#LET ME PROJECT UNTO THE WORLD

[notfeelingthyaster]

*me, softly passing them a stim toy* this bad boy can fit so much fucking autism in it

[highpriestofpunk]

Really need a Fate Angra Mainyu style hatefuck right about now

[honeytonedhottie]

lessons in protecting ur peace⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🛍️

after reading the book pyscho cybernetics something that rly stuck out to me was that literally EVERYTHING IS UR MIND. and duh, thats what i've primarily based my blog on…💬🎀

but i wanted to talk about the idea that everything that u experience is because of ur mind and that goes into how you interpret things as well. so lets talk about how u can protect ur peace through ur reactions.

CAN WE NOT? ;

first, lets remember that everyone experiences the world differently and reacts to things differently from each other. based on subconscious belief, self concept, upbringing, trauma etc. therefore everyones perception of things is shaped by their own unique brain.

for example lets imagine that theres a rly pretty girl and shes rly sweet. the people around her have an idea in their mind that pretty girls are stuck up and mean, so they look for reasons to categorize her and prove themselves right. they look for ways to make her fit into the narrative that they've fed themselves…💬🎀

i give this example to show that peoples judgement of u is based more on them and their subconscious beliefs more then it is about you. period. someone else's problem with u isnt ur business. when u persist in a belief whether its consciously or subconsciously your reality will prove you right. your literally manifesting a belief that doesnt serve you so can we not?

PROTECT UR PEACE BY NOT TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY ;

taking things personally means, misinterpreting someone's thoughts/actions and believing them to be targeted toward us personally…💬🎀

this is particularly dangerous to our peace because when u take things personally you'll start to adopt what other people tell u about urself as fact. if someone calls u dumb then ur gonna believe them and think that something is wrong with you when that isnt the case.

if u know that ur actually rly intelligent and someone tells u that ur dumb, you won't care because you know that ur smart and you know that they're just projecting their beliefs unto you. you make the facts about you. not others.

YOU DECIDE THE FACTS ;

for a fun journal exercise i want you to write down the facts about yourself (u can also write down new traits that you'd like to manifest and make fact about urself) so open ur diary to a fresh page and write an about-me page. fill the page with positive facts about urself and who you are. these are the facts and if someone tells u otherwise, fact check em.

BE GENEROUS ;

people spew some crazy shit when they dont like you or are envious of you and the best way to respond is to first, not respond at all because they dont even deserve to get a reaction out of you. but if ur lowkey petty, add onto their accusations to make them look dumber.

like if they try to clock you about something and accuse u of something, make the accusation WORSE. ofc with nuance but have some fun with it sometimes.

people can't shame you for made up accusations if u dont care and if ur living in ur truth and therefore their agenda to try and bring u down to make themselves feel better is ultimately squashed. dont waste ur energy arguing with people and just keep that peace protected.

[python333]

residual self-image — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis residual self-image is the mental projection of your digital self; it refers to your own physical appearance that is understood by you, that is projected unto you by yourself. you see yourself as something to be ashamed of. price sees something different.

relationships platonic!captain price & gn!reader.

characters cap. price.

word count 7.6k

warnings anxiety/panic attack [not sure exactly how to classify it; i think it's more of an anxiety attack?], reader takes SSRIs [zoloft/sertraline], suicidal thoughts and almost-suicide attempt, reader is the most unreliable narrator known to mankind, second person pov [you/your/yourself], usage of [name], usage of [c/n] for call sign/code name, bad matrix references/spoilers for the matrix and the matrix: reloaded.

note please please PLEASE let me know if this comes off as me romanticizing having anxiety or taking antidepressants so that i can fix/rewrite it /srs i don't take any form of antidepressants or anxiety medication and i also am not diagnosed with either of those!! nothing i say is final!!! i do not have firsthand experience with what reader goes through in this fic!! sorry i disappeared for a second, have some food as an apology. again, feel free to correct me on anything you think is inaccurate and i will (most likely) change it!! also sorry for like 3k words of backstory oopsies

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo two options: blue pill, or red pill?

He says that if Neo takes the blue pill, “the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe”. But the second option, the red pill, if Neo takes that, he will “stay in wonderland and [he] show [Neo] how deep the rabbit hole goes”. Neo, of course, takes the red pill, and is shown the “real world”. 

Neo is thought to be “the One”. With the “O” in “One” being capitalized, so you know that it’s a pretty important title. 

In the end, Neo becomes confident in who he is and what he can do, and defeats the “Agents”. Trinity confesses her love to a “sleeping” Neo, their ship is getting attacked by whatever those weird fuckin’ creatures were called, and Neo defeats the last of the agents. The end. 

You take pills too. But yours are blue. They’re matte, powdery, baby-blue pills that are branded with the name “ZOLOFT”. It’s sertraline, to be specific, and you’ve been taking it for the past few months. You’re new to pills like these, ones meant to treat anxiety and depression and a number of other medical issues, so you didn’t know how much to take at first. You asked your doctor so many questions. You think about it often, and wonder if, even though it’s their job, that doctor had gotten annoyed at some point because of your inquiry. 

These pills do similar things to the ones in The Matrix, though. You take them, preferably at night, and wake up in your bed like you always do. You believe whatever you want to believe, and another chapter is closed at the end of every day, marking another page closer to the end of your story. 

Some days, the story feels like it’s going to end sooner than expected. 

A side effect of sertraline―or, well, Zoloft specifically―happens to be suicidal ideation. It’s not that common, not that talked about, and isn’t the most well-known. But then again, most mental disorder-treating medicines have some kind of side effect like that, and plenty of people take things like antidepressants without an issue―or so you thought―so surely you could deal with something as simple as sertraline, right?

Wrong. So, so, wrong. 

It’s probably really bad for a person who works in a military group to be dealing with such thoughts. You think about quitting sometimes, for the sake of the other people in the task force, because what could happen if the wrong straw breaks the wrong camel’s back while you’re doing an assignment? What if, caught in the crossfire between your team and your enemy, you say fuck it and decide that it’s all just too much? What are the odds of that happening? What are the odds of anything happening? What were the odds of the Earth being created, of the first animals evolving, of the first humans speaking the first languages? Statistics are so important, chance is so important, and odds determine everything. What are the odds of you deciding whether or not you have the will to live? The ability to keep going, to keep the routine you’ve always kept, to keep from taking one of those G19s from the armory and turning off the safety before pulling the trigger? To commit to such a permanent solution, one you’ve deemed as the “s-word”, because thinking about it sometimes is too much.

Or maybe it’d be a rope, your brain continues without your consent, A chain. Anything that will hold your body weight up enough for you to dangle from the fan on the ceiling―an image that makes you lean towards a chain, sickeningly enough, because of the idea of your abnormally stretched neck on display. The purple bruising that would appear, the indentations of each link, the smell of your blood and the metal of the chain unable to be told apart. Maybe your eyes would still be open, and it would look like you’re staring down at anyone who walks into your office. There’s so many possibilities. They add up, and create new odds, new chances. Every time you simply think, you are creating a new way to go about life, and that creation is sometimes stored so deeply in the back of your mind that it haunts you. It comes back around, becomes more common, the chances of it happening go up. 

Sometimes the odds feel like they aren’t in your favor at all. Sometimes you wonder how you could’ve ever thought that any part of the universe was against you. It’s not bipolar; it doesn’t come and go in extremes, it just comes and goes. The odds will lower in your favor some days, and you will deem those days “bad days”, and other days they will be so high you don’t even think about “good days” or “bad days”. But those other days are almost as bad as the “bad days”, because they go by so quickly. You take them for granted so easily, too easily, and they leak through the thin lines between your fingers, leaving you with nothing by the end of the day. 

Sometimes on “bad days”, your hands go from cupped to praying, and you will plead with yourself to just get better. You never do, on those days, and after taking your medicine you will go to sleep and believe that the next day will be better. Or, at least, convince yourself that the next day will be better. 

You would’ve understood if Neo took the blue pill. If he stayed in blissful ignorance, even after all of the weird shit that happened to him. If he continued to wake up every day in a “normal” world, to sell computer systems and hacking programs, to be anyone but “The One”. 

Because that’s what you do. You take your medicine, and go on with life as normally as possible, even with all of the things that you’ve been through. You wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for saving the world, or beating up robot-alien-things, or whatever. Just like how you don’t want to be held responsible for really just… taking care of yourself. 

Which you’re shit at, by the way, if that doesn’t make things worse. 

You take your sertraline and that’s about it. It’s not like it doesn’t work, it’s just underwhelming sometimes. Before you got on it, you would take more things to heart, think about things more, and were probably a little more prone to actually killing yourself. After starting to take it, it was admittedly pretty rough. It felt like your anxiety had increased a little, like your paranoia had only heightened, and everything felt so elevated. 

Then, maybe a few months after beginning to take it, everything dimmed out. Like one of those lightbulbs you can dim, everything gradually came back down, and even lowered to a more tolerable level. You were glad, at first, that you had endured those first few months the way that you did because you’re not sure you would’ve even been here to this day had you not. Reading several articles and Reddit posts about Zoloft definitely didn’t help, especially as someone who was taking it partially for anxiety, but still, you managed. 

And then you realized that just taking the medicine didn’t do as much as you hoped it would. 

It helps you deal with anxious and depressive thoughts, yes, but you still feel like something’s missing. That lightbulb in your mind has dimmed, but it’s only just enough light to see ahead of you. Before all of this, the light was bright enough to blind you, to make you see that dreadful stark-white that still sometimes haunts you―when it dimmed down to where it is now, it was obviously a relief, but you feel like now there’s not enough light. 

You understand the whole point of the medicine is to dim that light, to help bring down your mental state to a more “normal” one, but you think that even people who don’t have diagnosed mental disorders feel strong emotions like you used to. Maybe not as strong, but definitely something adjacent to it. You miss that, funnily enough―getting strong enough emotions. 

Right now, you’re sitting at your desk in your office, staring down at the plate of mashed potatoes in front of you. You get it almost every time it’s offered, and endure the teasing you get from your teammates, all for one purpose. 

To hide your pills in it.

Mashed potatoes are starchy, yes, but easy to swallow without chewing. They’re thick enough to help hide the feeling of the pill going down your throat, and don’t leave that weird aftertaste in your mouth that taking your medicine with water does. You tried taking the pills with water at first, like you would with any other medicine, but with this specifically you just can’t. It’s too easy to notice, they’re too big to just hide with water, and it feels like swallowing a rock every time you take them with water. 

So, mashed potatoes it is. 

The pill is already mixed into it. You had folded the small blue tablet into the mushed vegetable with a plastic fork, trying to keep it as hidden as possible, making sure no hints of blue bled through the beige-yellow of the potato.

You’re now watching the mashed potatoes, unblinking, as if it’s going to grow legs and run away from you. It’s never truly easy swallowing the medicine, even with the mashed potatoes coating it, but it’s usually easier than it is today. Then again, today was deemed a “bad day” the moment you woke up, so this was to be expected. 

You grab the white plastic fork after a brief moment of hesitation and pierce the food with it, hand trembling ever-so slightly as you do―not from anxiety, but from your lack of water intake―and pick up a clump of potato with little strength. The vegetable oddly weighs your hand down the tiniest bit more than usual, but you ignore this in favor of pushing yourself to just force the food into your mouth. You try your best not to chew, your jaw only really moving to chew the side of your cheek instead to satisfy your urges, and eventually manage to swallow the food. 

Right off the bat, you can tell the cluster you swallowed had the pill in it. Lucky me, you think almost bitterly, not sure whether you should be happy or uncomfortable, at least it’s over with. It’s not that it’s a bad thing that you got to the pill so quickly, but usually you’re able to get a few bites of medicine-less potato in before the actual medicine itself. Nonetheless, you scoop up another fork-full―fork-full?―of mashed potatoes and try to eat as much as you can to get rid of the weird feeling of having a pill going down your throat. 

Just the fleeting thought of having a pill that big going down your throat makes it feel like your esophagus is closing. You feel yourself grow closer to nausea at the feeling, setting down your fork and pushing the paper plate of your dinner aside, just to rest your elbow on the table and put your forehead in the palm of your head. It’s bad enough that you feel ashamed because of the fact you even have to take antidepressants, so it’s even worse that those same antidepressants are throwing bad side-effects at you. 

Ashamed because needing medicine to function the same way anyone else does feels so pathetic to you. Maybe it isn’t pathetic. Actually, you know it isn’t; you don’t look at other people who do the same thing and think that they should feel as ashamed as you do. But you still look at your bright orange prescription bottle, labeled with your legal name, and think that you shouldn’t need it. 

You think, for a moment, that it’s because of how much you’ve dehumanized yourself. 

Dehumanized is such an ugly word, and it leaves a strange bitterness in your mind after thinking about it, but deep down you feel that it’s true. You know that you’re human, obviously, because physically that’s what you are. You are, undeniably, a homo sapien―a person, a living being that is a bipedal primate mammal. You, in a less literal sense, have those same cords attached to you that Neo did when he first went to the “real world”. 

But you need those cords, you think, lifting your head so that your chin is resting in your palm instead of your forehead, you need to stay attached to the Matrix. 

Because you took the blue pill. You found a way to keep yourself attached to the Matrix, to keep yourself grounded to what you wish you could experience without them. And those cables weigh you down, and that pod you stay encased in limits your movement―sometimes you feel more like the pod than the person inside of it―but it all seems so worth it to you, doesn’t it? To keep believing what you want to believe, to wake up everyday and dose yourself with that fifty-milligrams worth of sertraline hidden under a pile of food, to eat that food and swallow that pill even though it makes you feel like a mutt? 

You take a shuddering breath in, your thoughts building up in volume and mass, more questions entering your mind too fast for you to process them all. You feel that familiar rush of adrenaline, the kind that triggers your ‘fight-or-flight’. It lights your nerves on fire and causes them to jump, to electrify, and you feel your fingers twitch with the feeling. It almost feels like there’s something crawling along your nerves, under your skin, and the thought almost triggers your gag reflex. Your eyelids flutter, barely shutting for just a moment before you force them open. Your gaze flits over to the still-mostly-full plate of mashed potatoes. 

You’re usually able to finish them, even on “bad days”. But today, with nausea swirling uncomfortably in your stomach, and a too-big pill going through the thin tubes inside your body, you find that it’s much harder to even think about picking that fork back up. You can almost feel your heart beating through your palm, that continuous th-thump, th-thump growing exponentially faster, and your palm getting sweatier by the second. You shift your feet and find that invisible needles are poking at the bottom of them, small pins that push and prod at your skin that leave a strange hot-cold feeling. It forces you to take the pressure off of your feet by holding them up ever-so slightly, the soles of your shoes just barely touching the ground. 

You swear your heart rate increases at all the different sensations lingering on your body. You can feel your breathing starting to pick up, and for God knows what reason, you suddenly find it difficult to keep your eyes locked onto one object. Your gaze dances around the room as a surge of chills runs up your spine. A trail of goosebumps rises after each wave of biting cold, passing over the bony projections of your dorsum. After having so many of them, you know instinctively the signs of an oncoming anxiety attack, and know how quick those symptoms escalate from simple shallow breaths to the inability to keep your breathing consistent at all. Yes, they develop slower than a panic attack does, but the gradient from fine to not-fine is hard to view as slow when there’s so many symptoms to keep track of.

At the thought of such a thing happening, your gaze instantly locks onto the prescription bottle sitting on your desk. It’s still uncapped―fortunate for you, because you’re seriously doubting your ability to uncap something with a child-proof cap on it right now―and in your eyes is practically glowing. It’s so tempting, because it’s just right there, so easily accessible, so easy to just grab and pour however many pills you need down your throat. The thought makes you realize how dry your mouth feels, how constricted your throat feels, but your mind is too filled with a flurry of incoherent thoughts to dwell on such feelings. 

With your free hand, you grab the uncapped bottle. It shakes with your hand, now more from your building anxiety than your dehydration, and makes the tablets inside rattle. You bring it to your lips, ignoring the chiding voice in the back of your mind telling you how disgusting it is to just put it on your mouth like that, and shake it just enough to get a single pill out of it. The dryness of the pill sticks to the wetness of your mouth, just below the border of your bottom lip. You set the bottle down and poke at the pill with the tip of your tongue, the weird vanilla-like taste of the medicine spreading across the muscle easily. 

Your mouth is dry, so you have to use the residual saliva sitting on your tongue to slick the pill up enough to go down somewhat-smoothly down your throat. It’s still rough, and some areas of the pill remain powdery, the feeling of it sliding down your throat enough to make you gag. For a brief moment, the action causes the pill to lodge in your throat―it’s not big enough to make you choke or anything, but it’s enough to make your heart beat faster and your hands grip onto the edge of your desk tightly. Your thumbs are tucked under the edge, the first knuckle at the tip of your finger bent and the flesh of the tips of your fingers turning lighter from the pressure. 

You cough once you feel the pill go down your esophagus entirely, and breathe raggedly afterwards. Deep down, you know that the medicine takes some time to work, and that if you gave it a little longer than a minute that you’d start feeling better. But the reeling anxiety that wraps around your throat like a chain seems to pull you impossibly farther away from that betterness, and forces your throat to tighten to a point where your breathing feels limited. You go from breathing through your nose to your mouth, where you can still taste the lingering artificial-vanilla with every inhale. 

It’s getting worse, an annoying voice tells you, one that manages to be louder than the others, the medicine’s supposed to help. You’ve only taken a hundred milligrams so far. Another and it’s a hundred and fifty. An overdose is only if it goes over two hundred.

It’s stupid logic but more tempting the more you think about it. It is, after all, only a third pill. You’d be pushing it—

Do you really care all that much that you’re pushing it? What if you want to break that limit? The limits you made, to keep yourself alive, that you still sometimes question the existence of? 

―but that doesn’t really compute well in your mind, and you soon find yourself reaching for the bottle again. Each pill shakes with your hand, and with each tremor another wave of tablets hits the sides of the bottle, like a visual representation of the thoughts that bounce off of the walls of your brain. You lift the bottle, and bring it to your lips, the area that makes contact with your mouth cooler than the rest of the bottle from earlier when you had done the same thing. You’re about to tilt it up before you hear a sudden knock at your door. 

The noise is startling and makes you drop the bottle, the pills spilling over the edge of it and onto the table. 

“Shit,” you curse quietly under your breath, quickly flattening your hand and sweeping all of the pills into a pile, and picking them up in clusters. You manage to get them all back in the bottle before another knock sounds out, and cap the bottle before opening up one of the small drawers on the side of your desk and shoving it in there. 

“Come in!” you call out in a strained voice, praying that you’ll be able to keep it steady for as long as the person at the door needs to talk to you. You close the drawer just as the door creaks open. 

Much to your horror, you look up to see your Captain. 

Your palms are still sweaty as he walks in, so you try to discreetly wipe them off on your pants, and hope to whoever can help you that he doesn’t pay too much attention to the sweat gathered on your forehead. You take a deep breath as silently as you can, attempting to gather yourself before Price can notice anything being wrong.

“It’s a quarter past two,” Price comments once he walks in, closing the door behind him, “why are you still awake?” 

You look over to the digital clock on your desk almost immediately and, oh shit, it is exactly 2:15. You look back over at Price, who is busying himself with pulling the chair that was once in front of your desk around it, presumably to sit next to you. You still feel the dreadfully fast pace of your heart, that th-thump, th-thump, th-thump that you can hear blaring in your ears. It makes itself known in your chest, in your wrist, even in the base of your throat―almost every pulse point in your body has forced you to become aware of its existence.

You swallow dryly, trying to ignore said feeling, and reply, “Why are you still awake?”

Price raises an eyebrow at you, pulling the chair up beside you and sitting down in it, “I asked first.” 

You look at him with an unimpressed look on your face. “Can’t sleep. Why are you up?”

Price hums and leans back in his seat, arms crossing over each other, “Same reason.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie, but it doesn’t sound entirely true either, in your opinion. It’s not that you don’t trust him, but he just seems like he’s up to something. What that something is, though, you aren’t sure. 

“Why the food?” Price nods over to the plate of mashed potatoes, very noticeably unfinished. 

Your gaze follows his to the mashed potatoes. You can still feel the moisture on the palms of your hands, the small tremors that wrack your fingers, and Price’s presence does nothing to soothe your flaming nerves.

“Wanted dinner,” you shrug as casually as you can, forcing a neutral expression onto your face―you briefly overthink what a neutral expression looks like, and decidedly just let your face relax the best you can, “I didn’t get any when everyone else went, I was busy with something, and didn’t really want to head over to the mess with so many people over there, plus I was busy.” 

You look over at Price after your lengthy explanation, not realizing just how lengthy it was, and watch the corners of his lips quirk up into an amused-yet-worried smile. 

“You said you were busy twice,” he points out, before pausing, and pointing out again, “and it looks like you’ve taken a few bites out o’that at most.” 

You don’t bother to look at the mashed potatoes again; you know very well how they look, and know how undeniably full the plate looks. 

“Didn’t feel that hungry,” you make up a poorly thought-out excuse, that even you can understand is unbelievable. 

Price blinks at you, slowly, before sighing. 

“Are you alright?” Price asks, looking more concerned than amused now. You should’ve known from the moment that he walked in that you wouldn’t be able to hide anything from him. If not for the fact that he always seems to know what’s going on, then because of the overwhelming presence of your disquietude. 

You look at him and try to figure out what to say. What is there to say? You were panicking just two minutes ago, with your prescription bottle in one hand, the other too shaky to hold up the damn thing. You can still taste that vanilla. You can still taste the plastic. The bottle itself never once touched your tongue, but every time your tongue rests in your mouth, the tip of it pokes at the same exact place the bottle made contact with. You expect it to taste of vanilla, like its contents, but it doesn’t; it tastes like the pharmacy you got it at. It tastes like the sterile white of the counter, the fingers of the person who handed it to you, the money you spent on it, and the time it took you to get it. 

It’s nothing pleasant. The strange vanilla of the pills aren’t either, but they’re preferable to the bottle itself. 

Price notices you zoning out for a moment, and waves a hand in front of your face. Your eyes unconsciously track his hand for a moment before you blink back into reality and look at him. You knew you were fucked earlier, but when you look at his expression, at the look in his eyes as he watches you snap back to reality, you know that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what happened, or how it happened, but he knows something. Fuck, he knows. 

Or, maybe he does know. Maybe he heard your cursing through the door, even with your low voice, maybe he heard the pills spill onto the desk, maybe he heard the opening and closing of the drawer, maybe he―

He’s staring at you.

―has security cameras set up in here, because he does in every room, every hall, everywhere but the bathrooms and the sleeping quarters―

He’s talking. It’s muffled by the sound of your own heavy breathing.

―or maybe it’s just intuition, a gut feeling he has, where he just knows that something’s wrong, that same gut feeling that everyone seems to get when something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be―

Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is pounding out of your chest. You’re starting to feel a little lightheaded.

―the same “gut feeling” that you experience every day but have to ignore because it’s not a gut feeling it’s anxiety and your real gut feelings feel the almost the exact same way anxiety does so you may never know if you ever get an actual one―

Price grabs onto your arm, though the feeling of his skin on yours can’t push past the skin-crawling sensation that coats your skin.

―but how do you really know that your gut feelings aren’t gut feelings? How do you know that anything is anything? That it’s really Price that’s sitting next to you, that it’s your own office you’re sitting in, that―

“[name]!” Price’s voice snaps you out of the trance you seem to be in, and you sharply inhale at the sound of his voice, his volume much louder than you expected it to be. 

You didn’t realize how fast and heavy your breathing had really gotten until this point. You look at Price, a little more on the panicked side now, with restless eyes that can’t stop flitting all over his face. He takes his hand off of your arm before you can even notice it was there in the first place, and leans back away from you. 

You try to take deep breaths, but each breath feels like trying to breathe underwater, and each inhale-exhale leaves you shuddering. You look down at your lap, breath hitching and stuttering, and the moment you open your mouth in the hopes of breathing easier, you are all too aware of just how dry it’s become. You’re sure you let out some kind of sound that alerts Price of your growing distress, because he hesitantly leans forward and takes a deep breath. 

“[name],” Price keeps his voice soft and quiet, quieter than he’d been just a few seconds ago, his soothing voice a gentle wave crashing against the rock of your mind, “you’re okay. Look at me, soldier.” 

Like a remote to TV static, the noisiness of your mind is partially calmed and the waves that wash over your brain provide sweet escape from the overwhelming adrenaline and cortisol thrumming in your veins.

Mindlessly, you do as he asks, his words grounding you and tugging you back down to Earth more effectively than any anchor could. When you look at him, his eyes are clouded with concern and there’s a small frown on his face that almost perfectly juxtaposes his usual quokka-smile.

You know you’re still trembling. You can feel the hairs that stick up on your legs and arms, the weird hot-cold feeling that creates pinpricks of discomfort across your body, the way your heart is trying to escape the prison cell of your ribcage—but none of it compares to the unbelievable dizziness you feel. Your head is a balloon filled with helium and it is slowly deflating, but not fast enough. You feel like you’re no longer in control of your own body—or were you ever in control? 

Your stomach is churning. There’s a sense of dread that dwells there. You might throw up. 

Cutting through your thoughts is Price once again.

“You listenin’?” your Captain asks, to which you nod after a delay of a few seconds. Price holds a hand out and gives you a questioning look, the question of ‘can I touch you?’ clear enough on his face that you nod lightly and he takes your hand gingerly.

“Do y’know where you are?” Price asks. You nod, and he softly requests, “can you tell me where?”

“My office,” you answer simply, the gravel in your voice making you wince. The warbling that escapes your mouth is nowhere near your usual voice, and for a moment you think you might be right about needing to vomit, but you manage to push it down and pray. Price ignores this and pushes on.

“And who am I?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. 

“... The Captain.” Price purses his lips—he doesn’t really want to accept this as an answer, because he wants you to say his actual name, but he knows what you mean, and you know what he’s doing. He knows that you mean that you’re here, that you’re present, and you know that he’s trying to ground you the best he can.

“Do you know my name?” he questions, to which you nod again, though a little more moderately, seeing as the repetition of nodding your head only makes you more lightheaded, “what’s my name?”

You take a few shaky breaths, ones that are shallow and uneven, ones that hitch enough for it to be so noticeable that Price manages to pick up on it. You open your mouth to talk, but find that your tongue is too heavy to lift to create coherent sounds. The thought somehow heightens your anxiety, something that seems to be noticeable to Price, judging by how his expression shifts to something impossibly softer.

“Here, let me—” Without another word, Price cautiously brings your hand up to the middle of his chest, where his sternum is. 

He exaggerates his breathing, taking long, deep breaths in, and similarly long exhales. His chest rises and falls satisfyingly, and it’s clear that he wants you to copy him. You try your best at first, taking that same too-deep breath that he does and fail almost immediately as you choke on the air you attempt to inhale. Price brushes his thumb over the back of your hand and takes another exaggerated breath, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. You keep your gaze more focused on the lower half of his face as you copy him, oxygen going in through your nose, and carbon dioxide going out through your mouth. 

That one successful breath is followed by an unsuccessful one, then another successful one, then another, and it’s a little rocky but you find that soon enough you’re breathing. There’s air flowing in and out of your body smoothly, with each exaggerated breath you take, almost in sync with Price, until finally he puts your hand back into your lap but continues to hold it. He squeezes it once before letting go, and clasps his hands together. 

“What’s my name, soldier?” he asks, and this time you think you can answer him. 

“John Price,” his name feels weird coming out of your mouth, especially with no honorifics, but he accepts the answer anyway. 

“Good,” Price praises, giving you a small smile, “you’re doing good.”

The approval he gives you helps to calm your nerves the tiniest bit, and you feel yourself slowly coming down from the God awful high that you’d just been on. Again, you’re not sure how he knows, but he senses that you’re calming down―is it because your breathing is steadier? You aren’t nearly as restless? You’re no longer zoning out?―so he leans back in his chair and watches as you do the same. 

“Now,” he breathes out, “can you tell me what’s going on with you?” 

You look away from him for the briefest moment, sparing a glance at the cabinet you know the bottle of your pills lays in, before looking back at him. If he noticed you pulling your gaze away from him for a split second, he doesn’t mention it nor does he make it known that he did. 

“There’s not really anything going on,” you shrug, to which Price scoffs. 

“[c/n],” he looks at you, disbelieving, “two seconds ago I had to help you breathe normally. I know that there’s something that’s going on, somethin’ that had to trigger what just happened.” 

You stay quiet and he gives you an expectant look. The pressure from his fixed glare makes you feel like you’re about to explode. 

Finally, you answer him defeatedly, though vaguely, “I was in the middle of taking my medicine when you knocked.”

Price stays silent, expecting you to elaborate. 

“And…” you try to find a way to make it sound less awkward than it does in your mind, though you suppose there’s never really a correct way to go about something like this, “I almost took more medicine than I needed to.” 

The silence continues, but now Price looks less expectant, and instead more of a mix between concern and something else you can’t identify. That something, though, is still soft, and still has a hint of pity―maybe sympathy?―to it.

“Almost?” he repeats, “was that on purpose?” 

When you think about it, it’s complicated. You didn’t necessarily intend to overdose, you just dismissed the idea of it. Or, at least, you don’t remember trying to overtly kill yourself. Then again, you knew the risks of taking more pills than prescribed to you; had you taken that third pill, you would’ve only been one more away from an overdose, and even then you’d still probably get some kind of health issue. 

Price’s face hardens when you don’t answer immediately. He must be taking your silence as a “yes”. 

“Not… really,” you answer slowly, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He nods, waiting a few seconds before asking, “Have you thought about it before?”

By it, for some reason, you sense that he isn’t asking exclusively about taking one too many tablets.

It’s tempting to be dishonest about it; it’s a shameful thing to you, to use the things that are supposed to help you to harm yourself, to be so careless with your own life. You know that it isn’t necessarily all your fault, but there’s still that small part of you that can’t help but feel guilty for using something so many other people try so hard to get to almost kill yourself with. 

After a few beats of silence, you decide to answer, “Yeah.” 

Price nods again, and he looks like he expected that answer. “D’you want to tell me more about that?”

You could, hypothetically, go in-depth about all of your weird thoughts about committing. The ones you’d been having just, what, fifteen minutes ago? Thirty minutes ago? The ones about chains wrapped around your throat, stolen guns from the armory, deep purple bruising and a stretched neck. Those thoughts, the ones that try to make ending your life sound pretty, that try to make it sound appealing. It’s not to convince yourself, you don’t think, but rather to help you come to terms with the fact that you were already convinced that you were going to commit at some point. The thought still scares you, because you’re a pussy―terrible, terrible choice of words, a voice at the back of your mind insists, you’re not a pussy, you’re just like anyone else―but you felt like you just knew that you were gonna die by your own hands. That you’d already made the choice, and now you have to understand it, to realize it. 

You are in that room full of TVs, with The Architect in front of you, telling you that you have no choice. That, in fact, the problem is choice. You are surrounded by a million other yous, all protesting, all denying that you have no choice but to kill yourself, all yelling “Bullshit!” because deniability is the most predictable of all human responses. 

But, you remind yourself, The Architect was wrong. He told Neo that he couldn’t do anything to save Trinity from her “fate”, but Neo did save her. He plunged his hand into her chest and forced her heart to beat. 

That’s true. 

And, you add on, The Architect is a computer program, tasked with mimicking human emotions, despite never having felt them. He could never understand the power of human will, of the desperation so many humans have to live. 

Because The Architect was never alive. He is a sentient computer program, whose job is to create a world in which humans can “live” while they are fed on in the real world, but his problem was his inability to create anything less than perfect. We aren’t expected to be perfect, and are taught that flawlessness doesn’t exist, which is why he came to the conclusion that he needed a “lesser mind” to help him create a better Matrix. 

You aren’t supposed to succumb to the idea of having no choice. Because that, in itself, is a choice. Everything you do is a choice. Even if everything you do will only add up to the same ending, to the same fate, why should you waste time not making the choices you want to make? When you assume that you have no choice, you assume that everything you do will go to waste, but that’s not true. You aren’t the only person that exists. You aren’t the only person who makes choices. The choices you make affect other people’s choices, and those choices affect another person, and another, and another. You still have to live through the choices you make, as does everyone else, so even if everything will end the same, why should you make inherently bad decisions when you could be making good ones? Why should you go through things you don’t have to go through, just because you believe that nothing matters in the end?

“Not really,” you answer Price, snapping yourself out of your thoughts, “I don’t… want to think about it too much right now.” 

Price looks a little more worried now but he doesn’t protest your decision.

“Is there anything in here that you could use to hurt yourself?” he asks after a moment, “Or that you’ve already used?” 

You bite your tongue. Technically, the pills count, you suppose, but those are your meds. You can’t really have those confiscated.

“Other than the medicine, no,” you answer truthfully, much to Price’s relief, as is evident on his face as his hardened expression softens. 

“Good, good,” he shifts in his seat. 

He’s gearing up for something. You can tell with the way he subtly presses his clasped hands together, the way his face goes through a mix of emotions, and the way the deafening silence of the room really seems to be getting to him. 

Suddenly, he asks you, “D’you think you’re going to… ?” 

He doesn’t ask you explicitly, but you have a good idea of what he’s asking.

“I was thinking about it,” you respond softly, “before you came in.”

Price nods, having expected that answer. You’re not sure if it was obvious, or if he just assumed you were thinking about it because of you confessing to having thoughts of it before this. 

“Y’know I have to tell someone about this, right?” Price reminds you gently, as if you didn’t already know, “Someone up the chain. Might be Laswell.” 

You hum affirmatively, because you didn’t expect anything less from him, and know that it’s for the better. It doesn’t make you feel any better, obviously, but you know how to be realistic when the time calls for it, and you know that if the roles were reversed you’d do the same thing. Not because it’s mandatory, but because when you imagine Price in your situation, the thought wraps itself around your heart and twists. 

The room is silent for a beat, and you get the feeling that Price is somehow more uncomfortable with the quiet than you are. He shifts in his seat while you stay still, and he clears his throat to break the silence for a brief moment before speaking up again. 

“It’s late,” he points out the obvious, before pausing and irresolutely asking, “do you want to head back to my quarters with me for the night?” 

His words confuse you for a moment. You open your mouth to ask why, before it suddenly hits you―oh, right, you just basically confessed to being suicidal. He doesn’t want to leave you alone right now. 

“Yeah, sure,” you agree, less questioning than Price expected you to be judging by his momentary look of surprise, before he nods and begins to get up. 

He pushes his chair behind him, standing up straight, and holds a hand out for you to grab. You grab it gingerly and use it to haul yourself up, your knees cracking as you do after having been sat for so long. You wince at the sound and Price gives a light-hearted chuckle.

“I thought I was s’posed to be the old one?” he teases, making you give him an unimpressed look and let go of his hand. The room falls back into soundlessness.

You both remain silent as Price leads you out the door of your office, turning off the lights and closing the door after you, and continues to lead you down to his sleeping quarters. His are farther down the hall from yours, because of his higher rank, and therefore takes longer to walk to from your office. The long walk is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but you both don’t mind this, as the atmosphere here is more comfortable than the one in your office. 

Eventually, you make it to his room, where he opens the door for you and signals for you to walk in first with his hand. You enter the room and hear him enter shortly after you, and go to sit on his bed before pausing. 

“I’m still in my…” you gesture to your clothes, gear-less but still not your “normal” sleeping clothes. Price raises an eyebrow at you as you wave at the state of yourself. 

“I’ve seen you sleep in worse,” he points out, “and I think you sleep in this than in your actual sleeping clothes.” 

You’re about to ask how he even knows about that, before he answers you before you can voice your question, “I’ve seen you walking back t’your quarters in these clothes and hear you snoring a second later at least ten times.”

You close your mouth and sigh through your nose, before muttering, “Didn’t know I was talkin’ to fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes.” 

Price snorts at your retort, “If I’m Sherlock, are you Watson?”

You think about it for a moment, before shaking your head negatively. 

“No?” Price toes off his boots and walks over to you, sitting on the bed, “Then who are you?” 

You sit down next to him, “I dunno. I’m like…” 

“Like Neo,” you continue, ignoring the way Price’s eyebrows immediately raise, “and you’re Morpheus. But less smart.”

“You’re not Neo,” he scoffs, “and I’m not a less-smart Morpheus.” 

“I wasn’t askin’ you,” you grumble, shaking your already-loose boots off of your feet and crawling up Price’s bed. You manage to snake under the covers and feel Price’s eyes on you as you do, staring holes into your face.

He hums in acknowledgment, not bothering to answer you verbally, and instead gets up to lift up the covers and get into bed. The bed is small enough as-is, but with two people inside of it, it obviously gets much smaller. Price doesn’t seem to mind, though, and turns so that his back is facing the door and his front is facing you. Directly in front of you is the base of his neck, but if you tilt your head up, you can see him looking down at you with tired eyes. 

You let out a soft breath through your nose and realize just how tired you are. Price seems to notice this, because his arm comes up and rests across your side, his hand splaying across the middle of your back. He gives you a comforting sweep of his hand, before settling it on your upper back, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against your clothed back. 

You close your eyes, and he closes his, and it feels like you’ve woken up in the real world and removed the cables from your body.

[votebluetwentytwentyfo]

hello! I just made this blog and I am here to encourage democrats and liberals alike to vote blue in this upcoming election! I care very much about democracy, LGBTQIAP+ rights, women's rights, gun control, abortion, tax reform, police reform, and more! I am also calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and for peace in Ukraine. if you'd like to help me achieve these goals, please help boost my posts! also, know that not voting is a uvote for trump. "I don't want the lesser of two evils" is not an excuse not to vote blue. if you want peace in Gaza, you will vote blue because trump will be exponentially worse for Palestinians. if you care about minorities and about having the right to vote, you will vote blue. trump wants to be a dictator. he wants power and strong government. he doesn't care about election safety and about minorities. even those in other countries agree that America has so much power in the global community and if we allow trump, a tyrant, to gain power, we will have failed all marginalized people across the world. if you don't vote blue, you are supporting trump, and the genocide in Ukraine. because if he has power he will allow Putin to wipe Ukraine off the map. also educate yourselves on Project 2025 and trumps plans if he is re-elected. we must stop these from coming into fruition. I understand many people hate democrats and hate Kamala Harris, but if you ever cared about protecting those in red states and those who are struggling, please vote blue. I know you don't want the lesser of two evils, but blue is still LESS evil, and we must focus on that. love, peace, and prosperity unto everyone reading this. let's make America the country I know it can be. thank you 🫶🏻

[soberpluto]

Scribble: Scorpio & Pluto Rising

First post here! This is a brainstorm on what it feels like to be a Scorpio Rising, Pluto (Rx) conjunct ASC (personal case here). Any given position can't be generalized, but this configuration definitely colors my personality BIG TIME! I'm sure other fellow plutonians will agree on this… let me know!

Life is tough, but you're tougher. Nobody can break you but you. You desire to annihilate your ego before it annihilates you. Defensiveness is a deep ingrained instinct. Extremely bullied or overpowered in childhood. Or, unwillingly intimidating. Nobody dares to touch you. Nobody wants to mess with you. You don't fear death, you provoke it. You destroy to build. You build to destroy. Finding yourself in power struggles time after time. You are what people fight or obsess for. You fight and obsess for objects of interest. Addictive tendencies. You need something to be fixated upon. Obsession with looks. Your appearance matches your inner changes. You are master of your image. You push your body to the extremes. You command others to back off with just one glance. Your eyes do the talk. Your stare kills. Eyes that fuck. Thick, stern brows. Hormonal imbalances. Fertility issues. The gravity in your voice. Magnetizing or repelling beyond logical explanation. Mystery is your trademark. You get under people's skin and nerves. X-ray vision. X-ray intuition. Inborn detective. Secrets bow to you like lovers. Deciphering motives is your innate talent. You study and deconstruct people as if they were machinery. You read the room and know where power emanates from. Your presence is never lukewarm. Others fear you. You intrigue others. You don't understand why people react so extremely about you. Other's think you are angry or mournful when you're not. You pretend you don't care, but deep inside you do. You see beyond, but nobody sees inside. Privacy is your sanctuary. You are your sanctuary. Your place of retreat is unknown to the world. Once you let others in, your charm shines effortlessly. Your charisma emerges when you trust. Fear becomes power. The underworld is appealing. You are protected by Death. Dark night of the soul is your terrain. You see beauty in darkness. The darkness inside radically transforms you, for the better and worse. You harness power from grief. Sorrow can be your executioner, but also your savior. Your demons become your friends. You are not afraid of people's disturbing side. Others project their shadow aspects unto you. Others can't understand you. Others can't read you. You make them curious to see what's inside, what you're made of. Do you even know what you are made of? You are a collection of personas, no single identity. You are never the same after critical experiences. You attract intensity, like it or not. Your deepest desire is intimacy, but it never seems safe enough to get there. When you desire something, you know no middle grounds. You die for what you love. You love to death. Your secret wish is to merge souls with the one you love. You draw unwanted attention. You attract over-sexualized people. Animal magnetism. Unspoken seduction. Others want to sex you beyond their control. You desire the forbidden. All things taboo spark your interest. You are the forbidden fruit. You awaken dark desire in your erotic partners, and they like it. Your sex is like a drug. Sexual chemistry is addictive to you. You transform yourself through sexual encounters. Sex partners regenerate when they lie with you. Highest level of intimacy is through eroticism. Tantra. Spiritual sex. Orgasm is resurrection. You like it rough. BDSM and power plays are tasteful. Others want to tame you. You secretly want to dominate those you love. Intense pleasure in being submissive, too. Unspoken and dense sexual tension. The Shaman. The High Priestess. The detective. The psychologist. The prostitute. The soul surgeon. Autodestructive. Self-healing. Are you the hero or the villain? Desire is your basic drive. You despise when someone messes with your vices. Betrayals are your last straw. They happen more than you'd wish to admit. Best way to get you raging is by trying to fool you or cheat on you. Whomever breaks your heart is irremediably dead to you. You don't recycle relationships. You design your own heaven, and also your own hell. Which one shall you cross over this time? 💀 

[fountainpenguin]

"You're on your own- So what? Have you gone blind? Have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?" (x)

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For Sale: Bird Wings (Never Worn)

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Complete! - 7/7 chapters - 37k words

💚 More Neighborhood Watch AU

I just finished a chill, T-rated found family 'fic from my "Life Series but it's a single timeline" AU project. Check it out!

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Synopsis: When Grian Ties’g was 16, the last Totem of Undying in the known world swapped his soul with the Grian one universe to the left… sparing him a perma-death, but at what cost?

An overwhelmed Grian Xelqua - who did not sign up for this, thank you very much - jolts awake in a world where Red Names are no joke and stealing someone’s life is fair play.

And a very Red Tango now has a sword at his throat. ❤️

(First 1,300 words under the cut)

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For Sale: Bird Wings (Never Worn)

Those Who Came Before

🖤  🖤  ❤️

The first Totem of Undying in the Four Lands passed through the wrinkled hands of many wealthy folks in Crimson City before falling into possession of a princess who went Red young and fled her home. She kept it all her life, but when the time came to breathe her last, she unwound it from its place at her bosom and clasped it around the neck of her only son.

"I've lived enough," she simply said. "I've led so long and you've been faithful. Go now and do as you see fit with your given lives."

Steve Wandering watched his mother die as he had watched his father, burying the memories of both with shovel and silence. He'd always been a silent man. He took up his sword and from then on traveled decade after decade, sharing food with the needy and braving the hissing creatures of the night. He invented many things, discovered many treasures, and died glorious in a fight against the Dragon That Ends All.

And lived.

And lost those memories like the wind.

The second Totem of Undying in the Four Lands belonged to Alex Wolftamer in the east, who claimed to care not for the treasure passed down through her ancestral line of Wolf Kings and Queens. They had no palace, but called themselves such titles in their stand against Kingdom Crimson. Rather than flaunt that totem around her own neck, she wrapped it like a collar at the throat of her dog. Across the years, far too many people of sinister desire fought sword and pick to win her hand or win the hunting hound. It's with a shout and diamond axe that she lunged at the cloaked stranger who ventured through the valley forest. With cheery, bellyaching laugh, Herobrine caught her hand and spun her dangerously near the mountain drop.

"Why should I take from your beloved she-wolf?" he asked, and dangled a totem from his own wrist where she could see. "I've already got one. I did not come to take what loved ones gave unto you, but to inquire of your wisdom… for I have no one I love as much as you care for your dear wolf. I am but a cowardly man who's worn the totem for himself for security and peace. I cannot imagine surrendering it. Tell me, warrior… How did you find such inner peace?"

"Who says I have?"

"What ails you, then?"

"I fear the encroach of the Red Army. Their farms extend ever nearer to our forests. Their high-ranking officers, bearing the Hand mark upon their chests, come demanding tribute and insist we raise their banner. So many from our village have sought the safety of their walls. I wish for nothing but food for my dogs, repairs for my roof, and safe passage through the land."

"Ah… What have you done to incite their displeasure?"

"I haven't raised hand against them unless they've come directly in conflict with me."

"How frequent are their conflicts?"

"They've claimed our cows. They flood the roads to market with lava and have taken two lives- nearly three. They harass the trades I make with my own neighbors of my own free will."

"Let us go secretly, then, and burn the walls that have reached your valley's edge."

They married two years later, and it was four after that that Alex fell from a great height, one arm wrapped around her canine companion and the other reaching for a husband who lunged and missed her hand vanishing from the cliff. Alex hit the ground a block away from the rushing river that saved her dog.

And lived.

And lost those memories like rain. Not even the dog recognized her then, growling and nipping when Alex rose to her feet, and Snowflake followed Herobrine when they parted ways. They say he never took Snowflake's totem from her collar, but that Snowflake wriggled out of it the day after Alex died, took the chain in her teeth, and presented it to him with grief in her dark eyes. It may be just a story - a personification of a ragged beast - but it's a prettier tale than the alternative way this tale could end.

That third Totem of Undying, the one that Herobrine Mapcrafter wore on his wrist for much of his life, originated from the North. It tumbled through the hands of wizards and they say Herobrine was gifted it for his proven mastery in breaching the Nether dimension- the secrets of which had only been held by the Westlands until now.

Prior his apprenticeship beneath the wizards' eyes, he'd been raised a cartographer. Following the death of Alex, he took up mapmaking again with Snowflake by his side. He entered the Nether dimension for what he knew would be his final time. They never came out again and no record survives depicting full details. People speak often that he perhaps saved a community of Netherborn folks from a hissing, snarling Wither Boss that clawed its way out of the ground. Others whisper he released that Wither himself out of grief and wished for death. Witnesses claim he leapt before the beast, taking the hit on Snowflake's behalf.

And lived.

And lost those memories like they'd been scorched alive. They say he went mad, never the same again. Some claim they've seen Snowflake's white fur dashing through the Nether even now, her howl weeping for her masters and the moon and the feel of grass beneath her paws.

The last Totem of Undying in the Four Lands (rumor claimed) lay hidden in the Southlands. For three decades since the rise of the Dragon That Ends All, the unremarkable little thing drifted and tumbled and snagged or… something of the sort. Details unknown. It passed into the sewers at some undefinable point, where it floated until it didn't. It caught and clung to the sewer's edge year after year after year.

There it stayed until a ragtag tangle of friends - a trio - sought shelter in the tunnels after their brotherhood of Bad Boys split and turned against each other. They trekked without hesitation into the grime, for they were Red of name and disgust could graze them not. The youngest, with his gray and yellow wings, sat down near the entrance to clean an open wound. The eldest began to organize their meager food supply. The middle child, aged only 16, waded deeper through the passageway, wandering with little purpose but to scout for things to have; things to take. Red Lives, as a rule, are very, very greedy.

The totem lasted exactly 4 minutes and 36 seconds in Grian Ties'g's possession. He found it tangled among the filth and wasted no time taking it for himself. To prevent his fellow Bad Boys from sniping it away, he scrambled up a dirty shaft to the surface like an eel gifted flight. His wings were soaked from sewage water, so he did not fly. He bolted across the open field, laughing like a madman.

"Yes! YESSSS!"

His foot crossed a boundary line he never could have seen. Grian charged straight into a shrieker trap laced with TNT. Set them all off. He died to the gasping cheers of a Red who'd only just finished all the set-up. The last thing he ever heard was the "OH-hoh-hoh-ohhh!" of a shrieking onlooker. He blew up instantly, scarlet feathers and blobs of purple soul energy scattered in all directions. The central core melted free from flesh and dribbled to the ground in a gooey heap.

In a word? Perma-killed. The totem vaporized before anyone ever confirmed he had it, so people seek it in the Southlands even now (It might be right here; it's been hiding right here).

This story is not about that Grian. Not anymore. It's about the one who lived… whose memories do not match this world at all.

[ Full 'fic up on AO3 ]

[dustteller]

Ok more Spiderverse posting because this masterpuece has melted my brain. I need to talk about this movie's thesis of being spiderman

Of course, warning for spoilers below.

In Across the spiderverse, we of course meet this myriad of new and interesting spider people along the way, and it shows us what being Spiderman means without ever explicitly telling us. On one side, we have Miguel, who is what I like to call the mathematically perfect spiderman. He hates messes, and he hates being the one to clean them up more. He will make all the sacrifices he has to to help the mayority of people, because to him, being spiderman means enduring. He sees his world as a web of identical tragedies that they're all doomed to endure. That's why he began and still leads this group of spiderpeople that join together to help keep the web of the multiverse intact. He is respected and capable, and he is always right because he will never again allow himself to be wrong.

And then, there's Miles. He is, to put it simply, a disaster. The whole movie is about how everywhere he goes, he cannot fix a problem without creating a mess to go alongside it. We see this illustrates at the very start of the movie when he tries to aprehend The Spot (who himself is a mess of Miles' accidental creation mind you), and ends up knocking over the shelves of the bodega. He is everything Miguel isn't, and he is everything Miguel hates, because he is not perfect, he is not mathematically correct, and above all, he's a mess.

And yet, it is in their confrontation that we begin to see what the movie is telling us that being spiderman is, and let me tell you something, spiderman is not Miguel O'Hara. Miles himself implies this when he remarks on Miguel's claws, and asks whether that's even something a spiderman can do.

Miguel yells at Miles for being an anomaly, and he treats him so harshly, and yet we as the audience can sense a discomfort in his words. Miguel make sus uncomfortable because it's blatantly clear that he is projecting his own trauma unto Miles. It's why the first time we see him expressing more emotions than annoyance and detached coolness is when he's first explaining the multiverse to Miles. Miles is this kid standing in front of him being told that he is about to lose his dad, and Miguel is a father that has lost the daughter that was never his to begin with. Miguel already tried to ensure a kid wouldn't lose their dad once before, and it cost him that child's life, his daughter's life. All throughout the scene where he explain the multiverse, Miguel has so much sympathy for this kid that is being told to do what he himself could not. And when Miles decides that he will do it anyways, that he will save his father, Miguel is furious because he still sees himself in Miles. All the anger he feels towards Miles is anger that he feels towards himself for his mistakes, and to see Miles be so willing to repeat them infuriates him. Miguel is clean and tidy and precise. He cannot aford to be messy and emotional and hopeful, and he cannot stand the thought that Miles still is.

And this is why Miguel O'Hara cannot be spiderman. He has abandoned all hope and optimism and the defiance of being a small-town superhero in exchange for the machines that help him navigate a world where he is not allowed to make mistakes. Miguel cannot be spiderman because he has ensured that he will never misstep ever again, and in doing so, he has robbed himself of the ability to do both.

Let's go back to that scene at the bodega, because I think that scene had a very important detail in it. Did you notice something unusual? Something that no one ever does in a superhero movie? Miles just tore up this poor man's shop AND failed to catch the guy that was trying to steal his ATM machine. By all means and comic book logic, he should have been furious, but instead simply says he'll charge Miles for the beef patty he ate, since he was only going to comp it if he caught The Spot. This man is never once angry at Miles, because he understands that he's doing his best to help. He still remains very amicable because he knows it's not Miles' intention to fuck up his store. His spiderman is just a bit messy is all, but he's good and he's trhing and that's all that matters.

The prime difference between Miles and Miguel is that Miles making mistakes is never the be all end all of his story. He knows he's messy, and he knows he fucks up sometimes, of course he does. But if he was as terrified to mess up as Miguel was, then he would never allow himself to try and save everyone. He said it himself, he can save both, he will try to save both, and he will be damned if the risk will make him give up and leave somebody for dead when he can still do something about it. Spiderman can save both, but Miguel O'Hara cannot.

[lucabyte]

ADORE your Siffrin gender essay. I appreciate the focus on using direct lines from the game and providing references. You put into words well from what I saw in the game as well and explained it all really well.

Very sidenote from but hell yeah aroace Ash

*does a sick kickflip and high-fives you*

yeah evidence is swag i love evidence. I don't know how else to put it LMAOO. okay let me try and be coherent

I think as an OC creator first and foremost I interact with canon characters, especially of smaller works like this, with a very "what was the author intending? what did they want to tell me, the audience?" mindset.

I specify as like, as an OC creator because of like... I think its a dual-pronged thing.

I know what it's like to write a guy and try and imbue them with knowledge that i Have but they will never be able to just Say Aloud Via Their Mouths (because some characters will just never say some things), but that there's always evidence for the authorial intent SOMEWHERE if you can just triangulate enough pieces...

I have a big beautiful playground full of guys to project my identity unto whenever i want to (hits a larger than average number of my ocs with the aroace nonbinary beam) and that means both a. I come to (well-written) canon characters with a mindset that, oh thank god, they AREN'T mine. I get to use this to explore someone else's mindset, try and decenter my own experience, practice whatever empathy they are leading me to practice. and b. I've already learned that variety is the spice of Character Creation and i'm on the prowl for new things I haven't already made or seen. And amab NBs are not. Commonly seen. So I latched onto that motherfucker like a crocodile about to death roll him and started scouring for supporting evidence.

So yeah. I come at the text with I think, a slightly different angle than the usual "just playing in the fandom space for fun". which like. i AM having fun. i almost feel bad how much fun i'm having, sorry to my ocs who are collecting dust LOL. But it does mean I'm presumably coming at this from a weird angle to begin with, thus, my want to treat it like a more academic endeavour where I Cite my Sources and point out where I'm getting my ideas from.

I also like. haven't interacted with fandom at large for. a number of years. so my barometer on how much I have to explain myself is WACKY. this is what you get from only hanging out with lit and classic students who can't make a gay catboy without psychoanalysing them to the Nth degree. But again I'm having fun so we stay silly.

And i am SO glad that i wasnt the only person drawing these conclusions. Glad to see people immediately going "oh yeah i thought this!!" because like. i dont read other peoples meta. i had NO idea if this was just gonna like. go down like a lead balloon because I'd stepped on everyone's collective toes instead. Glad it does not seem to have in these first couple hours at least

also yeah sidenote god ash ketchum is so aroace. He's only got time for one partner and that's his pokemon partner motherfucker. No time for romance he's on that Seeing The Wonders Of The World Grindset. that complete blank nonreaction to being kissed by serena never fails to make me lose my shit thinking about it. sorry girl you have bet on the wrrrooooong ponyta

[skippyv20]

Skippy, megs Is an outright racist, the way she acted towards the black lady by not letting her stand next to Harry but stand next to her.  She had a mean look on her face when she was talking to the lady ordering her to stand next to her. i would have stood my ground and stand next to Harry anyway. megs is a nasty racist where she is always accusing other people of being racist when she is projecting unto people for what she really is. She does not like blacks, whites, Asian, Chinese and so on. It seems to me she just hates humanity all together. She even hates herself. Her racist side came out full blown when she didn’t want the black lady standing next to Harry for the whole world to see, playing it off as if she wanted the lady to stand next to her. I notice the lady wasn’t smiling after that nor did she look too happy after that. Megs is the true racist, it clearly showed. She doesn’t even like her black side. That’s why she only dates and sleeps with white men. Why was she even there again anyway. Harry is more happier when he is with Nacho, not her. Even though they don’t even live together.  megs Is a freaking racist, it showed.

Thank you!  Oh she is, no doubt about it!  She just makes me sick…sick..sick….❤️

[secret-origins-crossover]

Lore Dump + More

Well, I'm back at it again- with more hyperfixation brainrot and nonsense. I realize I haven’t actually started writing anything; at least in the form of a fanfiction because most of the ideas are larger projects and will take time to complete. Though I know people are interested- the fandom hasn’t died, so I figured why not treat the audience?

To summarize again, Secret Origins is the five-part series ft. the first interactions with the main fandoms of this idea. Before their alliance, they weren’t even aware each other existed- that is until a vacation trip by the Fenton’s to Paris, France changed everything. And that is where our story begins.

Fair warning: I’m going to try and avoid spoilers- as I want this to be a new experience, even though obviously I’m not the first creator of the Secret Quartet but where’s the fun if I just reveal everything in one go?

The Lore Dump

The Kwamis have been there since the very creation of the universe. Each of them represent a different core concepts and abstracts, and work alongside a selected hero to protect their chosen home. They are divine beings with special powers, to say the least; currently not all of the Kwamis are in use- the active heroes are predominantly in Paris, France, but what they don’t know is that another world is hidden under their very eyes

Unlike Amity Park, Paris does not have as many ghosts- though none have ever seen one to begin with; this might have something to do with the fact that the Miraculous can’t cause any damage unto the ghostly population - only to humans - at least as far as anyone’s concerned

Natural portals have been known to appear around the world, but not everyone knows where to find them. Normally, they’re harmless- but at the same time, it’s entirely possible something unwanted comes out through the other side

Ghosts do have haunts and obsessions; normally their obsession is based on unfinished business they didn’t complete in life- other times, it’s more based on a duty they feel obligated to complete

Haunts however, are areas they have claimed as their own. While it isn’t as commonly known, ghosts are considered to be territorial- they will defend their haunt no matter what (author’s cut: in Danny’s case, since he’s only leaving for a week- Sam and Tucker are being left in charge of watching over Amity Park; also i do feel that because Danny’s still human, he doesn’t fully need a haunt- but he is still protective of his the city)

(implied spoilers!) there are safety mechanisms (of sorts) in place when a hero with magical abilities is gravely injured- do with this what you will for now

Akumas can’t affect ghosts! It wouldn’t transform them- it can however, work on other things (iykyk- leaving this vague for the time being)

Character Dynamics + Headcanon Dump

I’m honestly excited for the first meeting between Danny and our Parisian heroes- (without giving away too many spoilers, let’s just say there’s going to be a bit of miscommunication at first)

Due to plot-related reasons, the characters in Paris can speak English. There would be classes to teach English at the high school-

Phan Noir is not a ship tag- at least not for this AU. Danny and Chat Noir however, will be close friends- not only because of their share of puns but honestly I feel they would understand each other’s, well, problems. Is this a bit self indulgent? Maybe, who’s to say

Marinette is not stalking Adrien in this; she’s still pining on him a little bit, and does keep the occasional tab on him but she’s not chasing his every move- however, she’s still young and a bit inexperienced which brings me to my next point

I haven’t figured out the full timeline- but I do think that Mari’s either already the guardian, or her responsibilities are increasing with her status as Ladybug; now the deal with this is Mari’s proven to be a bit anxious- she takes her role very seriously, and honestly this will hinder her at first

Gabriel Agreste is not written to be a good person. Does he love Adrien? I’d say yes, he does but at the same time- he’s not meant to be likable. His pursuits aren’t done with anyone’s best intentions, and this is going to be addressed (of course this is fanon- and this is my au, so… in short, don’t take this wrongly-)

As mentioned before, Phantom Planet does not exist in this timeline- this does happen sometime between mid-season two (maybe somewhat later) of Danny Phantom. Danny has his experience but he is still a teenager- and not all of his powers have fully developed. After all, not much is known about halfas

Danny is getting something of a makeover- is it a bit self indulgent? Yes- I honestly liked his style from Phantom Planet, though I’m mostly referring to the white streak in his hair. His eyes also appear a bit more… bright even as a human; though I’m going to spare the whole redesign/makeover rant for now-

I feel Marinette and Danny might take a while to warm up to each other, but they’re not exactly enemies- the differences in personality sort of hinder their dynamic at times, though at the end of the day, they would protect each other

For the time being, i can’t say anything on the villains- as this is a big thing that will affect the full team of teen superheroes. Hints and revelations are going to be made as the series progresses

Danny struggles a bit with his emotions- the more emotional he becomes, the worse his powers get out of control. He’s still adjusting; he’s gotten better but at the same time- he’s also a teenager and this will show with his behavior

Adrien is not a sentimonster. Will sentimonsters be a thing? Potentially- though as of right now, sentimonsters aren’t inherently canon to the Secret Origins lore

(author’s cut: I’ll update this later! Of course- right now this is only limited to Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug; as more gets developed with later parts and arcs, I’ll add more details)

There is definitely a lot more where this came from but as I’m out of the house and currently having lunch! See you on the flip side!

~ Ace (They/Them)

[mary-magpie]

hot take: media ruined some of your’s perception of bakugou

i know it’s a bit far fetched and requires a bit of explaining but the reason so many of you treat bakugou like shit is because media ruined your perception of teenagers.

now let me explain it. with teenagers being portrayed by actors in their 30s and writers projecting their weird fantasies unto underage people (i’m looking at you sam levinson) people now can’t tell apart what’s normal behaviour for children in media and what is just bad writing.

and the thing is, bakugou’s behaviour is normal for teenagers. he’s abrasive, doesn’t know when to shut up, can’t really express his care for others and a whole bunch of other things, but for god’s sake he’s only 17. he barely lived, he doesn’t know any better. especially in a society that has been encouraging him for his whole life. and he’s trying to change. he sees his weaknesses, he’s trying to be a better person. he’s apologised and he’s been doing so much to be a better version of himself. (some of you just can’t see it because hori didn’t erase his whole personality just to fit some standards).

and yeah, i do believe that some of you were almost brainwashed by media, that thrives on violence and disturbing things, and believe that the only way out for him is to be brutally punished (which by the way he was a few too many times) or just never be forgiven (which is plain stupidity). but i remind you that in real life this would be just a child, that made a mistake, and tries to make amends with the person he hurt.

and if you think that children in real life deserve the same treatment, that you project unto bakugou, then you’re sick people, and i don’t have anything to say to you, except don’t go near children ever.

and by the way. please, learn to fucking read. midoriya is a victim, yeah, but these days are all behind him. he’s capable of protecting himself (was before and even more now), he can decide for himself whether he wants to forgive someone or not. he’s a good person, that wants the world to become a better place. izuku wants everyone to live happily with smiles on their faces. so of course he’d forgive katsuki, because that’s what heroes do.

and if you still do not agree with me just read batman comics, that’ll satisfy your weird desires for someone beating shit out of other people. just saying.

[gubbles-owo]

y'all it is hyperfocus scream time

Alright so sporadic Arknights posting is cool and all, but tumble here is THE website for info dumping your weird fascinations unto the world. I worry enough about being annoying or overbearing all the damn time, so fuck it, it's time to scream about something I love. I've always loved music, and I'm fascinated by splitting it apart and studying it, figuring out what makes things tick. One of my favorite ways to do this is via stems-- that is, when a fully mastered track is broken down into audio files for separate instruments or parts: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, synths, all that. This way you get to hear all the lil intricacies you might've otherwise missed! Unfortunately most music out there doesn't have stems just lying around, but sometimes we're graced with the next best thing: instrumentals. There's a lot to it but TL;DR, we can pull some fancy phase shenanigans between a full and instrumental version of a track to isolate the vocals! It's not perfect, there'll be bits of the full mix poking through, but it's enough to catch some cool things you might not have otherwise heard. Buckle up bitches, cause I'm gonna take you for a ride. Today I'm gonna take you through some of the intricacies of one stellar vocal performance: Suisei's TEMPLATE.

Let's get started!

In fear of the boundless wrath of the copyright gods, I don't wanna post any bits of the og or instrumental raw, so I'll reference parts in the original with timestamps like this (0:00)! I highly recommend you first listen to the song in full, then reference the noted segments in the og as we go through the audio examples. I really want you to appreciate how cool this all is xD To give you an idea of what our instrumental phase cancelling sounds like, here's a short bit from verse one (0:15 - 0:25)

Neat, huh? Already we're hearing the slightest touch of reverb that mostly gets buried in the full mix. It's subtle, but it gives a sense of depth and space that'd be noticeable if missing. As far as performance goes, I love the tension of power in this, the swell of intensity followed by reeling it back in. It's subtle at first but it really evolves as the song progresses. Let's dive a bit further. Here's the vocals for the first chorus (0:34 - 0:59)

Alright now we've got some interesting stuff going on. I wanna stress here that Suisei is a phenomenal vocalist, and the sense of careful control over power and projection she's got starts to show here. Specific syllables are thrown out like a gut punch, and just as quickly retract in this delicate weaving of intensity, and it is so goddamn cool. We also get to hear some harmonies that accompany the lead vocals, but they're still a bit buried under that lead. What if I told you there's a way we could further isolate those? Another technical TL;DR but in addition to left and right, we can also split stereo audio into mid and sides. Most modern mixed music will have lead vocals straight up the center, while backing harmonies are either doubled or effected to trickle out to the sides, to give that lead room to breathe. So what does this same chorus sound like if we listen to just the sides?

Okay so right off the bat we hear this harmony that has a graceful snap upwards to its last note. To my extremely limited jp knowledge it's something like: Boku wa zutto kurushi kattan da That kattan da harmony is beautiful in its own right, and it's not something you get to hear on its own. (also if u know better than me plz correct me if i'm wrong on that jp for the love of god) And after that? It turns out the whole chorus has a layer underneath that's sung an octave below the lead. Like. Holy shit. To my limited knowledge I don't know if we ever get to hear Suisei sing this low in isolation, so this is wild to hear on its own. Her tone and inflection is way different here. Notice the power and projection isn't really there, how it's a bit more lowkey? It doesn't get in the way of the powerful lead, and helps round out the bottom end into a wall of sound when combined. You don't notice it much in the full track, but you'd definitely notice its absence. See, often with music I do this hyperfixation thing where I latch onto the tiniest details imaginable and listen to them over and over again, just to appreciate how enormously fucking cool they are. This low octave chorus is no exception. I heard it when first listening to the full track, but it was awesome to finally hear it in (relative) isolation. ...when excitedly showing this all to some friends, one of them said "gubs you are so fucking down bad." And you know what? She was goddamned right.

Moving onto something a lil smaller, there's an additional higher octave for a moment in verse two (1:11 - 1:15)

And the same thing with the sides isolated:

Simple things like this really help add texture and dynamics to a performance. A harmony that persists for an entire song is often more boring than having it weave in and out! It's especially effective in helping to emphasize certain lyrical bits. The 2nd chorus has different lyrics, but from an arrangement standpoint it's mostly the same as the first. Let's fast forward to the start of the bridge (1:42 - 2:01):

This part isn't particularly buried underneath the mix, but I thought it was worth isolating anyway. I really want to point out how beautiful the additional higher melody is in the second half.

Alright, it's time for one of my favorite parts of this track. Let's take a listen to the latter part of the bridge (2:10 - 2:20):

...do you hear that? Do you fucking hear that?? There is something incredible in here. Let's isolate it.

That last line, with the lead taken out of the mix, has not only a harmony sung an octave above, but also an octave below. Holy fuck. Okay. I need you to understand. Being able to sing the same line in 3!! THREE!!! Different octaves! IS FUCKING WILD. For fuck's sake the melody line itself nearly spans an octave in range!? God. My fucking god. I'm sorry for losing my shit over this (not sorry at all) but this demonstrates an incredibly flexible range, and that is not something you'll hear flexed quite as hard as it is here. I've only heard a handful of examples of this sort of thing before. I adore this shit so much. I am such a gay fucking loser oh my g od *ahem* alright let's wrap this up by listening to this fantastic outro segment (2:42 - 3:01):

Personally I tend to dislike when a slowed, half-tempo chorus is replaced by/followed with a full-speed section in an effort to ramp up intensity. Speed doesn't equate to power, and if anything, I feel that a slower feel is often more methodical and powerful. But here? The chorus to this song is sublime, and it feels like all three have been building up this boiling tension that finally explodes in this segment. It's so fucking good. And while she still demonstrates a more than competent grasp on how to project and emphasize, Suisei gets to let lose and go all out here. And for funsies, here's the backing harmony behind that whole segment:

I love shit like this. I cannot sing to save my life (god i wish i could) but over the years I've picked up a lot on how different vocalists construct their backing harmonies. It's not something most people think about, but carefully crafted layered vocals can really enhance, emphasize, and expand on a performance. They add so so much color and personality to an artist's style. Fuck y'all this shit is so cool.

_____________________________ Welp, that wraps it up for this one!! I hope you got to hear and learn something new, maybe pique or cultivate an appreciation for the intricacies that often bury themselves in the mixes you listen to. Or maybe you just thought it was neat, that's fine too xD I'd love to scream more and do similar breakdowns of other songs and vocalists, so I dunno, I may or may not already be plotting another one of these :3c

[ibrithir-was-here]

Oh my goodness I just realized I never posted the AO3 link for the Baby Dream AU fic so here it is xD

Jessamy was a raggedy, much mended, button eyed stuffed raven. She was Morpheus's only friend, and he loved her more than anything in the world…

-----

Morpheus is six, Morpheus is kidnapped, Morpheus is accidentally visting one Hob Gadling in his dreams as a way of escaping his dire conditon. Morpheus needs rescuing, if Hob can figure out just what these recurring dreams of a tiny dark haired child mean.

(Funky little Platonic Dreamling idea that came to me late one night and wouldn't let go, so here we are)

[the-chronicle-of-holy-days]

Day 4

Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli

Adumbratio Kabbalae Aegyptiorum sub figurâ VII

VI

1. Thou wast a priestess, O my God, among the Druids; and we knew the powers of the oak.

2. We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed.

3. There we performed many wonderful things by midnight.

4. By the waning moon did we work.

5. Over the plain came the atrocious cry of wolves.

6. We answered; we hunted with the pack.

7. We came even unto the new Chapel and Thou didst bear away the Holy Graal beneath Thy Druid vestments.

8. Secretly and by stealth did we drink of the informing sacrament.

9. Then a terrible disease seized upon the folk of the grey land; and we rejoiced.

10. O my God, disguise Thy glory!

11. Come as a thief, and let us steal away the Sacraments!

12. In our groves, in our cloistral cells, in our honeycomb of happiness, let us drink, let us drink!

13. It is the wine that tinges everything with the true tincture of infallible gold.

14. There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird.

15. I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping God!

16. Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast through the circus of Nothingness.

17. Thou Gladiator God!

18. I play upon mine harp; Thou fightest the beasts and the flames.

19. Thou takest Thy joy in the music, and I in the fighting.

20. Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor.

21. See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais.

The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and bliss.

22. The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince upon a slave.

23. He rises a free man!

24. Cast thou, O prophet, the cloak upon these slaves!

25. A great night, and scarce fires therein; but freedom for the slave that its glory shall encompass.

26. So also I went down into the great sad city.

27. There dead Messalina bartered her crown for poison from the dead Locusta; there stood Caligula, and smote the seas of forgetfulness.

28. Who wast Thou, O Caesar, that Thou knewest God in an horse?

29. For lo! we beheld the White Horse of the Saxon engraven upon the earth; and we beheld the Horses of the Sea that flame about the old grey land, and the foam from their nostrils enlightens us!

30. Ah! but I love thee, God!

31. Thou art like a moon upon the ice-world.

32. Thou art like the dawn of the utmost snows upon the burnt-up flats of the tiger’s land.

33. By silence and by speech do I worship Thee.

34. But all is in vain.

35. Only Thy silence and Thy speech that worship me avail.

36. Wail, O ye folk of the grey land, for we have drunk your wine, and left ye but the bitter dregs.

37. Yet from these we will distil ye a liquor beyond the nectar of the Gods.

38. There is value in our tincture for a world of Spice and gold.

39. For our red powder of projection is beyond all possibilities.

40. There are few men; there are enough.

41. We shall be full of cup-bearers, and the wine is not stinted.

42. O dear my God! what a feast Thou hast provided.

43. Behold the lights and the flowers and the maidens!

44. Taste of the wines and the cates and the splendid meats!

45. Breathe in the perfumes and the clouds of little gods like wood-nymphs that inhabit the nostrils!

46. Feel with your whole body the glorious smoothness of the marble coolth and the generous warmth of the sun and the slaves!

47. Let the Invisible inform all the devouring Light of its disruptive vigour!

48. Yea! all the world is split apart, as an old grey tree by the lightning!

49. Come, O ye gods, and let us feast.

50. Thou, O my darling, O my ceaseless Sparrow-God, my delight, my desire, my deceiver, come Thou and chirp at my right hand!

51. This was the tale of the memory of Al A’in the priest; yea, of Al A’in the priest

(Years favorite is with bold as always) and I can’t even explain this days choice haha

[sapphicthunderhead]

I need to talk about Dr. Manuela Dominguez (from The Magnus Archives). This woman Drives Me Insane. [TL; DR at the bottom.]

She is initially presented as a textbook mad scientist: a disgraced astrophysicist bent on ending the world as we know it. But with every nuance and detail introduced about this character over the course of the narrative, my understanding of her shifted. By the end, I felt as if the person she described at the beginning of her first Statement was completely divorced from the twisted thing she became— which is the repugnant truth of what happens to Fear Avatars.

Some key details from her first Statement that really struck me: 1) I can really see myself in her love for physics and her ambition. 2) Her alienation from her fanatically religious, “vicious” parents is a big contributor to her downfall, but never remotely presented as an excuse for her actions. 3) She is so utterly unrepentant.

Regarding her parents: She saw the inconsistencies and hypocrisy in their bigoted beliefs about what is “unnatural,” likely in part because, she says, “I found myself crossing that line from an early age. Although, strangely, out of everything I was, it was always my desire to pursue a scientific career that they railed against with the most energy” (MAG 135: Dark Matter).

(I could be projecting, but this line has caused me to speculate that she might also be gay. If so, it would certainly add another level of pain &/or frustration to her home situation.)

But young Dominguez disregards her parents’ ludicrous exhortations and goes on to become an an expert on dark matter (mysterious masses that cover much of the universe and do not emit, absorb, or interact with photons) and dark energy (mysterious force which may be responsible for the expansion of the universe).

It is in the process of researching these phenomena that she has a spiritual awakening of the worst kind. She soon becomes a disciple and eventually second-in-command to Maxwell Rayner, ringleader of the cult of the Dark, the Church of the Divine Host (said Host being Rayner). As a cultist, she goes on a mission aboard the vessel of allied Fears that is the Daedalus space station. There, she creates The Extinguished Sun— a sun made of dark matter, which the Church uses as a focal point in their ritual of the same name to bring about eternal darkness.

That brings us to the point where this character loses my sympathy in the same way Callum (Rayner’s partial reincarnation?) did in S5. The Extinguished Sun ritual involves keeping Marked individuals (which events in S5 lead me to fear may be predominantly children) trapped and terrified in the dark for extended periods of time, and then sacrificing them to the Dark via drowning, in a callback to the manner in which Halley/Rayner was killed/reborn as a vessel of the infinite darkness that predates time itself.

So How Am I To Cope??? Do you know how often I come across women as mad scientists in media— let alone ones who are ambiguously implied to be gay?! Not often!

But there is a possibility she kills kids, and I can’t tolerate that shite, so all I am left with is immeasurable disappointment in her lack of conscience, and in her for joining a cult instead of getting therapy, and in her parents for being dicks, and in those who have purveyed ignorance and engaged in cruelty “in the name of God” both historically and unto the modern day, and in society for the continued existence of systemic sexism (and other biases), and in the limited number of women, POC, and LGBT+ individuals portrayed as mad (and regular, marginally less fun) scientists in media, etc… It’s quite the web of inequity and suffering, stretching between this world and the fictional.

Dr. Manuela Dominguez is a character who makes me sad that there aren’t more women mad scientist characters in media. If there were, it perhaps might not hurt so much to see her progress from someone whose trials, goals, and motivations I can understand and empathize with, to an unredeemable child killer.

To clarify, I don’t believe the author’s writing of this character was bad or sexist. I don’t feel the same morose regret about what could have been when it comes to Jude Perry; I do when it comes to Agnes Montague; I don’t when it comes to Gertrude; etc. I think that Jonny intended for the audience to at least passively ponder the person that Dr. Dominguez could have been, under different circumstances. It is a feature of the writing of all the Avatars.

One of the core themes of the series is this: How do circumstances (such as economic systems, wink wink nudge nudge) shape people? Dr. Dominguez is just one of many disheartening answers to that question.

TL;DR: Dr. Dominguez started out as a victim of bad parenting, and eventually into an even more sick and twisted version of her parents, who she despised as a child for their zealotry and cruelty. But this might not hurt me so bad to think about if 1) I didn’t relate so much to her younger self, as an aspiring physicist and a sapphic trying to shake off the message that everything that brings me joy is “unnatural” and 2) if she wasn’t the first character I thought of when trying to recall women mad scientists in media.

For those who feel like looking for other fem mad scientists in podcasts, I believe Ava the theoretical physicist from Midnight Burger and doctor/assassin Vespa Ilkay from Penumbra both count. For a sane fem scientist, try the marine biologist protagonist from DOWN. If you think of any others in any kind of media, you’re welcome to respond in the comments or tags.

(I know of Poison Ivy, as well as the more sane Dr. Sattler from “Jurassic Park” and Dr. Calvin from Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot,” and I appreciate them. You may leave them out of the replies.)