#and stop doing this to himself

[bestworstcase]

How much of Ironwood's decision making do you think is informed by his semblance? Or is it a non-factor?

ooh this one is fun because i don’t agree with ✨any✨ of the common takes that i’ve seen across the spectrum from “mettle is auto-brainwashing” to “mettle is just the trigger he pulls on a gun”

and i need to preface by saying that i have adhd, and i experience EXTREME hyperfocus. extreme like i work from home and enjoy my job so i accidentally pull 14-16 hour days about 2-4 times a month because i’ll get going on a task after lunch and blink and it’s four in the morning. extreme like before i went on meds i needed to set alarms for mealtimes to avoid starving myself to death and that still only worked half the time. extreme like i have to be careful about reading books because i will not stop reading until i’m finished and very long books can prevent me from sleeping multiple nights in a row.

that said i do not and have never experienced hyperfocus as involuntary. i am always surprised by how much time has elapsed, because it never feels like more than maybe half an hour tops and it is always actually more like 10+, but for me hyperfocus is preceded by about 15-20 minutes of normal focus during which i’m fully aware of what my brain is doing and am able to step away if the thing i’m doing isn’t something i want to sink the rest of my day on.

it’s both a fairly debilitating symptom and something that i make a deliberate choice to do for a variety of reasons that are not especially important here. there is risk-benefit analysis involved.

this is basically how i think mettle works, with the sole difference being that hyperfocus requires a specific kind of trigger [complex high-interest tasks] and mettle does not, so ironwood can induce this state at will for any task. besides that, my interpretation of mettle is that it’s deep hyperfocus on a particular task, lasting anywhere from a couple minutes (for very short-term goals) to an entire day but averaging around 8-10 hours at a time for anything involved (paperwork, strategizing), possible to interrupt with difficulty, and involving a mildly altered state of consciousness in the form of a dramatic reduction in sensory and temporal processing i.e. no perception of time passing and inability to perceive sensations like hunger, fatigue, discomfort, people talking to you without getting your attention first, and so forth. it does not cause changes in personality or cognitive function, nor inhibit decision-making except insofar as it takes conscious effort to step away from the task.

mettle as described is “like an iron resolve […] that powers him to [keep going], almost like a very stubbornly, narrow focused mindset on things […] to push himself to do what he’s decided he’s gonna do” or to “push himself through something like searing the flesh off your arm, like if this is the goal he needs to accomplish, everything else goes by the wayside.” and for some inexplicable reason this has been widely interpreted to mean that mettle is a switch ironwood can flip to make himself willing to kill people. no! mettle is how he’s able to flay and cauterize his own arm to escape watts’ trap! mettle is how ironwood keeps himself awake and lucid for a solid forty-eight hours after his fucking arm gets amputated! mettle is why he’s composed and reasonable at the top of volume seven and gradually unravels into an unhinged frazzled lunatic over the months that follow because he’s using his semblance to force himself past the limits of what his body is physically able to endure.

ironwood is a soldier born and raised and indoctrinated into a military state that never quite escaped its prewar fascism. he was always perfectly willing and able to kill people at the slightest justification—“if you were one of my men i would have you shot” was, um, not a joke. that’s who he is. that’s what atlas molded him into, same as it molded clover and harriet and elm and vine and marrow and winter and goddamn near everybody else it touched who didn’t have the means to get out.

mettle didn’t turn ironwood into a murderer—atlas did.

but hyperfocus is not a healthy superpower, ok? it feels fucking great to effortlessly glide through a week’s worth of work in a single afternoon but you have to balance that against the physiological and psychological toll that will take if you try to make that your normal. it’s a day of absolute peak performance and then a crash, and you have to be able to crash. you HAVE to let yourself rest. hyperfocus feels like infinite energy and that feeling is a lie your brain tells you after unplugging all the early warning systems so that your body can’t interrupt you with petty things like hunger or pain, and you HAVE to remember that.

ironwood goes off the fucking rails in volume eight because he believes that lie. he desperately needs to eat and sleep and take it easy while his body recuperates from losing an arm, but mettle can make all of that pain and exhaustion fade away—only it doesn’t actually. the physiological need is still there, getting worse for every minute he spends neglecting it. all through volume seven it’s building up and up until it hits a critical mass after he flays his arm and his cognitive functioning just fucking implodes because his brain physically does not have what it needs to work correctly anymore and the result is this sudden explosion of acute irrationality and emotional lability that just keeps rapidly getting worse and worse and worse because ironwood keeps trying to brute force his way through it with mettle.

i have done this. it sucks. for me the stakes were high school so it mostly looked like a prolonged meltdown and some screaming fights over college applications, but the underlying psychological mechanism driving ironwood’s dramatic tailspin is exactly hyperfocus run amok. in its worst extremity unmanaged hyperfocus is just a horribly destructive and insidious form of self-harm and it will make you completely fucking batshit until you stop.

[haunted-xander]

If you skip a meal Senshi will materialize next to you w/ food at the ready

[frownyalfred]

“Jason wouldn’t want you to do this, Bruce,” Clark says, trying to stop Bruce from doing something Jason would very much want him to do (kill the Joker, barehanded and slowly).

[thatpunnyperson]

According to NBC here in the US, the missing titanic sub has been found. As debris. Off the bow of the Titanic wreckage.

And it looks like the sub suffered what we all suspected, and what was undoubtedly the more merciful of the two options: a catastrophic implosion from the pressure.

Also, more info has come to light about the fishing trawler with the hundreds of migrants that sank cataclysmically off the coast of Greece, indicating that the greek coast guard knew about the vessel AND how much trouble the vessel was in, and were towing it at a speed that made it capsize, at which point they unhooked the tow line and watched the trawler sink without helping the passengers to safety. Despite a bunch of other ships trying to help as well throughout the whole ordeal.

So a lot of people are dead, all because of regulations (and the lack thereof) regarding sea-faring vessels and rescue protocols. People shouldnt be allowed to make a business charging a ton of money for a ride on an uncertified, unsafe, un-seaworthy ship going deep into the ocean with no distress beacon or tether to the mothership. People also shouldnt be allowed to enact laws that criminalize the ferrying of refugees, which then force the refugees to hitch rides on fishing trawlers, and which also prevent people from helping those fishing trawlers full of refugees due to fear of legal consequences.

Hopefully BOTH of these events spark changes on an international scale in terms of what is legally allowed to be sailed, who is legally allowed to be the passengers, and what the rescue protocols are in the event of disaster for any seafaring vessel, illegal or not. It shouldnt be just the global 1% who get 24/7 search parties and remote-operated submersibles helping rescue them.

[bluegiragi]

monster!au sketchdump #2

1-2: monster swap!! purely indulgent, since if they were actually these monsters from the start, they'd all have turned out different.

3: price in his prime! he was a real tank, but he grew out of his destructive phase.

4: preening time with gaz <3

early access + nsfw on patreon

[coulsons-band]

pedro pascal doesn’t owe you shit.

it is absolutely fine to be disappointed by his absence at cannes. i am too. but he does not have to be there.

for whatever reason he’s pulling away from the attention. the esquire article talked about how guarded he is and his socials have really slowed down. maybe he’s unprepared or overwhelmed by all the tlou hype. i mean his follower count went up by the tens of thousands the day after the premiere. that’s insane.

but some of you have lost the plot. the ones wearing d*ddy’s little girl shirts in fucking public and yelling d*ddy at him at events and trying to convince everyone whether he’s queer or not and complaining there isn’t an explicit scene of him fucking in the strange way of life. it’s not a gay porn made for your fetish. ‘oh but narcos!!’ that’s called characterization. read literally any article from almodovar and understand why sex isn’t the point.

interacting with paparazzi content and making cute little edits - jfc. that’s creating demand and supply and paparazzi know no fucking boundaries. man’s got anxiety and no doubt the paps and fans watching his every move are probably making that worse.

let him make movies and rotate through his four shirts in peace. pedro pascal doesn’t owe anyone shit.

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[egophiliac]

happy new year Ego!!! Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your twst fanart and the tags are just an absolute pleasure to read! You are my greatest inspiration for my personal twst art and I just wanted to thank you for your wonderful masterpieces <333 if possible, may I ask what are some of your headcanons for the diasomnia family? If not for diasomnia then any other characters are fine as well!

thank you, and happy new year! 💚💜💚 that is amazing to hear; it's always a little bewildering but super flattering that other people like my silly little doodles so much!

I don't think I really have any really solid headcanons and also canon keeps validating me left and right (FLUFFY DOMESTIC DIAFAM IS REAL). mostly just kind of...impressions and general thoughts, if that makes sense! lately though I've been kind of obsessed with thinking about Lilia's hair, and specifically when/why he ended up cutting it. (l-look, we're bouncing around the timeline and I gotta make decisions about these things when I draw, it's relevant) (I mean I would probably be weirdly fixated on this anyway, but.)

I think I've settled on the idea that he kept it long until he went to NRC, partly because 1) I like drawing The Ponytail, and 2) I think he thought of NRC as a chance to reinvent himself a bit! he gets to go and be a wacky carefree teenager for a few years and have fun! (officially he's there to keep an eye on Son #1, but how much trouble could he get into, really.) so he gave himself a Cool Teen Haircut to go with his fresh new Cool Teen Persona!

also maybe he had some reflection on his hair's troubled past with three kids...

...and had to weigh his vanity versus the fact that he was going off to be around hundreds of kids on a daily basis, and. the choice suddenly seemed obvious.

[webonchin]

Failed rizz

I'm not going to be fooled, I think Hob is a very chaotic individual if he sets his mind to it...

**Notice under the comments of the post**

[verdantglow]

Joel SmallishBeans mentions that he looks at fanart on tumblr.

“He’s here!” People scream, “Scatter!”

As everyone runs away, I, unmoving, look him dead in the eye & say,

“Let him watch.”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Let the revenge games begin.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[monhiio]

whoops gay awakening part xx

[greencarnation]

eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

[bts-trans]

240615 RM’s Instagram Post

잊어버리면 안돼요

Must not forget

Trans cr; Aditi & Rinne @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS

[s0fter-sin]

something happening on a mission, something personal that has soap spiralling; panic and rage making him reckless, thoughtless, and ghost has to draw the line

“you’re compromised johnny; you know what that means?”

“you’re not pulling me out,” soap immediately snarls. he turns on him and ghost barely recognises him; venomous fear turning his eyes to unyielding ice. "you're not sidelining me; i need to be in this-!"

but ghost has never been afraid of venom; spat or dripped straight from bared fangs.

he snakes out a hand grip the back of his neck, jerking him in a rough shake. "if you can't think, you can't be a soldier," he growls and he flinches like he's been struck.

his lips quiver as they twist in a sneer and he wrenches, trying to free himself of his hold.

ghost doesn't let him.

"it means you give your body to me because your head ain't fucking attached to it anymore."

soap stills, body trembling beneath his hand as he sucks in shaking breaths.

he tightens his grip, pulling him closer and digs his forehead hard into his. “it means you give yourself to me so i can have the weapon that you are and use you the way you're meant to be used."

the ice in soap's eyes fractures.

ghost’s voice drops to a whisper, spoken only to johnny, not this facade of vengeance and pain, and wills it to reach him through the glaciers.

“so i can keep you safe ‘til it’s done and i can bring you back.”

[morganbritton132]

…… this is Eddie rn……..

Eddie is a menace to society in general, but also specifically to his PR team. Once he knows that he can stir up a lot of drama by being vague about Steve’s job, he’s going to do it.

Of course, he is.

He once took a call mid-live interview because Steve was calling him like, “Oh, my husband is calling. He must be at recess. Hold on.”

He then proceeded to say on a hot mic, “What’s up, big boy?”

Eddie once said on a live-streamed game of D&D that Steve couldn’t join them because he was “doing homework.” Steve was working on a lesson plan in the literal same room as him.

Eddie was a featured guest at a convention and Steve was supposed to go with him but woke up that morning feeling off so he decided to stay behind at the hotel. Eddie obviously wasn’t going to tell people Steve’s private information so he said instead that Steve couldn’t come because, “He’s got a bad case of summer school.”

Without fail, someone inevitably takes the statement in the stupidest possible direction and Eddie gets a strongly-worded email from his PR Manager telling him to knock it off but also to clean up his mess. So, Eddie gets to shove a camera in Steve’s face to prove that while his husband is aging gracefully and beautifully, he is definitely not eighteen.

“Right, baby?” Eddie asks.

Steve pushes the camera out of his face so he can go back to cooking, “Right.”

“That was a pretty good explanation, right?” Eddie continues. Steve hums back in response so he asks, “What grade am I, Mr. Harrington?”

Steve, who is tired of his work friends making fun of him over this, doesn’t even look up from his cutting board to tell Eddie, “You’re a grade-A dick.”