO. HI. GOOD EVENING.

this ask was a wild ride from start to finish HAHAHAHA okay, okay. for starters, i can understand where kid-you was coming from. i mean, that kind of jealous 'no one can be friends with them but me!' attitude is one that some kids just go through when they're dealing with hard emotions for the first time, and learning how to think about others and take their feelings into consideration. it's not good, but i think the way you responded to it is pretty normal for your age. it's good that you can look back on it and see how you've matured since then, and see how much better you can handle your own emotions now. that shows growth!

(side note, but i know what you mean?? with the whole having a puppy crush on your best friend because she's so perfect and amazing and fun to be around... little me was making heart eyes at my friends before i even knew what the word gay meant AHAHA... though, i do think at least half of my crushes were closer to friend-crushes because i was a baby aro-spec(??) and didn't know how to tell friendship from romantic love--but i digress!)

ALSO THE STORY ABOUT THE 'i'm white!' IS WILD?????? kids are so out of pocket sometimes oml

but okay moving on HELLO??????? the vivid dreams.... and FINDING HER ON INSTA????? okay, okay. that is... wow. there are some childhood friends i have that i am so curious about what they're up to now, but i never had the courage to search their names.

(side note 2, HER MUM CALLING IT ON YOU BEING GENDERFLUID IS SO FUNNY HAHAHAHA)

the conversation though..... i got second hand embarrassment IM SORRY. but augh. six years, and then nothing. that is even more painful than the childhood friend i reunited with, spoke one sentence to, and then never talked to again. to be clear we were CLOSE. best friends. and now we see each other every so often, we just.... dont talk. and younger me would be crying if they knew that.

i know it must hurt a lot knowing she doesn't remember you, but in the end, it's good that you could some closure, as bittersweet as it may be. i hope you can move on from it now, because letting someone consume that much of your life isn't healthy. there are people who will be there for you with the same time and energy you're there for them! but putting all of yourself into another person, letting your life revolve around them is not!!! good!!!!!

i mean, i think a life-altering, emotionally damaging, unrequited crush on their best friend is like. a lesbian canon event, but you can move forward! in time, this will be just an experience you look back on with nostalgia, rather than pain.

AAAHHHH this was. a lot. i'm wishing you luck in the moving on arc, and hoping you move into the LIVING A HAPPY LIFE arc very soon!

#★ — avie's mail.#☆ — furina's wife anon.

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ghffr-s · 11 months ago

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2024

Hello. It's quite a big gap since my last entry, to be fair I only write when my thoughts get too heavy. That is to say, when I'm depressed, I write the most. And over the past six months, or so, I suppose I can say that I've been the happiest I've been in a long time, and the happiness I found helped me narrate most of my writings in my head. A lot of things were going well for me. I met a lot of new people and surrounded myself with wonderful people who are nice and considerate of me and my well-being. I have also become physically strong and active with cheerleading, a sport I've recently dedicated my life to

But then there are still remnants of sadness that I experienced, which I might or might not have overcome, like losing my cherished home. A place I had lived before relocating to a new residence that didn't feel quite right (at first). Don't get me wrong, this is also home, after all, and I feel secure here. However, Anggun held a special place in my heart that no other place can match, and I find myself grieving about it frequently. That house helped me grow so much. I spent a lot of time alone myself in that lovely house in the year that I came to terms with who I was. Letting go of it felt like losing a huge portion of who I am and my growth. But regardless I'm happy that I've relocated to a home that provides safety and shelter in a similar manner. Anggun just has my best interest; my life then has been filled with so many significant events and pivotal moments that I believe have greatly influenced who I am now.

The spirals, though. Even though my mental health has significantly improved, I still battle with depressive episodes, so just because I'm happy doesn't imply my diagnosis has changed. Particularly when there are triggers like a family conflict or a betrayal by someone close to me. I do know that pain is a necessary part of life; no matter where we are in life, there will always be highs and lows. But going through it makes a difference. You progressively gain resilience and strength. Accepting what is inevitable is the best approach to find peace with life. Losses are unavoidable.

I believe that wanting more than you now have is a natural human emotion. it is who we are by nature, and it is how we were created. Once your current objectives are met, you feel compelled to pursue new endeavours and obtain more, particularly in this day of innovation and trends. Though I'm not quite where I want to be in life yet, I'd like to think that I'm happy. And since time flies and I'm already 25 this year, that concept terrifies me frequently. While there is undoubtedly enough of room and space to enjoy the present, we cannot completely ignore the importance of the future. For better things and a happier state of mind. I'm doing extremely well, but I'm still kind of stuck finishing the last year of my PR and marketing degree. I have now achieved first class honours three times in a row, and my cumulative GPA has been 3.70 or higher out of a 4.00 flat. I find studying to be genuinely enjoyable. I love what I learn. All that I've learned will help me in the future, and I always hope that my future will be all I've always imagined it will be since I was a young child. After everything I've been through, I owe that to myself.

But god, life is not easy. It's true what they say, the older you become, the more you want to be younger. There is just so much suffering, heartache, and loss to cope with, and the burden of responsibilities grows. The injustices from the past…. and the need to heal

Well I consider that to be history and have long since laid it to rest. I am happy. Every time I see my friends or go to cheerleading training, my heart is bursting with happiness. I love cheerleading so much. We truly are awesome. A group of exceptionally talented individuals on the blue mat. I love them. I love the feeling. I enjoy spinning and twisting in the air. I feel so healthy and fit. Being physically challenged is what I love now. The endurance is something I adore! Everything about it is wonderful. To be the greatest cheerleader I can be is my goal. Greater body mobility and more advanced stunts.

Going back to these episodes I've been having, they are really bothersome. Sometimes I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of experiencing the lowest points I occasionally hit when I spiral down.

This year, I'm hoping to be able to get rid of it. Surely not entirely, but less frequently perhaps. It has to stop somehow.

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mika-monster · 1 year ago

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it's getting harder as time goes on

not sure what to do.

i could make plans, but i'm running out of ideas.

the jobs i've had for years now have all been worse and worse, paying just bits more than the last. all with cruel upsetting nihilism, and increasing dysfunctionality. shitty jobs are one thing. jobs that barely work are another. i don't know how my current job is functioning and it makes me really afraid.

my wife has a good job finally after years. finally. we moved cities to the next county over, sharing with two roommates to find cheaper rent. now i'm preparing to quit my current job with a second interview lined up, after signing up for union work that may come far in the future, i feel this is something more than a failure to launch. i feel like whatever is going on, the whole system is crumbling.

there are so many people around me so close to losing jobs and homes and with little to no access to forward movement. i feel my generation is totally fucked and the generation under me barely has the safety of its caretakers. i've been having really terrible dreams lately. its the stress of my job. its the stress of not being able to imagine a future.

depression is hard to push back. i have medications that help. i have people around me that can...? ??? the comforts i used to seek are very very far away. it is hard to find things enjoyable. i can't remember what to do when i have time to relax, time to myself. i literally cannot remember what to look for online. which book to read. i want to enjoy something.

i've been keeping myself busy by cleaning. scheduling events with other people. making sure i'm not by myself. brother's birthday dinner tomorrow. music show gift tomorrow (trying to contact a friend involved but she hasn't responded about it). other friend at the river sunday. then. then i quit monday after work, or tuesday morning depending on if negligent manager responds to my emails or shows up at all.

i'm really frightened and have been doing my best to not smoke weed or become an alcoholic or take any more pills than my prescription. i want to do all those things so fucking badly. i will quit my job first instead of damaging myself.

i'm really frightened and sad and want to lay down for a week and not talk to anyone. please.

#access #witness

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ask-codeearasure · 1 month ago

Note

I can add onto this specifically in terms of little to no empathy that both of these characters experience, and this can apply to the other mental disorders you or someone else headcanon Killer and Ink to have as well.

A big factor in why a lack of empathy not just in these characters, but just about every amoral/morally-different neurodivergent character in general, is so villainized and dehumanized and disrepsected is because empathy is considered an "emotional superpower" to neurotypicals and a handful of other neurodivergent people that just don't know or care any better. And what only adds to this problem is they may not be aware of this bias either.

Empathy, by Google, is defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." This can extend to the ability to relate to the experiences of others as well, or perhaps whatever knowledge one can deride from the circumstances informing them. Just because Ink and Killer have little to no empathy doesn't make them a lesser form of person. In Ink's case he's got traumagenic as well as perhaps psychogenic origins (meaning he has a psychological origin or cause rather than a physical one) for how he functions. In Killer's case, as you've already said, he's been traumatized repeatedly and conditioned into a barely living weapon. Killer has been coerced and broken down again and again until his very sense of self has been split at best and rendered absent at worst.

Under these circumstances, people would think the trauma of these characters would make them ultra-sensitive to the struggles of characters going through the same or similar experiences. But just like with all flavors of neurodivergent people in real life, emotional sensitivity for the personal enjoyment of the "fans" is not guaranteed. Either they were born different or were damaged in such a way that their brains rewired themselves for the sake of survival, not necessarily to care about other people's emotions every single time.

Take ASPD for example, since this is one of the most demonized disorders on the planet right next to DID/OSDD/UDD, Schizophrenic/Schizoaffective disorders, and other Personality Disorders. It is assumed that it is part of the very diagnostic criteria for ASPD that the patient should have little to no empathy, when in reality this is not at all the case. Lack of empathy is a symptom that overlaps with other mental illnesses just like ADHD, Autism, Depression, Bipolar Disorder Types 1 and 2, and other Personality Disorders. And you know what? There is definitely more to this list too.

My point is one's lack of empathy does not make them a fucking threat or deplorable waste of life. You can have a lack of empathy and still perform well in society and maintain good relationships. You can have a lack of empathy and still perform with top-notch behavior. You can have a lack of empathy and still care very much for other people. You can have a lack of empathy and still end up an extremely compassionate and/or altruistic person. You can have a lack of empathy and still give a shit about others. It is not the end of the fucking world that someone cannot be empathetic. Just look for another way to portray kindness if it's so damn important to you. Get creative, for goodness sake. We all know Ink encourages it.

But back to ASPD, why the hell is a lack of empathy so common to its experience that it's mistaken to be a required criteria? Because ASPD is formed from consistent emotional abuse and neglect to the point the victim's brain is rewired to function with a limited sense of emotion, both inside and outside of themself. It's not 100% gone, but it certainly feels like that for many. And because of growing up with this lack of importance in one's emotions and emotional needs, this affects how the victim treats others, most commonly leading to little or no empathy. And guess what? Even outside of this basic summary, there are people with ASPD that still experience a wide range of emotions but don't quite know how to define, articulate, or control them becasue of their upbringing. This disorder, just like any fucking other, still comes with a mixed bag of differing experiences and degrees of functionality. Not to mention that ASPD is often comorbid with other Personality, Dissociative, and Mood disorders too. Little to no empathy DOES NOT mean completely devoid of emotion. I don't know where the fuck people got that with complete certainty, but I bet it came from those stupid fucking murder flics where the murder was always, always, ALWAYS, labelled a psychopath or sociopath, which are two words closely associated with specific variations of ASPD symptoms. And because of overlapping symptoms ASPD shares with a list of other mental illnesses, of course this attitude is so generously extended to them as well. THIS is the lens people use to dehumanize those lacking in empathy, under the god damn Hollywood myth that if you don't have that much to your name, you aren't an acceptable person at all. You are inherently a shitstain on this earth that does not deserve the love and care you should have received since the very beginning. You aren't met with compassion or understanding. Only contempt and alienation.

Thank you for listening to another Sarco rant. I'll see myself out.

Can you talk more about the fandom's ableism with Ink and Killer??im quite curious!/gen (reference to your reblog tags)

I can try, but know im not an expert and also bigger knowledgeable inks fans are welcome to chime in.

So we all know how Ink is soulless, yes? It is because of this that people take it as an excuse to demonize them and make them evil, fake, manipulative, abusive, a bad parent, a rapist—everything under the sun simply because he’s soulless, lacks empathy.

Some people claim he doesn’t feel emotions because of his soullessness all the time and the paint vials he takes are just “fake emotions,” but in actuality Ink needs those paints to function (because without them Ink becomes an unmoving husk and this makes him extremely vulnerable to being used and taken advantage of), and to feel. It’s basically medication that he needs.

Not to mention; Ink is clearly a neurodivergent character, having hyperfixations and everything. This breeds depictions of “Ink is so stupid,” “Ink is a child,” “Ink needs to be leashed and treated like an animal,” “everyone is tired of and hates ink because ink is annoying.”

You see this type of thing with Killer a lot too in his fanon depictions, and this is because it’s a pretty agreed upon headcanon that Killer has ADHD; it’s just that most people clearly don’t do any research into how Ink and Killer’s ADHD/Autism are disorders, how they actually impact them as characters and their lives rather then how they annoy and inconvenience everyone else around them, infantilize and dehumanize them by treating them like hyperactive idiotic children or animals that need to be kept on a leash—is stereotypical depictions of ADHD with the typical “hyperactive talking a lot so annoying oh my god can you just shut up?” and “can’t ever stop moving or talking” and just generally have other characters be ableist and abusive as fuck towards them both and play it off as if it’s supposed to be funny to be talked to like that just because something they have no control over was a little annoying today.

there’s no discussions or depictions how this stuff effects either of them. Killer already has a dissociative disorder and CPTSD and can’t trust his own memory, and Ink has short term memory loss so bad he needs to write things down on their scarf just to keep track of it, and yet Killer’s memory issues are completely ignored because he has to be the silly haha comedy relief that all the characters use as their punching bag and Ink’s is only ever brought up in any serious capacity to paint them as a bad parent who would forget that his children even exists.

Killer and Ink are both characters with little to no empathy for others; and this is used to demonize them, or is completely ignored by giving Ink a soul or and forcing Killer into Stage 1 as their quick fixes.

Their lack of empathy and emotionlessness is only ever brought up to use them as villains in another character’s story; which is extra fucked up when people refuse to acknowledge that Killer is a canonical victim of literal conditioning, abuse, torture, kidnapping, and literal fucking trafficking.

People are demonizing someone who is literally trapped in a trafficking ring and being sent out as weapon of terrorism by Nightmare under threat of torture, death, and replacement all because, oh. He’s emotionless. He’s sadistic. He doesn’t act like a perfect victim curling up in a ball crying from guilt every single day and why doesn’t he just say no?

Killer isn’t perfect but people like to pretend he has more control and power than he does and like he actually wants this when the man doesn’t even know what he wants because he became who he needed to be to survive. People seem dumbfounded by the concept that victims will mirror their abusers to survive and that obviously won’t make them good people, but killer doesn’t consider himself people.

It’s never brought up how Ink’s memory loss and his lack of paints making him a husk would make him very easily to abuse and use and lie to and manipulate and take advantage. It’s never brought up how Ink thinks and feels about upsetting or losing friends because he forgot their names, or their birthdays, or when they were meeting up and where, and no matter how hard he tries things just keep slipping from his mind.

It’s never brought up how Stage 2’s indifference and overwhelming apathy and dehumanizing view of himself (and others, just like Ink, who sees others as characters in a story whereas Killer sees people more like codes programmed to follow specific scripts and roles in a long series of games and tests and just not real), means he is a lot more likely to be used and abused and taken advantage of—and yes, raped, because for some reason people really really love making Killer a sexual predator as if he’s not the one most likely to be abused in that manner—means he’d likely just accept whatever someone does to him (especially if he believes they’re stronger than him) because why should he care? Nothing matters anyway. There’s no point in resisting, why bother. This is how it was always supposed to end, and nothing is real anyway. This doesn’t affect me, i don’t have emotions, im not real. I’m not a person.

The only form of control Killer would have is playing along. Acting, pretending he enjoys it and is having fun—but ultimately, he doesn’t know if he does or not. Where does he begin and the act end. He doesn’t know, but if everyone around him is telling him one thing, then it must be true.

Stage 2 wouldn’t see himself as a victim or anything that happened to him as anything particularly significant. Nightmare asks him to do something and he does it because why not is what he thinks—it’s just how it works, Nightmares stronger. He ignores what would happen if he drug his feet or attempted to refuse because to him it’s just logical that he’d be punished for that, and he likes pain anyway, so enjoying means he must’ve wanted it.

(Does this justify the people he hurts when commanded to, triggered to, provoked, or when his dehumanization of others and conditioning leads him to do pretty awful abusive shit to them out of sadism or curiosity or just needing to feel in control? No, of course not. Any of his victims are allowed to hate him or feel however they want about him.

Doesn’t mean we have to ignore that he’s also a victim and has even less control than he allows others to see or know about, and that he himself likely refuses to acknowledge or look at too deeply.)

Which is another thing a lot of people use to justify Nightmare’s abuse of Killer. That he’s masochistic and sometimes pushes and provokes Nightmare into hurting him—the idea that it’s not actually abuse because he “wanted it” and “liked it” or that he’s somehow as bad as Nightmare because “he provoked him.”

He cannot access the emotions and trauma and fear and moral concerns and safety concerns of his other Stages because that is the entire point of his dissociative disorder and his conditioning. This makes him easy to control and this how he’s survived and remained even somewhat functioning.

Not to mention. The idea that Ink and Killer need to “learn empathy” or “learn emotions” to be better or good people, and not because being in touch with emotions is an important thing everyone should learn especially victims of abuse and those with trauma and that having little to no empathy is not some moral failing on their end or says something about the type of people they are. It just means they struggle to relate to others, understand their emotions, or feel others emotions as if it were their own.

There’s also the matter of some people trying to say that because Ink is soulless he is AroAce. That is not true, is both aro/aphobic and ableist. Ink is both soulless and AroAce and these are two completely separate things—they’d still be AroAce even if they had a soul.

There’s probably a whole lot more that can be said about this, but I’ll end it right here. Others can add on or correct me.

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pillsarchive · 2 years ago

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A few random head cannons I have for Edward Nashton <<33

His favorite book is house of leaves you cannot change my mind - its filled with mysteries and he loves that he can re-read it and find more little puzzles to solve every time.

He watches documentaries like a crazy man. He has a lot of unhealthy tendencies and behaviors, one of them is wallowing. Watching documentaries that make him sad or angry gives him an almost perverse sense of pleasure - its confirmation. Yes, the world is as terrible as you think it is. If he's not using them as a depressant he's watching them to learn. Understanding more about niche topics helps him write better riddles.

He's a punk. The music was one of the things that got him through his time at the orphanage, even as an adult one of the only times he feels sort of good is when he's at shows. Thrashing around and taking out his aggression via moshing. He's never felt the need to dress loud (probably due to self confidence issues, I have a feeling once he breaks out of arkham and he has no reason to hide his identity anymore he'll come into his own and put himself together better) but he does admire people who are alternative in some way a whole lot.

He has graphomania (an impulsive desire to write or draw). It started as a nervous habit as a child, writing down riddles or thoughts or bible quotes to get anxiety out, then it spiraled into writing anything - one word over and over again, nonsense, it doesn't even have to be legible.

He has always wanted to go back to college and get more degrees. He has a bachelors in accounting of course, but he wants so many more. He loves learning, he is sort of a humanitarian at heart (even though his rage stifles that sometimes - revenge is a hard thing for him not to want) so he greatly enjoys the atmosphere of college campuses too. When he went, even though he was still mostly shunned for being neurotic and strange, people were nicer to him than normal. In the classroom he felt at home - he's sort of a genius and other students had a hard time keeping up with him. His professors pushed him to pursue a more advanced degree but he couldn't afford it (and the arkham programs for getting the cash he needed were lacking, to say the least).

He's trans and on the spectrum.

He's a true crime nerd. He likes to read books on it more than watch podcasts or docs - he finds that reading about cases is more informative and less exploitative (as much as he maintains you should care about the victims more than the killers, it is kind of just talk. He has a huge fixation with murder. ) This mf is an encyclopedia when it comes to the zodiac killer - has he spent months trying to solve the ciphers? Yes.

GRAVITY FALLS GUYS. He loves - LOVES gravity falls. He is a children's cartoons enjoyer.

He burned down the orphanage.

He's a cryptid mystery girly. He loves ghost hunting tv shows and he's super into random mystery junk. He has solved kryptos. He does brag about this accomplishment to his fans. He does reveal what it means to spite the CIA.

Collects something weird and small like buttons or bottle caps or stamps.

Bilingual! He can speak the King's and latin.

Loves rats. In the orphanage they were scary, they stole stockpiled food which could mean starvation, they chewed on you and gave some kids infections, they were horrible. Now that he's out and living in his own place he finds a lot of catharsis in taming them and befriending them.

In my universe he was in a mook adjacent band that broke up because he couldn't work well with the other bandmates.

He did NOT FLOOD THE CITY. I feel like in the movie this was completely off the wall, imu he doesnt ever make a plan to flood the whole city. What he does imu for the finale is a surprise >:].

#edward nashton #the riddler paul dano #the batman #dano riddler #piddler?#diddler?#pedward dashton?#the batman 2022 #edward nygma #the riddler x reader #the riddler headcanons #edward nashton headcanon #my universe #not main universe

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multiples-fandomswontkillme · 3 years ago

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~Metal Family headcanons~

These are like my... general hcs)? which means I didn't include my main hc that Glam, Ches and Vicky are polyamorous, married and started dating after Glam met Vicky, and absolutely everything that implies for the kids and the relationships between each member of the fam. Maybe I'll make a separate post for that or maybe not! Who knows lkfwnlfqnf

Glam

Bisexual

Glam has constant nightmares and ocasional night terrors ever since he ran away home and is an active sleep walker. Ches helped him through the worse ones when they were younger, and learned how to deal with them, always preferring not to wake him up but being with him until the episode passed. Vicky has learned how to deal with them, though she normally asks Ches for advice with it cuz she comes out short sometimes.

He has PTSD. I bet it's diagnosed too, he takes medication and goes to therapy, it doesn't mean he still doesn't have his bad days anyway. He's trying to get better.

Glam has talked to Vicky about his past, his father and his family. This is a direct contradiction of Alina's confirmation that Glam doesn't talk about it with anyone but man FUCK THAT. We love good communication in this house, Vicky tries her best to help him, but there's only so much she can do to help.

Glam enjoys gardening, cooking and making models, he also likes doing his make up, painting his nails and dressing up in fancy, extravagant clothes even if he has nowhere important to go.

He likes taking care of everyone's hair, and constantly helps Vicky brush her hair cuz there's so much of it, Dee when he gets stressed over how tangled it can get, buys Ches hair products so he actually takes care of it, and chases Heavy so the kid actually washes, untangles and brushes his hair.

This one is kind of weird, but I refuse to think any adult in the family is unarmed at any time. Glam owns a taser and pepper spray. They're bright pink and sparkly.

This man cried his eyes out while watching Coco. He's hell to watch movies with cuz he talks and predicts what's gonna happen during the movie, judges them with scores at the end and all.

Vicky

Also bisexual!

Vicky's the one who does everyone's laundry most of the time. She prefers it that way since she's the only one that knows how to wash their black clothes so the colors stay vibrant. (This is based on my gf shaming everyone but Vicky cuz their black clothes always look so muted and almost gray, but Vicky's whole outfit is always the same vibrant black colors, so we decided that neither Glam or the kids know how to wash dark clothes)

She has anger issues, if it isn't obvious. I think she also has PTSD, mainly survivor's guilt due to her surviving the accident her brother died in. She blames herself and cannot bear to talk about it, in some sort of deep denial. If she can't remember, it can't hurt as much, right?

She has scars on the right side of her back and her hip, from the road rash she got on her brother's accident, she never treated it due to grief and it scarred badly. Apart from that, the scar of the caesarean section from Heavy's birth. She doesn't really mind both of them, they happened, nothing to do about them.

She likes watching boxing competitions, brawling matches and motorcycle repairing on TV. Loves doing BBQ's and going to the pool. Also an enjoyer of teasing her kids, kissing and loving her husband at random times, spending time drinking and bonding with Ches and bragging about her family and punching anyone who thinks they're not that cool.

Not particularly a fan of make up, skirts and dresses or any traditionally femenine-perceived stuff. But has been making exceptions due to Glam and Ches being unashamed of being seen as femenine, and actually rocking the looks. The internalized misogyny is kind of slowly dissapearing.

Apart from the guns she carries in each arm (I mean her biceps, have you looked at the size of those?? She strong) she has brass knuckles on her at all times. Glam gifts her new ones sometimes, she loves having multiple choices to punch people teeth in.

Loves horror, thrillers and action movies. Falls asleep during rom-coms and dramas. Ironically, loves gossip and talking shit about people. Enjoys hearing Ches talks about the gossip going on in the nursery home even if she doesn't know who the hell he's talking about.

Rest of the family under the cut!

Heavy

Heavy is a trans boy! He doesn't know his sexuality yet though, he's still figuring himself out. When he's older, i think he definitely dated some men but had better luck with girls.

Heavy has had innocent crushes on some girls on his class before, but they never turn into anything more cuz he's not the best at expressing himself. He follows the bother-the-girl-to-death-until-she-hates-you gimmick, and unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

I'm sorry to break this to u but Heavy totally had an among us phase, and uses so much reddit and twitch slang... You know he does.

Likes bullying and teasing his brother to death. You know that when Dee had his first romance, Heavy was ALL up in his business being a tease and a bad attempt at a wingman. He means well tho.

He's not squeamish at all. Also has great pain resistance. This kid has picked cockroaches with his bare hands and loves cats, of course the cats have scratched him. He's tough!

Grows up to be the charming himbo he was always destined to be.

Dee

I hc him as demisexual. Kind of inherited his dad's tastes for the takes no crap, intimidating but pretty kind of people.

Can't cook. He tries but he can only do basics like rice, cereal, chicken nuggets or eggs. Complicated meals always burn or don't taste like anything at all. It drives him crazy.

Dee was a quiet and very well behaved toddler before Heavy was born. He never threw tantrums or got whims. After Heavy was born though, and despite the fact he understood his brother was small and needed special care, he started craving attention often and cried and got mad at little things. Typical jealousy of the oldest sibling.

The first time Dee fell in love with someone, he didn't recognize it was love at first. He just thought his interest on the person was born out of curiosity and aesthetic attraction, but as soon as he realized he seeked validation and companionship, that he liked seeing them smile, that he wanted to protect them, that he yearned for more time alone with them and that he wanted more than what just a simple friendship implied, it was an instant 'oh hell no'. He wanted those feelings to get the hell away, but unfortunately, they were there to stay.

Canonically likes MLP, psychological and horror anime like Death note and Hellsing, so I'm deciding he also watched Death Parade, had a FNAF phase, is very into The Walten Files. This guy enjoys any kind of specially dark ARG's and knows a ton of lore of real crime, unsolved cases, ghost appearances and other stuff. Doesn't believe in the supernatural, but sure is entertained by it.

He's a mess at romance. Flirting? His attempts at compliments are hardly flattering. Giving gifts? The best he can manage is jewelry and you can kind of tell he asked his dad for help. Dates? He's so nervous he's silent for most of it, but begins getting comfortable and having fun if his partner really knows how to get him down from his negativity cloud.

Ches

Pansexual.

He's very good with kids. He has the patience of a saint and he's laid-back, chill and fun but still is an authority figure who knows how to put limits. Sure, he's gonna let the kids light up a house on fire BUT hey, now they know everything about fire precautions, burns and how to treat them AND how to get away with arson. What an educational evening, am I right?

Due to certain info from the "Goodbye" official comic, I headcanon Ches as depressed. I don't want to elaborate a lot 'cuz of spoilers, but... God, everything related to his mom fucking hurts, man. How did he deal with all that?

Ches has been Dee and Heavy's babysitter so many times he cannot count them with all his fingers. He learned how to put those kids to sleep almost immediately (Sing Bon Jovi's "This ain't a love song" and any cheesy love song in a slow lullaby style and they're out), which movie were their favorite as kids (Heavy loved 'Monsters Inc.' and Dee never looked away during 'Meet the Robinsons'), how to console them after nightmares (Heavy needed reassurance, sweet words, and to be with someone until he fell asleep again. Dee just had to be tucked in, get his nightlight turned on and kissed in the forehead). He practically raised those kids along with Vicky and Glam.

More than once, Dee and Heavy have slipped and called Ches "Dad". Ches immediately gets his shit eating grin on and answers "Yes, son?" and does a couple of dad jokes just to mess and embarrass them. He's actually very flattered and surprised at how proud of himself he is for being a father figure to both kids.

Has a scar on the left side of his forehead due to a bottle his mom threw at him when he was younger, around the time he met Glam. He hates the scar with passion, it's a permanent reminder of the fact she never cared, that's why he always keeps it covered with his headband. Gets sad about it sometimes.

Ches likes to spend his time with a group of grannies of the nearby nursing home. He genuinely considers them his friends and gossips and hangs out with all of them on weekends. Bingo, billiards, walks in the park, soap opera marathons, you name it. I even designed them, gave them names and backstories... God, i just love the concept too much. I'll make some art about Ches and his granny gang FOR SURE, you're NOT ready for them.

Carries a pocket knife on him at all times. This man grew up on a bad neighborhood and absolutely knows how to defend himself, he can be intimidating when he wants to be and will pose a threat if needed. He's fucking terrifying when genuinely mad. Just cause he looks harmless doesn't mean he is, darling.

That would be all!

#metal family #glam metal family #ches metal family #victoria metal family #chess metal family #dee metal family #heavy metal family #metal family glam #metal family victoria #metal family dee #metalfamily #metal family heavy

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drasin · 2 years ago

Text

Welcome to the BlaCage Week July 2022!

I made this to help myself get back to writing in a more enjoyable way. But I also invite anyone interested and willing to participate!

Any form of fanwork will be accepted: fanfiction, fanart, video edits, moodboards, etc.

To make it easier to find all the works, tag each one with #blacageweek2022 Also feel free to tag me (@drasin), if you want me to reblog your post!

I would love to see more works with that ship done by you!

Rules & dictionary are listed under the cut:

Rules:

There are no requirements for length, size, etc. of the work.

Each day there is one main lead trope as well as three prompts to choose from. You can use just one prompt, or all three for any given day!

The work cannot be old, it must be new created for this week.

No need to sign up. Just use the tags and tag me if you want your work to be reblogged!

At the beginning, mark what day it is, what main trope it has and what prompts you have chosen.

You can participate as much or as little as you want/can; you do not have to make a work for every day or prompt.

If necessary, use page breaks to shorten long works/posts

Tag all NSFW works as such, and keep NSFW content below a page break

Any work that is not properly tagged in terms of NSFW or potentially triggering content, will not be reblogged, until the tags and/or warnings are added

If your work is not reblogged within 48 hours, please DM me and let me know (we all know how Tumblr tags can be)

Have fun!

Dictionary:

(If you don't know the meaning of a particular trope/prompt. Of course there are many approaches and solutions, this is just a general explanation to know where to go.)

Trope meaning:

Slice Of Life: A cast of characters go about their daily lives, making observations and being themselves.

First Time: Cause characters to experience something they have never experienced before (ever or with a particular person) such as first: kiss, date, feeling something, doing something ect.

Angst: That is dark and depressing, often in which characters suffer from lost, not being able to be together or unrequited love.

Hurt Comfort: One character being sick/injured/generally worried about something, and someone else taking care of them and helping them; could also be an argument, etc. Generally have a happy ending.

Fluff: A lot of light-hearted, wholesome, or even heartwarming interactions going on.

In Vino Veritas: Confessions under the influence of drink, drugs, truth serum, truth spell or the like. One character confesses to something for another character.

Meet Cute: Two people who will form a future romantic couple meet for the first time, typically under unusual, humorous, or cute circumstances.

Meet Ugly: The logical opposite of meet cute, where they meet for the first time, accompanied by problems, misunderstandings and an initial dislike of each other.

Alternative Universe: is a setting for a work that departs from the canon of the fictional universe that the fan work is based on e.g: (fantsy AU, crime AU, Modern AU, Coffee Shop AU... ect.)

Prompts meaning:

workplace - We focus our attention on what is happening in the place where our characters work. This may simply relate to the setting of our story or it may relate to the relationship the characters have with each other in that particular environment and how that affects them and the reactions of their co-workers.

age gap - Where one character in a ship is much younger than the other. So we pay attention to what comes with it and how big deal it is for them.

holiday - We choose any holiday and put our characters there. Will they spend it together? Will it mean anything to them? Does something important happen then?

angry kiss - That furious kiss that happens when two people who are utterly pissed at each other and arguing grab each other and kiss sloppily, intensely and a little bit aggressively.

benefits - When the two characters make some kind of deal with each other or spend time together for mutual benefits. Also friends/enemies with benefits overly sexual. It can also be just one side taking advantage of the other without the other side knowing, or simply getting benefits involuntarily.

lost bet - One character loses a pre-arranged bet and faces the consequences of his failure.

amnesia - One or more characters lose their memory. Generally, the plot will then be formed around the repercussions - how the character deals with it, how characters around them deal with it, the quest to retrieve the lost memories, or coming to terms with the loss.

holding hands - A simple physical activity at which we focus on how they do it, under what circumstances, whether they do it willingly or perhaps ashamed, and how others react to it.

being carried - Whether on their arms or the piggyback. How did they happen to be doing this and how they feel about it.

bed sharing - Two characters one bed. Is this the bedroom of one of them? Or maybe a hotel? They wanted to be together or it's a mistake, are they forced? That and everything in between.

time loop - One or more characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition.

miscommunication - When a misunderstanding between characters plays a big part in the plot. Creates problems, or even the opposite.

fake dating - When two people act like they're in a relationship for social gain or because of a situation that forced them into it. The main purpose is to throw the characters together in extended proximity and then explore the hidden, or not so hidden, feelings that develop.

jealousy - angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has ora a sad feeling caused by the belief that someone you love likes or is liked by someone else

trapped together - Two characters are stuck together for an extended period of time, and romance blooms. It could be some place like a room or a tight closet or a situation that forces them to stay together.

injury - Someone is injured, it could be serious or harmless. What is important is how the other person reacts to it, whether they worried, if they helped. Or even whether they're the cause of it, by accident or not.

blind date - A set date between two people who have never met before. Usually, however, it comes out that they know each other, so the focus is on how they will react and whether they are willing to continue it.

undercover - Working in secret, using false identity and disguise to gain access to information.

If you have any other question feel free to DM me!

#blacage #erron black #johnny cage #fanfic week #prompts list #trope list #ship week #blacageweek2022 #prompts #mortal kombat 11 #mk11 #erron black x johnny cage #july 2022 #fic and art

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harmonic-psyche · 2 years ago

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Yeah, so-called "overpopulation" is a BS eugenicist/social-Darwinist talking point. We have enough food to feed everyone. 30% of the food we produce is thrown away. The problem is not production, but distribution. Most environmental damage, meanwhile, comes from a fraction of the population: "The top 10% richest people in the world account for nearly half of lifestyle consumption [carbon] emissions," and that's before we start narrowing down the handful of corporations doing most of the damage.

Toxic positivity has consistently provoked a disproportionately angry response from me ever since my parents acted like it would cure my depression. By "toxic positivity" I mean gaslighting unhappy people by telling them to pretend to be happy and then trying to convince them that their pretended happiness is happiness, or is at least equally valuable. (This is one reason I've consistently criticized the "faking a smile will make you happier!" narrative that failed to replicate.)

I would stay miles away from anyone who thinks that because we should help suffering people who want relief, we should therefore eliminate people who suffer. That's exactly like deciding to eliminate homelessness by killing all homeless people, or eliminate poverty by killing all poor people. It comically misses the point.

I talk more about ethics and suffering after the break. TL;DR We should try to help everyone enjoy the lives they want, and I argue that includes nonhumans.

Ethical systems that exclusively say to eliminate suffering have the exact problem @headspace-hotel described. It's one of my favorite absurd philosophy thought experiments, "the Benevolent World-Exploder": if ethics is just eliminating suffering, and a button would immediately delete everything in the universe, then we should push it! But we shouldn't.

By "suffering" I typically mean either physical pain, unpleasant moods, experiences that a given person wants to avoid, or some combination of the three.

Ethics should prioritize helping everyone enjoy the kind of life they want. Most people want a life with some pain in it. After all, people born unable to feel pain typically struggle to avoid injuries. But I bet that any of us can name a time when we felt pain that didn't help us even in hindsight. And I doubt that any of us want doctors to all hang up their coats and stop trying to relieve patients' pain or its unwanted causes.

Sometimes unhappiness is valuable and good/helpful. Examples include anger at social injustice, fear of real dangers, and acute grief for lost loved ones. But a lot of the unhappiness experienced is not. Usually, if someone is unhappy, compassionate people rightly want to help them feel happier. Arguably, that's what caring for someone means: wishing well on them, wishing them a happy life.

Compassion drives people to help each other relieve unwanted suffering and find happiness. I want to extend that compassion to nonhumans. All I mean is that we should try to help every creature have an enjoyable life free from needless pain. Right now, though...

What should we do, kill all of the predators and parasites? I doubt it. That would just cause more suffering. But I hope that someday we can guide the currently-suffering biosphere into a kinder future.

If humans suddenly vanished tomorrow, flesh-eating screwworms would still infest deer, slowly eating them alive from the inside. Lions would still hunt gazelles and violently wrench the meat from their still-moving bodies...even if humans did nothing at all, the wild world would be full of brutality and suffering.

This is an understanding many naturalists have come to before. “There seems to me too much misery in the world,” Charles Darwin wrote in a letter to Harvard botanist Asa Gray in 1860...“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”

The example of the Ichneumonidæ is instructive. A kind of parasitic wasp, the Ichneumonidæ spreads by female wasps planting their eggs in cocooning caterpillars. The larval wasps bide their time, nibbling at their host. Then, entomologists David Wahl and Ian Gauld have explained, “When the caterpillar is almost fully-grown, the ichneumonid consumes its insides entirely and breaks free from the caterpillar skin, subsequently spinning a cocoon under or next to the host larval remains.

This kind of cruelty is more the rule than the exception in nature.”

The quote above comes from an excellent Vox article summarizing the case for trying to help suffering wild animals live happier lives:

"The wild animal suffering movement wants nothing less than for humankind to totally reconceptualize its relationship with the natural world and fellow members of the Kingdom Animalia. It envisions a decades-long moral awakening that takes us from feeling sympathy and resignation when the baby chicks of March of Penguins starve to death, to feeling outrage...

Graham doesn’t like it when I suggest that her group’s focus on improving the lives of wild animals is counterintuitive, or strikes most people as outlandish. Normal people like to help animals in the wild, she notes."

Personally as someone who experiences much more daily suffering than the average person I am deeply uncomfortable with the mere idea of "eliminating suffering" because it treats "positive" experiences like love and joy and happiness as more meaningful. In my experience this is done pretty much exclusively to the detriment of people like me.

Because by acting like suffering inherently decreases the value of someone's life you are implying that lives like mine aren't worth living. And maybe it's just me but I take offense to that! Sure my life isn't perfect and there are a lot of things I wish I didnt have to deal with but this life is mine and I'll be damned if I let other people tell me it's not good enough!

Humans weren't designed to exclusively experience pleasant things. Suffering is part of being alive! And I would not trade that for anything!

Ultimately its a facet of toxic positivity, and it makes me very very nervous. Because the people who are suffering the most always seem to be the ones thrown to the wayside for fancy little hypothetical "innovations" like this. Getting rid of suffering is quite likely impossible but that doesn't mean the people backing the idea won't just put on some horse blinders and pretend they don't see the people who would prove it didn't work.

I was about 12 years old the first time somebody told me I was too depressed to be around and it was catastrophic for my mental health. I just don't think that applying that on a worldwide scale is exactly revolutionary ya know?

The ultimate manifestation of this idea is in anti-natalism (people who think it's actively bad and wrong to have children) and people who believe in this idea are often actively pro-eugenics and just...anti-human.

"eliminate suffering" inevitably ends up at calling for extinction of all life, or at least extinction of human life, and there are people out there who think we should go extinct!...and I think we need to be firmer about calling this extremist and harmful, instead of treating it as a philosophical position to be considered seriously

like, even if voluntary human extinction just involved humans choosing not to reproduce, it's still going to fuck you up to go around looking at other humans and believing that it's bad that they're alive. yes, "existence is bad" I guess is one of the basic possible options to come to when asking questions about life and meaning, and I see how people start feeling like there is a "pro-natalist agenda" or some shit because it's something we don't really talk about.

but...believing that a universal genocide would be a good thing isn't that different from believing a genocide of one specific group would be a good thing.

And "no one should reproduce" is not really any better than "everyone should reproduce," because both violate the basic principle that other people reproducing is none of your damn business.

I am generally really uncomfortable with how so many environmentalism and climate change mitigation proposals focus on human population growth as a main cause of climate change.

There's no real evidential basis for the numbers that get cited as the ideal population for Earth, like supposedly 2-4 billion is the max the Earth can support if everyone lives a "comfortable middle class lifestyle"—What The Fuck Does That Mean? Where does it come from? Is it something we actually need or want? The vast majority of humans on Earth aren't living a "middle class lifestyle."

I want to see breakdowns of complex simulations explaining how much biomass the Earth can actually support, instead of arbitrary bullshit like that.

But from everything I've read, producing enough food for the world population is not even remotely a problem. Capitalism is the problem. Huge companies controlling the food supply and keeping the countries that produce food in poverty is the problem. Technological solutions are important but they will not fix the current problems, just like Eli Whitney's cotton gin didn't eliminate slavery.

Everyone assumes that the system is working as efficiently as it possibly can to meet the material needs of people, and that is so terribly wrong.

Anyway much of that was off topic but yeah, I'm not a fan of this line of thought and where it leads

#psychology #emotions #happiness #suffering #pain #animal psychology #animal rights #animal welfare #philosophy #ethics #original content #long post #queue

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gffa · 3 years ago

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Do you think one could follow the Jedi Code/Lifestyle in real life as a positive manner of living or do you think it only works in Star Wars? I asked this on r/Mawinstallation and the answers I got were either:

''The Jedi code is oppressive so no'' ( this was the most upvoted answer )

''The Jedi code works but only for the Jedi''

''The Jedi code requires the force to work and since the force doesn't exist in the real world, the code cannot work''

And finally, I got only a single reply that said

''Yes, the Jedi code does work in real life, that's the entire point of Star Wars''.

What is your take on this?

This is going to be sort of a long, roundabout answer, but the short version is: In the finer details, we're not space psychics, but as a general idea? Yes. First of all, what even IS the Jedi Code? Are we talking about the whole “there is no emotion, there is peace”/”emotion, yet peace” meditation mantra, which we should point out is nowhere in the movies or TV shows, but is entirely in the novels and comics supplementary material? Are we talking about a more generalized idea of Jedi philosophy? And what, precisely, does that mean? I mean, what’s oppressive about it and what scene evidences that that’s what the Jedi taught? Second, there are two talks that George Lucas gave that I think really illustrate this view of emotional navigation and how that impacts Star Wars and the Force: There’s the writers meeting of The Clone Wars where he talks about the light side and the dark side and there’s an Academy of Achievement Speech from 2013 where he talks about joy vs pleasure: “Happiness is pleasure and happiness is joy. It can be either one, you add them up and it can be the uber category of happiness. “Pleasure is short lived. It lasts an hour, it lasts a minute, it lasts a month. It peaks and then it goes down–it peaks very high, but the next time you want to get that same peak you have to do it twice as much. It’s like drugs, you have to keep doing it because it insulates itself. No matter what it is, whether you’re shopping or you’re engaged in any other kind of pleasure. It all has the same quality about it. “On the other hand is joy and joy is the thing that doesn’t go as high as pleasure, in terms of your emotional reaction. But it stays with you. Joy is something you can recall, pleasure you can’t. So the secret is that, even though it’s not as intense as pleasure, the joy will last you a lot longer. “People who get the pleasure they keep saying, ‘Well, if I can just get richer and get more cars–!’ You’ll never relive the moment you got your first car, that’s it, that’s the highest peak. Yes, you could get three Ferraris and a new gulf stream jet and maybe you’ll get close. But you have to keep going and eventually you’ll run out. You just can’t do it, it doesn’t work. “If you’re trying to sustain that level of peak pleasure, you’re doomed. It’s a very American idea, but it just can’t happen. You just let it go. Peak. Break. Pleasure is fun it’s great, but you can’t keep it going forever. “Just accept the fact that it’s here and it’s gone, and maybe again it’ll come back and you’ll get to do it again. Joy lasts forever. Pleasure is purely self-centered. It’s all about your pleasure, it’s about you. It’s a selfish self-centered emotion, that’s created by self-centered motive of greed. “Joy is compassion, joy is giving yourself to somebody else or something else. And it’s the kind of thing that is in it’s subtlty and lowness more powerful than pleasure. If you get hung up on pleasure you’re doomed. If you pursue joy you will find everlasting happiness.” –George Lucas And how I like to compare that to The Hijacking of the American Mind by Robert Lustig, MD, MSL, which is a book about how corporations have hijacked our pleasure centers to make us focused on reward over pleasure. It talks about the exact same concepts, with only slight word adjustments, but otherwise might as well be verbatim: “At this point it’s essential to define and clarify what I mean by these two words—pleasure and happiness—which can mean different things to different people. “Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “pleasure” as “enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one’s liking”; or “gratification”; or “reward.” While “pleasure” has a multitude of synonyms, it is this phenomenon of reward that we will explore, as scientists have elaborated a specific “reward pathway” in the brain, and we now understand the neuroscience of its regulation. Conversely, “happiness” is defined as “the quality or state of being happy”; or “joy”; or “contentment.” While there are many synonyms for “happiness,” it is the phenomenon that Aristotle originally referred to as eudemonia, or the internal experience of contentment, that we will parse in this book. Contentment is the lowest baseline level of happiness, the state in which it’s not necessary to seek more. In the movie Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), middle-aged married couple Beatrice Arthur and Richard Castellano were asked the question “Are you happy?”—to which they responded, “Happy? Who’s happy? We’re content.” Scientists now understand that there is a specific “contentment pathway” that is completely separate from the pleasure or reward pathway in the brain and under completely different regulation. Pleasure (reward) is the emotional state where your brain says, This feels good—I want more, while happiness (contentment) is the emotional state where your brain says, This feels good—I don’t want or need any more. “Reward and contentment are both positive emotions, highly valued by humans, and both reasons for initiative and personal betterment. It’s hard to be happy if you derive no pleasure for your efforts—but this is exactly what is seen in the various forms of addiction. Conversely, if you are perennially discontent, as is so often seen in patients with clinical depression, you may lose the impetus to better your social position in life, and it’s virtually impossible to derive reward for your efforts. Reward and contentment rely on the presence of the other. Nonetheless, they are decidedly different phenomena. Yet both have been slowly and mysteriously vanishing from our global ethos as the prevalence of addiction and depression continues to climb. “Drumroll … without further ado, behold the seven differences between reward and contentment: Reward is short-lived (about an hour, like a good meal). Get it, experience it, and get over it. Why do you think you can’t remember what you ate for dinner yesterday? Conversely, contentment lasts much longer (weeks to months to years). It’s what happens when you have a working marriage or watch your teenager graduate from high school. And if you experience contentment from a sense of achievement or purpose, the chances are that you will feel it for a long time to come, perhaps even the rest of your life.Reward is visceral in terms of excitement (e.g., a casino, a football game, or a strip club). It activates the body’s fight-or-flight system, which causes blood pressure and heart rate to go up. Conversely, contentment is ethereal and calming (e.g., listening to soothing music or watching the waves of the ocean). It makes your heart rate slow and your blood pressure decline. - “ Reward can be achieved with different substances (e.g., heroin, nicotine, cocaine, caffeine, alcohol, and of course sugar). Each stimulates the reward center of the brain. Some are legal, some are not. Conversely, contentment is not achievable with substance use. Rather, contentment is usually achieved with deeds (like graduating from college or having a child who can navigate his or her own path in life). - “Reward occurs with the process of taking (like from a casino). Gambling is definitely a high: when you win, it is fundamentally rewarding, both viscerally and economically. But go back to the same table the next day. Maybe you’ll feel a jolt of excitement to try again. But there’s no glow, no lasting feeling from the night before. Or go buy a nice dress at Macy’s. Then try it on again a month later. Does it generate the same enthusiasm? Conversely, contentment is often generated through giving (like giving money to a charity, or giving your time to your child, or devoting time and energy to a worthwhile project). - Reward is yours and yours alone. Your sense of reward does not immediately impact anyone else. Conversely, your contentment, or lack of it, often impacts other people directly and can impact society at large. Those who are extremely unhappy (the Columbine shooters) can take their unhappiness out on others. It should be said at this point that pleasure and happiness are by no means mutually exclusive. A dinner at the Bay Area Michelin three-star restaurant the French Laundry can likely generate simultaneous pleasure for you from the stellar food and wine but can also generate contentment from the shared experience with spouse, family, or friends, and then possibly a bit of unhappiness when the bill arrives. - Reward when unchecked can lead us into misery, like addiction. Too much substance use (food, drugs, nicotine, alcohol) or compulsive behaviors (gambling, shopping, surfing the internet, sex) will overload the reward pathway and lead not just to dejection, destitution, and disease but not uncommonly death as well. Conversely, walking in the woods or playing with your grandchildren or pets (as long as you don’t have to clean up after them) could bring contentment and keep you from being miserable in the first place. - Last and most important, reward is driven by dopamine, and contentment by serotonin. Each is a neurotransmitter—a biochemical manufactured in the brain that drives feelings and emotions—but the two couldn’t be more different. Although dopamine and serotonin drive separate brain processes, it is where they overlap and how they influence each other that generates the action in this story. Two separate chemicals, two separate brain pathways, two separate regulatory schemes, and two separate physiological and psychological outcomes. How and where these two chemicals work, and how they work either in concert or in opposition to each other, is the holy grail in the ultimate quest for both pleasure and happiness.” – Robert Lustig, MD, MSL And then lets add in what Dave Filoni has said about the Force and the core themes of Star Wars: "In the end, it’s about fundamentally becoming selfless moreso than selfish. It seems so simple, but it’s so hard to do. And when you’re tempted by the dark side, you don’t overcome it once in life and then you’re good. It’s a constant. And that’s what, really, Star Wars is about and what I think George wanted people to know. That to be a good person and to really feel better about your life and experience life fully you have to let go of everything you fear to lose. Because then you can’t be controlled. “But when you fear, fear is the path to the dark side, it’s also the shadow of greed, because greed makes you covet things, greed makes you surround yourself with all these things that make you feel comfortable in the moment, but they don’t really make you happy. And then, when you’re afraid of something, it makes you angry, when you get angry, you start to hate something, sometimes you don’t even know why. When you hate, do you often know why you hate? No, you direct it at things and then you hate it. And it’s hard because anger can be a strength at times, but you can’t use it in such a selfish way, it can be a destroyer then. “These are the core things of Star Wars.“ –Dave Filoni So, the core things of Star Wars and the Jedi teachings (because Jedi teachings are basically almost word for word how GL described how the Force works) can very much be a reflection of real world teachings and ways to live by, because all of the above are about how GL viewed the world and what he wanted to put into his movies. Further, Jedi teachings are basically just reworded Buddhism + Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. And both of those are very livable by our real world standards, if you so choose. GL was very much about how SW had themes that were meant to be picked up on by the audience and even DF has said this: “ Jedi have the ability to turn the tide, to make a significant moment, to give hope where there’s none. That’s their ultimate role to play, to be this example of selflessness. And that’s what makes them a hero, when no one else can match that heroic thing. And then our job is to emulate that, to use that example, and further our own lives.” --Dave Filoni Ultimately, the Jedi are specifically focused on disciplining themselves (which GL has said is the only way to overcome the dark side, in that TCW writers’ meeting), probably to a degree most of us wouldn’t have the room to devote to, but that doesn’t mean that the broader strokes aren’t meant to be applicable to our lives or don’t echo real world teachings.

#jedi order #meta #long post

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starshipsofstarlord · 4 years ago

Text

All This Hassle, and What For?

Pairing | Loki Laufeyson x reader

Summary | getting taken hostage, along with Loki, is far more amusing than ever intended to be, despite it leaving your captors anything but impressed.

Warnings | kidnapping, mentions of depression, swearing, implied smut, innuendos

Based off this tiktok. All original rights to the plot go back to the creator.

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

Opening your aching eyes, you found yourself to be in a large room, there were plenty of feet stood at your eye level, and such a sight made you frown. You certainly didn’t remember being knocked out, but who would, the exposure to unconsciousness was most likely sudden.

But nevertheless, you raised your head, glaring up at those whom had captured you. As your eyes scoured the room, your eyes landed promptly on the god of mischief, who had his hands bound and shackled in chains, and by Odin, did he look good.

However, your attraction the man who once reigned terror down upon New York wasn’t the focus now, and so you licked your lips, and kicked the nearest guard in the leg. He stumbled, the noise loud enough to draw the attention of all others, and you were pleased to stifle a laugh. Loki frowned at your behaviour, knowing that this was not the way that you were trained to be an avenger, but it was clear that you were no longer on earth, so human pleasantries did not apply here.

“And by the gods, who in the galactic council’s name do you think you are?” The closest asked, wrapping his large hand through your hair, and tugging your face up to stare up at him, wanting you to be treated as the lesser being he thought you as.

“Actually, he’s the god.” Tilting your head, you diverted it towards Loki, who squinted feebly at your answer. “But I think you already knew that, since you have him rattled in metal. Just a word of advice, rumour has it that he likes to be restrained in such ways; really, you’re doing him a favour, and you may just earn yourself a big tip.”

You sent a wink up at the commander, watching with inward joy as he grimaced at your development within your speech. “Quite a nice sight, to see him so vulnerable and at someone’s mercy, so thank you general.”

Sending him a smile, he huffed, whilst Loki tried his darnedest to contain an amused grin. It wouldn’t be the first occasion that you had made suggestions regarding the new troop of the avengers; even when he was around causing mischief, (which he still tended to do), there were always words said that gained the god’s intrigue.

Tony at the time, and to this day, despite him being a part of the heroic team, which Thor was ‘inclined’ to drag him into, thought nothing more than disgust at your meaningful jokes. In his words, ‘you two may as well screw so we don’t have to listen to anymore of this dirty banter, you in regards to reindeer games’.

How you wished right now, preached silently even, that Tony could bare to listen again, so that he could send in the team whom could deal with these aliens that were keeping your imprisoned. But all communications were cut, and that just left you and Loki.

By no means did you doubt if Loki got the chance to escape, he would leave you. It was in his nature to do so, but if you could pose a lack of threat, they may loosen up on their efficiency in guarding you. After all, Loki was the one they wanted, not you. And then, both of you could get away from this galactic nonsense.

“Humans.” The general huffed, causing you to grimace as the stench of his breath wafted through the air, and hit your nose. “You all think that you are so special, but when it comes down to it, those who are not from your planet do not care. Loki here, this god, does not care about you little one. And he never will.”

“That’s okay with me, because I don’t care about him either. It’d called self preservation.” You informed your captor, noticing Loki staring across at you with an icy gaze. Who were you kidding? Of course you cared about the god, but right now, you would do anything to get out of this predicament.

“Aw would you look at that.” The feet moved back towards the main reward of their capture, staring down at the green eyed trickster with mocking eyes. “This woman has attitude just like yours, if either of you cared, I’d call it a match made in Asgard.” A laugh bellowed from the wide chest of the being, finding his own comedy quite humorous.

“Excuse me, I’m way out of his league!” You pretended to be offended, bringing your hands that were free of restraint to your chest. They thought not to tie you down as they did to him, after all, you were nothing but a midguardian. That was their mistake. “What’d you want with old horse shagger over there anyways? Don’t be alarmed, but he actually does some kind of good now, even if it be out of his own self interest.”

A heavy sigh fell on deaf ears, as the protector of space glanced unsurely between the pair of you. “He has the tesseract, and I wish to take it from his slippery hands, he cannot be trusted with such a powerful source of energy.” His words bellowed a laugh of absolute surprise from your mouth, earning a frown from those keeping you hear, and a cock of the head from the god of mischief.

It was clear that not only was he confused by your supple, yet somewhat pleasant burst of amusement, but he was also in the dark about what in the Hela this predominant being was speaking of. Yes, he had had the tesseract at one point , however, no longer was it in his untrustworthy grasp.

Thanos had taken ownership over it, after killing many of the people that he had saved from the events of Ragnarok. It was not just some energy source, it had been an infinity stone all along, tricking the eyes of elders and the young to believe that it was nothing more than a harbouring of power. But it had indeed been the space stone, and it was taken from him, in exchange for saving Thor’s life.

The Guardians of the Galaxy had found the pair of them upon the aftermath of the wreckage, taking them in, amongst plans of taking Thanos down. It had been a failure, up until the avengers went back in time, going to their past that would not affect their future, so that they could reverse the affects the Titan had brought upon earth and everywhere else.

During that time, Loki had nurtured his brother, watching as he fell apart with the responsibility of their people, and collapsed into a spiral of depression. You had also been there for Thor, doing your best to take the drink away from the bulky god, but to no avail did you manage to succeed. And so, during those tormenting five years, you and Loki would sit side by side, both basking silently in your failures.

“I thought you guys’d know everything, but I guess that you and your highness are stuck in one time line; all of them. But for us humans and every lesser being, there are multiple, and that Loki that stole the tesseract, yet I say again, is one much different. And we are on the search for him, to stop his disruption and crossing over of the times!” An exonerated, and audible exhale of air left you after your little speech.

Loki smirked, at the premise of you protecting him with the admission of the truth. But he couldn’t help but feel a feeling of warmth flutter within his immortal insides, it was rather a nice feeling he realised. “He is quite difficult to catch, we have been tracking him since the time heist went sideways.”

“That’s because he’s you!” You pointedly exclaimed, unable to pin some of the blame upon the god himself. Sure, in recent times he had changed, and was much different from back when he wanted all mortals to kneel before him (which you’d willingly do if it ever came to that, though you’d never tell him under which circumstances that would be), but at the end of the day, that had been him once!

The tricks and the lies still remained, but he had found a reason to thrive, and a long and enduring career that he was well at tackling. Often, he made out being an avenger, despite the government’s rouse of concern, to be a bore, and that he had far better things to do. But he stayed, with a light in his eyes, and continued following along with the heroic traditions, breaking a few rules here and there.

“Dear, why do you always have to put the blame upon me? I was not the one who decided to put that green dye within your shampoo, but I’ll have to admit, did you look so enrapturing.” He was running a ploy, dragging out the time that you spent bantering in hopes of something happening.

Unlike Heimdall, he did not have foresight, but it was a requirement whilst the pair of you were on your expediting mission, that you check in with the base, via the comms that had cracked under brutal feet. And so, he spoke, with the promise that you’d return the conversation and leave all others in the room confused with your meaningless discussion.

“I did, didn’t I?” You asked, to which he hummed in reply, lightly nodding his head, as his feline eyes ran up your body, paying ample attention to how your limbs were free, unlike his own. “But I’d say fine sir, that the blame is down to Clint, and if I’m correct, may we kick his ass as soon as we get back home?”

“Of course we can my beloved-“ you froze at his choice of words, and it appears that he did too, suddenly realising his mistake. Gulping for a second he went to speak again, but the commander felt much inclined to but in, and stop the headache that was bubbling in his large head.

“Shut up; the pair of you!” His scolding made you feel as though you were in school over again, it was impossible not to drop your head down and try to contain your laughter. Loki too found such enjoyment in this predicament, sporting a cheshire grin to emit his emotions.

“I’m sorry, can you say that again? Maybe a just a tad louder?” You pinched your thumb and forefinger together to show how much, and it was clear that you were pissing this primal being off. He began towards you, and you were prepared to fight him, you were never one to back down, which was one feature upon the various reasons that Fury had initially recruited you.

Awaiting the first strike, you stood despite the others around you, your eyes wide open as you bravely stared up at your opponent. But before the fight could begin, a distant crash assumed preference in your ears, causing you to turn your head in the direction it had came from. And then, all of a sudden, a ship crashed through the dock, guns blazing from its side.

“What are you waiting for?” The distinct voice of Rocket asked, and obediently you ran through the terror, finding Loki already upon the ship, but then, he appeared behind you also. “Quill, get ready to go!”

Taking glances, you stared between the two practically identical copies, a light frown on your face. Both were restrained, yet the one that was seated beside Groot, whom was playing a game on some nineties device, was glaring up at the pair of you.

“An avenger, really?” The seated one laughed, mocking his once future self, as you felt the ship steer clear away from the scene. Your Loki quirked his brow, smirking at his self that had avoided the wars that he had chosen to fight upon earth.

“Yes, an avenger.” He responded, causing his other to languidly scoff. An ‘I am groot’ came from the tree, and it was uncertain in your spoken languages of what he had said, but either way, you were more intrigued by the conversation that was happening between the Loki’s. “And I’ll have you know, that she is infinitely more brave than you, you cower-some fool.”

“Oh, so we’re going there?” You asked, causing the pair to snap out of their mutual rivalry, and stare haphazardly at you. “No, don’t mind me, feel free to continue.”

“We’re not going to be unable to unbind your until we reach earth.” Gamora cut in, speaking to the Loki that you knew to be the original.

“That’s fine.” He nodded humbly, before casting his attention back at his alternate reflection. “And this woman, is not only an avenger. She was there for your brother when you were not.”

“Aw.” The other Loki smirked, almost cruelly. “So she’s your beloved?” He remarked rudely, and it seemed to break something within Loki, him wishing not to listen to the other version of himself. He decided he did not like him, and understand how you must have felt upon your initial meeting.

“Yes.” You went to speak, but instead, Loki stood before you, powerlessly pulling your face to his own, and colliding his lips upon yours. On impulse, you ravenously replied with much affection, clasping his jaw and allowing him entrance into your mouth. It earned a disgusted groan out of the Loki that had caused all this hassle.

“I hate to interrupt...” Rocket returned, after putting his gun down and having gone to the front of the ship with Quill, so that he could contact Stark. “But these may get those off.” He held a pair of golden pliers, that were far larger than his body. At the sight , you pulled away from Loki’s face for a moment, raising a brow.

“It’s fine, I think I want to keep them on.” You smirked, earning another sound of disapproval from Loki’s identical rival, pulling him back to your face. Wildly, he hummed into the cavern of your mouth, as the pair of you stumbled around on the spaceship.

“Bedrooms are down the hall to the right.” Nebula informed you, her voice monotone, and in turn, you dragged the god towards said direction, finally releasing all the tension that had been pent up through the years.

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@nickkie1129

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trashy28 · 4 years ago

Text

Get Some Rest (Tech x Reader) Pt 2

Warnings: anxiety, angst-y ?, mentions of death/near-death experiences, blood/gore, mentions of violence, fluff at the end i promise (i would say im sorry, but im not) (bet you didn't expect this right after a fluffy first part >:))

Pairing: Tech x GN!Reader

Word Count: 5.1k

Part 1, Part 2

Summary: Oh no! It's a mission gone wrong trope! I wonder what could possibly be underneath this keep-reading cutoff! It totally cannot be where the reader and the bad batch go on a rescue mission only for something to go awry leading to treating injuries, and feelings.

"Everything is going to be okay. It will be alright. You got this y/n, you got this." You mumbled to yourself under your breath as you hid behind a convenience stall on some Outer Rim planet.

Something had gone wrong, VERY wrong. The mission was supposed to be easy: get in, get the prisoners, and get out, but it had all gone downhill faster than you could say dank farrik.

Earlier in the day, Tech had tapped into a secure Separatist transmission when messing around with his datapad. The Separatists were broadcasting a signal from a supposed neutral Outer Rim planet back to their base only a system away. They had taken the native people as prisoners and were going to use them for something, but none of you could figure out what. From then on, Hunter had taken charge, deciding that there was no time to ask for approval on the mission.

When the five of you reached the planet, you couldn't help but whisper to Tech next to you, "None of this seems right. If the Separatists did take these people as prisoners wouldn't there still be ships and droids?"

Tech simply looked at you before saying, "Not if they wanted to be secretive about it," and going back to his datapad.

You let out a huff. Things hadn't been that different between you two after the kiss you shared in the cockpit of the Havoc Marauder. When in private there would be shared tender moments, like there was nothing in the world that could come between you two, but with his brothers, Tech would regard you as the friend they all viewed you to be. They all knew something was going on between you two, and you had even taken it upon yourself to rant to Crosshair one night. He said he 'reluctantly' chose to listen, but he had calmed your anxious babbling about how you thought that Tech was embarrassed that you two were something now. That brought up another fact about how you two never addressed what you could call yourselves. Any time you tried to bring it up to Tech he would either cut you off with something else he was wildly researching, or one of his brothers would walk in and need either one of you. Crosshair's words did help to remind you that "That's just how Tech is sometimes. Clones were made to be fighters, not lovers." Leave it to him to say something like that. Out of every one of his brothers you knew he was the one who wanted a normal life the most even if he didn't show it.

As you and the rest of the group began your walk from the Marauder to the closest town you found yourself falling into step next to Wrecker instead of your usual placement besides Tech. Looking down at you, he asks, "Something bothering you? It sure looks like something is,"

Looking up to make eye contact with him you say, "I still don't feel like this is right. Everything seems to be falling into place too easily. This never happens to us!"

Wrecker turns his attention back to the surroundings passing a glance over the open area before stating, "Honestly, it is a little odd, but I trust the others and their intuition as much as yours."

The finality in his tone stood true as neither of you said anything for the rest of the walk into the town square. Walking past the empty booths would have been enough to send normal civilians running at the sight, everything was ruined. Curtains torn, fruit on the floor, and vendor booths destroyed. It was a depressing sight to see, but sadly one that the group was used to, it was a time of war after all.

After a little longer of walking and reaching the heart of the city, Hunter holds his fist up and all of the groups' motion ceases. "Tech," he says, "Can you pick up anything else from that transmission or anything that could give us a clue as to what else happened here?"

"I'm working on it, have been since we landed. The Separatists have scrambled all signals, so it’s taking me a while to try and find the frequency again," Tech answers before looking around the surrounding area, "As for what happened here, I think the evidence speaks for itself."

Hunter sighs before saying, "Alright, we'll split into two groups to cover more ground. Tech, and Wrecker you're with me. Crosshair and y/n, I expect no arguments coming out of this grouping."

Crosshair scoffs as you roll your eyes and make your way to stand next to him. "Didn't plan for arguments but maybe I'll start a few just to piss you off now," you say as you turn back towards Hunter.

"Just make it back here in one piece, we'll meet back up here at 1500, and if anybody is late, we assume they have gone missing and this was a trap," Hunter says before turning away and starting to walk down one of the many deserted alleys.

"Looks like we're stuck together again Cross," you let out before elbowing his side and starting to walk forward.

Following you and shoving a toothpick in his mouth he says, "As long as you don't complain about your problems with your boyfriend the whole time this might just be enjoyable."

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get going you karking toothpick lover."

It had only been around half an hour or so of walking before you and Crosshair could hear blaster fire in the distance. You ask, "Hey Cross, am I dehydrated, or is that actual blaster fire?" Turning around to face the said man, he already had his eyepiece down checking for heat signatures and was pulling you by your arm into a space between two buildings.

"There's nothing around us, but I'm assuming the others encountered some clankers. They must have found something because well, we found nothing and have no one after us," Crosshair states before tilting his helmet down to you and reading your facial expressions, "You want to go back and help them, don't you?"

"Of course I do Crosshair! Don't pretend that you don't want to either, I know how you care for your brothers. Let's just try to make it back without alerting any of those damn droids," you reply.

Crosshair tilts his head towards a stack of boxes and towards the roof of the buildings, you were situated between. "I think I have an idea."

"Why the hell did I let you come up with the idea to get back to your brothers. Running from roof to roof isn't exactly easy and leaves us out in the open," you complain before hopping another gap in-between roofs to catch up with Crosshair.

Crosshair stops short in front of you on the next roof almost causing you to walk into him before turning around to face you, "Look, I'm just as anxious as you to get back to them, but they are all capable enough to take care of themselves and I trust them with that. You of all people should know that as well," he spits angrily, and could almost hear a growl with his final punctuation.

"I know Crosshair, I get that you are worried, but I just can't help thinking that something had to go wrong. Let's just hope that my intuition is the wrong thing," You say before putting a hand on his shoulder, "C'mon, let's make this fast."

By the time you had made it back to the town square, to your luck, you still had not encountered any droids except for the ones who were scattered all over the floor in pieces.

"Looks like Hunter got to work on these guys," you say as you bend down to touch the large gash left by a vibro-knife in the torso of a droid.

Crosshair is examining another droid with its head ripped off only a few meters from you, "Looks like Wrecker got these guys too. But the question remains: where are Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech?"

At this, you paused and drew your focus away from the droid and instead survey the area, "The real question is, why is there no evidence of Tech fighting back? There are no electro-proton bombshells and even no blaster marks on any of these guys."

"Maybe they split up," Crosshair looks at you before pointing down one of the alleys.

"Fuck, I hope you're right."

It didn't take both of you that long to find Hunter and Wrecker, but it also didn't take long for another set of droids to ambush you. That's how you found yourself pressed behind the convenience stall mumbling under your breath. You had managed to take down a few droids but were forced to take cover. The others were still scattered around picking off droids one by one just as you remembered that Tech was still nowhere to be seen. Your mind was rushing faster than you could've ever thought trying to find out any idea as to where he could have gone.

Suddenly the blaster fire stopped as you heard a final clank from a droid hitting the ground. As you stood up you looked around cautiously, and deciding the coast was clear you jumped over the stall to group up with the rest of the bad batch.

As everyone began looking over each other there seemed to be only one thought shared between the group. This was a trap and Tech was gone.

Trying to alleviate the sour mood the group was plunging headfirst into you chuckled before saying, "You guys can finally say I was right now."

The others groaned before Hunter said, "Now is not the time y/n, Tech's missing and we have no clue where the kark he could be."

"You think I don't know that Hunter?" You let out through clenched teeth before continuing, "I'm just as worried as you are right now, but let's get somewhere where we don't have to worry about droids ambushing us."

Crosshair let out a sigh from beside you, "They're right. We won't be able to help Tech if we're dead so let's get back to the ship."

Picking up what he was putting down you finished for him, "We can re-group our thoughts on the Marauder, come up with a game plan, and then retrace our steps. It will do no good thinking while our minds are in 20 places at once."

Back on the ship all of you had gathered around the small datapad you placed in the middle of the table. "Alright, I tracked Tech's datapad's last known location to here, but who knows if it even with him," you say before zooming in on the location, "We can't guarantee that it would be safe either, we all know the number of clankers they sent after us just to try and keep us away."

"As long as I get to blow something up and get Tech out, anything is a good plan," Wrecker says before heading towards the back of the ship.

Crosshair nods at both you and Hunter before getting out of his seat to go and follow Wrecker.

"I know you're really worried, you don't hide your emotions that well," Hunter says while placing a hand on your shoulder.

"No shit Hunter," you start while rolling your eyes, "I'm worried about what might happen if we can't find him, or even if it's too late and he's already gone. I don't know what I would be able to do without him."

Hunter gives your shoulder a reassuring squeeze, "It will be okay y/n. For our sake and yours, let's think positively."

The four of you had made your way back into the town square better equipped and without a problem. You had some of your own plastoid armor on now for a bit of extra protection in case things decided to take an even stronger turn for the worst.

"The signal from the datapad is down the alley to the Northeast," you say while glancing up from your own datapad.

The group nods back at you as you continue your way down the alley. It was quiet, the tall sand-colored buildings surrounding you couldn't help but make you feel claustrophobic. The other alleys were not like this. They had seemed to be more open, with a lot fewer canopies, but this one had canopies blocking almost all the sun. It also didn't help that it was starting to get dark.

As you reached another intersection, Hunter held up his fist to signify everyone to stop. A wave of déjà vu flashed over you, and you prayed to any gods that would listen that you wouldn't split up again. After a few moments, Hunter turned to you and tilted his head to the side, to which you answered by pointing your hand to the alley to the right. In a whisper, you add, "If we continue straight down that alley, we should reach another intersection. Tech's datapad should be there."

The four of you continued walking again and when you reached the intersection you couldn't help but let out a strangled sob. There was a pool of blood on the farthest side of the intersection that was smeared on one side. Rushing up next to the blood, you stopped mere centimeters from it as your eyes caught sight of Tech's datapad. Your hands were shaking as you reached for it and you brushed a finger over one of the bloody fingerprints. "Oh shit," you say letting out a shaky breath. How could you have let this happen; how could you allow yourselves to walk right into a trap? Now Tech was gone, bleeding out, or dead, and there was no exact way to trace him.

You see Wrecker's hands wrap around your own but don't register the feelings. Your whole body has seemingly shut off and stopped processing the world around you. Wrecker takes the datapad from your hands and passes it to either Hunter or Crosshair. You are too shocked to care as you collapse to your knees. Wrecker is at your side on the ground in seconds and pulls you right into him. The plastoid armor that would bring you so much comfort as you used to hold Tech close only burned as tears began to fall from your face. The air was thick with remorse and regret, but you couldn't hold on to the fact that he could be dead. After a few somber minutes recollecting yourself, you pushed away from Wrecker and pushed yourself off the ground, offering a hand to Wrecker to assist him. Once both of you were up and you had cleaned the sand off your pants, you turned towards Hunter and Crosshair. They were silent as ever, Crosshair had taken a seat on of the nearby crates and had his head in his hands, and Hunter had taken to looking at Tech datapad.

Breaking the silence, you spoke first, "We can't just give up and believe he is dead," startling Crosshair causing him to jump in his seat.

"Yeah, we need to think he's still out there, that the Separatist kept him alive for information," Wrecker added, backing you up.

Hunter had turned back around waving the datapad, "They were smart enough to keep his datapad here, but they weren't smart enough to wipe any messages on it."

At this, you scrambled over to Hunter's side and pulled that datapad closer to your face. Displayed was an unsent message to you that contained various numbers. "Coordinates," you say breathlessly as Crosshair joins the rest of you standing in a haphazard circle around the datapad. Adding, you ask, "Do you think those are the coords of the base where they took the prisoners too?"

"Probably," Crosshair speaks for the first time since arriving at the intersection, "Let's hope Tech's there too."

Taking Tech's datapad from Hunter, Crosshair begins off in the direction leading away from Tech's bloodstain on the ground, but also opposite the way you came. The rest of you fall into step behind him and continue your way to your destination.

On the way following the coordinates, all four of you were on high alert, but no droids had come to attack you, relieving some of the stress. It didn't help relax you guys upon seeing the droids surrounding a large sandstone castle-like building. Stopping at the crest of a hill a while away from the makeshift Separatist base, Hunter and you took to scanning the surrounding area, while Crosshair and Wrecker began to formulate some form of attack.

"Once again, I can tell you're worried," Hunter said as you both had scopes pulled out to try and find any weak points in the droid formations.

"And once again, we all are Hunter. I just hope we aren't too late," You reaffirm before pointing at a space straight ahead, "Look, they're rotating shifts. Maybe we could find a way in on their next rotation."

Hunter turns to look at you before saying, "How would we know when the next rotation is?"

"I don't know, maybe figure out what time it is Mr. Survivalist," you taunt sarcastically.

Hunter scoffs before saying "It's 1900, we could use the fact that it's dark out now to our advantage. It could help us slip in and out undetected if we want."

Nodding before standing up, you say, "True, let's go tell the others and see if it can play into their plan."

Once getting back to Crosshair and Wrecker, all four of you focused on a plan and decided it was best to split into two groups to help divide the droid forces. There would be no surprise ambushes by the droids, but instead an ambush on them. You and Hunter taking the back way in, through the gap in droid shifts you noticed earlier, while Wrecker and Crosshair would work on some sort of distraction from the front.

Wrapping up the discussion of the plan one last time before separating Hunter adds, "Remember, this is a rescue mission. Once we have Tech and possible other prisoners we get out as fast as we can."

You, Wrecker, and Crosshair nodded before wishing each other luck as they walked off from your position.

"You ready y/n?" Hunter asks.

"Ready as I'll ever be," you say back to him as you two make your way towards your position.

Once situated towards the back of the building, Hunter commed Crosshair saying, "The droids are about to rotate positions, on my word start whatever distraction you have in mind."

The two of you waited on edge while the minutes drew on. After what felt like forever the droids finally began to move. At this, Hunter commed Crosshair again with finality, saying, "Now."

From your position, you could see the blast from the explosives Wrecker had set off, along with the heavy concentration of blaster fire. The droids that were covering the area where you and Hunter immediately went to act as reinforcement to those affected by the blast.

Hunter and you ran from your location to the back of the building, quickly finding an open window. Pulling the window open more, you forced your way inside as Hunter followed. The room was empty, and most of the lights were off. Pulling out a flashlight you scanned it across the floor quickly before turning it off again to not be spotted, even if there was a small chance of that.

"It looks like we are in some type of living room," Hunter says before making his way away from the window and peeking his head around the corner of the door and into the hallway. "The hallway's clear, I would say split up to cover more floors, but seeing what happened last time I told everyone to split up... I don't think that's a good idea."

Nodding you made your way over to him to look out into the hallway as well. "I say we go to the basement if there is one. It would make sense to keep people prisoner there," You say before stepping foot into the hallway.

"Yeah, but the only problem is finding stairs that could lead to a basement," Hunter says while stepping into place behind you.

"It shouldn't be that hard, plus if Tech was still bleeding by the time, he got here, wouldn't you think there would be a trail of blood where they brought him?" You shuddered while stating the possibility out loud, just as Hunter made a noise of acknowledgment.

After what felt like hours of walking the hallways on high alert, and checking most rooms as you come across them, you staggered trying to stop yourself from walking as you finally caught sight of some blood on the ground. "Hunter," you whispered, "Look."

Hunter looked around your form to get a glance at what you were looking at, before shining his flashlight down the rest of the hall. "There's a trail too," he said while keeping his flashlight trained on the spots of blood.

"C'mon," You say as you grab him by the hand and pull him the rest of the way down the hallway.

Stopping at the end of the said hallway you are greeted by stairs to the left of you, and you turn to Hunter before silently agreeing to walk town together in sync. The stairs were solid sandstone, so you didn't have to worry about any creaky stairs, but you did have to worry about footing. Pulling out your vibro-knives at the same time as Hunter, you two started making your way down the stairs. The sight that waited for you and the bottom of the short walk would stick in your head forever. The basement was one single connected holding cell, with prisoners lined up against the bars trying to get a look at you. Some of them were crying, others wailing in pain, and some had fallen into silent spells. Noticing this, Hunter and you quickly put your knives away before you rushed to the gate with the main lock at it. While you made fast work of the lock and quickly picked it, Hunter had begun reassuring the people that we were here for help and that he was looking for someone who looked like us. With the gate, open people poured out in a mass exodus and began to make their way upstairs, without a single care of what could happen to them.

Once almost everyone was out, you and Hunter made your way into the cell where you were greeted with another terrible sight. Tech was there on a stone table in the middle of a cell with one of them, now freed, prisoners hovering over him. His armor was off and tossed to the side as he was only in his blacks, and he had a bacta patch wrapped around his torso. You rushed over to him as Hunter escorted the prisoner out of the cell and couldn't help but let out a sob for the second time today. Tech looked frail, and you hesitated to even reach out to touch him fearing that it would break him. You were immediately relieved after placing two fingers on his wrist and feeling his pulse. It was weak, but it was still there. "Hunter! I need some help down here," you call out before starting to run around the table to grab Tech's armor. Hunter came running back down the stairs at your call and once you saw him you continued, "I need you to carry him out of here. I'll get his armor, but we need to move fast before the droid realize that this was all a diversion."

At this Hunter makes his way to Tech's side without a word and picks him up and slings him over his shoulder. Grabbing the final pieces of Tech's armor, both of you begin to make your way up to the stair. Tapping the comlink on your wrist you hear blaster fire permeate through the room around you. "Crosshair, we got Tech. If I know Wrecker, he probably has some explosives, so as soon as we get out of the house, give him the word to blow this place up."

"Got it," Crosshair says before the comlink closes with a beep.

"Let's try a nearby window and get out of here as fast as we can before we tell them to set the chargers," you say to Hunter as you force your way ahead of him and into the closest room. Hunter follows you before grunting as a noise of approval. Making your way to the window, you grab Tech's helmet from where it sat under your arm and smashed it. Hunter gives you an exasperated look as he walks past you and out the window first, to which you only say, "What? It was a lot easier than putting everything down and opening it.

Once both of you are outside, you make your way to the location where you two started the mission. Reaching the spot a few meters away, you open the com with Crosshair again, "Crosshair, tell Wrecker to light it up. Now!"

Instead of getting an actual response as an answer, you could hear the various explosions coming from the area behind you.

"Nice work you two but meet up with us where we made camp before, it will be quicker to get back to the Marauder with Wrecker carrying Tech," You say into the com again before forcing yourself to walk in the direction of the temporary camp from before.

"Rodger that," Both Crosshair and Wrecker's voices come through the comlink before the transmission ends again with a beep.

The four of you, plus an unresponsive Tech, met up quickly and rushed back to the Marauder as soon as you could. Reaching the ship was a relief as Hunter had immediately gone into the cockpit and got you guys off the planet, and Wrecker took Tech to the bunks with you in tow with medical supplies.

Once Wrecker placed Tech on his respective bunk, you immediately rushed him out of the room and got to work. Removing the hastily applied bacta patch, you assessed the wound that Tech had got before he was captured. It was nasty at first glance, but you assumed it was even worse before he had the first batch patch applied. The cut ran from his left shoulder across his torso, coming to finally stop at the bottom of his right ribs. Luckily, the cut wasn't that deep, because there would have been hardly a chance, he would've survived that. Continuing your work, you cleaned the wound before wrapping it up again in another bacta patch. Standing up and observing the handiwork of your terrible medical experience, you run a full body scan with your datapad just to check for any other injuries that could internal. Thankfully, the scan came up negative and you could assume that Tech had just passed out due to blood loss. He still looked extremely pale as you stood there and stared at him, but some color was starting to return to his body.

Sitting back down, you grasped his hand in yours and looked at both hands together. As the weight of the day's events slowly started the catch up with you, you could hardly help yourself as you began to fall asleep. In a state of half-consciousness, you could've sworn you felt Tech's hand squeezing yours, but you were too tired to even process the notion that he might've.

The feeling of someone pulling your hand to their lips pulled you out of your nap and caused you to pick your head up from the side of Tech's bunk.

"Good morning Tech," you said before you could even process what was happening, but as soon as the words left your mouth your head snapped up and your eyes immediately widened. "Tech! You're up!"

Tech let out a breathy chuckle before trying to force his way up, only for you immediately to place your hand on his good shoulder and force him back down, "Nope, no getting up for you just yet. You had us all worried sir," you say while shifting your position to get a better look at him.

"I never meant to cause you guys any trouble," he says sincerely, "We had all got split up when those droids attacked us, and they caught me by surprise by sending in reinforcements."

"It's okay Tech, you don't need to justify your actions, you're alive and here back on the Marauder with us. That is all that matters," you say before gripping his hand again and squeezing it.

"Y'know while the droids were dragging me away as I was bleeding out, I couldn't help but focus on one thing," he says while squeezing your hand in return.

"Oh? And what was that?" You ask with a smile on your face.

Tech smiles back at you before bringing your hand to his lips again and placing a firm kiss on your knuckles, "I couldn't stop thinking about how I hadn't told you how much I love you."

Freezing in your place at the combinations of the words and the sincerity in Tech's tone, you couldn't help but find yourself smiling wider at what he had said. "I love you too Tech, too much. I thought I had lost you today but I'm so glad I didn't," you say with finality in your tone.

Leaning down to place a kiss on his lips you find yourself in a state of relief. Tech was back and safe out of harm's way, and he really does love you. Pulling away from the kiss, but still holding eye contact with him you say, "You still need to rest up, and don't think that kissing me will be a distraction."

Tech rolls his eye and lets out a groan before smirking and saying, "Well after I'm all healed you better make it up to me."

You smack his leg and let out a huff of frustration and as you go to walk out of the room you say, "We'll see about that one Tech. We'll see."

taglist: @bandaid-bunny @haloangel391

a/n: once again i feel like this is meh but i still dont know. i meant to have this done 2 days ago but almost passed out because of my second dose of the covid vaccine, plus i had a 6 page paper due so likeeee. anyway TAKE THIS right after the new episode, also if you guys watched it already... HOLY SHITTTT 🙏

#the bad batch x reader #the bad batch #bad batch #bad batch x reader #tech x reader #clone trooper tech x reader #bad batch tech x reader #tech bad batch #tech bad batch x reader #the clone wars #clone trooper tech

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