#adhd’s a bitch that doesn’t always let me write what I want to write but I got that far

[pixiemage]

Please, for the love of god, please don’t be this person. No matter how long it’s been since an update, no matter how many unfinished stories are sitting on their account, no matter what - do not be this person.

Not only is it insanely rude, but you also do more damage than you think be being such a self-entitled ass about something someone created for free and for fun. “This author” can see what you say.

RIP decency indeed.

[scientia-rex]

I got home from work today sneezing my head off with a right eye that won’t stop watering, took a hot shower, climbed into bed, and I haven’t climbed out since. I’m grumpy and I have a headache and if I’m not testing positive for COVID or debilitated by symptoms tomorrow I’ll still need to go to work because that’s twenty patient visits that would need to be rescheduled, usually with someone else, and that’s twenty people I’m letting down. Today I did one of my patented 45-second Pap smears (if it takes longer than that, your doctor needs to get better!) for someone with vaginal atrophy from menopause (it is both very common and very treatable) and she was in disbelief. (This time it was more like 30 seconds.) I saw a suicidally depressed patient who’s clinging to life with both hands and I changed their meds last week and I am not making them wait to see me. I cleaned a wound no one else gave a shit about and I saw a bitter pissy Republican Party bigwig who has terrible anxiety and depression she doesn’t tell anyone about, who’s alienated everyone but who I can still convince to try treatment.

I do my job on hard mode on purpose. I like being important—who doesn’t? I like being legendary, I like that when people move to town and ask for doctor recommendations on Facebook so many people mention me that other patients feel compelled to tell me about it. I got nominated for best doctor in our local region last year. (I didn’t win, out of 5 nominees.) But when I’m sick, when I’m the kind of sick that can be hidden easily, the kind of sick I was always expected to go to school and rotations and residency with, it’s so hard. I hate exposing patients, even to a cold, but the benefits of receiving care are probably enough to outweigh the chance of transmission. I wrestle with myself: if I call in, it starts a ripple effect. Can they get a per diem from their “pool” (of three) to come in? Can they reschedule my patients with me? I don’t have any open spots for five weeks. Can they open same days? None available for three weeks. Can they open blocked spots? That’s going to make my life hell when I come back from being sick. That’s clinic staff calling twenty patients, trying to reach them. That’s twenty patients who feel abandoned. They can know intellectually that doctors get sick too, but they don’t believe it. They take it personally. I have seen this over and over again, until I had to believe it.

It is so EASY for people who don’t do this job to tell me how I’m doing it wrong. “Just stay home!” Oh, okay, you want to tell the person whose chronic opioids I’m supposed to write for that I can’t? You want to put the nurses through getting the on-call to write a bridge prescription? I write more ADHD meds than most of my peers—usually a lot more. You want to tell my colleagues to write meds they’re uncomfortable with? How about tell my suicidal patients (which is a lot of them!) that the provider they know and trust after months or years will be replaced today by a 70-year-old white man who still thinks they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Tell my queer patients that they have to wait until I’m better and back to get their hormones and their STI screenings, reschedule a Pap someone was dreading. Every day is a kaleidoscope of opportunities to make a real connection with “difficult” patients. I’m good at it. I may be the best at it at my clinic.

I don’t hate calling in sick just because the clinic manager is a judgy bitch, though that doesn’t help. I hate it because of what it does to my patients. And it’s not simple. Pretending it is does all of us a disservice. I am not a widget. I am not easily replaceable. You can’t plug any of our per diems (all men, 2/3 white, 2/3 old, 1/3 a Bitcoin bro) into my place and call it an equivalent, and my schedule is already so packed that if I call in sick, patients will be guilt-tripping me about it for months. I’m not kidding. That happens every single time.

Christ alive, I wish it was true that doctors never got sick.

[buckybarnesss]

on fire: a teen wolf novel chapters 1-3

on fire was published on july 17, 2012. the day after raving had aired during the show's second season.

it was written by nancy holder who has written many, many tie-in books for multiple franchises but most notably she wrote novels for the buffyverse.

by tapping nancy holder to write the novel confirms to me that mtv was trying to do what teen wolf's spiritual predecessors did and create tie-in novels with the show and on fire was testing the waters for that.

it did not succeed because teen wolf doesn't have the kind of space for that. the timeline is too tight. teen wolf was part of the new netflix binge era. it had a seasons of 12 episodes that were wall-to-wall plot. there weren't silly filler episodes and they didn't do monster of the week plots.

on fire assumes that you have seen episodes 1-5 of the show but it is also an AU of season 1 post-the tell.

i get the vibe that the author was given notes, some information or like an outline that she used to build a plot so it's interesting to see what tid-bits holder uses and refers to that still gel with canon or is consistent with what we know.

this isn't a novelization of season 1 that's for sure but, hey, i took notes.

i'm going to break the novel up into 3 chapter chunks.

so without further ado let's get into it. on fire: a teen wolf novel or as i've been thinkin of it as.

the novel starts right at the very end of the tell after the parent teacher conferences. 

the way it's described when argent shoots the mountain lion brings to mind the scene in to kill a mockingbird when atticus shoots the rabid dog. chris argent is no atticus finch but he sure does learn to walk a mile in someone else's shoes doesn't he?

i somehow always manage to forget that the tell is the episode where allison turns 17. she doesn’t live to see her 18th birthday. shot through the heart man. 

oh my fucking god scott. the way this is written i imagine holder is trying to invoke derek and kate as if there’s some wild age gap between him and allison when they're like 9 months apart in age. allison is not kate jesus chris. look at this shit:

“scott hadn’t known allison was seventeen, a year older than the other kids in their class -- older than him -- and didn’t want anyone to know.”

Fuck Rafael McCall. Meet me outside and catch these hands.

“he knew his dad wasn’t keeping up with child support payments. not that his mom had ever mentioned it.”

this is where the transition into heart monitor would be. it is a pretty terrifying dream scott has. peter’s such a dramatic bitch. scott’s dreaming of being in the woods with everything on fire and then he’s being compelled by peter to come kill with him. which just reinforces my whole thing about peter and scott being psychically connected. we don’t see this with any other alpha-beta connection to this degree. derek senses victoria killing scott in raving but we really do not get this in the show very much as it seems to be a Dark Sided power. but we do see peter use it again in season 6a with the whole “you were my beta first” scene. 

scott mentions stiles’s having ADHD so to me that means that nancy holder was definitely working with the idea that stiles does have it. stiles having ADHD seems like a plot thread that got dropped really quickly by the show but remained in dylan’s acting choices and in fandom’s mind.

scott is the only beta we see experience sleepwalking episodes. it seems tied to the compulsion and mental link he shares with feral alpha peter.

the entire paragraph is something. firstly, it wasn't until night school, the episode after this one, that peter tried to push scott into killing his “pack”. but lol melissa called stiles scott’s “litter mate” and stiles wearing his target shirt that he wore in wolf moon and the one that subtextually could reference the nemeton and eventually scott's pack symbol. i don't believe we ever actually saw that shirt again. the tragedy.

“stiles had on his bullseye t-shirt, and it kind of freaked scott out when he wore it. as if it meant that stiles were a target. They both knew the Alpha wanted Scott to kill him to cement Scott’s acceptance that he was a member of the Alpha’s pack. Who better to take down than the guy Scott’s mom had once referred to as his “litter mate”?”

this is where it's starting to get kind of weird because the plot of this book takes place during season 1 but it’s not strictly following the plot. it feels like an alternate season 1.

jackson has gone missing. when is he not missing is the more appropriate question? 

so chapter 2 starts with scott and stiles joining lydia and allison at The Popular Kids Table to discuss jackson being missing. this wouldn’t have happened in season 1. this dynamic didn’t exist until at minimum season 3. lydia didn’t even acknowledge stiles’s existence until the winter formal at the end of the season. 

jackson’s parents apparently went to paris right after the parent-teacher conference, leaving their high school age child alone for an extended period of time in the middle of the school year? what? no wonder jackson’s fucked up. why didn’t they just go around christmas and instead they waited another three weeks or some shit. that is weird.

jackson’s been left a note from a supposed private investigator about his birth parents while his parents are out of town, which is totally not sus at all. 🙄🙄 lydia's concerned about him looking stupid so she won’t go to the sheriff and she doesn’t even approach jackson’s best friend danny. like, danny would know a lot more about jackson than scott or stiles would. lydia, i know allison is the one who involved scott but for fuck’s sake. 

look even a page later lydia says “he and jackson barely know each other.” then why are you involving scott in what you seem to believe is a personal matter? 

do people just generally know jackson was adopted? i can see lydia knowing but scott and stiles? allison just fucking moved there so she doesn’t know anything about anyone. this is quite the personal piece of information i doubt he’d want others to know lydia. 

this is such an AU because after the parent-teacher conference stiles was giving scott the cold shoulder due to his dad being hurt. 

also stiles is supposedly sitting at this table the entire time lydia, allison and scott are talking and has not given his opinion on the matter yet. very unlike him. if there's one thing stiles has it's opinions on jackson and his father's job. stiles would be all over this.

this fucking line is brutal man -- “stiles was the only person on the planet who knew he had become a werewolf. well, derek knew, too, but derek hardly counted as a person.” that said, i do think it’s accurate to scott’s headspace at this point regarding derek. avoiding seeing derek as a person is a way of detaching himself from the situation he’s found himself in. 

alright so we’ve got a POV change to allison --a nd it’s all about how cute acott is. allison I love you but chill please. 

okay so this is interesting. “her mom had been angry, too. allison could tell that if had been left up to her, she wouldn’t have been so harsh about having to stay all weekend. her mom liked scott.” are we sure we’re talking about the same victoria argent? granted this is pre-werewolf reveal so as far as victoria knows allison is just mooning over a nice normal human boy but i have a hard time imagining this being the same victoria who gave us the crazy eyes and the sharpening your dick metaphor.

this still haunts me.

"except i won’t get to spend time with scott except at school until i’m, oh, 112.” oh right in the feels

this book really assumes you’ve seen episodes 1-5 of the first season. allison’s mentioning aunt kate and the necklace in a way that makes the assumption the reader knows who and what they are. 

jackson’s password for his tracking app is “captain”. that is worse than the password being lydia or like scott famously having allison as his password. y’all suck and have shitty computer security.

these kids are sophomores in high school and lydia and allison are really having a discussion about jackson going to a pay by the hour motel as if that’s a thing 15-16 year olds do in the california subburbs on a regular basis. as if jackson would lower himself in such a way to begin with. he’s snobby as fuck. it’s such a weird conversation.

i am page 20 and i feel like so far this author hasn’t been very nice to stiles. not having him say a word in the lunch conversation about jackson despite not only being very opinionated about jackson whittermore’s general existence he’d also have thoughts on a missing person. like, he didn’t even speak when his dad was brought up as a possible avenue of help which is odd. then about a page later there’s this sort of tone used around stiles that feels condescending about him being hyperactive.

this paragraph is, uh, something that could’ve only been written in 2012 because it feels gross:

“lydia shrugged. then she turned to allison. “tell you what. if the boys are willing to the motel for us ---” “to a motel. to look for a guy,” stiles said. ”maybe you should ask danny?” danny, their lacrosse team goalie, was gay, out and proud. “he could act, you know, more casual about it.”

that said, it does track with stiles being overly occupied with the perception of his sexuality and that danny does shit he’s way too young to be doing which is written around his sexuality. remember the whole older boyfriend and going to the jungle thing is season 2? 

it has been like 23 pages and allison’s got this subplot where she wants to have sex with scott. like girlie you’ve known scott for 2 days, keep your pants on. (it keeps coming up with scott too and it's annoying, okay).

it took stiles barely a paragraph to mention derek hale when the point of view switched to him. sir. 

i’m laughing at how derek’s point of view is paired with stiles in the way that scott and allison’s are. even in the non-canon book the Sterek Agenda is there. 

“a prankster with a wicked sense of humor.” is what derek refers to peter as before the fire. is that what we are calling it derek because i would disagree.

“i dreamed of other alphas coming after me. why? it’s not a crime to kill an alpha. i’m a werewolf. the way we progress in status is through challenge.” now this is an interesting perspective. werewolves progress via challenges. that's still sort of in-line with what we see in canon.

allison and scott are driving into the seedier side of town. AKA what seems to be where the poors live. scott describes seeing boarded up buildings, pawn shops and “some kind of clinic where you could sell your blood.” which I assume is a plasma center where people donate and get paid in return and this little classist shit says “remind me to never get a blood transfusion.” god he’s such a 16 year old..

i saw kate's name on the next page where chapter 4 is

[lostfracturess]

Hi I apologize in advance for the rant you’re about to read 😬

Okay, so I’ve been going on endless rants about angst and how writers tend to fall back on the same tropes and how exhausting it is for readers, and I almost didn’t read the most recent chapter of symptoms and causes because you’d said how angsty it was going to be.

That being said, the reason I’m sending this is because you’ve done what so many people fail to do: write angst that didn’t leave me feeling hopeless and empty at the end. The promise of an eventual happy ending definitely helps, but the anguish you write for these characters just fits the situation so well. And you’ve written it so that a happy ending actually feels possible. The mentality, how broken and terrified they both are. The trauma Gojo clearly has and the love the fact that she loves him anyway. The fact that she withdrew and gave them both space but he can’t stay away, and she loves him too much to send him away. You’ve made them worth rooting for. You’ve made him a character that can be redeemed and given readers a desire to see him redeemed because in everything, his choices that end up being selfish are literally driven by his desire to protect others from himself. Self-destructive mental illness, man.

I think what makes your writing compelling, at least to me, is that you seem to understand when enough is enough. You didn’t reach the point of no return and dive headfirst off that cliff, you stopped just short of that point and gave enough hope that things will come back around. I just want to see them happy, man. Gojo feels so deeply that he doesn’t deserve happiness or love but he does. Even with how broken he is, he deserves to find the strength to fix himself. And that feels like what you’re setting up. It feels like you’re setting up the “I will learn to fix myself because this person is worth living for” instead of the idea of “this person is the one who saved me.” IMO the latter is one that feeds the toxic issues because it’s based codependency and being unable to function without the other. I love the idea of her standing beside him while he learns to love himself, not carrying him to it. (I’ll stop here because I could go on forever about that)

Just. Hi, I’m Kiko (aka @siriuslysatorusimping). I rant a lot and I love writing that dives into the psychology behind things. The way you’ve captured what an internal spiral can look like, the panic, it’s all just 😭

(Also, hi, I’m Kiko. I’m autistic and adhd af and I tend to over explain and over justify because I always want to make sure I’m not coming across as rude when I’m trying to give genuine compliments so I hope this reads as praise and not me being a bitch 🙃)

hey kiko, no apologies needed at all, i really love your analyses actually !! never thought about it too much how angst can become too overwhelming for readers, because my tolerance for angst is like sky high so i'm even more glad that i didn't ? overdo it.

but the anguish you write for these characters just fits the situation so well.

so glad that the drama they go through feels (partly) real for readers. that's really my biggest concern, that their motives and actions don't feel natural?

The fact that she withdrew and gave them both space but he can’t stay away, and she loves him too much to send him away. You’ve made them worth rooting for.

ahhh so glad you noticed that !! she was really ready to fight it all but then instead noticed how he is struggling and if she would push him more (what she would have loved to do) it really would have just gone the other opposite way.

but when he's at her door, she still lets him in and takes care of him, because even if she resents him, she still cares so deeply. that's also why she asked him if he had nightmares. because she still cares.

his choices that end up being selfish are literally driven by his desire to protect others from himself.

yes 100 percent !!

I love the idea of her standing beside him while he learns to love himself, not carrying him to it.

yes yes yes !! i totally wanted to write a female lead who will not hold his hand and sweet-talk to him about his addiction because apparently he's really shitty deep into it. she will mirror him the hard truth about his issues without second thought even if it hurts.

because otherwise he would just keep up his avoidant behaviors. but that's also what scares the hell out of him, because he's not used to, firstly face his fears at all and secondly to have it so clearly mirrored back at him, at least not in this intensity.

guess in his past his previous partners and friends just tiptoed around the issue but not her. she's like, okay we have this issue here, how we solve it, because i want you and i want you to stay alive apparently.

but after he rejected her again after she literally confessed her love to him it really was too much for her. even the strongest female leads have limits so that hurt her awfully. (okay lol no i went on with my babbling, i'll stop here 😂).

The way you’ve captured what an internal spiral can look like, the panic, it’s all just

also so so happy you picked up on the nuances of the mental health struggles i'm trying to depict. that kind of internal spiraling, the way anxiety and self-loathing can warp a person's perception.

i love messy emotions and diving deeper into how they affect literally everything that we do, even without us knowing !!

thank you so so much for taking your precious time to share your thoughts, i really appreciate it and love talking about the psychology behind the story !! have a good day ♡

and no worries, your message absolutely reads as sincere praise, not at all rude !!

[professor-rye]

10, 20, 30, 40 for the weird writer asks!

Thank you for sending me some questions! Apologies in advance for how much I ended up rambling 😅

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Oh gosh. Definitely Dapple. I was worried that I wouldn’t finish the very beginning idea I had (which ended up just being act 1), so I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when not only did I finish that, but then it kept going… and going… *and going.* I’ve always been good at coming up with ideas for long fics, but never before (or since) have I ever been able to actually *stick* with writing them, let alone so consistently. For some reason, for Dapple, my ADHD brain said “This is your life now and you are addicted”. It literally was what kept me on this earth for a while there. It unironically saved my life. And then it just… disappeared. 

My brain no longer wanted to think about it, and it was only habit keeping me going for a while there. I pushed past that point way too far and got burnt out, and I’m still waiting, desperately hoping, that the floodgates will open again. And not just because I want to finish it, mind you. Like I said, writing and posting dapple did so much good for me. It was a safe harbor in a storm. It helped me process some of the worst traumas in my life. It got me *so many friends*. I can not express enough how much I miss it. …. Gods, okay, that got way deeper than I intended. Apologies! Gods… well uh, on to the next question!

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you've always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

Well, after the last question, I think the answer is probably obvious lol. No question at all, I would pick to perfectly finish Dapple (Gods, and if that also let me get the sequel idea I had as well?? And also all the side fics??? Shit I would sell my soul for that). (It also doesn’t help that I am ace and have trouble contemplating the idea of magically gifted eternal happiness, so like… it was just very stacked in Dapple’s favor already)

30. Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

So, its kind of complicated? I am very much so that writer who just daydreams about fic ideas as I lay down to sleep every night, so there is a very hazy period during the in between where sometimes I’ll get ideas that I can actually remember the next morning.

But I don’t think they’re actual dreams, because my normal dreams tend to be a) incredibly stressful and b) about the most boring stuff imaginable, which is quite the combo. 

But I will say that the pre-sleep daydreaming feels so different from any other actual plotting that I do. It’s very… gods, how do you describe this… 

There’s a thing I learned in art school where you step away from your composition and squint till you can only see the hazy outlines of the different elements of the work. Or like when they tell you to turn the painting upside down for a bit to see what isn’t working. The pre-sleep daydreaming always involves reimagining the scenes I had already thought about during more lucid moments, but looking at the broader strokes and the pure emotion of it (because sleepy). 

So most of the “ideas” I got from those moments were realizations that certain elements didn’t quite work the way I wanted them to, and then once I was actually lucid, I could think back on it and then (sometimes) realize a better way to handle that particular part. 

So… yeah? It’s hard to say if that counts as dreams specifically, but it’s also a really big part of my writing… existence? Process feels weird to say there lol. But yeah, it felt relevant to share. 

Gods, I’m rambling again. Last question! 

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

(not me taking several days to find this poem because my memory is terrible and I kept mixing up the line I was searching)

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. ~ Mary Oliver

So yeah, if anyone else wants to send questions, here is the original question list post thingy. I will try not to ramble quite so much next time 😅

[die-mitri]

Some Pre-DvK2 Bakugou Analysis!

Word count: ~4,100 (sorry lol, TL;DR at bottom)

Reading time: ~15 minutes

Note: I made lots of words bold, italicized, or colored and with a lot of paragraph breaks to make this more readable for the bitches with ADHD out there. I see y'all and I can't read either. Sorry if this makes it harder to read for others 🤷🏽

I'm in the process of trying to start a bkdk fanfic and make it as in-character as possible by trying to relate to the characters and get in their heads. While I relate heavily to Bakugou, he's also a character that's very hard to understand.

What I mean is that I relate to a lot of Bakugou's base instincts and thought patterns, but the things he gets upset about in-canon make little sense to me. To try to get into his head I've had to do a deep dive on myself and all the things I've been upset about in a similar way he has been, as well as to understand why I've felt justified acting so similar to him. Considering most people act in ways they feel justified in, I need to analyze what about Izuku would make me so bothered by him, that I would treat him the way Bakugou does. If I can tap into that feeling and try to distort my thinking and apply it to his specific situation, then I’ll have an easier time writing this mostly canon-compliant fic.

I'm gonna use myself as a reference for his behavior and will be talking about a time when I was much a worse person. I've since grown a lot and realized how wrong I was, so please keep that in mind and try not to judge 12-15 year old me too harshly. The stories I use will have fake names for the people involved to help you keep track of them.

None of this is meant to justify the way Bakugou treated Izuku, and is only meant to try to understand why he did it in a more relatable/realistic, less anime-dramatic nonsense way. Mostly, so I can replicate his thought process for accurate fic writing.

I'm gonna address this analysis in 5 different bits: fear, anger, pride/shame, building a persona, and the conclusion.

Let's go!

FEAR!

Bakugou struggles with being seen as weak/incapable. It's DIFFERENT from his superiority complex... Although connected.

It's my belief (backed up by canon) that Bakugou's relationship with his mom has affected his perception of strength and worth; and that because of her, he's attached his identity to his strength, which he felt made him more secure and better than other people. To be weak, is to be pathetic, is to be humiliated. To be clear, I don't think he did this consciously. It was just that kind of thing that seeped into the way he thought and because of it, he tried to fortify himself against any and all vulnerability. Which leads to the bullying/ “Better to hunt than be hunted” mentality. As well as his black and white thinking. If his way is right, everyone else’s must be wrong and anything that challenges his limited world view is a threat to his very being. If his strength doesn’t matter, or isn’t the best, then who is he? That’s a scary thought to me too.

It's a similar story with me, just switch the parent. My dad is a man of principle and one of his principles is that you should not be a pussy and always be the smartest person in the room. I attached my identity to being right all the time and always standing my ground. I’m sure you can guess how fun I was at parties.

So I refused to let others see when I'd actually been hurt and hated the idea of being seen as pathetic or weak. I also couldn't accept that I needed help sometimes. I wanted to be unshakable and plow through everything. 

A ridiculous outcome of that, is that I used to hate apologies in any direction. "Don't apologize to me, I don't need your help getting over this. I won't apologize to you bc that means I was thinking about feeling bad about what I did and you can't know that." 

In truth, I didn't mind being wrong, just looking like I cared. 

That’s the heart of it. I cared a lot less about the values I had, and a lot more about how scared I was to be seen not fulfilling them. It’s embarrassing.

Another, much stupider example of this in my life is that I hate being babied. Even by people who look up to me or respect me as equals.

Once at summer camp I had some friends fuss over me about something. I can't even remember what it was anymore, probably wearing sunscreen. I just got so upset. I was like "I'm not a fucking kid, I can take care of myself. Don't try to help me bc there's no reason I'd ever need help." In retrospect it was seriously not a big deal, and they're both friends that I love dearly, but my own issues with having people take care of me got in the way of me perceiving their affection like a normal human being.

Bakugou is the same about needing help and would rather die/lose than be seen as pathetic/vulnerable. Like he said during their dual exam that not even having the choice to destroy himself in order to have control win would be unbearable. If his strength isn’t enough on its own, then he is not enough.

I think this particular issue is made worse by his poor impulse control in regards to Izuku... (With everything else, he's very calculated, which I talk about more in the "creating a persona" section).

In general, I think Bakugou is just very scared/uneasy about his place in the world (that he’s not enough or that he’s been wrong the whole time [see: kacchan vs deku part 2]) and he covers it up with…:

ANGER!

Bakugou doesn't have a hard time not just being mean, but being cruel. There's little hesitation in going for the throat when it comes to insults and mind games. The same goes for me BUT only when I really dislike someone.

There was one time I was mean to some kid who was weird and pushy with me because he thought I was cool. He was not a bad guy, he just couldn't take a hint and wouldn't leave me alone. Let’s call him Liam. One day Liam made some joke and no one in class laughed. He said something like "tough crowd", and without hesitation I told him he just wasn't funny. It's not exactly bullying, but he probably felt bad about that for a bit.

It was mean tho, right? I did it cuz at the time I just wanted Liam to dislike me enough that he'd leave me alone. Sounds familiar, huh?

It was not the first or last time I acted like that. I want to highlight that I did these things feeling justified (even though I probably wasn't), which is the key component to understanding why Bakugou was so mean to Izuku in the beginning. It wasn't so much about power, as it was about getting Izuku to leave him alone for good. To get somewhere he didn't have to worry about being bothered by him ever again and follow his dream at the same time. You know, like UA? The last possible place you'd find someone without a quirk?

I think it needs to be made INCREDIBLY clear that Bakugou sees Izuku as a fundamentally different person than we, the fandom, do.

To him, Izuku was some weirdo who wouldn't leave him alone, made him feel nervous/stupid, was generally uncool and annoying, and acted like he was better than him. (let’s not forget that Izuku was quite the stalker for a while??) It doesn't matter how wrong Bakugou was, Izuku still made him feel that way and that's a good enough reason to try to get someone to leave you the fuck alone. I know I would. I mean I literally have.

There were multiple kids at my school who freaked me out/ made me uncomfortable and I wasted no time in getting them to fuck off as quickly as possible. I'm sure most of us have similar stories and definitely seemed like one of the bad guys from their point of view. (Especially given that a lot of these annoying kids were probably well-intentioned and just made you uncomfortable)

The following stories are unnecessary to understand my point, but I just wanted to tell them. Feel free to skip over it.

There was one kid in my grade who was around me a lot. Let’s call him Isaac. We walked home the same way and had a few classes together. There were two times I remember getting annoyed enough with him to actually snap at him.

One time was when Isaac tried to hide behind me in a gym class during dodgeball and he touched my shoulder or something. So I turned around and shoved him to the ground and told him not to touch me. He slid on his ass for a sec. I'm sure he was a bit embarrassed and looking back, it was mean. I could have just asked him not to do that politely.

The other time I remember, we were in science class and we were always sat at the same table because the teacher said I was best at handling the "annoying kids" (which is kinda a crazy thing to say to another student). Regardless, Isaac wouldn't stop talking and just overall bothering me. I might be misremembering this part, but I'm pretty sure he had come behind my chair and touched my shoulders again. So I got up and yelled at him. I told him to leave me the fuck alone and stop being weird. My teacher came to check up on me, not him. Asked if I was okay and if I needed help to beat someone up (jokingly ofc). But maybe I was the bad guy here. I could have asked a teacher to reseat me or told Isaac he was making me uncomfortable, but I didn't. I did what would make him leave me alone the fastest. And he did after that. For the most part at least. We still ran into each other on the walk home and would make conversation. Isaac annoyed me, but I didn't hate him, I wasn't close enough to him to. HOWEVER, had he been annoying me since I was FOUR?? I'd probably beat his goofy ass up just like Bakugou did.

AND If I found out later that he was like secretly the president's son and was only letting me push him around to hide his identity? Not only would I be mad, I'd feel so fucking stupid and embarrassed. AND IF HE FOLLOWED THAT UP WITH SOME BULLSHIT LIKE: “no, no, I was only recently adopted by the president bc I'm destined for a future greater than yours.” Are you kidding me??? I'd fuck some shit up. Punch some walls or somethin.

Like what makes you of all people think you’re better than me? You’re just some kid with ideas of grandeur. Get away from me or get hit bitch. 

I'm not saying Bakugou's right, only that I get it. He uses anger to cover up all the feelings that make him feel unsafe/uncomfortable/embarrassed. As do I. Annndddd a lot of it is about… (say it with me…)

PRIDE & SHAME!

The infamous superiority/inferiority complex. This is mostly spelled out for you in canon, so I’ll only talk about the parts that interest me the most.

We already know Bakugou doesn't like being looked down on. It enrages him. It's a pride thing. Pride is inherently attached to shame. You care less about using pride to cover up your shame the less shame you have to cover up.

No matter how hard he tries, Bakugou can't be all he expects of himself. He cares that the anger he uses to hide his discomfort makes people dislike him. He's embarrassed that he cares at all and it makes him feel like he's weak. Only a loser would let that get in their way... That vulnerability eats him up and makes him feel stupid and it all becomes a circle.

Gotta be strong > uses force to exert his strength > ppl dislike him for it > he feels hurt > he shouldn't care what they think > need to get stronger to handle it.

THEN he lost to Izuku several times, got kidnapped, AM lost his powers because Bakugou needed saving, and failed to get his hero license.  (AND HIS MOM PICKS ON HIM ABOUT IT WHICH DOESN'T HELP) He had to reckon with the fact that his way is wrong. But he's so caught up with attaching himself to the part, that it's very hard to let go. He'd have to change his entire world view and identity.

This post discusses the way he reckons with the cognitive dissonance that comes with his strength having nothing to do with what’s “right”. I'm a really big fan of the concept of Bakugou trying to use his physical strength/lack thereof, to make sense of his emotional weaknesses and lapses in logic.

I didn't want to cheap out on you and leave you without an embarrassing personal story for this bit, so I really had to dig for a story mostly about pride/shame because I feel like this section is mostly about what causes the fear and anger. Pride/shame is a common denominator rather than its own point… but here I go anyway.

When I was 14 I made my math teacher cry. She was kinda a bitch and deserved it a little bit, but I still feel kinda bad in retrospect.

I’ve always been a shit student, which didn’t bode well with the whole “smartest person in the room” deal. It was embarrassing to know that it didn’t matter how smart I was, I could never sit still and think long enough to finish my school work. And yeah, you bet my dad made me feel like an idiot for it. So I took some of it out on my teacher. 

It felt justified making her cry because she had always had it out for me. She was rude the moment I walked in the door, she refused to sit me up front so I was never able to read the board, she resented us because she wanted to teach the “smart” kids, and she always made sure to tell me how much I sucked in front of the whole class.

Now the thing about being the rowdy annoying student (especially in the lower level classes) is that most of the kids in class agreed with you. The teachers normally assume the worst about lower level students and were complete dicks, so you can be sure there was almost always animosity and distrust in class. Every time I gave a snarky response or talked over her, I was met with snickers and fist bumps. Maybe she, my Dad, my shame made me feel stupid, but the attention from the kids in my class sure fed my ego.

As bad as I feel for making her cry, I still tell the story with pride. She didn’t break me, I broke her. 5 years later and it still feels good to know that I walked away mostly unscathed, and she quit her job. I was so sick of feeling stupid, but I still do, otherwise the story wouldn’t feel so good to tell. It might not be a thing I’d do to a teacher ever again, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could sometimes. Shame is more powerful than the shield of pride; and both of them are nasty habits.

I think pride and shame would be the hardest traits for Bakugou to let go of. Truthfully, I don’t think he will ever fully abandon those traits. They’re fundamental to his character and are the driving force behind his pursuit of being the number one hero. Which is also a primary factor in what pushes both Bakugou and Izuku to grow as heroes. They wouldn't be themselves without it.

Conversely, part of what drives them to grow as people is Bakugou being honest and letting go of…  

THE MASK HE MADE!

Perfectionism, control, and the persona he created...

There’s the way that Bakugou is and the way he wants to believe he is.

Most of fans think of bkg as the person he wants to believe he is. This fake version of him is undeniably strong, laughs in the face of danger and hurdles, is mean without regard because he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and knows EXACTLY what he wants.

Let’s talk about the mask I made which I'm just starting to let go of.

I’ve run away two times in my life. Once when I was 12 because I hated my life, and the other time when I was 17 and wanted to make my dad angry and worried. Both of them had to do with fear, anger, pride, and shame. But both were done to break away from the mask I made. 

The first time was done because I was scared I’d be stuck with my Mom and siblings forever, always taking care of everyone and managing all the emotions in the house. I was angry that it was all my job and I had to do it all alone. I was an idiot to think I could handle the world alone as a runaway but I was impulsive and stupid. I wanted to be seen as a loose canon. Too often – and because I had gone out of my way to be seen as such, I was seen as dependable; like I could just keep taking the pressure and never crack. None of it was true. I was scared and weak and I was collapsing under the weight of my family’s problems. So I took everything and left. I just finally wanted my Mom to see that I wasn’t okay. In the end, it didn’t work, so I moved away from it to live with my Dad… Which caused its own set of issues.

The second time I ran away was the day of my high school graduation. I hardly got any days to celebrate myself. Including my birthdays, which were often excuses for my Mom and sibling to invite their own friends over. Once my birthday was forgotten all together. All that to say, I was excited to have a day for myself. As I’m sure you can guess, the day didn’t go as planned and I was sidelined for the entirety of it. When I finally got home, I went to vent to my Dad about it which didn’t go well. To summarize, he told me I was pathetic and dramatic. So I was like “Fine. Clearly no one here gives a shit about me. I’ll just leave without a word.” So I left the house, called a friend for a sleeping bag, and set up shop between a garage and some train tracks for a night.

My intentions are still a bit unclear to me, but from what I remember, It was fear that I truly wasn’t cared about, anger for all that I had lost in order to protect the mask, and shame that I thought they’d care; as well as the fact that I was hurt by how little they cared. Above all, I wanted to make my family feel bad for pushing me to the point that I thought that running away would be the only thing that got to them. It didn't. I came home the next day and no one said anything.

I had given so much energy trying to be steadfast, confident, strong, but on the two occasions I had broken those patterns no one noticed or even really cared. It put me in a weird position. Was I just supposed to give up on those things? Live my life in accordance with my true feelings? It seemed nothing mattered and in the end I did little to change.

Change I certainly did though. I gave up trying to be emotional support for my parents. I started to voice my true feelings a bit (only a little bit) more often. I even stopped trying to act any specific way in front of my family. 

Despite all that change, however minor in outward appearance, It’s not like I had let go of those values. I just reevaluated how I interacted with them. I'm still steadfast, I know what I want for my life and plan on letting nothing get in the way. I’m confident that what I’m doing will be best for me, instead of good for maintaining a persona of strength, and now I try to put the anger into standing up for myself and my truth. 

In all honesty, It’ll never stop hurting me that no one cared when I tried to show them the truth about how I felt. And I’m not sure I’ll ever stop being embarrassed that I care what they think. I still want to believe that I’m above everyone and above feeling sorry for myself, but I’m not. I’m a hurt kid who’s slowly figuring out how to live with it and become a better person.

The best parallel I can pull here is Deku vs. Kacchan 2. Bakugou’s been holding a lot of feelings in for a very long time and a huge part of his mask is hiding his true feelings. It’s true that he shows anger, but that’s part of his mask, not a crack in it. During this whole scene he’s using anger to cover up his pain and self-doubt. Just the fact that it’s a fight instead of a conversation proves this. 

Bakugou choosing to have this fight was a call for help. He needed Izuku and All Might to see that he wasn’t holding it together as well as they thought he was. This was like me running away in that it was a drastic, desperate attempt to escape the mask all while giving himself enough leeway to come back to it if he felt too vulnerable with his newfound freedom.

As a side note, I think that Bakugou sees maintaining his mask in front of Izuku as most important. To the point where he'll let himself get hurt/hurt people he normally wouldn't want to in order to keep up the performance. Izuku is the last person he wants to let see all the vulnerabilities and if getting beat to shit/spewing the most hateful things he could think of will make sure Izuku never sees them, then it's what bkg must do. (which is why the impalement and apology are so important to bkg letting his walls down)

In MHA, as well as in my life, leaving behind the persona you made takes a long time and a lot of baby steps. It’s humiliating and terrifying. I’m not sure if all of you quite understand the amount of trust Bakugou is putting in Izuku following DvK2. To Bakugou, he felt like he had bore his soul to Izuku with the intention of marking this as the beginning of his attempt to become better – as a hero AND a person. 

I see DvK2 as the first major step they took together towards reconciliation, friendship, and eventually, love.

IN CONCLUSION 

Bakugou made a loud and abrasive personality to hide his insecurities and fear. While he tried his best to maintain it, it became an impossible feat once he finally had to face that he wasn’t as strong as he thought. His rigidity, once his superpower, became is downfall. He used his fight with Izuku to break from the persona he trapped himself in, and in taking his first step away from his mask, he started a new journey to become a better person for himself and for Izuku.

TL;DR

I used personal, embarrassing stories that reminded me of Bakugou in order to pull back the curtains and try to make sense of the way Bakugou behaves in a way that's less dramatic and hopefully easier to relate to. The reason he's bitchy is that he’s a bit delusional. But me too bitch. I hope you all see him as a bit more relatable now :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was the first of ~4 character analyses, as I want to cover what Bakugou and Izuku would need to change about themselves in order for them to fall in love with each other. As it stands, there’s very little the people in the stories I used as reference could do to make me respect them enough to consider an actual friendship with them, much less love. I’ll have to do a lot of speculation once I get there (which you’ll be able to read here once I’ve written them), but it’s the best I could do, seeing as I didn’t know these people well or long enough to have stories to speak confidently of in the following analyses.

[astralscrivener]

🧠 😈 🛒 and ✨ for the emoji ask!

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

well you didn’t give me a character, so i’ll go with keith bc that’s my guy: he is clingy as fuck. i make this no secret in my writing but listen. listen. dude has abandonment issues. pushes people away before they can leave him because he doesn’t want to go through that heartbreak again. once he begins healing and lets people lance in again? once he learns to trust again? dude is all over people. but ONLY the people he trusts. and that pool is so so so small (first it’s shiro and adam. then lance. and eventually the rest of team voltron but that’s it. but he LOVES IT he just has a very hard time admitting it)

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

[stares at SGD] define playfully,

anyway there were many instances specifically in the deceit so natural trilogy where i was mean on purpose. every little “nothing is going to happen to us” / “i’m not letting us get separated again” / any variant of that sort of reassurance was all heavy-handed foreshadowing and also being a bitch. a mean little bitch.

also keith and lance were supposed to reunite in chapter 15 of stars go down but in a move equal measures me having adhd, me being a pantser, and me being a little bitch, i decided to prolong the separation another 16 chapters instead. 

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

so first of all. as far as themes go: trust and betrayal. huge ones. mostly from my own unresolved trauma bc by god do i need a therapist, but trust and betrayal are huge. 

this one is more so my original writing than my fics (but my fics, too. this happened in squad up and deceit so natural), but exes who are The Worst who are out to ruin your life. because, again: i need a therapist

always love some good space imagery, but also fire and water come up frequently bc of keith and lance. [jack voice] IT’S FUCKING KLANCE AGAIN. 

and also i started doing this thing that comes up a lot where if lance and keith specifically are having a heart-to-heart conversation, lance literally holds keith’s hand to his heart. i don’t know when, why, or how this started, but it’s just a thing now

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

all right u bitch i see what ur doing (i love you)

anyway my writing is so so sexy and my brain is huge. i am so good at foreshadowing and writing fun dialogue and also on occasion i’m really good at fucking around with doublespeak

once more: THANK U FOR THE ASKS BESTIE I LOVE U

fanfic writer emoji ask!

[sntofbirbs]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers ❤️

Uh let’s see:

1. I really enjoy sharing weird facts. Like “you’re immune system doesn’t know your eyes exist and will attack them if they discover them and you will go blind and there is no way to reverse it” and “a completely frozen limb sounds like wood when hit by a cane” level of weird facts. The more uncomfortable the better in my opinion

2. I enjoy writing a lot. Writing is one of my favorite pastimes and hobbies even though it feels like I never have time for it. I used to draw but I didn’t have the time nor motivation to draw or improve my drawing skills and so writing became the next best thing to still give myself that creative outlet

3. My chickens and my dog. I have three hens named Poppy Seed, Cashew, and Penguin and a black lab named Onyx. Those four girls are my whole world and they make me so happy. I often get into “screaming matches” with Poppy Seed where she clucks as loud as she physically can (she’s extremely loud) cause she’s an angry bitch who hates and is pissed off at everything and I yell at her back that I know that she’s angry and hates and is pissed off at everything. I don’t have much to say about Cashew and Penguin since they’re still relatively young and new to the flock but Cashew is just about excited for everything. She runs to every thing everywhere. You will look outside and see her running off to go see or do something, always running. Penguin is the youngest and the most paranoid and flightiest. I’m honestly surprised that this chicken hasn’t had a heart attack yet and she’s barely a year old. Her breed is supposed to live for 12 years but I’ll be surprised if she makes it past three before dropping dead of paranoia. Then there’s my sweet dog Onyx who is the biggest sweetheart of a dog I’ve ever had. She’s so incredibly sweet and she does that dog thing where she’ll spin in a circle a few times before laying down. She does this adorable thing where when I’m fixing her dinner, she’ll jump up and down and run around and I’ve nicknamed it “the dinner dance” and it makes my night. Every Sunday I make pancakes and I make Onyx and her brother Barley their own mini pancakes. She was already kind of a chubby girl when I got her and those pancakes certainly are not helping her lose any weight but she’s happy and it’s not affecting her health so that’s really all I can ask for.

4. Talking about my current hyperfixations. I have ADHD and autism and I’m currently and mainly hyperfixated on Star Wars at the moment. I love Star Wars and mainly the Clone Wars era and the Bad Batch. I think that it might be one of those interests that doesn’t go away since they’re constantly coming out with new stuff and I’ve been hyper fixated on it for a bit over a year now and it’s something I don’t think is going away anytime soon. I love talking about those silly little copy and paste men and anything else Star Wars related.

And finally:

5. Old things. I love old and vintage things. I find things like that incredibly interesting and intriguing. I really want to start collecting glass made with radium cause 1. it cool and 2. it’s pretty. There’s this really really cool car in my town that I’m pretty sure is a Ford T Model and she’s in beautiful condition from what I can tell when I drive past her. I really wanted to salvage this old wall phone from my great uncle’s place after he passed away. When I say wall phone I mean old 1920’s wall phone not something from the 90’s. It still had the mouth piece attached to it and I wanted it so bad but I never got the chance to rescue it before some people that had threatened to sue my uncle decades ago moved in for whatever reason. I still have one of my grandmother’s old suitcases that were big and boxy and beautiful. I also have a 100+ year old gun that my great uncle (the same one with the wall phone) gave me when I was around ten that you can actually attach a bayonet to the end of the barrel which is really cool. I really want to get a pretty little old radio and see if I can possibly get it to work or salvage it. I find old things so incredibly cool so yeah.

[pyroclastic727]

Is Amity autistic?

In the Owl House fandom, we hear a lot about how Luz is written to be ADHD. Now I would like to present the flipside: Amity is coded as autistic.

Here’s the breakdown.

Amity is touch-averse. “BuT aMiTy ToUcHeS LuZ aLL tHe TiMe” nice try. The key to autistic touch-aversion is only being okay with touch when she initiates it. And that totally matches up with Amity. See, Amity is really happy when she initiates touch with Luz. She’s also cool with it when Luz holds her hand after standing near her for enough time that Amity can predict an incoming touch. That’s because Amity consents to that touch and expects it.

But when other people touch her? She doesn’t take kindly to that. When Luz initially bumped into her at Covention, she snapped at her and degraded her. Even when she bumped into Luz in Enchanting Grom Fright, her initial instinct was to snap at Luz, since she didn’t expect to be touched. When Hooty touched Amity’s face without consent, she flipped out and beat him up. Not even Lilith beat Hooty up when he wrapped her up in his mucus-filled tube, but Amity gave Hooty the injuries we all wanted to see him with, because he breached her boundaries without her consent. Even as late as the last episode, Amity fell over when her face got close to Luz’s on the bleachers, because she didn’t expect it.

Amity stims. Okay, this one took me a while to catch, since most of the time, Amity is very controlled with her actions. This symptom isn’t very intense; her senses aren’t understimulated too often, and she really only does it when she’s really excited.

Mainly, when Luz offered to carry her. While she adorably scrambled for words, she also flapped her hands against her legs. At first I thought it was just a cute thing she did, but there’s more to it. She was so excited to be held by Luz that it showed up in her hands flapping...a common stim. With Amity feeling more comfortable around her new friends than the old ones, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more stimming in the future.

Amity always has The Mask as her expression. You know, the one with her eyes half-lidded, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly downturned. I also call it the Resting Blight Face, for...reasons.

At first I thought it was just a way to hide her true emotions, since her parents are assholes. But even though Luz makes her feel accepted, she keeps doing it. It’s more like...you know that feeling when you’re thinking really hard, or uncomfortable, or ashamed, or even just relaxed, and you can’t think of which expression to wear quickly enough, so you put on an unreadable one to tide people over? Apparently most people don’t do that, since allistic people tend to have expressions for those feelings, ones that arise naturally.

Another symptom of autism is having hard-to-read expressions, or being less expressive. In Amity’s case, it’s the fact that she doesn’t see a need to have an expression in calmer moments, so she just uses her usual expression.   

Amity hyperfixates. This has several facets, so I’ll break this down.

She initially hyperfixated on school. And that’s how she became top student. Amity Blight is who you would mistake for a “gifted student.” But make no mistake...she is not gifted, and gifted is a bullshit label used to overexert people and force them to keep school as their special interest for their entire lives (and I may have a bit of a vendetta against it). Anyways, we already know she’s a perfectionist. My theory is that Amity originally was hyperfocused on school--the Abominations track, to be exact--and that’s part of how she got so good. Then, her focus shifted, but the school expected her to keep being top student. Cue the perfectionism; she was no longer able to focus on school like she wanted to, but everyone expected her to, so she got insecure about it.

She hyperfixates on Azura, just like Luz did. Yeah, she keeps it secret from the world, for most of the time. But she definitely likes Azura a lot. I mean, she started to reconsider her opinion on Luz when Luz offered her an Azura book. She destroyed her jock career because she tried to use an Azura move in real-life Grudgby. Her interest in Azura is long-lived, starting about the time that her interest in school would have expired (which would explain why she stayed closeted). And we can’t ignore the fact that she sees Azura in Luz and is definitely enjoying the parallels between herself and her fictional counterpart. (Which might not be a coincidence, but that’s an entirely different theory).

She hyperfixates on Luz. Yes, part of this is a crush. But a lot of us have watched Amity’s personality go from alpha bitch to cutest little bean in the Boiling Isles, all thanks to Luz’s influence. Lumity is not a rivals-to-lovers speedrun due to bad writing, it’s due to Amity hyperfixating. She’s already extremely introspective, going so far as to keep a diary where she analyzes and makes sense of herself. It’s not a stretch to say that she identified the faults that kept her from Luz and worked hard to change those off-screen. 

Amity keeps a journal. To me, this seems like masking. You see, Amity is what people would consider to be high-functioning, since she can pass for allistic. But in order to do this, she has to put in significant effort on her part. See, when she does something that makes it so she doesn’t pass, she just sees it as a problem (since she probably doesn’t know about autism, and she passes well enough that she would totally be undiagnosed). Then she tries to fix the problem, in order to keep being perfect. 

Amity has awkward body language. Thanks to the journal and other ways of masking, you don’t see this early on. But once she feels comfortable enough around Luz to let her guard down...she completely forgets boundaries. To review: in episodes 15-17, she throws herself at Luz, holds her formal rival’s hand for 24.71 seconds, blushes every time she sees Luz, and loudly declares her thirsty thoughts about Luz in uniform before literally running away. While some of this can be seen as normal gal pal things or crush things...you’d think a repressed wlw like Amity would try very hard not to touch Luz, so as to avoid being outed. Or at least she would do less of that stuff, so as to respect Luz’s boundaries the way she wants her boundaries to be respected. But that’s not the case, since she straight-up misses a lot of social cues. And since she feels comfortable around Luz, she doesn’t feel the pressure to be so paranoid about the cues, and can be her awkward self. From her point of view, she probably sees it as being freed from her parents’ judgment.

Amity takes things literally, sometimes. Now, this doesn’t happen all the time, since she isn’t heavily affected by this autistic trait. But when Luz says “I’m picking up what you’re putting down” and Amity says “I’m not putting down anything” and looks down...she not only missed the conclusion Luz drew from her words, but also assumed a literal meaning from her words. I can’t come up with many other instances of this, mostly because this doesn’t happen often. I would assume that Amity missed these a lot early on, and learned how to mask/identify them.

Amity is easily upset when things don’t go as planned. Let’s review these. In the library, she gets really mad at Luz when they end up stitched to a book, and it takes Luz’s sweet personality to get Amity to loosen up and laugh over it. When she goes to practice magic, and Luz steals her wand and uses it to get her siblings kidnapped, Amity locks Luz in a cage and assumes that she will get badly injured if she tries to fix the problems she caused. When Luz comes to her school, she panics and focus on how that doesn’t change anything. When she burns Willow’s mind, she appears absolutely terrified of being punished, flinching and bracing for impact when Luz finds her near the memories, constantly trying to distract Luz as they work together to save Willow, and hiding behind Luz when she confronts the Inner Willow. When Luz asks her to join her in Grudgby, Amity doesn’t initially agree, instead taking much more of the episode to come to terms with her involvement in it.

Amity likes predictability. She’s not attached to routines, but she does like being able to expect things. If she makes a plan for the day, she expects that day to adhere to that plan, and she doesn’t respond well when it changes. When Luz comes to her school, she focus on how that doesn’t change anything...not how that would ruin things or complicate things. Whenever she gets involved in Luz’s shenanigans, she either gets angry, scared, or takes a while to accept it. In a broader sense, she takes a while to accept that Luz and her shenanigans are a permanent fixture in her life--sixteen episodes, to be exact.

Finally, it would make for some excellent representation. An ADHD Dominican-American bisexual protagonist is pretty groundbreaking. But an ADHD Dominican-American bisexual protagonist girl who dates an autistic wlw witch girl from another dimension is exactly the kind of intersectional representation you’d expect to see from an unrestricted Owl House crew.

...Now, this might just be me hardcore projecting. I’m a little scared to post this because I don’t know how much of this is me reading into imaginary things, or trying to convince myself that Amity is like me. Feel free to debate/disprove me or support me in the comments. 

[adikas-anonymous]

@littleferal is doing an author appreciation event and i was going to participate, but then i realized my list for shout outs was way too long and i didn’t want to flood their inbox, so i thought it better to make it a post instead. thank you for getting this started, Lissie! sorry in advance to anyone reading for how long winded this is..

@beskarberry 🎆 lellow you are a fuckin icon of a writer; Solisequious, Kudzu and literally all of your monsterfucking fics were some of the most inspiring works i’ve ever read. you aren’t afraid to just go there, to throw some batshit crazy things at the wall and see what sticks, and you do it so eloquently it leaves me breathless and desperate for more. it’s also been an honor working on that project i spoke to you about. hopefully it’ll be done soon so i can spread the love of your stuff even more 😈

@starlightmornings 🦋 you’ve always showed up randomly on my dash with one work or another, and i shit you not, there is not a single post i’ve come across that i haven’t enjoyed. your style is so immersive and doesn’t fail to leave me on the edge of my seat! and lets not forget the fucking masterpiece that is Easy, Girl. that was the sort of content i was sorely needing at the time and i didn’t even know it. thank you <3

@absurdthirst ⚜️ keri you are by far the biggest percentage in my likes list. you’re one of the most prolific writers i know of and you always seem to be having fun with everything you write! it makes it that much better and more fun to read the endless treasure trove that is not just your works masterlists, but the ones you reblog too. your blog is always the place i go to when i need a good one shot, or need to expand my horizons to other blogs, since you have so many others in the “find a fic” tag and just normal reblogs in general. you are also so kind and understanding, allowing people to talk about whatever they need to in your inbox; it’s impressive! the following message is for you AND constance!

@wardenparker 💚 friend, you and keri fucking kill me with every word of Wish You Were Here. the way you convey emotion in your writing is so gentle but so realistic at the same time, the grief, the joy, the fluster, and the approach you take to every character in the way they have conversations just- AGHHDHHSKEEMAKQ i just love y’all so much for that work. in the coming year, constance, i’ve made it a point to make sure i read more of your stuff since i’m new to your blog; the whole masterlist by february, that’s the goal, and i could not be more stoked to complete it!

@blueeyesatnight 🌌 YEESH WHERE DO I START, i get so excited whenever i see something of yours come into my orbit. you’re one of the few writers that i don’t have notifications turned on for, but that’s only for the fact that i get SO much joy and pure serotonin when i’m surprised by a post of yours showing up somewhere! seriously, it makes my day so much better every time i find and save one for later so i have something to look forward to at the end of the day. it’s actually improved my day to day life a helluva lot, and for that i am so thankful. back to you specifically, the way you write your characters is so expertly refined, ESPECIALLY pero omfg, and the detail you go into for imagery, among other things, just takes my breath away, i love it

@dincrypt 🌃 i mean. come on. you know where i’m going with this. DADDY DIN GANG NEVER DIES!! E&M is one of those works i keep coming back to over and over and still never get tired of. i get bored really easy and skip a lot of words with most fics due to unintentional skimming and spoiling as a result (adhd is a bitch) but your fics are some of the few that i’ve held onto every, and i mean every word the entire time. E&M specifically is so immersive and well done, the slow burn is an actual slow burn which really helps when i get too spoiled by reading a bunch of things so fast that suddenly the plots all feel dull and blur together. this one forces the reader to take their time and really get a feel for how the characters’ minds work, and that is an aspect in writing i am so jealous of. it’s just SO GOOD, not to mention fulfilling for the kind of dynamic i dream of🥺

@unhinged-summer-fun 🦑 GOOD LOOOOORRD YOUR INATE ABILITY TO MAKE ME PINE FOR CHARACTERS I NEVER WANTED TO PINE FOR— it’s offensive (affectionate). i never would have gotten into Boba if it wasn’t for The Art of Second Place, and i mean never. sweet stars that fic has such a treasured place in my heart. and don’t even get me STARTED ON TRIPTYCH, THE YEARNING, THE YEEEEAAARRRNNNIIIINNNG, i love it i love it i love it, i was never a Pike fan until you. i love your writing so very much and i hope you are doing well right now

honorable mentions; I HAVENT KNOWN ABOUT YOUR BLOG LONG BUT YOUR WORK IS VERY GOOD AND I WANT TO GIVE YOU A LONG AND DETAILED COMPLIMENT LIKE YOU DESERVE BUT ALL I CAN COME UP WITH RN IS FBDKSOENXHIDOEMENXKSYOU’RE REALLY COOL AND ILY THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO

@mandocrasis 🎇

@doveandgeography 🕊

@frannyzooey 🍀

@krissology 🥥

@radiowallet ⚛️

finally, i’ve got these last two because of what they mean to me on not just a reader’s admiration level, but also on a serious personal/social level. i haven’t known either of them personally for very long, but that means all the more with the amount of gentleness and hospitality they’ve treated me with since the moment we started speaking.

@ezrasbirdie 🏵 so not only had i coveted your works for the better part of a year, but when i finally had the balls to reach out and communicate to you how much i loved you and your stuff, plus the things i was struggling with, you welcomed it with open arms and gave me exactly the kind of interaction and friendship i was looking for when i came here. you told me things i didn’t know i needed to hear, made me cry multiple times with your writing AND your messages, and just overall you mean a heck of lot to me

@anaaaispunk 💟 you were so kind to me right out of the gate without even knowing who i was, which was already so elating enough, but with your one reblog of my art, i went from 0 to 9 followers, through which i became mutuals with a BUNCH OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS, INCLUDING YOU, and gained over 50 total notes, all in under an hour! i could not thank you enough for being so kind and welcoming, and helping me finally make a breakthrough into the social circle of the fandom that i’ve been admiring for so long. i hope that so many good things come your way and soon, because i mean it, i do not have enough time on this earth to thank you enough lovey!

I LOVE EACH AND EVERY PERSON ON THIS LIST ON SO MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS AND I HOPE Y’ALL KNOW WHAT YOU’RE WORTH!! YOUR WRITING IS AMAZING, YOU YOURSELF ARE AMAZING, AND YOU DESERVE EVEN MORE RECOGNITION THAN YOU ALREADY GET BECAUSE WOWIE GOOD SOUP MAN GOOD SOUP

I ALSO HOPE TO GET TO KNOW AT LEAST A COUPLE OF YOU NOW THAT IVE MADE A BREAKTHROUGH INTO THE FANDOM, AND I VERY MUCH LOOK FORWARD TO IT SHOULD THAT EVER BE IN THE CARDS! MAY MANY MANY GOOD THINGS COME TO YOU ALL IN THE NEW YEAR!!!

[haghottie420]

The Gang Has A Chill Time Smoke Sesh

AKA my head-canons for what these assholes do when they’re stoned. Written while stoned (shoutout mental illness for letting me get a medical card😇😇). I’ve been itching to write them in some way and I have way too much adhd to start a whole fic rn. Hope you love reading this little stoned piece as much as I loved writing it!

MAC:

In high school, Mac was fascinated with learning about this cool (and very pretty) curly haired, blue-eyed, kinda buff actually, guy that suddenly wanted to be his friend. Mac wasn’t ignorant to the world as to believe the weed had nothing to do with it, but he always wants to give Dennis the benefit of the doubt. It’s those goddamned blue eyes. One of Mac’s early, sure-fire ways to touch Dennis was brushing their fingers when he’d pass Dennis the joint. Dennis’ hands have always been sturdy with long fingers. Mac would leave little room for Dennis to pluck the joint from between Mac’s sweaty. fingers so that Mac could savor in the feeling of his soft skin.

When Dennis was at Penn, at first, Mac didn’t want to get high without him. It felt like they formed a sacred bond over it and that bond should be respected, you know? Or at least, that’s how he explained it to Charlie the first weekend Dennis didn’t come home and Charlie wanted to smoke.

“Dude,” Charlie says, “please smoke with me. You cannot handle huffing as much glue as me without dying.”

Mac is stung at first. He could huff as much glue as he wants! But a more smarter part of him knows Charlie is just looking out for him. He decides to feel touched instead.

“Bro, you know I love you. I just-”

“Don’t want to smoke without your boyfriend. Blah blah blah.” Charlie says exasperatedly.

“It just doesn’t feel right to do without him.” Mac says quietly, looking at his scuffed up second-hand adidas.

“Look,” Charlie says in exasperation.  “Let’s get this bitch on the phone so we can get stoned, dude.”

Before Mac gets an answer out, Charlie is dialing the phone in Dennis’ dorm room. Dennis picks up after three rings. Mac can hear soft Jazz and a faint slurping sound.

“It’s Dennis,” comes a rough voice on the other end.

“Den? It’s Mac and Charlie.” Mac says, now hearing the music lower and the wet sounds stop.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Dennis sounds like he’s been shouting. “Make it quick because I’m banging a hot chick.” At this, there’s a laugh that doesn’t sound like Dennis. Mac barrels forward. The more fast he can get off this call, the less he has to deal with this sinking feeling in his gut. 

“This is going to sound so silly but can we like, smoke weed when you’re not here?” Charlie is mouthing the word “silly” to himself. 

“Dude, you guys haven’t been smoking without me?! I’m on weed and poppers!” Dennis’ laugh is slightly hysterical but Mac can now chalk it up to the drugs. There’s a sudden static ‘whooshing’ sound, Dennis must have put his hand over the receiver. Mac can faintly hear that voice from before much closer. It doesn’t sound like Dennis is talking to a girl. 

“Look, guys, I gotta go.” Dennis finally says. “I’ll see you guys next weekend. In the meantime please smoke some weed! And save me some!” 

Dennis hangs up before Mac and Charlie can say goodbye. 

Mac and Dennis kiss when they’re stoned, okay?! Jeez, you didn’t have to fight Mac about it so hard to get it out of him. It’s not like he’s trying to hide that it happened he’s just like, trying to get it back now that he’s speaking as a Gay Man. Dennis strictly drinks. Which Mac knows tenses him up and stresses him out. The only darkly funny thing about it is he calls it “Irish Catholic Sober.” Dennis has outright refused weed from Mac lately. Mac decides to pull a solo scheme. A badass genius plan to get Dennis to fall into his beefy arms and blow smoke into his mouth like a sexy evil. dragon.

Mac pulls it off on a Friday night. He left the bar early enough to go home, shower, wax his asshole and prepare himself before Dennis texted to say he’ll be home soon. Mac is splayed on the couch, shorts revealing the shamrock tattoo on his thigh.  His tee shirt, a relic of a Dennis past, is far too tight on his current muscles. Briefly, Mac wonders if he should be worried. Given Dennis’ family history, he stands a chance at having a major heart attack at the sight of Mac’s sexy body. But before Mac can ponder this fear further, the door swings open.

Dennis is mid-rant, now taking it from a whisper to a shout, “Stupid fucking suburban traffic. ‘We can’t go to the Trader Joe’s in Center City, Den! It’s too crowded and I slept with too many guys who work there.’ Stupid Mac and his stupid hot body.”

Mac flushes both defensively and in a horny kind of way.  He clears his throat. Dennis jumps and drops a whole head of lettuce. It rolls in front of him. as his jaw drops, taking in Mac’s whole outfit situation.Then he takes in the whole ‘joint in Mac’s mouth’ situation.

“Dude.” Dennis slams the door behind him. “At least wait until I close the goddamn door!”

When Dennis turns back around, he gestures to Mac still smoking seductively on the couch. “What is this? What kind of scheme are you running, Mac? Trying to make one of your boy-toys jealous?”

Dennis sounds bitter and Mac does not expect this.

“Bro,” Mac says softly, “I’m your boy-toy.”

Dennis looks up sharply, gripping the grocery bag tightly. “Do you mean that?” He drops the bag and crosses the room, taking the joint from Mac’s hand prissily. His inhale is long and desperate. 

“Yes, Den. This is real. And all yours.” Mac wiggles his eyebrows. Dennis snuffs a laugh and rolls his eyes. He leans in before Mac even realizes what’s happening. Their lips touch--Dennis is wearing bubblegum lip-balm today. The kiss is over so suddenly, that Mac almost doesn’t notice that Dennis stole his entire joint hit right from his goddamn mouth.

DENNIS: 

His anxiety PEAKS the first ten minutes into his high but it’s fine! He’s feeling totally fucking chill. His smile is strained?  His red face is flushed? His left leg is BOUNCING w/ anxious energy? You’re imagining it. Dennis is cool as a fucking cucumber. The coolest. Like a cucumber stored in a negative eighty degrees celsius freezer where he’d store lab samples at Penn. Dennis admired how time seemed to just stop there, in that painfully cold freezer. He also admired how it was the best place to stash his weed in a pinch. Helloooo preserved herb! Dennis is as cool as hash frozen at negative eighty degrees celsius. So, every time someone asks if he’s cool (he’s hiding it so fucking well how do these idiots know?!) he immediately says, “yeah, yeah bro. yeah I’m chill. I’m just like...vibes~*” and stares off into the distance until the convo inevitably moves onto sewer pirate treasure or a scheme to get Mac on Queer Eye to upgrade his and Dennis’ apartment. And Frank would say, “why is it when I say it, it’s a ‘slur.’” And Mac would say, “Frank! We talked about this so many goddamn times--” And Dennis would have enough time to gather himself together.

Once his anxiety subsides, he’s totally blissed tf out. Starts becoming WAY chatty, philosophical and flirty. Think, deeply closeted sorority girl constantly trying to suggest spin the bottle at chapter meetings. Or like Needy and Jennifer playing boyfriend/girlfriend. Dennis would just regress to going through rituals with slightly less fanfare as an excuse to touch Mac (and also probs Charlie we’re all multiship friendly). Stoned Dennis is self-aware in ways that Drunk Dennis nor Hungover Dennis could even compete with. It was a time that he let himself have a taste of what he wanted. The flirting would start innocent enough.

“Kings?” Mac asks, puzzled. He’s holding the deck of cards between his thumb and his pointer finger as if the cards might bite him. If Dennis were not absolutely zooted, he might have yelled back impatiently. But here, in his current fuzzy state, Dennis feels he can take his time. He saddles closer to Mac at the bar in one fluid motion, making sure to let their fingers lightly brush as he slips the cards out of Mac’s hand. 

“Kings.” Dennis confirms in Mac’s ear with a hot puff of air. Mac shivers.

“It’s just us though, bro.” He points to the empty bar as if that’s some sort of decent excuse. But Dennis is feeling kind this evening. Magnanimous even. 

“Alright,” Dennis assures softly, keeping his voice a low rumble. After blowing into Mac’s ear, Dennis continues, “I’ll call in Charlie.” In a flash, Dennis is a few barstools over, calling out in his normal speaking tone for Charlie in the back office.

“What is it, man? I’m really busy back here.”

“Mac and I want you to join our game of Kings.”

“Oh, dude. Are you stoned?” Charlie wrinkles his eyes at Dennis as if he can see physical evidence of his inebriation (which he won’t, because Dennis has massive amounts of control over his body). Charlie continues louder now, “Is this one of those games where I have to watch you two make out again? Because I’m really not in the mood.”

If Dennis weren’t in winged sandals flying too close to the sun, he might have buried his head in his hands at Charlie’s bluntness. But Stoned Dennis is elated that Charlie made this game so much easier for him. Getting Mac to fuck him tonight will be so goddamn easy.

“You know what, Mac?” Dennis says, eyes wide. “Charlie’s right. This is going to be a game where we make-out. Wanna go play it at home?”  

DEE:

ALWAYS bums weed from the guys. Because they’re idiots who always have weed. Why the shit wouldn’t she take advantage of that situation. The guys always got real protective over their self-proclaimed ‘stoner status’ and the second Dee claimed they were being uncool, they’d mumble to each other and cough up a nug or two. They never gave her one of Mac’s joints. She tuned out the reason why but it was something along the lines of her being an unappreciative dumb bird. When they get on a roll like that, Dennis especially, she lets them have it. It’s kind of sad that they rely on misogyny to appropriately express their gay ass feelings but Dee grew up with her goddamn mother so she is good at tuning out what she doesn’t want to hear.

All of her angry energy just leaves her body. Her shoulders visibly sag, her jaw unclenches and the line that’s constantly between her eyebrows smooths out. When she sees herself in the mirror, she feels ten years younger. Like maybe she’s looking at a version of herself that could have been different. One that could have succeeded in everything she wanted to be. One that was better. Then, inevitably, Dennis would spy her wistfulness and if he’s in his pre-high anxiety attack, he’ll dig in his sharp little bitch nails. 

“Whatcha thinking about, Sweet Dee?” Dennis says, eyes wide and panicked like a diseased dear trapped in her headlights. Dee wants to laugh so bad, because she can tell Dennis thinks he’s being intimidating but he looks like he’s impatiently waiting for Dee to eat him. When she’s stoned, she likes to prove Dennis right. Because she’s really too mellowed out to start screaming. Plus, her throat is pretty raw. It’s. been a while since she cleaned out her bowl last.

“Thinking a lot about how you eye-fucked Mac’s hands while he was rolling that joint there, little bro.” Dee punctuates her statement with a pull from her bowl. She coughs. Dennis’ face changes from caught to smug. Stupid goddamn dirty bowl.

“I shouldn’t be taking this kind of homophobic talk from a bird who smokes out of a dirty crackpipe” Dee winces at the rise in volume and frequency of Dennis’ voice. 

“I’m not going to do that back and forth shit with you right now, Dennis”

“Then don’t cross me.” Dennis replies sensibly. God he’s such a bitch.

“I’m just saying, you better fuck that beefcake before someone else beats you to it.” Dee flicks the roach at Dennis’ head. Seeing him shoot away fills her with so much satisfaction. Much like a cat that is getting another cat out of a wall, kicking and fucking screaming, but the girl cat will force the boy cat to leave that goddamn wall if her idiot life depends on it. Or not. Dee probably won’t die for this cause. She’s chill. They wouldn’t do that for her. But that doesn’t stop her from continuing to dig into Dennis’ skin, now fully relaxed in her prodding, just to see him squirm. Neither of them will remember this well but Dee will remember enough to keep her in a good mood for a few days. 

Dee doesn’t really talk about this one much. Not because she’s ashamed or because she has something to hide. But because she knows the guys won’t give a shit if she tries to explain it, so she just doesn’t. When they ask about new boyfriends she squawks something they might expect, to get them off her back. Because goddamn the four of them together is like having a bunch of dirty, nasty, mean dads who want to fuck each other. Sort of. Dee doesn’t unpack all of their homoerotic crap in her head, she has better shit to do). It’s the longest secret she’s kept from the gang. The one none of them seem to even recognize in her. Her bitterness over her family’s lack of observational and conversational skills thus fully justify her decision to start fooling around with the Waitress. Dee’s had some FOMO over that one for years. 

CHARLIE:

Without fail every single goddamn time he smokes he immediately pukes. When they were dumb teenagers they’d smoke on Dennis’ trampoline in his backyard, which was cool as fuck because all Charlie had in his yard was a patch of concrete. Whenever the joint (rolled by Mac, always) was passed to him, he’d take a confident inhale, exhale shakily then lean over the edge of the trampoline to throw up. Mac would rub his back in gentle circles and Dennis breezily said he could blame the puke on their newest housekeeper that his dad was banging without quite looking Charlie in the eye. But that’s alright, because Charlie knows what Dennis means.

Now as adults:

“Charlie! Gross, dude! Come on! I thought you grew out of that shit!?” Mac exclaims, shoving his body as far away from Charlie as he can through approximately three barstools and seven empty beer bottles now smashing on the floor. 

Charlie shouts above the destruction, “I’m just getting the toxins out of my system!” At the blank looks he receives from his two best friends, he continues talking completely logically. 

“The weed goes in and sucks up the toxins in my organs and then I puke it out! It just means I have a strong constitution, dude!”

Mac sputters, “A strong constitution?! I’m not the one who throws up every time I smoke! I have a stomach of steel. My constitution is like super hard, bro. It’s only getting harder with age.”

Dennis blows smoke in Mac’s face, “shut up. I’m having a chill time. Anyway, this is why we make Charlie go first, to get that shit over with. Now, disinfect the joint and pass it to me!”

Waxes philosophic about gender theory. Or at least that’s how Dennis explains it gently to Charlie. Because The Bastard Man took one intro to Feminist Studies class that did like three days worth of Gender Theory and Dennis skipped nearly every goddamn one of those classes. So Charlie doesn’t know why Dennis, of all people, thinks he can “break the news gently that Charlie lectured the whole gang about Bells and Hooks and Troubles and Genders when he was really baked.” 

“Dennis,” Charlie says seriously, “did you read the goddamn books.”

Dennis looks around the empty bar self-consciously then whispers, “yes! I don’t know how you read them, you know, considering your illiteracy but I’ve been thinking about them for weeks. Can we please talk more about it?”

Charlie nods sagely, feeling touched that a smart guy like Dennis would want to learn about gender bells and hooks from him.

“If you have some grass then your ass is about to be gendered.”

Dennis appears confused but still enthusiastic. From within his shirt pocket he produces a beautifully rolled joint, “stole this one from Mac, buddy.”

Charlie grabs his puke bucket and leads the way to the back office.

[m00mincr0ssing]

lets talk the lion king 2, everybody.  so. for those of you who haven’t seen it, first of all, this will probably contain spoilers.  second of all, go watch it. third, this is nuka.

and this is kovu. his little brother.

and this is their sister, vitani. (younger than nuka, i THINK older than kovu but i’m not sure they might be twins)

all three of these characters are VERY important to this post.

so, Kovu, the neurotypical coded sibling, was chosen by Scar to become king after him, even though Kovu wasn’t Scar’s son. whereas, Nuka is constantly theorized to be scar’s ACTUAL son.  and honestly, it would make sense.  like look at scar, then look at nuka. these two are OBVIOUSLY very closely related.  but that’s not the point of this post.

the point of this post is how Zira, their biological mother, treated them as individuals.

before you start talking to me about how “oh but shes the villain” or “she’s a lion” i dont actually care.  she may have been the villain, but these were her OFFSPRING. and lions or not, they’re sapient.  like they have morals.

ok so lets go.  lets talk about them youngest to oldest, because i want to save Nuka for last so i can REALLY go off.

Kovu first.  Zira WORSHIPPED Kovu. or at least, that’s how it appears at first glance.  but if you’ll take the time to look a little closer, she really only worshipped the fact that he was chosen to be king.

as SOON as he “betrayed” Zira, she didn’t care anymore. she was literally ready to kill him.  like huh???  

i may add more on that later, but now let’s move on to one of my very first gay awakenings Vitani. Zira saw vitani as a soldier. nothing more, nothing less.  like, when Kovu gets the chance to kill Simba and doesnt, and Vitani sees it, she immediately reports back to her mother.  her mother freaks out at this report. doesn’t even thank vitani for literally SPYING on her own brother.  like what???  Vitani has always struck me as not neurotyical, but not SUPER neurodivergent either. this will be important at the end of the story, kids, so remember this.

ok now i’m gonna GO OFF about nuka.  i have ALWAYS related to nuka. and i only JUST recently realized why.  it’s because he’s neurodivergent, and his mother treats him like shit.  and. that’s exactly how my life went. so this boy. he SHOWERED his mother in as many gifts as he could access, he did EVERYTHING he could to please this bitch, and how did she repay him??? by abusing him.  all nuka wanted was for his mother to give him even an OUNCE of the love that she gave to kovu. but she never did!  my guess is because he’s neurodivergent.  and, zira REALLY strikes me as a conservative

to conservatives, having a neurodivergent child is basically the worst thing that could possible happen to you. not the worst thing that could happen to your child, but to YOU.  i mean, the way conservatives treat autistic people, even their own offspring, is APALLING.  if you’re conservative, and your child comes out autistic, you’re gonna treat them like they’ll never be good enough. or like they’ll never be able to understand ANYTHING.  thats just one example though. 

i’m not autistic, but I am ADHD, and bipolar.  I hyperfixate on things CONSTANTLY.  a GOOD parent would at least PRETEND to be interested when i’m rambling about my current hyperfixation.  but conservatives don’t usually make good parents to nd kids.  and sadly, my parents were VERY conservative, so any time i tried to tell my mother about something that i was interested in and she wasnt, she’ dlet me know she didn’t care.  whether she did it passve aggressively, or just, straight up said “I don’t really care” (which was what usually happened. the “i dont really care” option.).

i guarantee you that nuka tried to tell his mother things he thought were cool. all the time. he found a pretty bug? ooooo i gotta show mother! saw a really twisty tree? OOOO mother will want to hear about that!!! and i also guarantee that his mother blew him off every time he tried to show her something cool or something he found interesting.  like.  im finna write angsty nuka fanfiction i’m so mad. like UGGGGH

oh and do you know when Zira realized how much she meant to him? (if she ever realized it. i’m not sure she wasn’t pretending to be completely honest)....  it was when he literally DIED trying to impress her! like he’s dying under a log and she’s only JUST NOW realizing “oh my gods this is my son and i’ve treated him like SHIT his ENTIRE life!!!”

like uggggh i hate zira so much. like, i love a lot of villains, but not this bitch who literally makes me think of how shitty my own mother was to me.

ok thats all. i just needed to make a very angry tumblr post™.  that’s all.  thanks for coming to my fucking TED talk everybody.

[feiquacker]

do u hav any adhd!niki hcs

Oh god, I don't but I will come up with some right now :D

Disclaimer I don't have an ADHD diagnosis or think I have ADHD so whatever I write now will be some stupid self insert stuff I do cs idk (aka the stuff I have done that earned me an "OMG do you have ADHD you annoying fuck" um... yea the grown-ups here are *insert bad word*) I will let you be the judge of "is this accurate ADHD representation or not LMAO"

Niki struggles with starting tasks like a lot

She loves baking but oh fuck who the fuck is going to clean up the kitchen afterwards (if she just looses her motivation which is normally the case)

It takes her very long to fall asleep

She would mine stone for so long she forgets what time or day it is just because it is so satisfying (I mean have you tried mining stone with netherite and fortune 2??? IT'S AMAZING)

I also imagine her running or jumping around in her underground city for hours just because it's fun

she picked up Techno's "HUUUUUH" and "EEEEE"

She stumps her feet like a toddler when she is exited :D

uuu biting her nails all the time. like all the time. and she doesn't even notice

She can absolutely not wear something that doesn't feel comfy or smells bad. Like. No. She is not getting in that shit (But I think this is also a symptom of autism soo...)

Oh, fuck memory. This was supposed to be my first point but I forgot A-

She is a sucker for music. Like. There's always some background music in the background

Sometimes there are days she just does not have the energy to do anything.

With that I mean she can't force herself to like to go mining or cook herself sth so she just ends up eating an apple or sitting in her chair for like really long

Long nights staring at the wall. I don't know why people have asked me if I have ADHD for that but ok. I can give it to her haha

LEG SHAking. All the time literally. Like right now lmao. (but i am not sure if this is ADHD or Anxiety or sth else haha haha...)

She doesn't always understand sarcasm and irony LMAO

ok I am back from discord - back to work haha

Introvert. It's not specifically ADHD but she is an introvert

Also she is energetic but tied all the time

She burns her cakes a lot LMAO cs time is a bitch

Therefore they syndicate gave her a timer that does not shut up for god knows how long

Good thing she forgets to set it so it doesn't even scream in the first place lmao

her sleep schedule is fucked cs there is no light in her city and she doesn't want to walk up the stairs lmao

she forget's to make herself a clock all the time and when she does she loose's it

like she looses a lot of stuff. She can basically find nothing lmao

Daydreaming haha. all the time. Literally.

She has a stopwatch on her that reminds her to drink water (techno gave it to her lmao) this bitch is already set for all the time and it just bzzs even in the middle of the night LMAO

Can not name what she is feeling. Exept happyess.

She cannot read something if its like a really long paragraph. She just scanns it or jumps over it but her brain will in no way let her actually read that shit

This has nothing to do with me but with cc!Niki. C!Niki is sensitive to light. Just like cc!Niki

Aa I think that's everything I have at the moment and I hope I am not forgetting to much (lol I probably am) sorry it took so long xD

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

[lemon-boy-stan]

promises - richie tozier x bipolar! reader

requested by @hoeforbarnes, hope this makes you feel a tad bit better, sorry that it took so long, sorry if it's not exactly what you wanted love xx

warnings: biploar! reader, swearing, mentions of divorce.

you didn't mean to be a dick. you just wanted to go home and die.

you hated yourself for being a bitch to small, quiet stan but you would never admit it so he remained quiet when you pushed past him.

so had ben when you ignored him. and even bill, who'd only sighed when you intentionally spilt water on his painting for art class.

eddie was at home sick so it wasn't like you could do anything to him.

look - you weren't trying to bully your friends. you were just going through a pretty shitty time at home.

your mom had left and you felt like it was your fault. of course you did, when you heard your dad trying to get her back.

but of course no one knew that, the boys just assumed you were on your period so they shrugged it off.

only richie suspected something - of course, he did, he was your boyfriend and he knew your cycle.

you pushed past quite a lot of people who probably didn't need to be pushed past to get to your table in the cafeteria.

the rest of the losers were already there.

that made you feel worse even though it wasn't supposed to - you knew they had different lessons and teachers so they would be dismissed at different times, but to you it looked like they didn't wait for you.

conversation started off like it normally did - beverly began discussion about the latest friends episode you hadn't watched.

"it was actually the funniest thing when joey put the -" she began, on a roll.

you clenched your fist and glared at your food. it wasn't fair that everyone else watched it without you.

"hey," richie whispered, voice as soft as it could go, "are you okay?" you grumbled at this, turning away from him, completely blocking him off.

"just because you've watched it doesn't mean everyone else has, beverly," you hissed, clenching your jaw.

"oh, shit, sorry guys. has anyone else not watched it?"

the rest of your friends shook their heads - so did richie. "oh, well, n/n, think of it as a recap, because i honestly will not be able to concentrate in the next two lessons without ranting about this, richie cover her ears,"

"as you wish," he said stupidly, in one of those stupid impressions.

"wesley does not look good on you, tozier, drop it," you glared at him now.

"wow," stan added to the banter, "you haven't called him that since you hated him,"

"well, maybe i still do!" you nearly yelled at the kid.

"what the hell was that for?" bev raised her voice. "stan didn't even do anything to you,"

"yeah, i've been nice to her the whole day because she's obviously upset about something,"

stan was right. he was in your homeroom so he had to deal with you the entire day. you mumbled a small sound in apology before glaring back down in your plate.

"and i don't g - get why you tipped your drink all over my p - painting," bill frowned, "i mean, it's fine, she's letting me do it again but it took really l - long," his voice drifted off.

you felt bad, to be honest. but you weren't going to admit that to any of them. you didn't want to have to explain the divorce of your parents.

"whatever," you rolled your eyes, "i'm going for a walk. don't. follow. me." you glared at all of them when you said this but didn't bother looking back.

RICHIE

they stared at me expectantly the minute she was out of view and earshot.

"what?!" i threw my hands up. "well, i'm sorry she's being a bitch to you guys but i honestly don't even know why -"

beverly shoved her head into her hand, shaking it in dismay. i stared at them until stanley groaned loudly.

"you're supposed to follow her!" he threw his arms up in annoyance.

"oh." i got up and ran after her, brain kicking in.

SECOND PERSON POV

he found you in the abandoned classroom, leaning against one of the desks with your head in your hands.

"richie, i thought i told you not to follow me," you mumbled the words when you saw his shoes.

"beverly said to accompany you in case bowers shows up," he decided it was okay to lie about something like that.

"you're full of shit," you mumbled.

"i am," he agreed, sitting down next to you, "now tell me what's up, pretty girl," you took a long shaky breath at this before finally surrendering.

“my mom left my dad last night,” your lip trembled. “and it’s my fault, richie, it’s my stupid bipolar, i’ve scared my mom away. richie, what if i scare my dad away too? what’s my dad gonna do? if mom doesn’t want me anymore, i -”

“hey,” he adjusted his glasses very, very seriously, “listen to me, pretty girl,” right now you hated that stupid pet name. “do i hate my adhd?”

“no,” you mumbled - you’d memorized this particular lecture. “but -”

“your mama just can’t handle it,” he had to stop himself from blurting out a joke. “but i know your dad, pretty girl, i know he loves you, i know he’s strong, okay?” 

“but what about you?” you didn’t mean to say it, “are you gonna leave me, too?”

“i’ll only leave you if you want me to,” he said, voice dry, “and if you want me to come back i will always come back, pretty girl,” he spoke solemnly, “i may look like one, but i’m not a cheat, y/n. i’ve loved you since grade one and i’ll never stop loving you. i’ll put up with all your crazy shit ‘till the day i die.”

“promise?”

“promise.”

MASTERLIST - requests are ALWAYS open!

a/n: omg this was so fucking bad i’m soooooo sorry if you want me to write a different one i don’t blame you. i honestly cannot write straight richie for the life of me. 

[fictionplumis]

A Lambert/Aiden Thing

Okay, bear with me here, this might be long. And maybe at one point I'm gonna try to RP this but unfortunately there's no one on the Lambert/Aiden RP tags on the site I use. So I'm just gonna put this here for now. And if anyone wants to, oh I don't know, write a fic or whatever based on this, PLEASE link me 'cause I wanna read it but anyway. 

Set after the Wild Hunt, one of those rare AUs where Aiden genuinely did not survive.

While traveling together as super cool witchers, Geralt ends up telling Ciri all about helping Lambert get revenge for his Cat friend, right? 

Time passes, and Ciri starts trying to really solidify her control with her ability. Geralt ends up spending more and more time at Corvo Bianco and Ciri is out on the Path, but every so often a girl needs a break, y'know? So sometimes she'll disappear for a couple days, maybe a few weeks, just off in another world. It's a good way to practice. 

In one world, she ends up running into this man named Aiden. (This world being our world. Not a modern Continent thing, not some point in the future, I mean OUR world.) They talk, and he ends up mentioning his roommate Lambert, and the more he says about Lambert, the more it becomes obvious that it's LAMBERT. 

Now Ciri has absolutely no intention of doing anything about this. It's not her place, telling Lambert would be an AWFUL idea, and going to meet that world's version of her uncle just seems like a bad idea. But she is curious about what kind of man can inspire such a strong sense of friendship in Lambert, so she decides to pop into that world every so often, "accidentally" find Aiden, and just kind of get to know him a little bit. Plus it's another way to practice her abilities, not just pin-pointing and traveling to a specific world, but to where a specific person is. 

She does that on and off a few times, enough where her and Aiden are sort of acquaintances. 

Now in this world Aiden isn't a saint, okay? This boy pretty much grew up on the streets. He has a past that he's trying to get away from. He knows his way around a knife fight, has ample experience running from the cops, and has been through so much therapy. (I don’t get into detail here but any kind of modern Aiden I usually have some kind of neurotypical. Might be something as simple as ADHD, though I do love bipolar!Aiden and psychotic!Aiden as well. I’d imagine at this point he’s good at managing it, with the help of therapy and medication. Now the therapy wouldn’t be all that accessible with where this is going, but Ciri could help him make sure he has his medications. Hell, if wanted to have him keep things consistent with his therapy too, he could move down to appointments maybe once a month and Ciri could make sure he could get to them, the same way she helps attain other things later on in this snippet. I absolutely support positive and accurate depictions of mental illness, I’m not just using the terms bipolar or psychotic lightly.) And unfortunately his past ends up catching up with him. 

Ciri happens to get there just in time. Before Aiden can end up with a bullet in his eye, she's teleporting him to the first safe place that comes to her mind: Corvo Bianca.

Now poor Aiden has no fucking idea what happened. One second his old "friends" have him backed into a corner with a gun to his face and the next he's experiencing the worst motion sickness of his life and throwing up in a pot that smells like shit. He spends the next two days sleeping off some major jet lag and when he comes to, he had no fucking idea where he is. 

Then comes Geralt and Ciri having to awkwardly explain the whole witcher thing to him, the Continent in general, the time period, the fact that monsters and sorceresses and magic exists in this world, all that happy shit. And it's a lot to process. Before they can even get to the whole "do you want to go back to your world and handle the deal with people trying to kill you thing" Lambert shows up. 

At first Aiden doesn't even think, he's just like oh thank fuck a familiar face, I know you hate hugs but I think this can be forgiven because I've had the weirdest most stressful week of my life.

And then he's like, wait a second. Lambert is... Thicker. 

Like Lambert's always been a very physically active guy, he's a mechanic or whatever you want a modern day Lambert to do, but his shoulders weren't THAT broad before and under those spiky metal arm things are some impressive biceps. Also what are those spiky metal arm things? Lambert, what are you wearing? How the fuck did you get here? Holy shit your eyes--

He puts two and two together. Right, the name Geralt sounded familiar because Lambert's mentioned the name. That's his adopted brother. So if this Geralt is a witcher, then Lambert in this world is a witcher. And Lambert is also having a minor breakdown because, y'know, AIDEN. 

Let's just say Geralt warned him. Explained the whole situation and asked Lambert to come back to help with this, and Lambert was very torn because it's not HIS Aiden. It'll hurt too much, to see someone so much like Aiden but just slightly to the left. He knew it would. He just didn’t expect this Aiden to be SO MUCH like his Aiden. By this point Aiden has had to change his clothes into some of Geralt's trousers with a belt to hold them up and a loose tunic, but it's fucking him. 

They all talk a bit. Aiden pretty much admits that yeah, there are people after him. And they probably won't stop until he's dead. That's how gangs work, y'know? You can't really... Get out. He tried, he really fucking did, but even if it's not the ones that cornered him before, it'll be someone else. So yeah, Ciri saved his life and going back is probably not the best idea. 

Now I absolutely don't want to fuck over another world's Lambert just to make Continent!Lambert happy, so we're gonna say the two were really good friends. They were roommates, they were close, Lambert was pretty much Aiden's only friend, but they weren't lovers. Lambert was with a woman named Keira. A doctor. They were good for each other, y'know? When Lambert first started dating her, Aiden thought she was kind of a bitch but as time went on she kind of mellowed out. It wasn't that she became less full of herself, but more that she actually felt confident enough that she didn't feel the need to try to take on the world anymore. And Lambert's happy with her. So leaving Lambert behind in that world kind of sucks, yeah, but he'll be okay. And this Lambert is so similar that to Aiden, it doesn't feel like he's losing someone. 

Now we have Aiden getting to experience the Continent for the first time. Getting to experience witchers for the first time. 

Lambert. Sword fighting. 

And that's so fucking cool. Can you please teach me that?

Which of course has Lambert a little iffy, because this Aiden is human and no fucking away is he letting this Aiden anywhere near a monster, but Aiden is like, nah, relax, I just want to learn because sword fighting is really cool. Look, I'm really good with a knife, teach me some cool sword stuff. 

So Lambert gets to teach Aiden some cool sword stuff. And how to make bombs, which Aiden LOVES. And maybe some alchemy, too, because Aiden asks about the potions and Lambert is very adamant that he never drinks any but Aiden likes at least knowing how to make them. It's fascinating. You all fucking know you would love to make potions out of gross monster parts and herbs if you had the chance, don't even lie. Lambert even shows off some signs and Aiden is delighted. 

This eventually leads to one of those serious conversations about what it takes to become a witcher, and what all Lambert went through, and how people view witchers. And Aiden gets it, maybe not completely, but he gets the just of it. Because he knows about the other Lambert's past, and his shitty father, and all that stuff. And Aiden's brown, and people don't like that. And he's gay, and people don't like that either. Lambert's whole thing kind of reminds him of the X-men. 

And Lambert doesn't know what the fuck that is so Aiden explains comics and superheroes and the X-men to him. 

Because in his world they don't have witchers or magic, so they make up stories that have people like witchers, that have magic, and in those stories, those people sometimes face very similar prejudices. So to Aiden, Lambert is a lot like a superhero. 

And Lambert's like uh huh, no way, definitely not any kind of hero, that's pretty boy's job. 

To which Aiden responds, no, I definitely think you're a hero, even if you don't, so suck it up. 

And they probably kiss and stuff. 

Eventually Aiden gets restless and he's curious about the rest of the Continent, and he's tired of wearing Geralt's ill-fitting clothes because he's used to skinny jeans and shit so he gets Lambert to take him into Beauclaire for clothes. 

And Beauclaire is fucking beautiful, he loves it. 

The clothes are okay. Eventually he just asks Lambert what he used to wear and they go see the armorer instead. Aiden's not entirely sure about it, because Lambert looks like he's swallowed a mouthful of tacks when he sees Aiden in the Cat armor, even without the chest piece or the gauntlets, but Lambert assures him that he's fine. 

It just doesn't quite ease the restlessness. So the next time Ciri pops in, Aiden asks for her help and together they scheme. The next day, Aiden tells Lambert to go find something to entertain himself with for awhile because he needs to spend some quality time with his BFF. 

A few hours later they find Lambert sulking out in the vineyard, Aiden looking fine and fresh in a brand new pair of skinny jeans that show off his very nice ass, and some well-fitting combat boots that aren't nearly as durable as actual leather boots on the Continent but they have studs and buckles and look really cool.

Lambert is torn between thinking Aiden looks like a fucking idiot and thinking that he's never wanted to fuck Aiden more in his life.

Then Aiden drops the news that he also put together an outfit for Lambert because in his world, when you're interested in courting someone, the first thing you do is take them on a date. And he wants to take Lambert on the most stereotypical first date. What's that? Why the movies, of course! There's an X-men movie that just came out (I don't know which one, okay? I don't watch the X-men. You figure it out.) and he thought, maybe, he could show Lambert a little bit of the world he came from. They wouldn't be there for long, and they wouldn't be going to a theater anywhere near where Aiden's old gang would be. Nothing would be tied to Aiden's name, and he would be with Lambert, so he would be safe. 

It's a big change from the Continent. 

Lambert's never seen so many fucking people in his LIFE. Aiden had warned him about cars and technology and Lambert is pretty quick witted so while he's absolutely amazed, he manages to take it in stride pretty well. The thing that throws him off the most is when they go to buy popcorn and the girl at the counter goes, "Oh my god, I love your contacts! Where did you get them? They look so real!" 

Lambert doesn't know what the fuck contacts are, but Aiden steps in all smooth-like, "Fuck, Lamb, you've had those forever, haven't you? I think he got 'em off some cosplay site." 

Then he has to explain later that sometimes people put these little discs in their eye to help them see better or to change the color of their eyes for costume purposes. To which Lambert has the understandable reaction of, "Who in their right fucking mind would CHOOSE to do this to their fucking eyes?" 

Well, y'know, they can take contacts out whenever they want. It's a cosmetic thing. They don't know what you had to go through to get your eyes to look like that. You'll probably have some old conservative people eyeing you weird, thinking you're some Satanist or whatever, but most other people will just think it's a cool choice you made, to put those in to go to the movies.

The world is weird. Lambert can't decide if he likes it or hates it. 

He definitely likes the movie, though. And the popcorn. Probably finds the soda to be a little too sweet for his taste. There's still a lot of people, which makes him a bit on edge, but they came to the theater at an off time and not many people are actually in the room with them. They sit at the back and hold hands and Lambert decides he loves it. Ciri picks them up like a proud parent driving her kid and her kid's date home, only instead of driving she's teleporting and neither of them are her kids but whatever. 

But Aiden isn't done scheming. When they get back he tells Lambert to stay put and gets Ciri to take him back for one more little errand. 

A couple hours later they clang back into Corvo Bianco. CLANG back because each of them has a weird metal cart piled high with items and they're laughing their asses off. 

So you might be wondering, how did Ciri and Aiden afford clothes? They stole them. How did Aiden afford movie tickets and popcorn? He pick pocketed. Boy grew up on the streets. He knows how to steal wallets. And now they performed the greatest "run out the doors of Walmart with carts full of shit" EVER. Because as soon as they were out of sight, they teleported, no one the wiser. 

Aiden is thrilled with his non-purchases. Firstly, he has about a year's worth of toilet paper. he throws a package at Lambert, who's like, what the fuck is this. Toilet paper. What do you use it for? To wipe your ass after you shit, Lambert. Trust me. Once you use it, you'll never go back. It's a blessing, you'll thank me for it. There might not be indoor plumbing here, but god dammit, I want toilet paper.

He then hands Ciri two boxes of pads. Yeah, she was there shopping with him, but he just kind of dumped stuff in carts without explaining anything, and while Ciri knows what most of the things are, do you really think she's thought about how other worlds deal with menstruation? Because I menstruate, and the thought would genuinely not cross my mind. I would continue using whatever method I used back in my original world. So Aiden leans in to whisper what they are, because he's polite, and he becomes her favorite uncle just like that. And when Geralt and Lambert are like, uh, what? She tells them it's for menstruating and, "Oh, don't make that face at me, Geralt. I bleed, it happens."

Aiden admits that most of the other purchases are for Lambert, and when Lambert tires to protest Aiden makes it very clear that everything he bought is NORMAL in his world. Not even luxury, just NORMAL, so Lambert just needs to shut up and let Aiden make his life a little easier. 

First up, sunglasses. Because Lambert mentioned how painful it can be to take Cat and then step out into sunlight before the potion has run out. He tosses a pair at Lambert, who tries them on with a frown and is like, "Oh. Huh. Alright. These might actually be pretty useful." Aiden got himself a pair too. They match. There's also a tent. It folds up pretty small, but witchers travel, right? And Lambert mentioned how shit it is to camp in the rain, so here's a tent that’s better than the shit you can buy on the Continent. You lay out your bedroll in it, and you don't have to worry about bugs, and it helps protect you against the weather. It's small, but it looks kind of easy to put up, should be durable enough. 

And maybe just big enough for two, because Aiden isn't stupid. Eventually Lambert will need to take to the Path again, and Aiden wants to comes too. He wants to see the Continent. He can't help with the monsters, he knows, but maybe he can do something else to help them earn money. Who knows, right? This world isn't run by capitalism. He could make a living doing nearly anything. He can figure something out. 

He even got a water filter, and a couple filter replacements because witchers can probably drink any kind of stagnant water they want but he would rather not die of dysentery, thanks. And he got himself a sleeping bag. And he got Lambert a very, very soft fleece blanket just because he thought Lambert would like it. (He does.) Oh, also, Lambert, smell this soap. And this shampoo. Using a bar of soap has not done Aiden's hair any favors, he got actual fucking shampoo. The BIG bottle. And now Lambert has some nice pomade to use in his hair instead of bear fat. Won't make his hair greasy plus it smells better. Also there's bubble bath, just because. And beard oil for Lambert. Some moisturizer. Here, Lambert, put on some chap stick. Trust me, you'll love it. 

They set out on the Path and it's not always easy because Aiden worries CONSTANTLY. But Lambert is good at what he does. The few times they're ambushed, Lambert always keeps Aiden safe, because in this household everyone fucking survives. 

Aiden likes seeing Lambert in action. He swoons and calls Lambert his hero. 

There are some stunning places to visit on the Continent. Aiden's favorite are the elven ruins they sometimes come across. Only after Lambert deals with the wraiths, though. 

Aiden learns how to play Gwent. He's not that good at it. Aiden learns how to cheat at Gwent. He's VERY good at it. Lambert teaches him how to fish with bombs. Aiden is fucking delighted. 

Eventually he realizes how he can make money. He copywrites Disney. 

He's no bard. He can't sing or play an instrument. But he CAN tell stories, and no matter how much you hate Disney, there are probably a lot of Disney movies everyone can quote by heart, and they're either already time-period approved, or they can easily be adapted into something time period approved. Lambert comes back from a hunt to find the entire tavern listening to Aiden with rapt attention while he's in the front of the room putting on a one man performance of the whole, "I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die," while jumping back and forth to play each part. He's clearly having a blast with it, because who doesn't love telling other people every little detail about their favorite movie? 

As he's heading upstairs with Lambert, he just keeps raving about how he can't believe he actually made money with that. He hands Lambert a handful of coins, just like, "I don't know how much money this is, but look, it's money!"

Which probably leads to some conversation about capitalism and how easy it was in his world to feel insignificant, to feel like everything is pointless, and how much happier he is with Lambert. How it's even given him a new outlook on the world he came from. He doesn't want to go back, per se, but he doesn't want to completely leave either. He wants to show Lambert the best parts of it, to re-experience his world through Lambert, to really feel the amazement of it all the way he's supposed to, the way that's so easy to stop doing when you're actually living there. It's so easy to take it all for granted, but when you're showing it to someone who's experiencing it for the first time, you can really appreciate it all. 

So every winter they head back to Toussaint and Ciri takes them back long enough for them to do something FUN. They play laser tag. They rope Geralt, Eskel, and Ciri into doing an escape room with them. They go kayaking. They do one of those rope courses and zip-line things. They go to an amusement park. A water park. They walk around a nature trail. They go to a comic convention. (Lambert wears his armor and so many people want pictures with him. He's just sad Aiden wouldn't let him bring his swords, the kids would have fucking loved to see a sword.) They have so much fun. And Aiden stocks up on modern supplies for the year while he's there. Another year's worth of toilet paper, a new tent, another fuzzy blanket, a few pairs of sunglasses because Lambert always ends up breaking his, a nice backpack because Lambert really likes having a bunch of different pockets in his bag for organizing things.

And you know what? Give it ten years, Aiden's bordering on his forties, and he finds some way to make himself functionally immortal. Magic, fairies, a curse, a blessing, I don't know, I don't care. Their plan becomes to live until one of them dies of something--probably Lambert, because he's the one Aiden always has to patch up (he now always buys a very large, well stocked first-aid kit from his world too) what with fighting monsters and all, and the other will follow. It's morbid, sure, but it works for them. With the way things are going, neither of them thinks they'll need to do that anytime soon anyway.

Basically, they live happily ever after, okay? 

HAPPILY EVER AFTER.