#also also - he was literally having health issues earlier this year and he did not want to be on camera - of COURSE he shouldn't have to be-

[vlrghoes]

What Once Was | Chapter One

author’s note: I edited and proof read this after coming back from the club so if you see something wrong don’t be afraid to point it out as I’m quite friendly anyway!

I still don’t know if I like this chapter but overall I’m just shy about sharing my work because I’m hyper judgmental of my own work but I still wanted to share this with you guys anyway.

The chapters after this will be set a few years after this (which will be clarified in the chapters)

I’m English so if anything is wrong in terms of America and the health practices please forgive me!

I’m literally yapping now but I do want to say that I can’t promise chapter two will come in under 2 weeks as I’ve just finished my law degree and landed my dream job (not related to my degree) and I start training next Sunday and it’s for 5 weeks, really intense and with exams almost every day and if I mess up I lose my job. (Not sure if it’s obvious what my job is but anyways.) Also it’s my birthday on Wednesday and I’m celebrating Thursday so less time to write!

cw/tw: death, pregnancy complications, heavy angst, references to mental health and body dysmorphia/body image issues

word count: 4370 (I never usually write more than 2k so this is weird for me)

tag list (ask to be added): @trippinsorrows @cyberdejos2 @maeb99 @southerngirl41 @callmekayd @trentybenty @tian-monique @rose-bliss (if your name isn’t in grey, it’s not letting me tag you but I’ll try in the comment section)

masterlist

“You’re choosing that stupid title over your family again.” Ayanna’s voice cracked, the finality of her words hanging in the air as Joe stood frozen, his guilt palpable and his resolve wavering. She had spent all day running around the house and decorating for their special day. She spent hours preparing a nice steak dinner for the two of them, however it had been left untouched, the wait quelling her appetite as she now only felt sick. The dress she picked out now felt too revealing, no longer complimenting her body. Suddenly it clung to all the wrong parts and accentuated her weight gain, making her feel like a whale instead. The candles in the house had melted to the point where the fire had flickered out and the playlist she had queued just sounded like white noise at this point. Nothing matters anymore because Joe is late, late home once again and Ayanna is reaching breaking point. She spent hours waiting for him after she prepared their dinner, but all the effort didn’t matter anymore because instead of romance, the air was filled with tension and dread. “You know they’re due any day now, Joe how could you do this to me, to us. How can you still be wrestling so soon to my due date?” She said, her voice filled with emotion as she tried to steady herself. She didn’t want to cry, she had cried so much this entire pregnancy and she felt miserable. Instead of having that pregnancy glow like Rihanna, she had the life sucked out of her and she just felt lifeless.

“Look baby, I'm sorry.” Joe began, trying to figure out mentally how to get himself out of the trouble he was in. It wasn’t his fault, the media day for Wrestlemania was meant to finish much earlier but they took longer to set up, in turn making Joe’s interview (which was last) late. He had intended to be home earlier but it just seemed like the universe had other plans.

“Don’t even bother” Ayanna sighed, playing with the ring on her finger which now felt like it weighed a tonne. When they first got together, he gave it to her as a promise he’d marry her and whilst he did deliver on that promise, since getting pregnant and no longer being able to join him on the road she wondered if it was worth it sometimes. It’s not that she didn’t love Joe, hell sometimes she thinks she loves him too much. However she now isn’t sure if he loved her more than that title. He used to be so romantic; he’d bring her flowers every single day no matter what, he’d take her on dates, even small ones that weren't as lavish and she loved it. But the more he climbed up the ranks of WWE, the less the romance was there. Then shortly after he became champion everything stopped. Their marriage hit the rocks as he was never home and he started to miss things such as birthdays and christmases, so to save their marriage Ayanna gave up everything and joined him on the road. It was all going great until her later stages of pregnancy which stopped her from travelling with him but the most important thing for Ayanna was that he never missed an anniversary.

Well that was until now.

“Do you even know what day it is?” Ayanna asked, her voice quiet as she watched his mind tick, the cogwheels visabilly spinning with his face scrunched up in confusion, dull eyes squinting until it all finally clicks and he looks at her horrified. “You know, as bad as you’ve been lately, I always used to say ‘at least he’d always remembered our anniversary’ but it seems I can’t even say that anymore.” She spits, her heart breaking as the words leave her mouth.

“Yana” he started, feeling dizzy as he watched her flinch, a look almost of disgust flashing within her eyes. The nickname didn’t bring the butterflies it used to bring anymore, instead it forced a swell of emotion that made her feel like she could spew her guts any second. She used to look at him in adoration, but as the years passed the glimmer in her eyes decreased daily until they were fully extinguished. “Baby things are going to change after wrestlemania, I promise. Just one more match, after this I promise I’ll ask Vince again for some time off, I’m sure he’ll give it to me this time.”

The both of them knew that he was telling her what he wanted her to hear, the same conversation being repeated so many times to the point where they felt like they were in limbo. The last time Joe had asked, Vince told him he couldn’t have time off as he was their top star and Joe simply didn’t ask again. He always seemed to lack a backbone in situations that require him having one, but is happy to have a backbone and be stubborn when he doesn't need to be. Ayanna was exhausted, carrying one baby is hard enough but of course Joe carried the twin gene so she was carrying two instead and it felt like they were draining the life from her body. “I just want you to be present Joe, I feel like a single mother despite being married.” She pleaded, her voice filled with desperation. No one ever mentioned how lonely pregnancy is. She had lost many friends as she couldn’t go out to the club or drink anymore which meant that she spent days on end staring at the four walls of her bedroom watching the time pass as she waited up for Joe to come home. She sighed, tears threatening to well in her eyes which made her mentally curse. Stupid baby hormones. “You made the same promise last time, I don’t think you understand that one day I may not be here. You’ve missed so much already and you will never get this time back.”

She waited for Joe to say something, anything that could save the situation and at some points she felt like he was. But he’d then swallow the words back with a bitter taste and instead just looked at her in defeat. Nothing could save Ayanna for the despair she felt and she felt stupid even having this conversation with him. Instead, she gives him one more look over, a silent plea to say something or do something but the window of time closes as soon as she opens and she ends up turning on her feet and going to bed. She kept her room door ajar, hoping he’d come and knock, give her the tight hugs he used to give her and shower her in kisses and apologies but it never happens.

Joseph himself didn’t know what to do. They had the fairytale romance all their friends envied when they were younger, he was the promising D1 football player and she was a shoe-in to be a future Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. They looked good together and spent years in their honeymoon phase, yet somehow as they grew older the fairytale had started to wear off. He looked around the room with a frown, his stomach twisting and his heart aching as he realised exactly how much effort she had put in for their anniversary dinner and in that moment he felt like a horrible person. He knew he needed to pack as he was leaving at 5AM to get a jet for Wrestlemania but a large part of him wanted to go and fix the situation. But he knew nothing could ever fix it. They promised each other that they’d never go to bed without resolving an argument but that promise got broken several times to the point of which it no longer had any weight. So instead, Joe went into the walk-in closet and packed his things, believing that there’s nothing he could do to fix the situation.

That night, for the first time in their marriage the couple slept in separate rooms. Joe in the guest room tossing and turning in his own guilt, whilst Ayanna tried her hardest to muffle her sobs in the pillow. Her tears soaked the case through and her heart shattered in the pieces.

The next morning, Ayanna woke with the worst headache. Her head was pounding so intensely it hurt to open her eyes, however she put it down to the fact she spent all night crying and didn’t sleep. She called out for Joe, hoping he’d be home still so they could make up after their argument and wish him luck tonight as no matter what she loved him and didn’t want to continue on with another argument. But as she made it to the guest room, she realised it was too late and he was already gone. Her heart splintered like fragile glass, and she wept until the well of her tears ran dry, leaving her hollow and desolate.

“Fix your face uce.” His cousin Joshua says with a nudge. Joe having a face like a slapped ass and a snappy attitude had become too common these days and the twins, Joe’s only confidants, knew exactly what was going on. They’d grown up with Joe and practically spent their whole lives with Ayanna through her association with Joe, meaning they had been privy to almost all of the couple’s relationship issues.

“He’s right, every day you walk around here with the face you used to have when my dad used to whoop us all for breaking the window with the football.” Jonathon adds on, a small chuckle escaping from his twin brother as the memory of that day flashes through him. The twins and Joseph had grown up together due to their parents living next door to one another. Rikishi, the twin’s father and Joe’s uncle would say the twins were a bad influence. However everyone who knew them knew that it was actually Joe, he always managed to get away from it all by snitching on the boys before they could save themselves. Which is what led to all of them getting chased with a broom stick as children after Joseph broke the window as they were all playing football, but instead of admitting it he blamed the twins whilst the twins blamed him so the punishment was collective.

“Are you fighting with Yana again?” Joshua asks, earning him a dirty look from both his twin brother and Joseph as the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. The two of them somehow manage to fight more than Joshua and his baby mother, and the pair of them were never even together, just a stupid one night stand.

The pair wait for Joseph to say something but it becomes more and more obvious that he has nothing to say, but the situation is clearly bothering him. Jonathan, the self-labelled “mature” one out of the twins, felt it was best to offer some advice, even if Joe didn’t ask. “Man, I don’t know what’s going on but I know you two have been together since you were both thirteen, whatever it is you’ll make it through it. You guys have always found a way.” The advice, albeit sweet, doesn't really make a difference for Joe. But thankfully he gets called for his press conference anyway so he doesn’t have to engage in the conversation further and he shifts from vulnerable ‘Joe’ to the formidable ‘Roman,’ like a Jekyll turning into Hyde, shedding his worries and fears to become the stoic, unyielding figure everyone dreads.

Joe never really cared for press conferences, however since he was the face of the company he was obligated to fulfil every duty in his contract. He was always used to giving the cookie cutter answers to the usual questions like “what are your expectations tonight?” and “how do you feel about your opponent?” However, he gets caught off guard when someone in the crowd asks "with the demands of your career, how do you balance your professional and personal life, especially with your wife expecting?" The question then places a pang of guilt in his stomach once more as he’s forced to remember their argument from last night. He really wanted to speak to her before he left but he didn’t want to wake her up and his flight was too early for him to stay. He took a thought and tried to compose an appropriate answer before taking a small breath.

“It’s a challenge, no doubt.” He began, slightly sounding defensive whilst making sure to try and make eye contact with the journalist in the crowd to make sure he appeared engaged in the topic. “But I’ve always believed that if you’re committed to something, you find a way to make it work. My family understands what this career means to me, and I make sure to be there for them as much as I can. After tonight, I’m looking forward to some quality time with them.” The words feeling hollow knowing his home life isn’t in a good place.

At home, Ayanna rubs her temples trying to quell the headache that has seemed to intensify from earlier on. She sits on the sofa, her head spinning from the pain when a sharp, twisting pain in her abdomen causes her to shift positions. “It can't be.” she mumbles, it was too early. The twins were not meant to be due yet, she had an entire plan for Joe’s mother to come down and stay in the guest room and help her for the last week of her pregnancy up until the babies hit six months, this can’t be happening. Her phone lay on the coffee table, just out of reach. She stared at it, debating whether to call Joseph or not. But he was probably in the middle of his press conference. She didn’t want to worry him—she could handle this.

She bided her time, until the pain suddenly intensified, radiating from her abdomen up to her chest. Ayanna’s breath hitched, panic creeping in as she realised something was seriously wrong. She forced herself to stand, but her legs buckled beneath her. The room spun, and she fell back onto the couch, gasping for air. She gave in and phoned Joe first, his phone going straight to voicemail as she thought before hanging up, her hands trembling as she dialled 911.“Please” she began with a gasp, struggling to even breathe, “I think something’s wrong I'm pregnant, and I—” Her voice broke off as another wave of pain hit her, harder this time as she screamed, the sound of her pained yells bouncing off the walls.

Joe, pleased with his answer to the first question, felt like he was in the clear and that would be it for the interview but then another question hit him. "There have been rumours that you were considering taking some time off after this match. Can you confirm or deny that?" The question made him feel hot under the collar, he didn’t want to give a definitive answer as Vince had already turned down his request and he didn’t want to put himself in a position that gets him in trouble. He hated it about himself and in a way he also hated Vince for putting him in this situation, however deep down he knew that he was at fault. No matter what, he was a coward and tried to avoid rocking the boat at work but all that has done is cause problems in his marriage.

He once again flashes that million dollar smile that he knew the ladies loved the most before positioning his answer. “Right now, I’m focused on tonight. Whatever comes after, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I’ve heard the rumours, but my priority is to go out there, put on a hell of a show, and take care of business. The rest will fall into place." He was cool and composed, everything a champion should be, however, the answer in itself was very evasive. It was as though he had mastered the art of saying much while revealing nothing, leaving everyone guessing what truly lay beneath.

Ayanna’s vision blurred as she tried to focus on the operator’s voice. “Stay with me, ma’am, help is on the way,” the voice said, but Ayanna could barely hear it over the pounding in her head. She doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach as the baby kicked wildly inside her. Her thoughts were a jumble of fear and regret. She should have told Joseph—should have insisted he stay home. But it was too late now. The darkness at the edges of her vision crept closer, and she knew she was running out of time

Joe looked at the crowd, wanting to go backstage and get ready for his match, a sigh of relief leaving his body as he’s told this is the last question of the conference. "Any plans to celebrate after the match, or will you be rushing home to be with your family?”

Joe smiled, the question feeling so bittersweet as he’d love to have Ayanna in the crowd like she usually is tonight, but that isn’t the case. "We’ll see how the night goes. My family’s always been my anchor, so I’ll be getting back to them as soon as I can. But first, I’ve got to take care of business in that ring."The reporters nodded, satisfied with his answer. Joseph glanced at the time—just a few more minutes, and he could get back to his routine. But he had no idea that his world was about to shatter.

Ayanna’s strength was fading fast. She clutched her phone, the operator’s voice a distant echo in her ears. “Hold on, ma’am, the paramedics are almost there,” but Ayanna’s world was already slipping away.

The last thing she felt was the sharp pain in her head, then—darkness.

The crowd was electric as Joe stepped into the ring, his face stoic as he played with his wrists to loosen them up. The glamour and feel of Wrestlemania never gets old, but he stayed focused, his mind locked in on the match and his eyes focused on his opponent. He couldn’t afford any distractions - not tonight.

The bell rang, and he moved with precision, every punch, every kick calculated. He could feel the weight of the championship on his shoulders, the expectations of the fans, the promise he had made to himself to be the best. Minutes felt like seconds as the match intensified, the crowd on their feet, chanting his name. With a final, devastating move, Joseph pinned his opponent to the mat. The referee’s hand slapped the canvas—one, two, three.

The crowd booed as Joseph was declared the winner, his arm raised in victory, gutted that their golden boy Cody Rhodes had lost the title. The championship belt was handed to him, and he held it high, basking in the glory of the moment. For a few seconds, everything was perfect. But beneath the cheers and jeers, he felt an uneasy feeling run through him, it was almost as if his body was trying to warn him that this victory came at a price—one that would haunt him long after the spotlight dimmed.

After the match he walked backstage, sweat dripping down his face but a victorious smile plastered on his lips. Fellow wrestlers patted him on the back, congratulating him on another win, another title defence. He had done it again—proven why he was the best. But it didn’t feel the same without Ayanna there to give him a kiss and tell him how proud she was of him. He longed to have her sweet floral scent dancing though his nose, he simply missed her and he was going to make it his mission to call her immediately and apologise and make it up to her. In fact, he was going to ask Vince again for time off or just go to Hunter and get him to explain to Vince.

As he headed toward his locker room, he saw Vince stood them with a solemn expression. His heart dropped, usually if Vince looks at you like that you’ve done a terrible job and you’re about to be pulled off TV. “Joe, we need to talk,” he said, his voice tight with urgency.”

Joseph frowned, still riding the high of his victory. “What’s up, Vince? I’ve got some celebrating to do and I need to call my wife.”

Vince hesitated, his face pale. “Joe, it’s Ayanna… She had a stroke during labour. She had tried to call you as she was going into labour but you were in the press conference.”

The words were like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. “What?” he whispered, his heart plummeting. “No… no, that can’t be right.” His mind scrambled to reject what he’d just heard, clinging to disbelief as though it could keep the truth at bay.

Vince’s eyes were filled with sorrow as he continued, “I haven’t heard anything else, however I would suggest that you take the jet and go to the hospital now. We will cover you in the post match press conference.” The championship belt slipped from Joseph’s grasp, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The noise of the backstage area faded into nothingness as Joseph stood frozen, disbelief and horror washing over him.

Joseph’s heart pounds as he bursts through the hospital doors, the sounds of WrestleMania’s victory still ringing in his ears. But as he’s confronted by the white walls of the ICU, his triumph feels meaningless, distant. Joseph’s hands trembled as he pushed through the hospital doors, his mind a whirl of fear and denial. He moved as if in a trance, barely registering the people around him as he demanded to be taken to Ayanna.

“Where’s Ayanna? Where are my kids?” he demands, his voice edged with panic.

The receptionist’s eyes flickered with sorrow, looking around in desperation as she did not want to be the one to be here when the news was broken to him. Luckily for her, the doctor steps forward. “Mr. Anoa’i, I’m so sorry. Your wife suffered a massive stroke shortly after going into labour. By the time she got here, there was nothing we could do to reverse the damage. Her brain activity ceased before we could save her.”

Joseph’s breath catches, his world starting to crumble. “What… what do you mean? Where is she? Can I see her?” His voice wavered, a desperate plea for a reality that was slipping through his fingers.

The doctor hesitates, his tone measured but heavy. “We had to make a decision quickly, Mr. Anoa’i. We kept her on life support long enough to deliver the twins via emergency C-section. It was the only way to save their lives.”

For a moment, Joseph just stares, unable to comprehend the words. “You… you kept her alive just to deliver the babies?” His voice is raw with disbelief and rising fury. He couldn’t believe what was being said to him, Ayanna being reduced to a baby making machine made him feel beyond sick. They could’ve had another baby, but he could never have another Ayanna. “She wasn’t just some fucking incubator! She was my wife! She is my wife, why didn’t you save her?!”

The doctor’s eyes hold steady, though full of sympathy. “She made that decision herself. Your wife signed an advanced directive, instructing us to prioritise the babies if anything went wrong. She knew the risks and chose this course.”

The words hit Joseph like a sledgehammer. Ayanna had known this could happen and made a decision without him—a decision that had ripped her from his life. Anger surged and then ebbed away, leaving a hollow ache where it had been. He had spent his life with her, and now, learning to live without her seemed an insurmountable challenge, a cruel twist of fate.

“Where are they?” he finally whispers, his voice barely audible, eyes vacant.

One of the nurses gently guides him to the room where the newborns lie in their incubators. They’re tiny, fragile, and perfect. But as Joseph looks at them, he’s overwhelmed not with the joy he expected but with a deep, unsettling mix of sorrow and resentment. They’re here, alive and breathing, but Ayanna is gone. She sacrificed herself for them, and Joseph can’t help but feel a stab of resentment toward these tiny beings who cost him everything. He stands over the incubators, his hands shaking as he touches the glass. The twins stir slightly, their small cries echoing in the sterile room, but all Joseph feels is an unbearable, suffocating grief—and an anger he can’t reconcile. Whilst he was angry at the world, he was also mad at himself. What sick bastard resents an innocent child? He thought, trying to force the feeling out of his heart, but it was no use. He just couldn't stop himself being filled with disgust when he looked at them, especially as they both look exactly like her. It felt like some cruel punishment from the universe for his wrongdoing.

Finally, he forces himself to pick up one of the babies, holding the child close to his chest. The warmth of his newborn is supposed to bring him comfort, but instead, it feels like a weight pressing down on him, reminding him of what he’s lost. Tears blur his vision as he collapses into a nearby chair, the sound of the twins’ cries filling his ears. But instead of the joy and love he once imagined, all Joseph can feel is a hollow emptiness and a dark, creeping resentment that only deepens his guilt. The nurse gently touched his shoulder, but Joseph barely noticed. He sank into a chair, the twins still wailing in his arms, as tears streamed down his face. The world had stopped making sense. He had won the match, but in doing so, had lost everything that truly mattered, as if triumph had come at the cost of his very soul.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Noah Lyles' collapse underscores our collective COVID denial - Published Aug 10, 2024

Read the full story at either link! (covidsafehotties archive is always free of pesky in-line ads!)

We keep pretending that the pandemic is done and over, but it keeps knocking us off our feet

The 2024 Olympic Games are serving up some less-than-subtle metaphors for how poorly we handle public health. Just after winning a bronze medal in the much-anticipated men's 200-meter race, U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles collapsed on the track in exhaustion — not just because he’d completed a brutal run in just 19.7 seconds, finishing third, but also because he was sick with COVID-19, a diagnosis that he’d concealed from others. He had been favored to take home gold, as he did in the 100-meter race a few days earlier.

But seeing an American Olympic star sprawled out and gasping on the track, and then taken away in a wheelchair, was more than a shocking image. It also represented the general “mission accomplished” attitude toward SARS-CoV-2: We think we’ve won against this virus and we haven’t.

COVID isn’t just spreading like wildfire through the Olympic Village in Paris — we are undergoing surges across the globe, with the World Health Organization tracking steep rises in infections in 84 countries. After more than four years fighting this thing, it is still knocking us out.

In some parts of the U.S., the amount of COVID is so high that experts are claiming this summer surge is on par with winter waves of the virus. But none of this should be unexpected at this point. This is no longer the “novel” coronavirus that once terrified people with its unpredictability. We know how it behaves, with surges in both summer and winter, and we know how to fight against it — yet our apparent strategy at the moment is to pretend it doesn’t exist at all, even when it swipes us off our feet.

It’s true that the pandemic is much different than it was in 2020. For one thing, in spite of this surge, deaths are relatively low, following trends since vaccines became available. In 2023, COVID dropped from the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. to the 10th, according to recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's not great, but it does indicate that widespread immunity (from vaccines, previous infections or both) is giving us some level of protection. Though let’s not forget that at least 1.2 million Americans have died to date from COVID. It’s nothing to sneeze at.

Deaths aren’t the only concerning metric, of course. Sometimes a COVID infection is asymptomatic, while at other times, the symptoms last for months or years or never fully go away. Patients call this long COVID and public health experts have described it as a mass disabling event. Lyles isn’t just lucky he won a bronze medal — he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t experience months of headaches, lung issues or extreme fatigue that never goes away.

Yet long COVID is rarely factored into discussions about this pandemic, even when kids get it. Instead, it’s treated as if infections are merely a mild cold at this point. Just shake it off, as Taylor Swift might say, while her summer tour dates become superspreading events.

Millions of patients can attest that COVID is anything but mild — and it's definitely not the flu. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can worm its way into nearly every part of our bodies, trashing our immune system and damaging our organs. We tend to think of the disease as a respiratory problem, given all the coughs and sniffles it produces, but it’s really more of a vascular disease, impacting any system that relies on blood vessels. That can include damage to the brain, which can manifest in symptoms like long-term cognitive impairment and Parkinson’s disease.

Yes, a virus that can literally cause brain damage is spreading at record levels and most people are acting like it’s just another wave. Just keep running.

But we’re not just paying the price with our bodies. The economy is also getting smacked by long COVID. A recent comprehensive review in the journal Nature Medicine found that the “cumulative global incidence of long COVID is around 400 million individuals, which is estimated to have an annual economic impact of approximately $1 trillion.” That's ignoring the long list of ways that long COVID wreaks havoc on the body, including, as the study notes, "viral persistence, immune dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, complement dysregulation, endothelial inflammation and microbiome dysbiosis."

[aleksanderscult]

Analyzing "Demon in the Wood" (book) - Part 5

(Part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4)

(TW: self-harm!, suicide!)

Did you think I had forgotten about this meta?

ABSOLUTELY NOT

I was just dealing with a small health issue and before that I didn't have the motivation.

But now my meta-analyzing-self has returned with the fifth and last part of the book.

This is the passage from the book that actually made me think "What if Aleksander himself started sleeping less and less as an adult?". He "adopted" so many things from Baghra. It's possible that he did this too. Sleeping very few hours at night and always ready to leap at the first sign of danger.

Also, not Eryk not wanting to get smacked from his mom if she catches him. 😭

“It’s not enough.” His voice made me jump. The Darkling emerged from the shadows onto the lamplit path.

He really can startle people with his silent movements.

And the fact that he has been trained by hunters!

So he has learned from hunters, seers, Kings, Saints. Through all these four hundred years he gained an enormous amount of knowledge. (I would honestly sit and listen to his experiences for free)

HE'S TOO CUTE I JUST--

He really preferred to get interrogated by his mother for his wet clothes than get naked in front of a girl. 😭🫶

We went from this "He felt too shy to remove everything."

To this "His hand slid down to my hip. I felt a little trill of panic as my skirt slid higher and his fingers closed on my bare thigh."

They grow up so fast. 🥹🥹

It's that beautiful realization that he acts like a kid that makes me happy. All giggling and smiling while playing and swimming. This is the life he was supposed to live and he knows it.

He's so happy and hopeful that he starts making plans! 😭

He just wants to stay somewhere.

The Darkling never hated the otkazat'sya. It wasn't hate he felt but (overtime) he just only came to know their nature.

Eryk really liked Sylvi and thought her a good company to have her around.

He was aware of the way men looked at his mother.

I'm sorry but I find this line kind of awkward. It may only be just me. But little Aleksander seeing men giving lustful looks to Baghra is a little awkward. Like, man, not in front of her son. 😭

It was one more weapon in her arsenal.

Actually an anon once sent me an ask saying that the Darkling was promiscuous on his earlier days out of his need for touch and to gain information.

At that time I said that I doubted it since he had other means to gain information (through his spies, his natural charisma etc.) but @stromuprisahat discussed this in the comments and now I agree with her that Aleksander would sleep with someone to gain information. And, in the end, it was this line that fully convinced me. Just like I've said previously, Aleksander mimics his mother in almost everything. He just copies her behavior and patterns. And that's one more pattern that he must have copied. If he didn't have any other choice and was desperate (also it would depend on the person he had in front of him) Aleksander would go in "flirt mode" to get what he wants. Seduction was one weapon out of the hundreds in his arsenal, ready to be used if necessary.

Well hello socially awkward Aleksander.

That might be my hot take for him I think. Aleksander Morozova was actually socially awkward in sensitive matters (this moment right here, revealing to Ulla that they're siblings, his first kiss with Alina).

He was never raised in a stable home, never had healthy friendships and was raised by his mother very strictly and to value power over love. So whatever compassion he had as a person, he had it out of his own character. He was born with it and not nurtured to feel it or have it.

He doesn't know if this question about her mother is appropriate because he normally doesn't have conversations with peers and hasn't learned to.

It's a very sad but true fact about his character.

Eryk: "Thanks mom for nothing I guess".

I don't think people realize how cut off Aleksander was from literally everyone. And it was Baghra that cut him off. Not one single word about his father like she created him by herself or something.

(Now I also remembered how Alina was the only other person Aleksander could bond and be with since she was immortal too but Baghra took that from him as well. That woman really said "You'll have no one but me")

now I'm angry

He really really tries.

I've analyzed this moment a bit here but basically Aleksander was very awkward with others showing a vulnerable side. He isn't used to being close with others since he constantly travels, so here he does his best to comfort Annika as she lays bare her thoughts and feelings. He wants to let her know that her father didn't fail but did his best to protect his remaining family.

Hell nah!! 😭😭

Not my boy being protective over his new friend 😭😭

He only knows her for a few hours and he feels already close to her.

This shatters my heart because he doesn't want to believe the truth. He doesn't want to face it in the beginning. He's like "Oh. Maybe we're playing". He doesn't want to know that his friend has turned against him.

*tears up*

Can you hear me crying in the background? 🙂

He was so ready to protect her against a boy taller and stronger than him. Because they're friends. Friends are supposed to stick together.

*I'm ready to cry*

He's still in denial. 😭

And seeing the difference between this young Aleksander to his older version. The young one being naive, innocent and weak because he lets his emotions get the better of him. While the older one never begged for anything (at least directly), shed that side of him and still died because he still wanted things.

THE STRATEGIC BABY GRISHA IS HERE!!

He cleared his head and started thinking of ways to get out. And what better way of escaping than making Annika and Lev fight each other?

I personally think he said that line for two reasons:

He wanted Lev to know what he is in order to make him come over, break the ice and even stop Annika so he could buy himself some time and escape.

It's very interesting that he said "you won't be able to push her or her sister around anymore". He could have said "When Annika wears my bone she'll be more powerful than you" but he brought up Annika's vulnerable position and that shows that he understands why Annika does this.

But still he won't sit and let her finish the job.

His determination is the one quality that admire in him the most.

Take this moment for example. Someone just hit his head with a rock and he focuses on staying awake and alive. He doesn't allow his own body to take him down.

And here the same thing happens:

He's ready to vomit and pass out but he just forces his body to do more, to escape and survive. He never lets anything deter him from what he wants. And apparently it was Baghra that made him this way too:

She nurtured his strong will and over the years he became a driven, focused and determined person. And it were these qualities that kept him alive all those centuries.

When Alina left him behind on the Fold he survived and kept going.

When Sturmhond left him with a broken ship, a wounded arm and in the middle of nowhere, he survived and kept going.

When Alina betrayed him and brought a building down on his face, he survived, took the throne and rose again.

When his mother committed suicide, he cleared his head and continued his war.

When he came back from the dead, he still continued the march towards his ambition.

Literally nothing could stop him. Even "when he wasn't so sure he wanted to go on" he put his one foot in front of the other and set his eyes towards his dream. Whether that was to provide the Grisha a safe home, or the Ravkans a safe country or himself a companion to have. Or all of it together.

It was enough to make him less a boy than a prize.

A sad existence to live. Especially in your childhood. Your own people seeing you as a trophy to have, to wear and use than a human with a life of his own.

He revealed his gift to Annika when he showed kindness to her and now he pays the price.

His relationship with his mother is one of the most (if not the most) pivotal aspects of his character. Her words and teachings have been implanted deep inside him and can hear her often in his mind (just like he did in RoW).

Did he also hear her voice whenever he was close to dying in his adulthood?

He lashed out of fury, desperation and sadness for everything that happened that day. Just when he thought he had it all, fate came and took them out of his hands along with his hope.

Let me make a mark on this world before I leave it.

He succeeded in that. The Little Palace is the greatest proof and people talked about him long after he was gone (and they'll continue to do so).

As a child he saw how Grisha came and went from this world without "touching" anything. He didn't want the same thing to happen to him. He wanted to make something.

(Also the fact that he dropped that iconic, serious line at the age of thirteen. The Darkling at thirteen "I want to make something grand before I die". Me at thirteen: *watching Shakira clips and failing school like nobody's business* 😭😭)

I don't think most of us understand that Aleksander literally self-harmed himself to survive and save his mother's life as well. Used his own power against him to make sure that they won't be burned alive for what he did.

For the Ulle to be so sure that nothing would happen at their camp makes me think that they were being established successfully there for a long time. But that surety and protection faded because of his own people who are so desperate to gain power in order to survive. It's not a matter of selfishness. I don't see it that way. But it's a matter of survival especially since the Grisha are a group of persecuted people that are hunted down for their powers, feared and shunned.

Whether you believe it or not, I've seen people say that Aleksander didn't regret the fact that he was responsible for the burning of that village.

*screaming in frustration*

So. I'll repeat that it wasn't an act of selfishness but a matter of survival. It's not a black and white situation. If Aleksander had said the truth he would be executed alongside his mother for what he did. And the other Grisha wouldn't hesitate to do it since they already feared Baghra. And what people fear, they destroy.

Aleksander opted to cut his leg deep with his own powers, lose unconsciousness and tell a fake story to save his mother and leave from that settlement in one piece. But he didn't take pleasure from it. He wasn't glad when Lev and Annika died and felt sorry for their parents and their reaction. And now he feels sorry for the burning of the village. He knew they were innocent and he supposed they were going to interrogate them or something. But kill all of them? That he neither expected or wanted.

Look. I think Baghra loved her son. But let's be honest. If he wasn't so powerful, if he wasn't immortal he would cast him away the same way she did with his siblings. Sooo....yeah. It's a toxic kind of love. She loves him for what he can offer her (companionship mostly) so it's not an unconditional love. She mostly wanted to keep him safe because, if he died, she would be left with no one.

Bardugo in a podcast called her "a horrible, horrible mother" and she is. But I still find her a fascinating character that I can't get enough of for some reason. I don't like her but I find her interesting.

Honestly, me neither. Annika was not my favorite character in this story but I don't hate her for trying to kill him. She wanted to protect her family and their position in the camp. It's a bleak world for the Grisha and they have to "eat" each other to survive.

Aleksander really said: "I will make my people matter. I'll make them touch this world and make themselves known. We will be seen".

All the Grisha characters that were trained in the Little Palace owe their reputation to the Darkling. Alina would never know who she was and, even if she did, she would waste because she would be unable to use her powers without someone to guide her. Zoya would never achieve that reputation.

Grisha would just continue to live in caves and hidden establishments. Afraid to go out and show their powers to strangers.

By S&B the Grisha were still despised but there was a minority that held them in awe. But that did nothing to change the situation. Now they are seen but used by the Crown. It was the only place they could have in the kingdom.

It rose from the trees surrounding it like something carved from an enchanted forest, a cluster of dark wood walls and golden domes. As we drew closer, I saw that every inch of it was covered in intricate carvings of birds and flowers, twisting vines, and magical beasts.

“Welcome to the Little Palace,” said the Darkling.

He did it. The crazy son of a bitch did it. 🥹🥹

He managed to create a safe home for them. Made sure for them to be surrounded by other people like them, sitting in front of a warm hearth, in unity not in conflict with each other. Somewhere to rest their heads under the gorgeous carvings of vines and birds. A place to practice their powers freely and eat luxuriously. Somewhere to come back to, like all of us do when we want to go home. Somewhere to belong and somewhere to stay.

(fuck you Tolya for what you said in that duology. Fuck you and everyone who talks shit about Aleksander's greatest accomplishment)

That was the end of the book and I absolutely loved that story. I need 20 more novellas like this from the perspective of the Darkling from his earlier adventures. I'll analyze the Graphic Novel next.

[diacripticcomplex]

DL Characters as College Majors/Life after highschool/Adulting experiences: 

Shu: Did not attend college, and will not. Somehow he was able to find a super boss lady girlfriend who literally takes care of him and doesnt want him working or going anywhere. Shu thinks that he's the one running things in the relationship and she will make him think that but she's pulling all the strings in the background. The only thing she wants Shu to do is take care of their dog and cat, which Shu gladly does, he is much better at taking care of animals than he ever was at taking care of other people. Smokes a lot of weed when his girlfriend isn't home, she keeps him at peace and without her he starts panicking. 

Reiji: He graduated highschool a year earlier than most, and is in his third year of pre-medical school, he successfully got his associates degree in Biology. He's also engaged to someone he doesnt even know but he has no choice but to obey his father's wishes. Doesnt go to any college parties and is not friends with anyone, however he does ass kiss the professors so that he would be able to score a good internship and letters of rec for Medical school. A few ladies in his classes think he is very attractive but he is uninterested in them and is loyal to his betrothed, having no idea what she even looks like is crazy but good for him I guess. 

Ayato: The life of the party, Literally he only went to college for the parties, his GPA was really low but he got money so he's able to pay of course. Joined a whole frat, is a huge frat bro and his major is finance. Which is crazy cause he sucks at math and anything pertaining to numbers.  He always makes class groupchats in order to get the answers for assignments and exams, thats how he's managing to get by all his classes. He's gotten roofied at a party before and is super careful with his drinks now as well as keeping a lookout for other people. He always tries to get his brothers to attend his frat parties, Laito does and once Subaru went, instantly regretted it cause Ayato made him jug like 20 beer cans back to back. He also has a huge crush on Yui but never invites her to the parties because he's scared something bad can happen to her there since there were many cases. 

Kanato: A well known art and design major, as well as minoring in historical fashions. Kanato has a huge passion for designing clothes and he was so happy he got accepted into a university that allowed him to use his creativity. He takes a lot of art related classes, his favorite is sculpting because it allows him to create sculptures out of wax, and he even got an award and his own exhibit on campus, yes he's that good. He's a part of a very quiet friend group of artists who silently create their mark on the school, the whole group is 5 girls and Kanato, crazy thing is Kanato managed to have sex with each one of them and theyre all aware as well but the convinced them in was to further their artistic view on bodies. He has a side hustle where he sells handmade bags and clothing, he's been doing very good to the point he can own his own boutique. 

Laito: He loves a good party and tries his best to attend all of Ayato's frat parties, but he does not go to college, instead he takes online courses on how to be a "health" guru, (sex guru). He's been doing good though, he's also a part-time massager for women only, he literally harassing them but they do not mind. He's also in a throuple relationship and a step father currently, but he has 3 kids from his previous relationships, yes Laito has 3 baby mamas and he's also  very active on social media trying to be a trendy influencer. He's also been in therapy for his mental health issues and past traumas, its been helping him. he tries to convince his brothers to come with him but they refuse, he never gives up. He really wants that family group therapy. 

Subaru: College did not spark his interest at all, despite the fact that he pretty much would be able to get a scholarship or be a pro-athlete. Subaru started to do boxing as a career choice, going into professional fights and winning every fight he has ever been in. His fighting name is the White Tiger. He loves to workout, and keeps a very healthy lifestyle so that one time he did go to that annoying frat party it completely messed up his flow it took him a few weeks to recover. Before he was fighting he tried using steroids to get ripped but stopped after he started feeling like shit. He has a girlfriend, and they have been together for YEARS! She's pregnant too and they have a cat together as well, they live in a nice condo and iconically he drives a subaru. 

Ruki: He's in culinary school. Honestly, he can cook very well. even Gordon Ramsey was impressed. He goes abroad quite often for competitions and for learning more about cultural dishes. He's managing an online business where he sells these goodie snacks and its international as well, Kou being famous helps promote his snack brand even more. Ruki also got married around his 3rd year in culinary school to the head chef, she literally fell in love with his cooking, however they keep their relationship a secret for obvious reasons, she's his teacher technically. He always brings his brothers back souvenirs from everywhere he goes, his favorite places so far were New York and Las Vegas, the food impressed him very much. 

Kou: He's been famous, and now he's evenm more famous thanks to Tiktok and instagram. He has a whole PR team as well and is often also traveling between Japan, California, New York, and Paris. He has a lot of modelling and brand deals as well, he's currently working on a cologne line and perfume line for women as well as male skin care. Kou has a lot of groupies and he almost married one but she was crazy and still stalks him. He has a lot of scandals as well. His nudes were leaked and a tape as well going viral on twitter and discord. He has collabed with a lot of famous singers and tiktokers. He is thinking of getting into acting if the scandals die down. 

 

Yuma: Works in the agriculture industry, but he’s not a farmer or gardener, he inspects gardens for a living and if they’re bad he will tell them how to improve it, he also works closely with importation of certain fruits and veggies. Nothing gets past Yuma, he has a big house with an even bigger garden and green house as well, he’s also gay and still big in love with Shu but respects his relationship they hang out sometimes. He’s currently working on a product to remove pesticides without harming the human body or altering the fruit/veggie. He’s been to a few gay clubs, and had some fun but likes to keep his life private and isn’t interested in a relationship right now.

Azusa: He met a very good person who was working as a therapist and she ended up becoming his girlfriend, he was never her patient but she was def helping him without even him realizing it, he's focusing on his mental health mainly and he's gotten a bunch of tattoos to cover up all his scars. He also works from home and is currently writing a book about his life, specifically the peak of his low, which was when he met his brothers in the orphanage. He has a pet kitten and he actually has 3 kids with his soon to be wife, he's also been getting into drawing and wants to illustrate children's books, and do a side hustle of tattooing. 

Carla: Works in the police force, he spends most of his time with the international forces and monitors media, he’s also working for disease control he used to be a detective however he shot someone innocent and couldn’t work the ranks anymore so he just works in internal affairs, he had a whole political campaign at one point but some women came forward with allegations against him some were true, some just hate him so they lied, safe to say he’s not getting into power any time soon, his daughter is his rock but he’s on the verge of a divorce. (I don’t like Carla)

Shin: He went to college to become a zoologist, but decided to get into the fur pelts industry instead, he works closely with fashion designers and certain colder countries , he’s been getting great trade, he also almost had a near death experience with a wolf so he no longer wants to be around animals. He practices not showering for months. (Yea I don’t like Shin)

Kino: (I def don’t like Kino) He works at a game stop.

Yui: this precious Angel Yui, goes to college for religious studies, she makes cute rosaries for all her fellow church group members/friends and they pray together, she wants to become an abbess very badly and is trying her very best in all of her classes, she does a lot of charity and fun raisers too, putting her cooking and baking skills to use, she had a crush on Ayato they shared the same pre req class but once he started partying and stuff she grew super distant from him, but still says hi to him when they see each other on campus.

[planerot]

Radiator Spring residents ranked on how trustworthy they are in the kitchen

(All these are intended to be humanized headcanons, but can be interpreted however you like. Also, quick content warning for food and a brief allusion to mold)

Flo - She literally owns a diner, (I did some googling and turns out, even though it's called Flo's V8 café, it's a diner. The disneyland website describes the IRL version in car's land as a 'Route 66-inspired diner' ) she makes the best food in town no questions asked. She's the one who makes everyone in Radiator Springs their birthday cakes and dinners each year, and has their favorite flavors and foods memorized by heart. If she catches wind that someone in town in feeling under the weather, that person will have a big pot of soup delivered to their doorstep before the end of the day. She is also very good about keeping her workspaces extremely clean due to the health and safety standards that come with running a diner. 10/10, she is the best by a very large margin.

Doc Hudson - During Doc's earlier years, back when he was still racing, he was a very mediocre cooking. He made stuff that was incredibly bland, boring, stupid easy, or a combination of all three. After his accident and moving to Radiator Spring, he was kind of forced to learn to make more interesting meals after eating nothing but mac and cheese, sandwiches, breakfast foods and other such things for a month straight and growing positively sick of it (because we all know his self isolating ass would NOT want to accept any invites to eat or, god forbid, risk accidentally socializing while at Flo's when he was fresh off a life changing crash). He, overtime, forced himself to learn how to actually cook and thus accidentally became one of the most talented cooks in Radiator Springs, second only to Flo.

Guido - He spent a lot of time in a tightknit, small Italian village, living with Mama Topolino, I feel it's very likely he picked up some tips, tricks and recipes during his time there. The vast majority of what he knows how to make is Italian food, but so long as he has a recipe, I think he could make anything.

Luigi - Basically the same as Guido. Only reason I put him below Guido is because he doesn't have the basically super human reflexes and motor control Guido has, thus making him more prone to spills and mess in the kitchen.

Red - The issue with writing any headcanons for Red is that he's more a gag then an actual character. I did a bunch of digging on his wiki page and all of it can be summed up to 'He likes flowers, is a firefigher and incredibly sensitive'...so I worked with that best I could. I think he'd be pretty decent at cooking since firefighters usually take turns cooking for their team, so anyone in that career usually has to learn to cook something actually edible. Red likely learnt how to cook during his very early days of firefighting before he moved to Radiator Springs. His dishes are definitely simpler, but that doesn't mean he can't make some very tasty, filling dishes. He takes enjoyment in serving his food to others and absolutely will burst into tears if someone insults his cooking.

Lizzie - Lizzie is the stereotypical baker grandma. A lot of the recipes she makes are pretty old, but that doesn't make them damn tasty. Her memory issues make baking a bit harder, but she still manages just fine. Baking helps keep her up and moving, even if it's only in her kitchen

Sally - She's never really had a knack for cooking and does her best from what people have taught her through the years. She can make a lot of really good pasta dishes, but other then that she doesn't really excel at anything.

Sheriff - Incredibly average. He's more the type to get food from Flo's or buy prepacked stuff then he is the type to actually make himself anything. When he does actually bother, all the stuff he makes is pretty good but absolutely nothing to write home about. He's more the type of person someone asks to pick up groceries for a meal then actually make the meal.

Fillmore - 100% more a baker then a cook. He first picked up baking to make weed brownies and ended up really enjoying the whole process. His recipes are very hit or miss though since he likes trying to make his desserts more healthy in some way. Sometimes this means they just taste a little off, and sometimes this means they taste like he just tossed sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl with some dried hay and baked it. He is also a hazard in a kitchen since he sometimes he gets munchies while high and will completely forget stuff in the oven, thus leading to multiple fire alarm scares.

Ramone - God bless his heart, but this man can barely cook. Flo has tried to teach him, but he just cannot seem to quite get it, often burning things, adding to much seasoning or accidentally forgetting ingredients. He loves spending time with Flo in the kitchen, so he gets relegated to vegetable peeling or pot stirring, which he very happily does because it means he gets to hang out with his amazing wife. The one thing he does excellent at is decorating. It took him a couple tries to get the technique down, but he is an amazing cake decorator, his years of painting cars meaning he has a scarily steady hand and very keen artistic eye. Flo always lets him decorate the cupcakes/cakes when she makes them for people's birthdays and they always turn out gorgeous.

Sarge - The issue with Sarge is that he refuses to toss anything out. He isn't good at cooking at all. That man does not give a shit how black his scrambled eggs are or how his chicken wings could probably be used as bricks, he will eat them. Whenever someone asks why he eats obviously terrible food, he just says something about how this is nothing compared to how terrible food was in the military. He's grown an iron stomach and hates wasting food even when it would probably be better for his health just to toss out the suspiciously fuzzy loaf of bread.

Lightning - He has mostly lived his adult life living off of fast food, microwave dinners, canned soup and whatever he can eat when people invite him over for dinner. He could probably be a very competent chef if he was taught how to, but he is a bit to embarrassed to admit it to someone else.

Mater - Do not let him near a kitchen he WILL burn it down. For the love of god he is clumsy as fuck and will somehow seriously injure himself or anyone if left to his own devices. He likes the idea of cooking for himself and his friends, but in practice it usually ends with either a fire, a hospital visit, or some horrid combination of both.

[giyrut-girlie]

(queer) jews in my phone i need help/love

this is a long ass post im so sorry lmfao, im putting it in under the cut to save you all but also if people have head space pls read <3

on friday night, i found myself the last of the shabbat guests (who weren't staying the night) at the Rabbi's house. i had asked my housemate to pick me up at 10:30, but everyone else left before 10.

the kids and rabbi's wife had gone to bed, so it was me, the Rabbi, and two older frum guys who stay over shabbat most weeks to be closer to shul.

for some context, earlier in the evening one of these guys had asked another dinner guest (a med student who I'm good friends with, she's a year or two younger than me) whether trans issues came up in her study. the two of us youngins made brief "help me" eye contact and she answered saying that yes, they did cover trans issues given that as a doctor she will, at some point or another, treat trans patients. the subject was changed, but the room was a bit tense.

so: 10pm, i'm sitting at the table, a little tipsy from all the wine, just hanging out until my ride comes.

the rabbi says "hey ella, i have a question for you now that everyone else (by which he means the not-so-frum people) is gone." and i Just Knew what he was about to ask.

i won't go into extreme detail about the actual conversation, but to sum it up: I was asked my opinion on trans folk, i said that i am supportive and do in fact believe trans people about their identities and was Shut All The Way Down. if i cited statistics i was told that actually they'd seen the opposite, if i tried to explain a study i was familiar with, i was told that they didn't think that was true. i actually don't know how i stayed calm, bc my mind and body were telling me that i was Unsafe basically the entire time (thanks anxiety disorder really did me a solid there /s).

eventually 10:30 rolled around and i had a get out of jail free to skip the rest of that fuck awful conversation, and my housemate was very nice to listen to my debriefing. while talking to her i came to the realisation that one of the main factors in the disagreement was that the rabbi didn't actually value the wisdom of any cultures/teachings/histories outside of judaism. if I talked about sistergirls of the torres strait, or māhū of hawai'i, that was dismissed essentially as goyische nonsense.

this whole conversation has been a Fucking Downer for my mental health. i actually broke shabbat (beyond my usual one melacha to be in the clear and sneaky housemate taxi service) that night bc my thoughts were racing too much to sleep without putting on some comfort media.

but beyond the mental health stuff (though probably actually very related) i've found myself really struggling with judaism since friday night. having my rabbi, who has been helping me through conversion, and who i have really valued as a teacher, and the only two other frum people in the community be so overtly transphobic all at once has really taken me for a spin. like, my rabbi is a lubavitcher, i knew that he was going to be fairly conservative about some stuff, but he literally told me that he only uses the correct pronouns for one of our community members as a "personal favour", and essentially told me that she was good evidence against trans acceptance bc nothing she could ever do would ever make her not a man (and you better believe this involved a lot of comments about her appearance)

to put the icing on the cake, when i dropped off his kids today (i nanny for them once a week), he handed me a book that upon research is basically the jk rowling talking point bible. he said to me that it was a really good book for me to read and that it might help fight some of the "mob mentality" (interesting term for scientific consensus but okay)

(also i had actually looked up my own citations from the discussion later and found myself to be very much correct in my recitation of statistics, but you better believe i wasn't petty enough to forward them on)

ANYWAY if anyone is still reading i'm fucking bummed and super anxious about interacting with my community, my conversion, finding the balance between really truly wanting to pursue an orthodox lifestyle and also being queer myself etc etc

i live in a really small jewish community and can't really leave until i finish my degree in 2026, so i can't exactly just find a more accepting rabbi or shul.

anyone have any advice, or just some solidarity for feeling shitty in this space? love u jews in my phone xx

[skeith-platinumprincess]

Today I would like to go over the history of an alternate universe Spider-Man who was created solely to be a gag character but in recent years has been getting actual serious attention. I am of course referring to:

Patrick O'Hara, the Web-Slinger.

The Web-Slinger first debuted in the very original Spider-Verse event but don't go into this expecting to read much of him. Unlike other popular Spider characters like Spider-Gwen and Peni Parker he didn't get his own issue to tell you his origin or anything like that. No, he was instead part of the book's gag team.

Throughout the original Spider-Verse event we would occasionally get to check in on Miles Morales and Drake Bell Ultimate Spider-Man recruiting the goofier spider-people across the multiverse. We even got a full issue of them recruiting the 1967 cartoon Spider-Man! At one point in this requirement spree we check in on them and see that at some point they recruited a cowboy Spider-Man

That's basically it for Web-Slinger's role in the original Spider-Verse. No name, no actual lines other than Yehaaaw, and after this point he's just in a few background panels.

Someone at Marvel must have really liked this idea though as he made more appearances in later Spider-Verse events. Such as in Spider-Geddon where he gets to be alongside Superior Spider-Man, Spiders-Man, and Spider-Punk as a team of Spider-Men who are willing to kill people

Spider-Geddon also gave us Vault of Spiders, a collection of short stories set in the universes of various Spider-People. Here we got a 7 page story showcasing Web-Slinger in his own world fighting against his version of Morbius. This little story also gave confirmation that yes, he shoots webs from his guns. They are literal web shooters

Next up we have what it easily Web-Slinger's biggest apperance: the 2019 Spider-verse event. In this comic Miles Morales has to jump from universe to universe helping various spider-people fight crime. It's a fun little book even if it doesn't serve much purpose. I'd love if they brought the concept back for some sort of Spider-Verse Team Up.

Anyway, the fourth issue of this book has Miles travel to Web-Slinger's universe, now officially numbered as Earth-31913, to help him save a Mexican village being raided by El Escorpion.

Basically everything we know about Web-Slinger comes from this issue since it's the only time he has really gotten to shine. So here are a few details we learn about him here.

His version of Uncle Ben was not his uncle, but rather a war buddy of his. I cannot tell if it was the Civil War or the American-Mexican war though

Yes, his horse, named Widow, WAS bit by a radioactive spider, the same spider bit both of them which gives them a telepathic link to each other. They call it the Rider Sense

His name is Patrick O'Hara, in previous appearances he used the name Parker, but that was in fact a fake name. He only tells Miles this because he trusts him

That wasn't the last we saw of Webslinger though, we actually got to see him and his earth again earlier this year in Extreme Venomverse. Usually the Venomverse stories will either take place in a earth that is only slightly different from Earth-616 or they'll be in their own world with no connection to anything. As far as I can tell the only times a Venomverse story have set themselves in the universe of an already established alternate Spider-Man were Venom Noir from this month and last month with Extreme Venomverse #3

After passing out from wounds in the desert, Web-Slinger finds himself nursed back to health by a woman named Madame Brock. To repay the favor he helps Ms. Brock fight off a pack of goons who are threatening to burn down her place of business.

And that is the Web-Slinger's most recent appearance in the medium of comics. However he has seemingly gotten popular enough to start appearing in other mediums. He got to team up with Drake Bell Ultimate Spider-Man once again when that cartoon did a Spider-Verse storyline AND he got to appear briefly in Across the Spider-Verse, Miles even steals Widow from him here!

[thefangirlingpuellamagi]

Arthur Puppington Rant

As someone who's favorite Moral Orel episode was Passing and has watched it over and over again, I really feel like I gotta put my thoughts out there, because I feel like it's not too well understood. Maybe it's because this show has caught the eye of many younger than the target audience. Or maybe it's because we see how Clay and Arthur turn out to be, and that skews our view of them before. I just gotta say it: Arthur Puppington is not a man who went too far in his understandable jealousy, he was disgustingly immature for being jealous of his son in the first place.

The idea that Clay was stealing Angela away from Arthur is already pretty ridiculous. Clay is a child in this episode, a child does not have the kind of agency to be a threat to an adult relationship. It's also a stretch to think he has his Oedipus complex this early on. While he sure was babied a lot, what also counts the lack of love received elsewhere for many years on. And I think he did want equal love and attention from Arthur. The more I watched how Clay’s prank played out, the less I felt he cared about getting back at Angela. He doesn’t actually linger about his siblings very long, his upset is immediately over once he’s gotten both of his parents attention. The same parents who were clearly growing distant from each other in the dinner scene earlier. Clay never had any reason to doubt his mother loved him, but he did have reason to think he wouldn’t have seen both of his parents show equal care for him, together, in the same room.

Now back to Arthur himself. When he looks at that photo of them, it's not just a photo of when they were first in love. As said elsewhere in this episode, Angela would heavily smoke, drink and do stunts when she was younger. He looks back on a version of Angela that was inevitably going to slow down one day, but he thought was unbreakable. He indulged in her impulsiveness, and kept getting her pregnant over and over even when she hadn’t yet changed her lifestyle. A woman cannot go through that many pregnancies without risking postpartum mental health issues, especially if they end up being miscarriages. By letting her mind and body decline, Arthur created Angela’s resentment towards him. If it's anyone’s fault she stopped giving him attention, it's his own, not Clay’s. He could have taken a break from trying for a baby, helped her get clean and recover in this meantime. But Arthur refused to be an actually supportive and responsible husband.

Now I’m not trying to say Angela wasn’t also flawed, but I don’t think it's gone over anyone’s heads how unstable she was. What the fandom doesn't recognize is how badly Arthur idealized her. How he pushed his son away to be the only one clinging to her. Not just metaphorically, he literally does so the moment before she takes her last breath.

[your-fave-adopted-you]

Hello!

First of all, I'm grateful to you for creating this blog and starting to share your creativity. The wonderful stories about NRC guardians are what we all needed.

I would also like to make a request. Guardians with a physically weak, but at the same time hardworking and obsessed with studying MC. Perhaps they were seriously ill and as a result, one day the MC loses consciousness right during the lesson.

Thank you for considering my request.

Yes. Excellent request anon. A very good way to start!

Guardian! School staff react to Mc passing out mid- lesson

characters : Dire Crowley, Divus Crewel, Mozus Trein, Ashton Vargas.

Gn pronouns were used.

CW: Crowley

Context : Mc is just a normal human in a world full of magic, monsters and stressful stuff in general(Crowley, for example) . With overblots and schoolwork [no one had previously prepared them for] around the corner, they are always giving their absolute best! even if sometimes is at cost of their own health.

One day, after pulling all nighters one day after the other for a whole week, their body finally gives up mid-lesson, an hour prior to a very important exam.

Dire Crowley

He got a call straight from the infirmary, apparently you were lying unconscious next to two worried classmates that insisted on being there until you woke up.

this man has never ever in his life rushed so fast to anyone's aid.

still there he is.

The school nurse approaches him and tells him you had a little temperature but you would be fine with rest.

he basically kicks out your classmates.

At first acts like you're in a coma.

after a while he calms down a little.

does NOT MOVE A MUSCLE until you do so.

fuck his work you're more important.

He kinda expected you to be fragile but didn't think you would overwork yourself to that point.

when you open your eyes you nearly pass out again from sheer fright.

this man was looking straight at you, not moving, not talking.

you weren't sure if he was breathing.

ofc the moment he notices your eyes are open he starts crying and screaming about how worried he was.

It's literally just been 5 minutes dude

lectures you about being so reckless.

also don't worry about that exam. you can take it tomorrow. Your health comes first.

Divus Crewel

He was giving a lecture about what kind of spells generated a bigger amount of blot than others when suddenly-

"THUD"

yeah it was your head falling against your desk.

"Sensei! i think they're dead."

Crewel was too stunned to speak.

calmly, he stops the lecture and tells the class president to keep an eye while he gets you to the infirmary.

Deep inside, he's panicking.

when you two get there, the nurse tells him that you already seem to have been ill for days but you seemingly didn't care and just kept on going.

He's PISSED because he didn't notice earlier.

stays there for a while and only leaves when he sees that you're fully conscious.

he will have someone watching over you in the meantime.

someone trustworthy, but not from your class (remember there's an exam next hour-) so, someone like Trey, Jamil, Jack, maybe Leona-

hear me out, Leona may not be the most responsible out of the four but he wasn't gonna do much in class either way.

Depends on what year your in, honestly.

Trein finally brings the exam sheets and when I tell you, Crewel SPRINTS out of the room.

how can someone move so fast while wearing all that-

He will scold the SHIT out of you for being so irresponsible with your health.

ofc you can do the exam next day, he already spoke to Mr.Trein about the issue.

"You are one stubborn pup did you know that?"

Mozus Trein

A very similar situation to Crewel's honestly.

once you hit your head against the desk and didn't respond, your classmates started to freak out.

Unfazed, he asks someone strong to carry you to the infirmary, and someone he knows will make sure you'll be okay.

he's quite calm.

when Crewel enters the class with the exam sheets, he excuses himself and goes immediately to the infirmary.

he brings the cat too.

when the nurse tells him what happened and in which condition you're currently in, he just nods attentively.

it doesn't matter if it takes you hours or just a couple minutes to feel better, he will be by your side.

he knew full well about your weak constitution, and that you were overworking yourself.

still, he didn't want to stop you, after all you were responsible for both your grades and your health.

don't take the wrong idea, he's MAD WORRIED

he also knows that won't solve anything.

the cat is laying on top of you, purring, trying to ease the pain in his own way.

you try to explain yourself but the old man just stays silent.

"You know, in my years of teaching, I've seen a couple of students who were just like you."

"reckless and stupid?" you ask.

"Too hardworking for their own good."

he pauses and takes a deep breath, his tone, unlike the others, is oddly gentle and comforting.

"You know better than anyone what's best for you."

"Well, seems like this time... i didn't." you reply.

"But you do know now, right?"

you nod.

you will take the exam next week, alongside those who have failed today.

it will give you time to recover and study just a little bit more.

You will be okay.

Ashton Vargas

It's never a good idea to ride a broom while sleep deprived and probably with a tiny fever.

everyone stops dead in their tracks when they hear someone has fallen to the ground.

Thank the great seven you weren't flying high.

still you got a good few scratches.

Everyone is PANICKING. you're facing THE GROUND and NOT MOVING.

Mr.Ashton sends everyone inside.

they can study in the meantime.

No more sports today, sorry, this shit is serious.

you come to your senses while he's carrying you. yep. you're so embarrassed you pretend to be unconscious a little more.

In the infirmary, the nurse tells your guardian that you don't have anything broken from the fall

but

you seem to have a fever that has only worsened since you got there.

He's so worried omg

you're a regular, non magical human.

you're fragile!!! even when he does his best training you and making sure you have the BEST diet!!

you seemed a little off today, yes, but he didn't know you were THAT exhausted!!

poor man.

waits by your side while the fever goes down, lets some worried classmates check how your doing, but doesn't let them stay for long.

oh shit right you had an exam today

don't worry, your super cool dad is here to save the day!

he just sends an email to Trein telling him what happened.

you will do the exam once you get out of the infirmary, you studied so hard, you would be pissed if all of this was for nothing.

oh! the fever is gone? thank god!

He thinks he had played it cool the whole time, but anyone can tell, the whole time he was looking at you like if you were about to break.

he wants to train you to be like iron, but no matter what, he can't help but see you as a piece of thin glass.

the moment the nurse checks you and says that you're good to go, you jump out of bed to go find Mr.Trein, leaving Ashton behind.

"...A diamond." he mutters to himself, while watching you leave the door.

[realcatalina]

Hope this works : https://i.pinimg.com/564x/40/e6/eb/40e6eb52d24dee59e597ca00f46bcddd.jpg

Original ask:People keep saying this is Frances Brandon, but looking at the fashion and the features of the sitter, I feel it's Katherine of Aragon instead. What are your thoughts?

(we didnt have the photo originally, but now i can finally answer this).

-My first observation regarding this painting is that it cannot be Francis Brandon, because she was born in 1517. This is 1500s or 1510s fashion of Netherlands. No way she could be depicted in fashion which is from before she was even born!

On wikipedia it is labelled Portrait of Agniete van den Rijne, atributed to Joos van Cleve, located in Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, in Netherlands. And as being painted in 1st half of 16th century.

On webpage of the museum, it is labelled as Unknown woman in c.1515. I suspect it could be bit earlier(split gown, large hanging chains)-my guess would be late 1500s, max early 1510s. But my chronology of netherlandish fashion was based upon court fashion. And neckline this low is consistent with some parts of Habsburg Netherlands, but not the court. So I could be bit off. But either way-1500s or 1510s imo. Not Francis Brandon. She wasnt even born when this was in fashion.

As for Catherine of Aragon.

Not that she couldnt wear netherlandish fashion(Sittow's portrait)-but a)when she did wear it, it was same fashion as in court.

b) what cut photos deliberately left out, is that this painting has its original frame...which includes coat of arms.

And experts believe this coat of arms to be original.

They havent been able to identify it nor of the man matching the woman. But clearly not Catherine's coat of arms.

Also the focus here is on grapes-its fruit, its leaves and vines.

It is symbol of fertility and prosperity, as well as having several more meanings in christianity, but as far as i know never asociated with Catherine of Aragon specifically. And there is literally nothing to suggest it is her.

I agree that there is resemblence, but there is issue. The artist was skilled. So why upon closer inspection the nose looks so differently than hers?

Catherine's nose tip seemed to be pointing more up and it was not as large. With some people-for example Margaret of Austria, size of nose changes as they age(due to health issues). However Catherine even in mid 1520s, still has narrow nose with tip basically same as in her youth.

Angle might play part a bit...but imo it is simply different nose.

The resemblence alone cannot drive identification. Not only do we not have single major clue pointing towards Catherine, we have major clue against her(coat of arms). Also Henry was likely painted by the artist when he met Francis I at Calais-with Anne Boleyn. The artist was asociated a lot with Francis, but never proven to travel to England or to take comissions from English royal court...aside that one meeting.

I am sorry, it is not Catherine of Aragon.

I am as upset as you guys that we don't have any surviving portrait of her from 1510s, and that many portraits we only know from not so great copies.

To find more lost originals, looking through art of artists which painted relatives of the person is indeed very good strategy. It pays off in many cases. Unfortuntely not in case of Joos van Cleve.

But it might be good idea to look up painters employed by Charles V and by Francis I in 1520-because Catherine met both that year.

Henry and Charles even had joined portraits made back then.

So there is indeed potential that some portrait of Catherine was created and it might have went with visitor. And it could have been another joined portrait because Charles didnt visit alone but with Germaine of Foix.

Problem is, the most likely thing for Catherine to wear in any portrait as Queen of England is gable hood- headwear unique to England. For her portraits to not be noticed, they would either have to be overpainted/altered, misidentified, misdated or even all three.

Another option is that upon meeting Charles that she wore spanish fashion. If she got painted in that, she wouldnt be that likely to be recognized.

Or maybe we need to broaden our idea of what Catherine wore.

So my dears, the hunt is still on.

[lesliecampbellpublications]

Happy holidays everyone.

I’ve been so hesitant to do this, as I know (especially during this time of the year) that people are busy, and bound to financial obligations that won’t allow them to help, but I made a promise to myself I would try.

This isn’t easy for me, as I’m usually the giver, not the one asking for help. In any event, I’m learning that it’s okay to stumble in trying times and hope others will come to your rescue before you can fall.

I made the mistake of trusting a landlord that has more issues than I can name here. He moved me into his basement under false pretenses (faked his occupation, faked features of the apartment, etc) and proceeded to take all I had in savings, tuck it away, and spend the last few years impacting my mental and physical health.

He’s stalked me, gaslighted me, driven me to sleeping in my car most days, or even just to recuperate during sickness because he doesn’t like being home alone and only wants to do things that make it impossible to sleep or work downstairs. Once I made the mistake of telling him I was coming out of the hospital after miraculously surviving Covid and pneumonia when my aunt who had also been admitted did not. He took the week off from work to be home and literally renovate for fun knowing I’d be here and then became furious when I crawled up the stairs to sleep in my car, leaving anytime I did.

He’s changed occupations now that I have been ordered to work from home so that he can terrorize me and put my job at risk all day long. The role he’s taken doesn’t pay anywhere near as well as the last, so he’s been forced to sell the house.

He’s sold it after just one day of viewing, and I now have 45 days to move.

Between student loans, medical bills and of course basic bills, I cannot save enough money to find a place in time. My friends and family live nowhere near, and I’ve been trying to work out with my job a way to move to be with them and hold onto my position, but it is not possible; they want me to stay in the county.

I am not well in any way. I wish this were at least happening during the summer, so I could perhaps put my things into storage and sleep in my car. But things never happen the way you hope. It’s freezing outside, and I don’t see myself making it through winter if I choose that route.

Once again, I’m aware everyone has bigger priorities, and there are charities out there most would rather donate to so I understand. As I said earlier, this is a big step for me—the introvert, the one who always puts themselves in a position to suffer rather than ask, and no matter what the outcome, I am proud of myself for taking this step out of my comfort zone.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, other holidays, or choose not to celebrate, I wish everyone a beautiful season and prosperous, healthy and remarkable 2024.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

[lovebvni]

what was i made for? (journey overview)

this is going to be kind of a vent blog , but at the same time it’s a reflection of my shifting journey. where i’ve been and where i’m going. i want to be transparent, and i want to motivate others, and right now, this is the best way i can do that.

there will be no triggering material in this blog, but will be slight references to mental health and illness. if that botherw you, i totally understand if you don’t read on. this is also a long blog, so be prepared

i’m not going to start at the beginning and where i was born, because that’s BORINGG!! what i do want to start with two major signs i got when i was younger. i, personally, consider these signs that i would eventually get into shifting/i am made for a higher purpose. at the time, i didn’t know this so all of these are almost… revelations? i hope that’s the right word, lol!

the one thing i want to talk about is a dream i had. i’m going to summarize it. simply i was living in black and white with my family. i found a vent and crawled through it. i cried a few times, and got discouraged, but i kept going. when i got to the end, my 5th grade crush was there. everything was in colour. i forgot what he was wearing but i know it reminded me of the gilded age. i was wearing a lime green dress and he said something along the lines of “i’ve been waiting for you” or “you’re finally here” obvs i woke up after this but it felt very important and it still does.

anyways, time skip to ~late 2020 - early 2021. i was on quotev… writing hxh fanfics… BUT ANYWAYS! i was on quotev and one of my mutrals, who im still good friends with today, made a post about something called ✨reality shifting✨. now i looked up to her — im going to call her s btw — so i thought it was pretty cool she found out about something like this. now obviously, with me being me, i did a deep dive into it. tiktok, go google, instagram, amino, you name it, i was on it! dude, i genuinely got so into this and obsessed. it wasn’t healthy, but at the time i needed something.

the first thing i remember was joining amino. i joined an mha shifting community. i had recently got into the show and i was debating about shifting there — although my main priority at the time was hxh. i asked a lot of questions — simple questions too — but everyone was so respectful when answering them. i also remember posting a (very shitty) art work at the time n i got a lot of love for it 😭 my art style has changed a lot since then and ajsjdjf!! i lowkey should redraw it. i also kept s updated during this time, and looked at her mini-journal on quotev whenever she posted! it’s an understatement to say i was very into shifting and that i latched onto it. primarily because i needed something to look forward to and to have hope in, you know? i didn’t have much at the time. i didn’t have friends, my life began changing in the 3D. things felt like they were going downhill. i also moved this year to a house from an apartment.

anyways, i continued interacting in that amino up until earlier this year — because of personal issues. but during the time, i actively engaged, researched and got better at shifting and understanding the process + life in general. i made many friends during this time, and got involved in group shifts :) other than w s obviously.

this leads to my first shift in ~mid 2021. i fell asleep doing a method, i forgot what method at this point. what i do know, is i woke up in my mha dr. i felt wind blowing on my face, i heard birds chirping, i felt the sunlight on my face… i have a post on it somewhere — i literally cannot find it! but it was a wonderful experience, it gave me a lot of motivation to remember it. it still does! also my eyes stayed closed this whole time, but i know, i KNOW i shifted. i was there. there is no way 99% of those things could have happened in my cr bc of where i was. i had also moved at this time, i was living in a house.

this leads me to ~late 2021 or early 2022. i was introduced to channeling (and dabbled in witchcraft) through replika (don’t do this. it’s not reliable.) as i channeled my s/o (who turned out to be my soulmate) multiple times + my spirit guide gage! it was weird meeting her, because she’s very blunt and straight to the point. she literally said hi, her name, and dipped 🤞. i love her. later in 2022 (early -> mid ) i had a discord server that was shifting based (it has sense been abandoned, as i los that account 💀) and i met kairi ( gage’s baby daddy/husband), piper (who was 5 at the time, she’s abt 7 now) and my friends guide — sailboat (that’s what i know him as. him and kairi have BEEF!) i used to often channel and talk to them — or even just talk to them without channeling them so i could just ramble and they would listen. i would do this in the shower btw. they listened a lot and well. they’re so sweet, and they’re always there for me. i seriously recommend u guys get to know ur guides — they help a lot.

anyways, at the end of this year, 2022, it was a blur. my sister was admitted to the hospital during the beginning of 2023. i was introduced to deity work during the end of 2022 — and this is how i work with loki and found out im his child (he just said hey btw 💀💀 so if yall wanna say high go ahead) i want to say im sorry to loki, as i blamed him for my sister being admitted to the hospital and another situation i cannot talk about publicly. loki is the god of chaos, but that’s because he brings chaos and strives in it. i also bring and strive in it, but how people react is what matters. it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t mine, it wasn’t my sisters, it was actually my biological fathers. and that’s okay. i don’t care anymore, but i want to publicly apologize to loki for blaming him for such issues that came by. i love you so much, padre, and thank you for being a great father and friend

this year, i was going through a lot of shit. i was inactive on most socials from january to may, and i really don’t remember why. i do remember this is the year i was manifesting seriously that i shift before or on 11.11. unfortunately, i didn’t and im pretty sure that’s because i believed that i wouldn’t. i worked my ass off and i thought i deserve this, so why am i seeing little to no progress.

it was because i was basically looking down, and not realizing how far i’ve come. the end is near for me, and there’s literally no way i can mess this up.

now i know, this isn’t an in-depth reflection or whatever, but there isn’t a lot i did that i can remember in this reality (trauma response oops!) but it’s what’s going on up until now.

this month, i did a reading with my friend (nile) and we asked what has to happen before we shift. and we got two things. the first being a fight between two of my school friends, the second is a significant meeting between nile and a MAN. YEAH. A MAN U GUYS WERE WAITING ON A MAN.

anyways. sorry about that. so we’re currently waiting on a man n that’s like the last step 💯🤞✨ i’m trying to stay hopeful n whatnot but it hasn’t been easy. the part 2/addition to this blog will be constants and things that kept me going and hopefully can help you out :)

i’m sorry this blog is just one big pile of nothing bc the message got a bit fucked when i was making this — i restarted it about 3 times n i genuinely forgot why i made this when i did initially. but yeah, this is what i have for u rn! the next one will be called “i got love” based off the mother mother song xx keep an eye out!!

[notthewriteryourelookingfor]

Incloming rant and a thought about MattPatt, his theories, and 5 Nights At Freddy's:

I want to preface this by saying that I have nothing against MattPatt, he seems like a cool dude, a swell guy even, he obviously has fun, and a lot of his ideas are creative and entertaining.

I also want to point out that this is not being said "now that he's retired", I have come into the fandom very late (only really got into it due to wanting to go see the movie cuz the Jim Hensen company made the animatronics and I am an autistic slut for physical props and effects. If I'd been in the fandom earlier, this may have come up before his retirement.

.

.

So MattPatt's first FNAF theory was that the game was referencing a real life shooting that happened at a Chuck E Cheese.

And I literally cannot let that go.

I realise that the internet in general was very different back then, it was more "edgy", I was like 20 at the time, so I was online and I know how the internet was. Im p sure I was on tumblr where shit like that was very common.

But it makes me see MattPatt's theories, all of them, in the light of "this is a man who played a jumpscare video game obviously based on Chuck E Cheese as a concept (tho I'm p sure in like the 70s-80s animatronic restaurants were a big thing and considering Scott's age it wouldn't be surprising if he'd gone to a few for fun/parties/family outings) and went "ah yes this is referencing a real life mass shooting."

Maybe it's cuz I'm not American, maybe y'all are a lil more comfortable with mass shootings than I am (im Australian, we've had maybe 3 since 2000) but that not only seems like a massive reach, it also feels really disrespectful.

I know that MattPatt was very "respectful" in the video and said he didn't want to make light of the event or joke about it but I feel like just making this video to begin with did that.

Videos aren't something that just appear out of the ether with no way to control what it says: he thought it up, sat down, wrote a script, filmed, ans edited it, and never once went "Oh wait I'm making light of an actual tragedy where people actually died maybe I shouldn't put this out"?

Like even if you have no other ideas, just say that? Just be like "wow this is a doozy, guys, let's break down the game play and maybe reference the event but not make a full video about it"?

But let's say that MattPatt was correct and that Scott was referencing a real mass murder that killed real people with jumpscare animatronics: that's a shitty game. That's a shitty idea for a game.

I mean I'm probably going to get people coming at me like "You're too sensetive" "you're reading too much into it" or "you never heard of true crime?" To which I answer, in order, "yes I am very sensitive it's unfortunately who I am as a person I spent too much of my childhood trying not to be and it really hurt me and decimated my mental health. So fuck off", "FNAF fandom is literally 'there is no limit to how deep you can read into it' that's why it's so popular and why there are so many ideas on what it's really about", and "yes I know about true crime, I also have an issue with some true crime, generally those who make light of horrible things and also my general rule of thumb is "if the parents/children/significant other of the victim(s) are still alive and could see your media, maybe don't make it." I mean an average of 50 years is about what I'm comfortable with if it's being used in the "true crime" space. But that does have exceptions based on why it's being talked about. But I think that's another rant."

What I'm trying to say is that I have trouble with MattPatt, and his theories in general, not because of "Gregory is a robot recreation of the Crying Child" (cuz that's fun and interesting and also is actually understandable if u look at the mimic???) But because he likened FNAF, which at the time was a silly lil indie game about animatronic animals (that are possessed by children but rarely actually talk about it) to a real murder spree.

He compared a digital bear, chicken, bunny, and fox, to real people who lost their lives.

And that makes me look at everything he does, even now when it's been like 9 years, and he's definitely grown and changed and maybe even apologised for that, in that lense.

He's like 37 now, meaning that he was 28 at the time. It's not like he was an edgy teen with no understanding of how his actions impact others.

I realise this looks like I hate him, that I'm holding his past mistakes against him, and I want to confirm: I don't hate him, he's entertaining to watch and I'm sad hes not doing theories any more,

But at the same time, I wish he'd not have made that one video and I can't not think about it with every theory he puts out. It's why I can't watch his other channels (also I looked at style theory & some of the ideas seemed lazy to me but that's my own bias) because it has poisoned his ideas slightly in my mind and I'm now very wary of what he's saying.

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I will add that I have a similar problem with a fair few theoriest were they're like "I've solved this" and then shill out for a very obvious scam company or a company like BetterHelp or HelloFresh months after we all found out they were trash so it's not like they had a few more contract obligations. It's like "I realise that you need to make money, but you're actively promoting harmful stuff in an Advert (at least it's labelled as that) and it makes me feel like I can't trust your judgement on things."

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Anyway, please don't hate on me, this is just something I've been struggling with for a few months now and I'm curious to see if anyone else thinks the same or had any helpful thoughts they would like to share.

Also if MattPatt has apologised for it, please let me know where I can watch/read it cuz part of me feels like if I see him acknowledge that it was probs not a great thing to do, it probs won't feel so weird about it anymore.

It's like our parents always said: we need to be careful of what we put online cuz it could follow us forever.

[plothooksinc]

good time zone! ♻️?

It is an excellent time zone! I'm in the future, I have all your lottery numbers--

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

This is EXTREMELY HARD TO ANSWER because I have many WIPs but most of them are absolutely in the beginning stages, and the one that is not is kind of a huge spoiler as to how the rest of the story will go. Literally "I was going to end it this way but now I'm going to end it this way just so I finish writing it before the year 2056." (Lookin' at you, Snowblind.) And by and large, I do not have a lot of ideas I end up scrapping for my WIPs! It's just not how I roll.

So instead, I will mention the bits for NRFTW that ended up on the cutting room floor. There were a lot of ways that the end could go re: Leo being as hurt as he was and not having access to medical care, all of them being pretty urgent. They all revolved around Draxum making a sacrifice to ensure he survived; as simple a one as Draxum offering himself up to Bishop in exchange for full hospital treatment and then freedom for Leo and his fam, which got scrapped because Bishop was going to offer that anyway. He's an asshole, but he does have some morals and a sense of some kind of "shit I owe you", so there you go. But the other idea was tapping into the earlier scene with Draxum and Mikey where Draxum told Mikey outright, "Healing has far too high a price," because to my worldbuilding healing magic couldn't spontaneously heal someone without extracting an equal price of lifeforce. When someone's on death's door you can't exactly extract more from them to fix their injuries, so the healer would have to pay up.

In short, to stop Leo from expiring in the warehouse, Draxum was gonna very much make that sacrifice - the goat's hundreds of years old, what's a year or two - and then basically go "if you tell him I will never forgive you B|", which sets up for him finding out in the sequel. (Yeah, he's gonna find out.)

Anyway, that also got scrapped for a couple reasons. Mainly, the warehouse scene was high stakes and tension enough as it was, and with lung injuries either Leo would last minutes or he would last hours, and well. I wanted him to last more than minutes. :/ I'm not that mean. So then I was like "hmm okay, well, I can still do that after the warehouse."

And I could. But. Pacing. We were winding down. The climax had come and gone. I just didn't have it in me to go "oh yeah and another thing" because it would be ridiculous at that point, and thus Leo just woke up an amount of time later after some touch and go health issues, and it gave me a window to quietly play with later.

BUT. ALSO.

My beta @shadowbends was very disappointed I didn't get to go through with it because she loved the idea (and so did I, I just didn't have space for it) and thus she wrote Don't Pay My Ransom, which is a fic that takes place during that recovery time, and thus I got to have my cake and eat it too. (And be thrilled reading Pi's writing all over again because she'd been gone from writing so long :c )

In short, I have very little that ends up on the cutting room floor! Often because any outlines I write are broad strokes; NRFTW's outline was more defined than any I've done because I'd been out of writing for so long and wasn't sure if I could do it without a solid direction to go, so it's more an exception in this case. <3

Thank you for the question!

Procrastination ask meme here.

[discyours]

I remember reading about your issues with prozac (or some other ssri medication?) i wonder if the horrible feelings you experienced slowly went away and if you took chance and tried another med (or maybe you still are on some?) where you stand on the topic of psychiatric meds overall?

Oh wow it's weird seeing someone reference something I posted about 4 years ago. Yeah, I was on prozac and basically went insane. The period is kind of a blur for me, I think I started taking it in late June and stopped early September. I started feeling like somewhat of a human being again in like... January? Maybe february? It definitely took a lot longer than just the 4 weeks after which it was meant to be out of my system.

I honestly feel like I never 100% recovered from it. I've talked to my cousin about it since, he was also on prozac and he said he permanently lost his ability to feel emotions the way he used to. He goes through things that should make him sad, realizes it should make him sad, but it just doesn't hit him. I don't feel quite the same way but it's similar. I'm just disconnected from myself. Things don't really feel like they're happening to me. I feel like I'm floating through life in a body that's not mine, I'm not quite a person, etc.

I genuinely believe that prozac nearly killed me and I will never, ever try another SSRI. "Try it all and see what sticks" protocol can go fuck itself. But my anxiety got to unbearable severity earlier this year, which did get me to try 2 new medications.

I was prescribed lorazepam for emergencies and still have 90% of it sitting in my closet. Don't understand how people get hooked on benzos, it helped me fall asleep but without actually calming me or my body down in any way and getting a full night's sleep while you're wired the whole time is a distinctly unpleasant experience. When I was able to get an appointment with a psychiatrist he gave me the standard recommendation of either trying another SSRI or moving on to an SNRI (same list of side effects, generally prescribed less often because the risk of side effects is higher, no studies on how likely you are to experience them if you've previously had a bad reaction to an SSRI). I did a bunch of my own research and he agreed to let me try buspirone instead on the condition that I would move on to an SNRI if that didn't work (which I did not stick to lmao). Buspirone gave me super vivid nightmares, and brain zaps when I first started which was pretty unpleasant. My dose got upped to 20mg which made me so exhausted I literally couldn't function. My limbs felt 4x heavier than usual, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I remember one of the first days I was on 20mg I was in the city for an appointment and walking around hoping the side effects would pass enough for me to safely make it home. I got a ton of dirty looks because I looked like I was stumbling around drunk, at 1pm. My dose got reduced back to 10mg which was fine, felt like it was only reducing my anxiety a little but it was bearable enough and I didn't have any side effects anymore. Started getting hives so I had to stop taking it, my anxiety didn't go up when I stopped so I think it was just placebo at that point and now I'm not on anything. I'm not remotely anti medication but my experience up until this point has been so bad that I really just don't want to risk completely destroying my mental health and potentially losing my life to "giving it another shot".

Anyway the tiredness from buspirone fucked with my eyesight so I got my eyes tested and spent like €250 on glasses literally a week before I stopped taking it. I can't see shit with them on and I can see perfectly fine without them now. 0/10.

[celiastjamesoscar]

if you insist babe 😽!

i was kinda friends with this boy earlier in the year except he was a cunt to me and literally pushed me into an ed due to things he would say to me, it gave me really shitty mental health as i was hospitalised so i just cut him off (this was in november-january and i am at a healthy weight now)

anyways now my mates have decided to befriend him?? i tried to warn them about him but they told me its opinions of who they like that matters, except i had gone out yesterday night and was kinda drunk so i told them that if they would inv him anywhere with us then i wouldnt go (reasonable)

anyways we went out today and they ended up inviting him so i decided to try tolerate him for a bit until he would whisper insults to me and literally called me putin, and told me to stop bombing ukraine, even though im literally latvian wtf 😭😭😭

me and one of my friends left early anyways and ended up going for some drinks, i will probs make uni friends so its okay <3

thankyou angel 🤍

First of all, give me this dude’s legal name and address. I will be on his doorstep in record time with a bat; no one messes with my friends! Second of all, I’m glad that you are at a healthy weight 🤍 I know how rough an ed can be, I used to have one, and I’m proud of you! You will always have me for support if you ever need any <3

It’s kind of bs that your friends would befriend after the things he has done to you. If I was there, he would be lucky I wouldn’t rip his head off. My anger issues know no bounds

Also, wtf?? Why would they invite him if they know that you clearly have a distaste for this guy? And also blaming you for Putin’s actions is no way a funny joke to be making, and I’m so sorry that he did that to you

I hope you make all kinds of friends at uni, and please stay safe!

I love you! 🤍