#because that’s what got me kicked out of the house as a teen a decade ago

[mabelsguidetolife]

carrying on as normal after my category 4 panic attack

[snackugaki-jestsjapesjokes]

blep blah, here have some old ass backrooms doodle content when the topic of "the beach episode" concept came up bluhp blooh brain nyooming but art hand isn't arting

i think what is super cute in modern fandom expression that I've seen is that in terms of making OCs or AUs is that sound seems to have a bigger role now than from what I remember when I was young. which I'm thinking has a lot to do with being able to clip audio easily or being able to make multi-track playlists whenever. y'all out here with reels of your art with voice claims and some of the most thoughtfully and artfully crafted soundtracks-- not even playlists, some of that shit is a straight up soundtrack level be real

89% tempted to try one of those shady "free" video/audio editing programs to make a LoFi chill beats study girl visualizer playlist with my iteration's boys ...

anyway gonna contemplate music headcanons for my iteration under the cut

From Turtle Tracks fan letter section, Archie run, #24

so real quick, my iteration is literally just them chilling, hanging out, being together in their mid 30s- early 40s, and then sometimes flashing back to their child/teen years in the 90s because tl;dr i have miiiiiinor beef my childhood turtles weren't quite as "90s" as they "could have been" (nvm I'm cackling at the milennial pop culture refs in Mutant Mayhem drop kicking me back into my adolescence)

but mehehehehe, keeping that they listened to Public Enemy and The Jungle Brothers

and aside from Top 40 musicians of the time... I feel like being outsiders themselves, having to sneak around to explore and learn about people and what's above the sewers had them eavesdropping into a lot of nighttime venues and getting into the underground and various niche subculture scenes that daytime Top 40 didn't play.

cannot tell me the lights, thumping and noise from bands playing hardcore or house or hosting cyphers or raves didn't attract these curious and funky little green dudes like moths to a flame

... Leo definitely fell in deep with the gregorian chant phase, soothing sounds of nature fads , a big fan of Orbital and he fell into that electronic, house, trance, eurodance rabbit hole right after. he also got into Celtic folk music but when his brothers caught his ass studying Michael Flatley to incorporate Riverdance footwork into his ninjutsu he got teased so mercilessly that he took great care to hide listening to it... which just made his stealth better so joke's on them heehoo

Not to mention they're from New York City, the underground music scene is always bangin' no matter the decade; feel like rap and punk got a lot of tracks on their mix tapes back in the day

Raph getting into the metal scene in his own exploring the city trips, and then progressed to music with that boom bap sound (cuz baby boy needs a way to come down off those high intensity moods idk ijs)

Donnie... just the amalgamation of his brothers, he needs that background noise while he's chewing on schematics and protoype development, he would definitely have been the mixtape maker/recording bootlegger (along with Mikey)

Mikey absolutely tagged along with his brothers sometimes whenever they went to their spots for music, though he himself backflipped into ska 'cuz Mikey is always for the people

my tmnt  iteration (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt  iteration part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11

tmnt  iteration omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

lny visit 1 | 2

Keep reading

[writer-in-theory]

Private Swimming Lessons — harringrove.

Summary: When Billy threw Steve into his backyard pool, he was expecting a laugh. What he got instead, was a scream of pure terror and a story. Prompt: C2 - Panic Attack Pairing: Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove Rating: Teen Word Count: 3.6k Content Warnings: Mild Language, Description of a Panic Attack (outside pov), Minor survivor’s guilt Also Read On AO3: Here A/N: This is my second fill for @harringroveson-bingo !! Thank you so much to @serenity-lattes for beta-reading and for cheering me on during all the plotting that happened in our chat 💜

Steve Harrington was weird.

Billy was sure he’d never figure him out, no matter how much time in the world he was given. When he’d first moved to Hawkins—what felt like a decade ago but was really only about a year—all he’d heard about was King Steve, a vicious and charming ruler who’d taken every girl in school out on a date and who’d somehow convinced every single guy that his reign wasn’t worth fighting. That king had apparently abdicated by the time Billy had rolled around, instead preferring to chase after a handful of middle schoolers who referred to themselves as “The Party” and who somehow got roped into enough trouble to last a lifetime.

Enough trouble that bled into Billy’s life, eventually.

Steve was tough and fiery. He’d seen that much in November, as Billy laid on the floor of Joyce Byers’s house after a fight with him. He was also soft, and Billy had gotten to see that too. He saw it in the kisses they’d found together under the spring sunsets, he saw it in the way Steve would hold him a little closer when they woke up in the same bed, always telling him you don’t have to go home yet, stay. 

After nearly a year, Billy was intoxicated by Steve. He wanted to know more, wanted to pick apart every single piece of Steve until he could see each puzzle piece that made up the whole beautiful picture. 

One piece he couldn’t figure out was the pool. 

Steve took the Party to the Hawkins Community Pool multiple times a week as soon as school let out for the summer. It was odd, sure, but Steve reassured him that he’d rather be here than at his private pool because Billy was there, and because he didn’t have to watch the kids.

Except that wasn’t true either, because Steve never relaxed. He hardly ever let his eyes off those kids, even when it was Billy up on the lifeguard stand. Even when Billy walked over to his chair, flirting and flexing because he finally had his tan back, see, Harrington? Steve’s eyes never left where the kids were splashing and swimming around. Billy’d even seen a fleeting moment of panic once—the one with the fluffy hair that got comically irritated when Billy messed up his name took a running leap into the pool, submerging and not coming back up for a few seconds. Billy had been standing by Steve’s pool chair then, close enough to see the flash of fear in his eyes as he shot forward, hands gripping the sides of the chair like it was the only thing keeping him from rushing into the pool after the kid. It was strange, but not too out of the realm of possibility for Steve. After all, on more than one occasion Max had huffed and groaned about him like he was a mom to these kids—apparently, he was protective of them ever since he was in charge of them at the junkyard. 

Then there were the times Steve invited Billy over to swim. Steve would be wearing those short little swim trunks that made Billy wish they weren’t outside where one of his rich-ass neighbors could hear if anything louder than a conversation occurred, but he would never swim. Ever. He’d kick back in one of the lounge chairs, sunglasses on as he made some excuse about how he wasn’t going to swim today, but don’t let that stop Billy from swimming. And it never did. Billy would always slip off his shirt, tossing it in Steve’s direction and grinning at the disgruntled shout that came from the other man before he was diving straight into the pool. 

Those days were fun, spent watching the sun crest over the peak of the sky and disappear back down under the horizon from the pool. He’d swim for a bit before coming to rest against the ledge, talking with Steve about anything—from football teams neither of them cared about, to where they should go when summer was over, now that they both were graduated and free to escape this town.

But still, pool days would be more fun if Steve got in the water with him. Billy never understood the strange excuses, but finally chalked it up to Steve “The Hair” Harrington not wanting to get that precious hair wet. But then again, he’d been swim captain for three years, so he should be used to it. Maybe he just didn’t want Billy to see his hair like that? Maybe he was teasing him like this, laying out for him looking absolutely gorgeous every week and asking Billy to do something about it.

So the next time Steve invited him to go swimming, he decided he would. Because they’d seen each other fighting off strange vines beneath pumpkin patches, surely Billy could see Steve’s hair all wet and matted down.

“Billy, what’re you doing?” Steve asked, laughing at first as Billy wrapped his arms around his waist the second Steve started heading toward his chosen lounge chair.

“I thought you said we’re going swimming, pretty boy.”

“Stop! No, I’m not swimming today,” Steve called out, still laughing but with his voice a higher pitch than normal. Billy could see the flush spreading over Steve’s cheeks as he hauled him over to the edge of the pool.

“One...” Billy counted slowly as Steve continued to yell, complaining but never once trying to fight out of Billy’s hold. “Two....three!”

It was supposed to be a fun day. Steve would land in the water, and at first, he’d scowl but then he’d swipe the hair back from his forehead and grin up at Billy. Billy would jump in after him and they could spend the day in the pool together, maybe get that underwater kiss he’d been having dreams about ever since the start of the summer.

Instead, the second Steve hit the water he let out a blood-curdling scream.

It wasn’t a scream of shock or one of joy. No, this was terror, unlike anything Billy had ever heard before.

Immediately Steve was splashing furiously, practically hauling himself out of the water. Billy could only watch in shock and horror as Steve sat on top of his calves, bent over so his palms dug into the rough concrete around the pool while his chest heaved. Deep, growled-out breaths punched out of his chest at odd intervals, and when Billy reached a hand down to touch his shoulder Steve let out a wild shout, knocking the hand away and scrambling back like he was going to get hit.

“Steve, Steve, I’m sorry,” Billy forced out, feeling his own heart pounding against his chest and in his ears. “I thought—I thought it’d be funny, I didn’t mean—”

You were born to destroy. It’s all you’re good at.

Neil had told him as much, made sure he knew every day that he would never be more than this. And Billy, he’d fought so hard against it. He’d stopped fighting, he dug his nails deep into his palms when he wanted to pick a fight and he’d fucking apologized to Steve, back when Steve was still just Harrington and Billy was just the new guy prick. 

But then Billy found someone willing to love him, and he did this. 

It was supposed to be a joke. People throw their friends, their partners, into the pool all the time.

“I’m okay, I’m—” Steve gasped out, already trying to stand but stumbling back to the ground between his rapid breathing.

“Hey, hey, no you’re not,” Billy answered, immediately tossing away his own fears because Steve was there in front of him panicking, Steve needed his help now.

Billy didn’t know what it was that caused such terrifying breathing, but he did know how to help make it stop. He had to know, after one too many times passing out in his bedroom as a kid from the inability to return his breathing to normal. 

So he rushed forward, not minding the way his knees scraped the concrete harshly as he made it to Steve’s side. He put his hands up, palms toward Steve as he inched them closer to him. “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be alright, you hear me, Stevie?”

“I need you to focus on what I’m saying, I know that pretty little head of yours can do it. Okay? Can you feel me breathing?” Billy asked the second he could grab Steve’s hand and press it to his own chest, keeping both of his hands over Steve’s to keep it in place. “Try to copy that, alright? In and out slowly, just like I’m doing.”

Steve was staring at him, hazel eyes wide but finally coming into focus again. He nodded, maybe forcing something out that sounded a little like an ‘okay’. 

“Good job, keep breathing with me, okay? You’re doin’ great, a real natural. Can you do somethin’ else for me? Tell me something you can see right now.”

“Blue. Your eyes, blue,” Steve answered, voice sounding light and breathless but there. And of course, it would be him that Steve noticed—he was always commenting on Billy’s eyes, always talking about how bright and expressive the color was. It used to scare him, how easily Steve seemed to be able to read him from those eyes. “The sun, the sun’s out.”

“Yeah, yeah it is,” Billy breathed out, taking only a moment to glance up at the thing Steve pointed out before focusing back in on the man in his arms.

“The sun’s out. It’s daytime,” Steve repeated, his fingers relaxing their grip on Billy’s chest with every repetition. Billy didn’t know why that was such an important point, but he could see more and more clarity returning to Steve’s face so he wouldn’t question it, not if it brought Steve back to him.

“Yeah, sun’s out. It’s daytime, nothin’ can get you now,” Billy reassured, only letting Steve’s hand drop from his chest once he saw Steve’s breathing begin to even out. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by Steve’s audible breathing as he returned it to a normal rhythm. Billy tried not to stare, instead turning his head to look at the pool, the offender in this entire situation. Steve had been a captain of the swimming team for two years, and part of the Varsity squad for three. He knew because it was just one of many sports that Billy had to hear about, constantly had to see ‘Steve Harrington’ plastered around the gym beside a multitude of records. The coach was the gym teacher, and Billy could hear nearly every day during their Senior year how hard the man tried to recruit Steve back to the team. ‘You could get a scholarship, Harrington, you know that? Anywhere you wanna go, just come compete.’ 

It used to piss Billy off, the way Steve seemingly threw away the best chance at getting out of this town. Then in November, he found out his little sister hunted interdimensional monsters for fun, and apparently, Steve was the only thing in between her and certain death. He’d assumed that was the reason Steve had stopped swimming—why worry about scholarships when he’d had multiple near-death experiences before being able to legally vote? Even Billy had struggled in the months after, had to force himself to focus on school because that was the only fucking way he’d ever escape his dad. 

But this, this was more than simply trying to return to normal life after a scary experience. No, this reaction was pure trauma—something had happened here, in the water, to make Steve so petrified.

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmured, one knee brought up near his chest so he could drape an arm over it. He was staring at his feet, head dipped just low enough that his eyes were concealed from Billy by his eyelashes.

“No,” Billy immediately answered, wincing at the force behind the word. He could already feel the frustration bubbling up in him, and had to remind himself that no, this wasn’t the time for that. “No, Steve, don’t apologize for shit you didn’t do.”

“That was embarra—”

“I wouldn’t have thrown you in if I knew. I’m sorry. You know I never want to h—” Billy choked around the word, eyes instinctively drifting up to find Steve’s hairline. It was concealed by the way Steve was sitting, but Billy could still see it clear as day, the jagged scar from a heavy plate smashed over his head. It was the first time he ever truly feared becoming like Neil, the first time he looked at his reflection and no longer saw the momma’s boy he’d always been but rather a shadow of his father. 

It was the last time he ever wanted to feel that way, the last time he’d ever hurt someone he loved.

“You know Barb? Uh, Barbara Holland, Nance’s friend,” Steve began, eyebrows drawn together, eyes still focused on his feet instead of on Billy. They were still sitting as near to each other as they could, Billy’s hip barely brushing Steve’s ankle. 

“Girl who died in the chemical leak?” He hadn’t been a part of the aftermath discussions in November, not more than the obligatory ‘don’t even think about telling another soul about what happened tonight’. All he knew was that a week later, the news was going on about how a girl died a year ago at the same lab they’d all driven to that night, that the federal government had kept her death a secret for a year.

“No, well, yeah,” Steve started, already confusing Billy. He wouldn’t jump in though, not until Steve was done talking. He could see the tension tied tight in each of Steve’s muscles like the other man was ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. He wouldn’t be the reason for it, not again. “She didn’t die at the lab. She died here.”

“Here? At your house?”

“In my pool,” Steve corrected, head turning to stare out at the diving board on the other end of the pool. “She was sitting there the last I saw her. Tommy, Carol, and I were having a party, so I invited Nance over. She brought Barb for some reason, maybe because she didn’t trust me yet? Maybe because Barb was lonely. I know she really hated me, thought I was taking up too much of Nance’s time.”

“Sounds like she was jealous.”

Steve let out a noise that sounded like half a laugh and half-scoff, nodding slowly and risking a glance at Billy. “Yeah, maybe. She ended up being right, either way. We all left her alone out there so we could...the point is, we left her.”

“You aren’t responsible for every damn person at a party, Steve,” Billy tried, already seeing where this was going. A rock was developing in his stomach then, sitting harshly and weighing his body down. 

“It was an asshole move to leave her out there. In the morning she was gone. Disappeared. I thought maybe she’d run away, thought maybe she’d...she could’ve been like us, you know?” Steve continued, brown doe eyes staring straight at Billy, wide and bright like he was asking Billy to absolve him of his crimes. “The Demogorgon got to her, pulled her right into that pool. I can’t get in the water without thinking about what she must have felt, how scared Barb must’ve been. Shit, I was terrified in those tunnels, and I knew what we were up against.”

“Steve,” Billy tried, but there weren’t enough words to fix anything that Steve had said. It was a shit situation, but they were all just kids when this happened. Steve had been 16, how was he supposed to have fought off a fucking Demogorgon on his own?

“Every time I get in the water, I picture that thing grabbing my ankle, pulling me down until the sun isn’t visible anymore. Pulls me straight into that Hellhole where it took Will and Barb.”

Billy didn’t have the right words—had never really been good at collecting them in the first place—but he did have an idea. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked, watching Steve’s expression morph from hurt to confusion.

“Huh?” Steve asked, tilting his head to the side in the way he did when he truly had no idea what was happening like he was a doe analyzing a scene for danger.

“Do you trust me?” Billy repeated.

“Of course. I trust you with my life,” Steve answered immediately, and, well fuck the way that made Billy’s chest flutter was something to examine later.

“Then c’mon.” Billy stood up, holding his hand out to help Steve up too. When they both were upright, Billy didn’t let go of his hand, instead beginning to guide him over to the side of the pool with a set of stairs. Already he could feel the tension in Steve’s hand as he tried to stop walking, tugging on Billy’s arm with the resistance.

“Billy, I can’t. I already told you I—”

“Just try something for me, okay? And if you hate it, we’ll get out and I’ll never bring it up again. But you can’t tell me you don’t miss it. The water.”

Steve watched Billy’s face for a moment before he seemed to resign himself, nodding a little and allowing Billy to guide him to the steps and into the pool. They took it slowly, allowing Steve to spend several minutes on each step to get used to the feeling of the water around his ankles, his knees, his hips. He looked nervous the whole time, but Billy was right there every step of the way, never taking his hands out of Steve’s, keeping his eyes planted firmly on those doe eyes he loved so much.

“Lay back for me, okay, pretty boy? I’ve got you,” Billy promised, letting Steve rest his head back on his shoulder as Steve brought his legs up so he could float. Billy kept his hands on Steve, one hand resting atop his abdomen and the other on Steve’s upper arm, keeping him from floating away. “Close your eyes.”

“Billy,” Steve whined but did it anyway. Because Steve trusts him, really trusts him.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, I swear. We’re just floating here, right? It’s the middle of the day,” Billy tried, remembering the way Steve had clung to that thought while panicking. “You can feel the sun, yeah? All that heat warming you up, and you didn’t put sunscreen on that pale-ass skin so you’re gonna burn and—”

“I get it.”

“Right, anyway. But feel that? The water’s so gentle, it’s holding you up, keeping you cool in all this heat. It’s not out here to hurt you. And you can feel me around you, too, yeah? Those demo-fuckers are all gone now, but even if they weren’t I’d be here to protect you. I can take ‘em too. Who’s the certified lifeguard here?”

“Actually, both of us,” Steve laughed, still keeping his eyes closed but allowing a smile to warm up his face. “They asked me back this summer and I said no.”

“Guess I should be thanking you for my job then, huh?”

“Yeah, I think you should make it up to me, Bee. Otherwise, you’d be the one in the tight shorts scooping ice cream,” Steve teased.

“You fuckin’ wish,” Billy laughed, knowing he’d have rathered taken any job over the one that forced Steve to wear that ridiculous sailor getup. But damn, did his pretty boy somehow pull it off. “How’d you want me to make it up to you?”

“A kiss sounds nice.” Steve peeked his eyes open for that, his expression absolutely radiant in the summer sun. His laugh was infectious as Billy grabbed onto him tighter than, pulling Steve upright so he could press a kiss to his lips. He could really only taste chlorine and the lingering saltiness of the tears Steve had shed while telling that story, and it was a rather sloppy kiss by his own standards, but Billy wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.

“See? You’ve survived twenty whole minutes out here,” Billy whispered when he pulled back just enough to breathe, lips still hovering over Steve’s. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“How could I not be? I have my own personal lifeguard,” Steve answered lightly, though allowed his features to soften when he pulled his face back enough to meet Billy’s eyes. “Thank you.”

“I’ll kiss you anytime, you don’t have to thank me.”

“You know what I mean, you ass,” Steve groaned, though the smile never faded. “Can we get out now? Try again later?”

“Only if you come shower with me,” Billy answered, though was already steering both of them to the ladder. 

“You’re terrible.”

“You love that about me,” Billy beamed as they both climbed out of the pool, tossing a towel over to Steve to dry off. Steve’s hands were shaking a little but the tension had disappeared from his shoulders, expression open and bright as he watched Billy dry off. 

“I really do,” Steve answered. “Let’s get inside. I don’t wanna see this pool again today.”

It would take a lot of work to get Steve back to the comfort he once felt in the water, and maybe he’d never be fully okay with it again, but at least now Billy knew. He could be there for him in any way Steve would let him. 

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[definegodliness]

Henk

Let me tell you about Henk. 

Henk was an accident, a child born a decade after his brothers and sisters. He had this birth defect that slurred his speech, and impeded his movements, making it seem like he was drunk 24/7. This deviation caused Henk’s religiously zealot of a father to never recognize him as a child of his own, but rather as a child of the devil. He divorced his wife over that sentiment when Henk was a boy. And that wife, Henk’s mother; the only person to ever love him, died shortly after. Resulting in him being outcast — no, downright hated — by his brothers and sisters.

Henk grew up to have one friend, my father. They had a lifelong relationship, that, after due consideration, I would not call a pity-friendship. Dad pitied him, make no mistake; there was too much to be pitied, but he treated Henk as human. A friend, at that. 

They met at a youth center my dad ran, called The Monastery — ironically so, but we’ll get to that — and dad got Henk involved in managing things. I guess those were the heydays. Late teens, early twenties.

Henk made other ‘friends’ after that. He was trusting in the good of man. So when he went vacationing, he gave his peers his house-key, asking if they’d feed the dog for a couple of weeks. And when he returned his house was emptied, and the dog was dead.

That was Henk.

Such was the life of Henk.

A social man, banned from society for his slurred speech and impeded movements. Never seen as an equal, but as a disease. And I cannot stress enough how I am not an exception. Picking up the landline, hearing:

“Hel-lo... itss... HENK...”

Rolling my eyes, calling for dad.

One time my sister turned pale as a sheet, running, shouting:

“Dad! Dad! Henk’s drunk chlorine!”

And I rolled my eyes again, a heartless-bastard child. But, in my defence, you have to see I was completely oblivious of suicides at the time, let alone the concept of death. Some people never get to a point of understanding. I have. Hence the guilt. Hence this eulogy of Henk. 

Henk was a man who’d habitually get punished for minding his own business by the conscientious part of humanity. Imagine that. More definingly, he was someone who, by the callous rest, got treated like a big steaming pile of shit. Flies always circled around him to take advantage. Henk attracted human evil, and spent his life searching for proof that he, too, could fit. 

That’s why he always tried.

Then, the benefit of doubt kept killing him.

Henk once gave a big goodbye party. My dad didn’t attend. Afterwards he took some sleeping pills and put a plastic bag over his head, sealing it at his neck with a tie rip. But the sleeping pills didn’t kick in soon enough, and he panicked; tearing the plastic off his face. Henk collapsed and woke up to his place, trashed, because he would have been dead, and people didn’t hesitate to violently celebrate this predicament.

He called dad, afterwards, and dad made me part of the cleanup crew. We drove there on a Sunday. They were making small talk, and were reminiscing The Monastery. Just talking, while teenage-me was put to work; dustpan and brushing the perimeter. Everything was shattered. 

I muttered:

“What a bunch of bastards.”

“I— ... wass G-GOING to-die”, Henk said, apologetically. As if his death was a freebee for all this dumbass destruction. 

“... but you chickened out, didn’t you?”, dad chuckled. And the two of them burst out in a laughter I will never understand. 

“I did, I... DID.”

Henk took to medicine, after that. Which at first didn’t really help him, mentally, but did cause him to shed his literal skin. He got blisters all over his body, and when they peeled, he was smooth as a baby’s butt. 

Henk once, or twice, drove his 60 km/h limited disabled carriage over the highway to meet up with dad. I am only now realizing he wasn’t an idiot, dad was just that important to him. 

He had enough of life after he turned sixty. He wanted to — no, yearned — to go back to his mom. He asked for euthanasia, but, even though it is legal in my country, his GP wouldn’t touch that possibility with a ten-foot pole. Henk was part of the bible belt, you see. 

By that doctor, word got to town. And Henk was flooded with letters from neighbours and other townsmen, who never gave him the light of day, but now wanted to assure his descension to hell by quoting biblical name-colon-numbers. 

No, they did not want to convince him into heaven. They wanted him to be sure to burn for eternity. Henk answered them all, individually:

“I only want to be with mother.”

An answer, unaccepted.

Henk deteriorated further. In slurred speech and impeded movements. He entreated his death-wish to the specialist treating him. That man turned out the key to his freedom. 

He said:

“Henk, we’ve been treating you for seizures for fifteen years. And if you stop taking this particular medicine, it will all be over real quick. Just make sure you’re not in pain.”

Henk calls my dad to take care of his finances. Shares his after-death wish. Then, signs up for a wind-down unit. It’s a nice mansion among nature. Dad visits him the first day after he refrained from taking his medicine. They talk about fucking the system by overdrawing Henk’s bank balance, as they did — goddamn hippies — Second day, Henk’s already pumped full of morphine, and, ultimately, dead.

Years and years of fighting for euthanasia, and all it took was one doctor who said: “Stop taking your meds.”

“Stop fighting God”, for the more religiously inclined. But those were the ones who would’ve kept Henk from his mother’s arms. Those, who dream of death, but fear the choice of death.

Henk was cremated. 

Dad took his ashes to the river banks, where Henk used to play as a kid; before his dad left his mom, and before he was outcasted by his kin. There was a small window of childhood, and innocence; gullible years that kept Henk living for, say, a good sixty years. 

Three months later, we saw that exact spot had sprouted an oak tree. And we left feeling hope for Henk. One year later the municipality had razed and leveled the river banks, and none of us could decide where he could be.

That was Henk.

[jerzwriter]

All That I Need to Get By

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Tobias Carrick x Casey MacTavish (F!MC) Rating: Teen Category: Fluff Words: 650 Summary: Tobias returns home after a long day and is reminded of just how lucky he is. A/N: Thank you to @peonyblossom for sending this prompt for hugging from behind. I hope you enjoy this tender moment, and thanks for helping me break my writer's block! A/N 2: Participating in @choicesmonthlychallengejune2022, Day 26, cuddles.

Casey & Tobias are just kind of Pixelberry's by this point. 😉

It was the end of an exceptionally long day and exhaustion consumed Tobias as he climbed his front steps. The place had been his for nearly a decade now, and there had been many nights like this. He’d slide his key in the door, kick his shoes off in the hall, and stumble to the couch to collapse. It had served him well, provided him with all he needed and more, but it was a place to live, never a home.

Sometimes he almost forgot… well, not that he could forget… but this level of fatigue could play tricks with his mind. Then he opened the door, and the silence that had greeted him like an old friend for years was now gone, replaced by the melodic sounds of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell wafting through the air. He hung his coat up and smiled. He even managed to score himself a woman who loved Motown. He didn’t know what he had done to earn the good fortune that had befallen him. 

He walked down the hallway, dim in the evening light, careful not to startle her as he approached. With a shake of his head and a snicker, he leaned against the door jam and smiled. God, she was his. He silently stared as she danced along the kitchen island. Her blonde ponytail bopped, and her hips swayed as she prepared dinner, singing along to the tunes.

There's no, no looking back for us…We got love, sure 'nough, that's enough… You're all, you're all I nee-ee-eed to get by…

Selfishly, he wanted to sit back and take in the show. It was equal parts beguiling and seductive like everything she did, and he could never get enough. But he needed her in his arms. He needed to feel her close. He needed her to know that after a lifetime of believing that walking this earth alone was his only path, she had shown him the error of his ways without even trying. She taught him how to love, she made his house a home, she was everything, and he belonged to her.

His arms wrapped around her waist in one swift movement, pulling her close against him. He didn’t need to see it, he could feel the smile spread across her face as she fell against him, pressing her back flush against his chest as his hips began to sway in time with hers. 

“Hello,” she gushed.

“Don’t stop singing,” he whispered as his lips fell the curve of her neck. “I love hearing you sing.”

Casey began to giggle, his words as much a culprit as the tickle from the stubble of his beard. 

“You may be the first person to ever say that to me,” she laughed.

“Then that works out,” he said, spinning her around to face him. “Because you’re the first person I’ve ever said this to. I love you, Casey MacTavish, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to share this home with you.”

“It took me long enough,” she grimaced, “and now I can’t understand why.”

He looked into her eyes with love, passion, and sincerity she could feel in her soul. Her heart began racing. They were blessed. They had both found something so few are fortunate enough to find,  the one place, the only place they truly belonged. 

“All that matters is that you’re here,” he said before his lips claimed hers.

The kiss was tender and sweet, his hands moving up her back, tangling in her hair, and her arms wrapped around his neck. She felt him smirk against her lips when he pulled his lips away. 

“So, are you going to sing for me?” he teased.

“Let’s sing for each other,” she sighed.

And the happy lovers lent their voice along with the greats at the song concluded…

You're all, you're all I need to get by….

[thedreadvampy]

So I had a really positive Hey We Are Healing therap today. talked about what a difference the gym's making bc it's such a new experience to have the response from a trainer/teacher/tutor when I say "I can't do this because of XYZ" to not be "well guess you can't do it" or "well try harder" but "ok that's good to know, let's work out a way we can get you to bring able to do it"

that was nice. that's not the point. The point is I left feeling really positive and then somehow 10 minutes into my half hour walk home I started really fixating on a couple of Bad Experiences from my teens that have LITERALLY nothing to do with ANYTHING we were talking about today. or anything or anyone I've been thinking about/dealing with lately.

[advice gratefully accepted. some moderately detailed Trauma Stuff under the cut before I get to the thing I'd like advice on. tw for rape/sexual assault.]

I really want to tell two of the friends I still have from school about something that happened with my ex when I was 18. I really do want to tell them. I don't think I ever will. whatever 🙃

but I was like rehearsing in my head what I wanted to tell them and then I jumped from there to like. my general experience of high school boyfriends (It Was Not Good) and I got like. stuck. on this specific thing that happened when I was I think probably 18 or 19?

I think we'd left school and moved away and we were getting back together at New Year to catch up after not having seen each other for months. It was at a party at my friend's house and I was quite drunk and I really only remember flashes. anyway the upshot is his mum came in to find me mostly naked and almost unresponsive in my friend's bedroom with two of my exes (different exes. not the ex from the other thing) Doing Things. and she threw them out of the house and I was in floods of tears because I thought it was my fault and I very very vaguely remember my friend coming up to comfort me and he sat with me for the rest of the night.(I only remember anything about what happened after the blowup because I remember him being really firm that nobody blamed me or was mad at me, and I remember how I felt about that)

anyway I haven't talked to him much in the last decade, we've messaged and said hey hi I miss you we should hang out periodically but we live quite far apart and neither of us have had much call to be in the other's city for many years. but like. I really really really want to message him and be like hey I don't know if you remember this night, but if you do can you tell me what you think happened? like what it seemed like from your perspective? because my experience was really really interior and I also have literally no memories before or after.

I remember sitting on the stairs because I felt sick and overwhelmed and needed to get away from the party because I could hardly hold my head up. I remember my ex coming and sitting next to me and talking about how he hadn't had sex since we were dating and it was Literally Killing Him and he was going to die of it. then I think I have like a brief flash of both him and my other ex who was his best friend maneuvering me into the bedroom. then my friend's mum shouting and then getting kicked out and me being really confused and distressed that she wasn't angry with me, I thought it was because I was crying and she felt bad. then after that nothing again except the vague memory that I was comforted and sat with.

ANYWAY sorry I didn't mean to get into that either. because the thing is like. I really want to message and ask my friend what if anything he remembers. like what other people think happened. but. aside from the fact he may well say 'no I don't remember' I'm thinking like. It's kind of a dick move to message someone you've barely spoken to in years on a Thursday night and be like hey man can we have a potentially really unpleasant conversation? like I don't know what's up in his life I don't know if he's busy I don't know if he's ok (and also. he's very much the guy who only communicates through jokes memes and nonsense phrases. so it's a pretty big tone jump.)

like I think he would want to help. but I also don't think it's fair to just jump something on him. but I also won't. get to the point if I try to do a soft lead in. and all this is assuming he actually remembers.

so my question, if you've made it this far, is like. if you were this guy and your bestie from school who you've not talked to in a million years was like 'hey dude how's it going? weird question this Thursday night. do you remember a specific new year party when we were like 18 and your mum kicked [name] and [name] out of the house?' how would you. feel about that? what if you didn't remember? what if your memory of it was that it was mostly fine? what if your memory of it was that it was really awful and concerning?

like. should I message him? or should I just process it on my own?

[hoardofshinythings]

Hauled In To Fandom Kicking and Screaming

Look. I usually dance along the periphery of fandoms, ones I have actually watched the shows of and ones I am literally just in it for one or two good fan fiction writers. It is VERY rare I see a character and it actually makes me want to get in to a fandom. My ADHD/Autism combo makes it hard for me to get in to the mood to watch shows okay? Movies maybe. but series? oh lordy I have been bitten and burned so many times I am gun shy as heck with getting in to watching a show. I have gotten involved with to many shows for them to get axed for attracting the 'wrong' fans (Teen Titans, Motor City), or bizarre choices to take everything that attracted people to the first seasons and toss them in the trash and stick a sexy white woman in peril as the main into it's place. Weirdly specific but the fact it has happened several times is... something (Grimm, Sleepy Hollow). Or later episodes fall down the Stairs of Stupid Out of Character Decisions and Mistakes An Idiot Plot for a Plot Twist. I'm sure at least a few shows popped in your head at that one!

So I am .... reticent.... to get in to anything these days. Enter Eddie Munson.

Look. Stranger Things is in the background of the internet fandom zeitgeist. Okay creepy monsters, 80's, people actually LOOK like they are from the 80's and aren't airbrushed into an inch of their lives. Made a huge splash in its first season then kinda... floated in the background for the next few seasons.

Nothing about it really grabbed me. Looked fun. Not enough to attract my scraggly feral arse.

Then THIS little curly haired muppet man starts showing up on my dashes.

Eddie before disaster.

See. I KNOW this fucker. See I was a wee barely existing bean in the mid 80's. I have a brother who is over a decade older then me who thankfully I grew up having a great relationship with. So he was a TEENAGER during the 80's. Closer to Henderson's age then Munson's during 86. But I look at this fucker, and I KNOW him. Eddie Munson is the cobbled together pieces of my older brothers friend circle. The hair from one. The weed from another. The fashion from a few of them. My brother was more of a Johnathan type fashion and music wise (not personality), but a lot of his buddies were heavy metal or grunge. And more then half of them were in to DnD and comic books. Two of them were always writing or playing an instrument while hanging out at our house or back yard. They gamed at our house or at the drug dealer guys house (I didn't know he was back then cause again, baby wee me, but I remember he did cool smoke ring tricks and got my younger brother and I a huge pile of dinkies, so A+ dude to me) because hey, GUESS WHAT, the Satanic Panic was even a thing in but fuck nowhere Eastern Canada. My dad was Atheist (GASP) and my mom was vaguely Anglican (Sunday every week for socializing) but had logical heads. Mom was scared at first when my older brother got in to DnD, but despite being a early 20's young mother to two toddlers and a teenage step son with the whisper of church ladies in her ears... she sat down and learned about it. Found out it's just creative writing within a group with math. So we were the one place other than the drug dealers house they could have their games without judgement. Obviously our house was nicer so they were over a LOT. Which with it being the 80's, and both our parents busy nurses overworked and always on call, that resulted in a bunch of teenage scrungey boys babysitting tiny me and baby brother while playing DnD, practicing, hanging out, or whatever. I KNOW this fucker. I know Eddie Munson. All the pieces that make him I know them because I grew up with them. I have NEVER had a character give me a whiplash feeling of nostalgia for the past like THIS MOTHERFUCKER. Yes. I got bitch slapped by a blorbo in to watching a show so I can actually tell if the character is written believably (much more elastic then you think) or if the fandom is full of poop.

So I watched short snaps of just his scenes. God dammit he is Like That. Well NOW I have to go back to the beginning of the show because guess fucking what you shit heads. I want to actually try writing fanfiction. I want to making Eddie Munson SUFFER my twisted form of love.

I haven't done that in over 10 years. I've kept up with character writing, but nothing beyond role play games. This FRIGGER is making me dig up so many things from the graveyard of my fandom enjoyment past I may as well accept my new life as a Necromancer.

The show is meh, I know this, but the world has so many options of PROMISE. MUSIC THEMES. the fucking 80's! The characters, once again, do NOT look like airbrushed, they actually look like 80's awkward kids and adults and people. There's mullet's and mens crop tops and short shorts. All on the background of Modern (ish) Suburban Hidden World Fantasy with a good and proper horror twist. Shitty government fuckery. Monsters. Weird powers with no real explanation as to WHY. POTENTIAL!!!! SO yeah. There was a shiny toy in the sandbox (Eddie Munson) and I'm joining in, cat turds and cigarette butts be damned. I am going to try and slap in my observations of each episode as I go. Have fun watching me hate but love it all.

[wracheira]

From Then to Now: A Ridiculous Summary of How I Met Fenrisúlfr

Not to be super corny and cliché but:

I have been aware of spirits and other beings in my life since childhood. There was always this ✨one✨ in particular that felt larger than life, but would only sorta lurk around and was only active when I ABSOLUTELY needed it. Because of its passive nature, I also regarded it passively and never bothered to identify or engage with it.

I started diving into witchcraft and Paganism in my teens and became confident that said presence was a deity. Deities (in my experience) almost never outright tell you who they are 😭.

I spent literal fucking years of my life trying to discern who/what this presence was and try to build some semblance of familiarity. The vibe I got was death, fearsome, darkness, LARGE, unfathomable, but protective, offering compassion and guidance.

Over the years I had guessed Hecate, then The Morrígan, and then (after discovering Norse paganism) Skaði. Each time I initiated a working relationship, it became apparent that the deity I had approached was not the lurker I had been trying to sniff out. I respect and admire them, but I was a woman on a mission and felt in my bones that I was meant to build a relationship with the elusive deity that had been around for over a decade.

By this time I am in college, and my spiritual growth and god-hunt was put on a massive hiatus as I shifted my focus to preparing for graduation, securing housing, a career- y’know, the fun horrifying stuff!

The summer that followed my graduation was when shit kicked off. Signs began to pop up in my life, but I was unable to recognize them for what they were until later. Hindsight, 20/20, etc.

This is so fucking silly, but it all started with The Sims 4: Werewolves which released in June of 2022. Sims is a very significant game to me. Feeling in control/maintaining control of my life is something I struggle with and The Sims help me cope because in the game, I have complete control over the environment and the narrative. I consider it to be a safe space and an emotional regulator. After the release (said release actually blindsided me I had no clue it was coming) wolves began popping up regularly in my life and online and continued to for MONTHS. It got to a point where I would see some form of wolf content every single week. But like I said, at the time, I thought nothing of it.

That same summer, I was in therapy working on rebuilding myself after a series of traumatic events. Themes/lessons of trauma, recovery, growth, strength, finding forgiveness within a betrayal, and letting go of things that held me back were all massive points during this time.

In August I had to have surgery on the roof of my mouth. The procedure and following recovery setback the progress I had been making in bettering myself, and I had began feeling defeated.

September came and I went out on a trip for the first time since my surgery (major milestone). My grandma had invited me to a folk craft festival, and we spent the whole day together. I won’t detail everything, but that was a very spiritually and mentally fulfilling day for me, and I could feel something change. Something positive was coming.

That night when I got home, I was browsing through artwork by Jakub Rozalski and came across his piece, Strong Bond, which depicts Thor, Tyr, and Fenrir. Two things happened at once:

1.) I came to the realization that I, as a Norse Pagan, was a huge doofus for never considering Fenrir in my general research.

2.) Seeing that artwork made something click in my brain and I just immediately knew that the deity I had been looking for was him.

I closed out the picture, Googled extensively, read his story, read the experiences of people who worship him, and I knew there was no fucking way that Fenrisúlfr wasn’t reaching out to me. The parallels between his and my stories and others’ experiences compared to mine were uncanny on their own. Combined with the build up of literal wolf iconography was just irrefutable.

And yet, I refuted.

I received additional confirmation from him following that night, but asked a friend of mine to do a few readings on the matter for me. I needed an outside opinion as I was convinced it was too good to be true. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it honestly took a few weeks for me to accept that he was indeed communicating with me, and that he was the one I was looking for. Once I accepted this knowledge as truth I immediately began demanding explanations from him as to why he didn’t just fucking announce himself in the first place. “Doesn’t matter” is the worst answer I have ever fuckin’ heard and I made sure he knew as much.

And from there, our working relationship took off. I accomplished so much that I never could’ve possibly dreamed of during those first few months with him. New skills, new confidence, and a fresh perspective helped me to tackle every obstacle I met.

The one year anniversary of this life changing discovery is on the horizon, and I am proud of the progress I have made since that time.

Wolf guy, thank you for the guidance, patience, understanding, and support you have given me. I would not be able to navigate this world the way I do now if it hadn’t been for the hope and confidence you instilled in me last year. I cannot put into words how much your aid means to me. Even when the dust begins to collect on my alter, and the thoughts in my head are clouded, and your offering bowl is empty, know that I respect you and honor you (even if it’s in my own unconventional way). You are my friend and my companion, and I carry our bond everywhere I go.

And I’m still super mad at you for not telling me why you didn’t show yourself in the first place- you would’ve saved us both so much time that stunt was super counterproductive.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #116

(taken february 19th; uploading surveys taken while gone... two more after this!)

Is your bed big enough for two people? Yeah.

Who protects you? My mom. Girt. Dad.

When was the last time you heard someone scream? Yesterday. It was my niece's bday party, and with her having two siblings who also had friends over, there were A LOT of kids in that house.

Who was the last person to call you baby? I think Girt, but it's also very possible that the nurse who works in the lab at my doctor's office called me that the other day when she had to draw my blood. She is THE sweetest woman; she normally calls her patients "ladybug" I've noticed, but I'm quite certain I've heard her say "baby," too.

Why did you last go to the airport? Mom and I drove out to pick up my sister and her family, I think.

Who was the last person to see you in your underwear? My mom.

Have you ever showered with another person? Only as a child. I would absolutely hate to do that as an adult.

Are you in a heterosexual relationship? Well we're cis female x cis male, but I myself am not hetero; I'm pan. But I suppose the relationship itself is hetero.

What are your feelings for your ex-boyfriend? I wish him well - the best, honestly - but don't want anything to do with him.

Do you have a favourite sports player? No, I don't care about sports.

Do you play many online games? Only WoW.

Has anyone ever made fun of the way you pronounced something? Yes, in the case of "breakfast." I have always naturally pronounced it as "breaktfast," and people definitely notice. I don't know why I always add a "t."

Have you ever forged a note for something at school? No.

Do you know anyone who's been adopted? Yes.

Where did you last bleed from? The crook of my elbow from getting blood drawn.

Have you ever had your fortune told? No, I don't believe in that bullshit and I am not funding con artists.

Tell me something really bitchy a relative has done. I'd say disowning and kicking your daughter out of your house because she got pregnant out of wedlock from being drugged and date raped is, you know, SLIGHTLY bitchy.

What does the shirt you are wearing look like? It's a dark gray with colorful letters that say "wild at heart" on the front. It's super soft. Mom got it for me for Christmas and I guess I'm using it as a nightshirt now, because I slept in it last night and found it REALLY comfortable. I've been wearing solely tank tops as tops to bed for many, many years now, so this is new.

What was the last thing that stressed you out or upset you? Thinking too much about my first-ever gyno appointment literally tomorrow.

Have you ever tried avocado toast? I absolutely hate avocados, so no.

Were you ever homeschooled? I was homebound at the very end of middle school. I was going to stay that way, but I decided shortly before high school would start that I wanted to go to public school.

How would you react if your artwork became famous? Cry, in the best way possible.

Would you get your nipples pierced? I've lightly considered it, but most likely not. I've thought of a compromise where I just try to see how I like one, but I don't *think* that's a body part that would look "right" with just one pierced, but what do I know.

How many people know your birthday? Idk. My immediate family (sometimes and sometimes not including my dad; he knows it's in early February but sometimes does blank on the actual date) and Girt do, I know.

What was the most disturbing thing you have ever heard your mother say? This was a VERY long time ago, like I was a young teen or maybe even pre-teen, but she screamed at my sobbing sister that she was a slut. I don't even know if Mom remembers doing this, but I sure as hell do because I could barely believe it came out of her mouth. Also, to defend my sister, she has never in ANY way been a "slut." I very regularly wonder if Ashley has ever forgiven her, because Mom has severely grieved this "rift" she feels between them for well over a decade. She's always sad about how cold she perceives Ash as being towards her.

Do you think your grandmother is/was beautiful? My maternal grandmother was a fucking witch, I don't care how she physically composed herself. I don't even remember how Dad's mom looked.

Do you ever name objects? (i.e. mp3 players, guitars, cars, etc.) No. Well, sometimes still stuffed animals, but not usually anymore.

Do you have a criminal record? No.

Last person you took a nap with? Girt.

Does seeing your mother cry automatically make you feel sad as well? YES. INTENSELY.

Do you think someone likes the same person you like? I mean, it's totally possible. He's a great guy. Although he does mostly stick to himself; besides work and coming to see me, he doesn't really go out places. I know he has a multitude of online/gaming buds, though.

Have you ever used Nair? Yes. It works to some extent, but it's not very practical for me; my leg hair is too long, thick, and dense for Nair to work well. It's gonna take me just as long as shaving normally, and I'm gonna apply layer after layer and just make a mess.

Has a stranger ever offered to buy you a drink? Ew, no.

What was the last thing that you said to one of your siblings? Just some form of goodbye yesterday, I'm sure.

What is the most expensive thing that you’ve purchased that you paid for: My snake. For right now, anyway. The tattoo I want, IF I go to the artist I initially planned, will be more expensive than her. However, I'm in the process of talking to another really good artist that is very popular 'round here because the price the original guy gave me just... seems very overpriced for what I'm getting, it really really does.

Do you eat fast food more than five times a week? Yikes, no.

Have you ever almost drowned? No.

Have you ever learned something shocking about someone through Facebook? Not in a NEGATIVE way, but I was definitely very surprised to learn an old high school friend of mine has donated eggs for the cash. It just surprised me.

What’s the scariest living animal that you’ve petted? A tarantula, at that time. They still sorta creeped me out, so I was a bit apprehensive, but I totally fell in love with her. She was one of the most popular beginner species for how docile they are, and even if she DID bite me, the effects would have been negligible. Don't *pet* tarantulas by the way, their urticating hairs will mess you up, and hers sure did for me! My skin was fuuuucked up, and rose hairs aren't even known to have super aggressive hairs.

What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever heard somebody say in their sleep? Good question. You should ask that to people who sleep with ME, lmao.

Choose one: Butterfinger, Milky Way, Snickers: I hate Snickers, Butterfingers are only okay, but Milky Ways are DIVINE.

Who is your favorite person to hug? Girt!!

What are your plans for next weekend? I'm not doing anything that I know of right now, but I'd like to hopefully do this horse photoshoot that's been in the works, if the weather cooperates and their owner doesn't have work.

When was the last time you had chocolate? I had a cupcake at the party yesterday that was chocolate.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for using a phone in class? No, I honestly never did that.

Have you ever faked sick to get out of something? Oh for sure, especially when in school.

When was the last time you wore a skirt? Oh I have ZERO idea, I had to be a kid.

What colour is your bed sheet? White.

What was the last thing you cooked? I put some fries in the air fryer today.

Are your siblings allergic to anything? Nicole is allergic to latex, I know. Maybe there's other stuff.

Do you know anyone with a pet snake? I have a darling one myself, and I know Mazzy has them as well! I might have other friends that do, but I'm blanking right now.

Has your house ever had a pest infestation? "Infestation" is way too strong of a word, but at an old house, we sometimes had mice issues in the winter months.

Have you ever dated a bad boy? I guess you could call Juan that. That "dating" lasted less than a day, but we definitely had an obvious "thing" beyond that time frame.

Name one favorite thing to do with kids while babysitting. I hate babysitting, but I do like playing especially nostalgic video games with kiddos.

Name one girl’s name that starts with a "J" that you like. Justine. I really do love me some Italian and French girls' names...

Name one boy’s name that starts with a "J" that you like. Uhhh... Jaxson is one.

Have you ever feared that you would be killed? I sincerely feared I was going to in some way be assaulted the last time I was at the mental hospital and confronted the creepiest fucking patient I've EVER encountered during ANY hospital visit. He SHOULD NOT have been on the same wing as regular patients, and boy did the staff like to NOT heavily enforce this very-probable rapist not coming onto the fucking female side, which is SUPPOSED to stay locked and only have the genders join up for groups... This was the most predatory human being I've ever, EVER met and the mere thought of him makes my skin crawl.

Name one thing you liked as a kid. Dinosaurs.

Name something local that you like. We have a snowcone place around here that is SUPER popular because their products are fucking INCREDIBLE. They have an insane variety of combinations, and I promise you've never had a snowcone quite like theirs. It was probably Sara's favorite part about visiting here, lol. They're sadly closed during the colder months, so it's been a real while since I've eaten there.

List one thing you like to do at the lake. Take photographs.

Name five words you like. Serendipity, tranquility, serenity, wunderschön (you never said they had to be English, lol), and bliss.

List five things you need to do soon. I plan on feeding Venus tomorrow, I need to make those damn ads to sell my flute and guitar already, I'd like to finish up at least my photography resume real soon, I sure would love to resume working on the drawing of Sariya I started forever ago, and I need to get back to regularly working on my therapy workbook.

Have you ever been to a metal concert? Not yet; Alice Cooper is classic rock. I ABSOLUTELY want to go to plenty of metal concerts in my lifetime, though.

Do you like the taste of cilantro? I'm pretty sure I do?

What was the last thing to bum you out? I was VERY excited about this temporary food photography job I found on Indeed a few days back because it absolutely sounded doable for me, but it was snagged up quicker than I could finish up my resume...

Do you have a favorite planet? Saturn, closely followed by Jupiter.

What’s a medication that has really helped you? Latuda literally saved my motherfucking life.

Have you ever broken up with somebody? Yeah.

What was the biggest phase you went through when you were younger? Emo, I guess. You could probably argue that I still am, but I juuuust don't care. I have no idea how the label has evolved or anything.

Do you believe in demons? No. Restless/angry spirits, yes, but not demons.

Have you ever seen a spider consume another spider? On video I have, especially when I very regularly watched tarantula YouTubers and they filmed their breeding projects; the females eating the males is very, very common, even though good owners try to intervene if it's reasonable and safe, but that is absolutely not always possible. It's possible I've seen this happen to small spiders irl, but I don't know for sure.

What’s your favorite fruit? Strawberries. I really love kiwi, too, but have it much more rarely.

Have you ever been dehydrated? Oh absolutely. I used to drink basically no water, for a VERY long time.

What is your favorite kind of Cheeto? (spicy, regular, puffs, etc.) The hot crunchy kind are the best. I in general prefer the crunchy ones; the puffy ones get caught in your teeth SO badly. Man, now I want Cheetos, thanks, haha.

Do you have a skincare routine? Not really, but I pretty desperately should with how insanely dry my skin is like, everywhere...

Would you ever donate a kidney to a stranger if applicable? Realistically, I wouldn't. Primarily because what if a family member or close friend needed one? THEN I wouldn't even hesitate, honestly.

Do you have any unusual things wrong with your body? (I have different-length arms and hands for example.) Uhhhh let's see. I know one of my breasts is slightly larger than the other, but that is super common - I think even normal - for women. I also have reason to believe I may have a tilted uterus, but I have no verification of that. Uhhhh maybe there's something else, but idk and I don't feel like thinking forever on this.

[crispyjenkins]

Can we get a fic where Jaster somehow gets sent to the future or something and him reacting to the clones? (Being pissed off that his ad would do something like this to these poor kids/ just reacting to them?)

(this one was so. fecking. hard. to write, i’ve been struggling with it for weeks, but i’m glad i did, because this is by far the best version i made of it. it’s interesting in how much my opinion of jango’s decision to be the template has changed since i first got this ask, and i was definitely coming at it with this post in mind for their characterisations here.

i love hondo. so you get hondo knowing jaster from pre-civil war days, and i don’t care if canon disagrees: hondo ohnaka has been terroising house mereel for three generations.

also i’ve already had a few people donate to my ko-fi and i’m completely floored by your kindness and generosity, and i sat down with this fill knowing i wanted to get it out as soon as possible. i sincerely love you all, i hope you’re all healthy and being as safe as possible.)

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  “Oh, Jango? We keep him here.” —Lama Su, AotC

-

  By some will of the Ka’ra, it’s Boba that finds him.

  The possibility of dying in his ad’s arms hadn’t exactly crossed Jaster’s mind until it happened, like a nightmare he had never even had. For the first time since the Fett farm burned, Jaster cursed the Ka’ra, and he curses them again when he wakes up not marching* to the stars, but standing knee-deep in the snows of Galidraan

  And the Ka’ra make sure he knows it’s Galidraan though he had never been there, just as he somehow knows Jango is long-since dead. That he is a dislocated bone in the universe, snapped out of time and place and thrown into a future where Jango’s face stares at him from a body that is not his.

  “Oh,” the teen with Jango’s nose says, the snow coming all the way up to their thighs, and they don't look dressed nearly warm enough for this biome. “Did Hondo send you?”

  Jaster blinks at them. “Did...? No, ad’ika, I have not spoken to Hondo in many years.” Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised Hondo is even still alive, Maker knows Jaster’s tried to kill him enough times himself, but if the number of years since his death on Korda Six is as many as he thinks it is, surely someone would have shot him by now.

  The teen doesn’t wear beskar’gam —it’s unlikely they’re even old enough to— but the style of the armor they do wear cannot be inspired by anything else, just reminiscent enough of evaar’gam that Jaster can’t help comparing every little detail about them with the faded image of Jango in his mind.

  “Then who the kriff are you?” They eye Jaster warily, left hand twitching towards the vibroblade at their hip.

  Promising to strangle every one of the Ka’ra when he can finally march away, and throwing the last of his caution down to the snow between them, Jaster simply says, “Jaster Mereel.”

  Impossibly, though maybe not entirely, not-Jango doesn’t laugh at him, or call him crazy, or even try to shoot him with the rifle slung over their shoulder. No, they straighten to their full height, and—

  And swear so colorfully in Huttese that Jaster knows this hell-child has absolutely been raised by Hondo Ohnaka.

-

  Boba takes him to the ruins of Kamino first, where the kriffing Sith Empire has destroyed another one of his people’s homes. 

  The growth labs were all blown into the ocean by imperial ilk soon after the formation of the empire, but the barracks and some of the training rooms still stand above the waves. In the ship he says belonged to Jango, Boba steers them to a dilapidated landing pad, controlling the Slave I (Maker, had Jaster really left Jango to that fate?) far too easily through the rubble for this to be his first time to return, and Jaster tries not to think about what that means.

  Walking the dark, grimy white halls, seeing the narrow bunks and bare req rooms, he then tries not to think about a child being raised in such a place, about hundreds of thousands of children being raised in such a place. How had Jango... chosen this for them?

  “I only have his stories,” Boba tells him quietly, when he shows Jaster the tiny apartment the Kaminoans had given them to “keep Jango close”. It’s bigger than most captain’s cabins, to be sure, but it is just as plain and white as the rest of the facility. “But he couldn’t even get one hundred Mandalorians to come and train the... clones.” He shuffles his feet uncomfortably as Jaster looks into the cupboard-sized kitchen and tries not to break down at the package of Mandalorian chiles rotted away on the counter. “Everyone else was New Mandalorian or Death Watch.”

  “And the rest... they fell at the Battle of Galidraan?”

“Buir always called it a massacre,” he looks away. “Only a handful of the Cuy’val Dar even considered themselves True Mandalorians, buir was there when the Jedi killed the rest.”

  Jaster inhales deeply, takes a few moments to steady himself, and is sickeningly, horrifyingly relieved. By the Maker, but knowing Jango had had no one left before his Kamino contract, that not even Skirata followed the codex anymore, that Jango had only taken the job after forcing Tyranus to give him an unaltered clone, makes Jaster guilty for having doubted his foundling. It doesn’t excuse anything, of course, but knowing Jango had done it all for aliit, well, it does make it easier to swallow.

  Boba leads him back out of the apartment, he had already stripped it of anything important years ago, and they don’t stick around after reboarding the Slave I. Only after they’re out of atmosphere with hyperspace coordinates for Tatooine in the astronav system does Boba join Jaster in the tiny galley with a bottle of tihaar that Jaster should probably reprimand him for, but won’t.

  “He tried to pretend he didn’t care, about the others,” Boba says and doesn’t even bother to find them glasses, “I think some days he even believed it.”

  “He always was stubborn as a rancor.”

  Boba takes a long pull from the bottle before passing it across the table. “Tyranus scared the shit out of me back then, he was too... put together, too fancy. Buir didn’t like him, I don’t know why he even did the tryout for him, the pay wasn’t even that great?”

  Rubbing his left eye until he sees stars, Jaster stares down into the bottle until he can come up with a way to explain core Mandalorian beliefs to a child that had barely a decade of living as one before that, too, had been taken from him. “If Jang’ika took that job intending to come out on the other side, I’ll kiss whatever Vizsla is left.”

  Boba’s mouth twists and he kicks his heels against the floor, not waiting for Jaster to hand it to him to grab the tihaar back. “Buir was an idiot,” he says, like the solve to a simple math problem, and Jaster can’t but agree.

  He sighs. “Unfortunately, he probably got that from somewhere.”

  “I mean, at least Montross didn’t live long enough to end up as the template? Kriffing fuck, can you imagine if the Jedi had had to work with that shabuir’s clones?”

  “Maybe the war would have ended sooner,” he muses and accepts the bottle, “surely this Emperor would have tired of his face much sooner than Jango’s.”

  “Or the Coruscant Guard would have shivved Palpatine in his sleep and tried to take over the Republic; what’s one betrayal of your leader to another?”

  “Then I’d like to think Jango would put him, them, in their place for a third time.”

  Snorting, Boba pushes to his feet to, presumably, check on the autopilot. “If buir would have even let it get that far, then I’ll kiss Vizsla.”

-

  “Old friend!” Hondo shouts as soon as he sees them, and Jaster winces, nursing his first hangover since his twenties.

  “Ohnaka,” he returns, and pretends he doesn’t notice the subtle way Boba brightens as Hondo comes to clap them both on the shoulders.

  The old pirate just chuckles and starts to steer them both back across the hangar bay to his latest junk ship. “I heard you died, Mand’alor,” he says casually, like the title isn’t cursed to the ka’ra and back, like it hadn’t been three decades since anyone had dared call someone from his house such a thing so sincerely.

  “I did.”

  “I found him on Galidraan,” Boba offers. “Is that why you told me to go?”

  Hondo scoffs, and Jaster would say he was flustered if he didn’t know him better. “No, I told you to go because Aurra had a job for you, that you seem to have forgotten about in your haste to bring my long lost best friend back to me.”

  Boba scowls. “Aurra wasn’t at the meeting place, laandur, it was a kriffing mynock chase and you know it.”

  Jaster side eyes his old “friend”, and wonders again about his preternatural... luck in all things pirate-related, despite being a boisterous mess of a man most of the time. If this Aurra had even been on the planet when Boba got there, Jaster will kiss Vizsla twice. 

-

Mando’a: Ka'ra — an ancient Mandalorian story, ruling council of fallen kings, “stars” ad — “child”, gender neutral 'ika — diminutive suffix, similar to the suffix “ita/o” in Spanish. generally used only by close family and friends beskar'gam — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy evaar'gam — lit. “youth armour”, fan name for the interim armour/garb Mandalorians would have worn before building their kit of beskar’gam buir — “parent”, gender neutral  Cuy'val Dar — “Those who no longer exist”, group of 75 Mando’ade and 25 others put together by Jango to train the clones aliit — “clan”, “family” tihaar — Mandalorian strong clear spirit made from fruit shabuir —  an extreme insult, mostly accepted in fandom to be an insult of an individual’s ability to parent (from buir), which is an intrinsic part of Mandalorian psyche and identity  laandur — used here as “weak”, “pathetic”, but is usually used as “delicate”, “fragile”

*in reference to the Mando’a word for the dead/deceased “taab'echaaj'la”, or “marched far away”, best explained in the Mando’a tribute to dead comrades, “not gone, merely marching far away”. 

[writterings]

In light of the new Owl House episode, I have some THOUGHTS about its excellent writing.

So, first things first, I wanna state something that everyone knows but we also kinda forget sometimes; TOH is a kid's show. Yeah, yeah, that's obvious. But also, that GREATLY impacts its writing. However, it also balances this type of writing PERFECTLY with the adult perspective on the world which ultimately does make it great for all ages. And "Yesterday's Lie" is the ULTIMATE example of this.

Luz's story fits the typical isekai plotline - but it also is an example of what real-life kids in Luz's positions want. Like think about her life in the first episode - she had no friends, she wanted adventure and fantasy and magic, and her mom and she weren't seeing eye to eye. She then got whisked away to a magical realm full of adventures, magic, friends (and a girlfriend!), and a mother figure who tries hard to understand her and loves the fact that they're both weirdos. The Boiling Isles is heaven for Luz, just because it's fulfilling all her wants and needs that she wasn't getting in the human world.

As someone who is going into the professional writing field and spends a lot of time in and out of class thinking about writing rhetoric, I've taken one or two classes about writing children's stories/media. And, obviously, children's media is written differently than adult media -- but specifically in the idea of values. Kids value different things than adults because of their perspectives on the world. Hell, the whole reason "whisked away to a magical fantasy world" is so popular in kids' media is because so many kids find themselves in that position in wanting that to happen to them. I sure as hell did when I was Luz's age.

Stories like these essentially are wish fulfillment for kids. And since they are wish fulfillment, that typically means that more real-life concepts such as abandoning family, missing the "real world", or any negative consequences are either conveniently written out in a satisfying way or are left out entirely. (Think how in Harry Potter, he's able to escape the "real" world without negative consequences because his family's abusive.)

(Also, fuck JKR btw but just using this example because this is the example we used in my one children's lit class.)

And what I'm about to say next also explains further how TOH is wish fulfillment, but it starts as a bit of tangent first. Just bear with me, it'll make sense.

Anyways, I've seen a few MP100 posts around that praise the show for having an adult "step in" and tell the child protag that they don't have to fight the villains because they're just a kid. And to me, that shows how MP100 is an adult-focused media -- because a piece of children's media would NEVER do something like that. That's not to say that children's media encourages kids to do dangerous stuff that harms themselves, but it's just not appealing to kids. Kids want to be the ones going on adventures and saving the day. They want to be treated with respect and be trusted as capable as the adults around them. And who can blame them? We all want that - it's just that kids hardly get ANY respect or autonomy. That's why kid's media where the kids are allowed to fight, be the chosen one, or go on adventures is so normal and popular: it's what kids want!

And that, again, is how TOH is wish fulfillment. Luz is allowed to go on adventures, do dangerous and stupid things, and she still kicks ass! Sure, Eda might express concern for her or say she doesn't want her doing something dangerous -- but Eda trusts Luz and is never angry when she goes someplace dangerous (think how she acted in "Separate Tides" when she found out Luz was also there in the cave).

So, ultimately, this is all how TOH's writing reflects its status as a children's show. Which is totally fine! And it's brilliantly written!

But as for the more adult-focused parts of its writing -

To state again, adults value different things in media than kids do. We (since I'm an adult) typically do want to see the more nuanced and darker side of things. We want the complexity. We want subversion of genre. We also want things that reflect our experiences. And TOH does this by addressing realistic negative consequences.

Camilla was upset that Luz left her. She cried and got mad, and even asked the questions of "Were you trying to live out some witch fantasy? Did you hate living with me that much?"

This is a genre subversion because we usually don't get this kind of confrontation in a kid's show. Typically, our plucky young protag who chooses to stay in another world faces no negative consequences for this choice (except for Marcy in Amphibia but for different reasons lol). But here Luz is, watching as her mother cries all because of her choices. It's not explicitly adult and tbh isn't mature - but it's still a level of nuance and character complexity we don't typically get in a kid's show/media. Honestly, it's most likely that adults are the ones identifying with Camilla instead of Luz in this situation - even if we don't have kids. Camilla, essentially, feels abandoned and rejected by her daughter. While some kids might be able to sympathize, it's probably mostly adults (and older teens) who have been through similar situations and emotions. And, in that, shows how TOH can also appeal to audiences in a more "adult" way as well.

But, despite that, it's still not a polarizing scene. It may frustrate some kids watching (or even teens/adults who identify strongly with Luz), but ultimately Camilla's words and actions are still understandable. She's not being evil or mean; she's just hurt. And that's clear! Even Luz sees it! But it doesn't harm the narrative appeal of the show being kids' wish fulfillment because Camilla can't do anything to take Luz away from her amazing life in the Boiling Isles. While she did make Luz promise to find a way back and to stay for good, she ultimately has no power to do anything. The status quo of the show is not changed and it is still wish fulfillment -- though, now, it just has some complexity added to the situation, plot, and characters.

In that sense, the scene where Camilla confronts Luz can still appeal to kids and doesn't make the show unenjoyable for them despite it being a more "adult-focused" scene. Sure, it adds complexity, but it's a type that kids can understand.

And that, basically, is just brilliant writing. It's such a perfect balance of adult and kid-focused,m and the writers definitely understand the values that both children and adults have when approaching media. TOH is definitely one of the best-written cartoons of this decade, and I'm so glad it exists.

Anyways, here's my essay. Thanks for reading if you got this far!

[happysoldlady]

Still - Angel Reyes

a/n: this one is based on the song ‘still’ by niall horan. I’m going through something. I’m working through it by writing these for y’all. if y’all like this, I might do a second part. please bare with me, and maybe even enjoy! 

taglist: @woahitslucyylu @thoughtsmeander2tumblingblindly @peaches007​ @cocotheclown​

Angel was your person, in every way that somebody could possibly be your person. And he’d never actually say it out loud, but you were his person too. Over the years, the two of you had tried to make it work but for one reason or another, you just couldn’t. First, it was school. And then it was jobs. And then it was lifestyles. 

The relationship that two of you had now...was complicated. Toxic, even. Angel had a really bad habit of showing up at your house whenever any of his other plans fall through. A girl cancels on him? He buries himself inside you. EZ is MIA? His head is between your thighs. Coco has plans with Letty? He’s curled up with you watching a movie. Pops pisses him off? He’s taking it out on you. 

You’re the place he goes when the rest of the world fails him. Rejects him, even. Really, it’s always been that way. Even when the two of you were tripping each other in the school hallway as pre-teens. Angel can’t remember a significant time in his life that you aren’t a part of. It’s just that every time one of you professes their love for the other, you always seem to find yourself without him.

It’s been this way for as long as you can remember, so now, you’ve stopped asking him to be your husband. You’ve stopped expecting flowers on Valentine’s Day. You’ve stopped yearning for the day that he finally figures out that you’re the person he loves the most in the world. You’ve stopped setting yourself up for the disappointment that so often results from the two of you trying to figure it out. 

He fucks who he wants. You fuck who you want. And eventually, you always make your way back to each other. Except, this time, it doesn’t seem like you’re coming back. You’ve been fucking a new guy. He’s tall, strong, and funny, because well, you have a type. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you like him more than you planned to. 

Angel, on the other hand, would rather slit his throat than give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d never admit it to himself because what the fuck does he have to be jealous of....but he is. 

Although, you don’t bring your new guy to clubhouse parties or anything. You go out to public bars, and go bowling. You’ve even been going to the movies every Friday night. He even has regular friends, and you guys do double dates and play cards. It’s normal, and healthy, and it’s not the love of your life showing up at your house at 3 in the afternoon to fuck you and leave because he’s bored. 

So one afternoon, right on schedule, you hear the familiar rhythm of Angel’s knock on the door, and you let out a breath. Your house is torn apart from the hosting duties of Uno from the night before, and you’re stumbling to the door to let Angel into the chaos. You’re still in your pajamas, your head throbbing from overindulging in wine, and squinting at the familiar shape of him standing in your doorway. 

“What the fuck happened here?” Angel curses, pushing past you looking at the wreck that is your house. 

“We had some people over last night.” You say quietly, resting a hand against your head as your shut the door. 

“We? There’s a we now?” Angel inquires, his voice way too loud for the amount of wine you drank last night. 

“You know what I mean, Angel.” You mutter, shuffling past him to lay down on the couch. 

“No, I really don’t.” Angel ‘s eyes are wide as he stares at the deck of uno cards spread across your coffee table. “Y’all are playing fucking uno now?” 

You sit up, letting out a low groan and then looking up at him with tired eyes. Because really, that’s what you are. You’re fucking exhausted. Both physically and mentally. And you had fun last night with a man that doesn’t make you constantly question where you stand. And you’re tired of trying to convince this one that that fact doesn’t matter. 

“We played Uno last week, Angel.” You exasperate, shaking your head. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Exactly. So you and him are playing uno now? What, with like, some friends of yours or something?” Angel asks, stepping over bottles and crunching on the remains of spilled chips. 

You stare at him, your hands resting on your knees. “Yes, actually.” 

There’s something about the way that you’re looking at him that sends him into a death spiral. Like he’s finally losing you. Like he’s spent the last couple decades pretending like you don’t mean anything to him, and now he actually doesn’t mean anything to you. 

“Well, then that’s done, then.” He mutters, shrugging. “That’s fucking fantastic.” 

You narrow your eyes at him, and tilt your head. “Do you have something you came here to say?” 

“I came here to fuck you, but it looks like you’ve got that covered with Mr. Fucking Normal.” Angel spits out. 

“You came here to fuck me.” You say, letting out a breath of air that almost resembles a laugh but is really just you trying not to yell. 

Angel nods once, and opens his mouth, but you shut him up by throwing a bottle across the room. 

It’s in your hand and you’re throwing it before you can even process the rage that you feel. 

“You came here to fuck me, Angel. That’s it. So what the fuck are you doing stomping around my messy living room making snide comments about my new boyfriend?” You yell. Angel doesn’t even flinch when the bottle bounces off the wall behind him. 

Angel doesn’t know what to say. He never does when you actually call him out on his shit. But he’s afraid to leave. Because he knows that if he leaves, he won’t ever get to fuck you again because you’ll marry this fucking guy. He watches your chest rise and fall in your rage, and he wants to tell you that he wants to play uno all the time with you but fuck, he can’t get the words to come out. 

“Well, spit it out. You sure had a lot to say when you came over here. What the fuck happened?” You push, moving across the living room to stand in front of him. He shakes his head, looking away from you. 

You scoff and throw your hands up, exasperated. “I don’t have the energy for this, Angel. Just get out.” 

He looks back at you, his brows furrowed. You’ve never kicked him out before. You argue, you yell back and forth, and then you work it out. This feels like you giving up on him, and he hates it. But for some reason, he finds himself moving to the door anyway. 

Just as he steps outside, he turns to say everything he’s been trying so hard not to. But just as he opens his mouth, the door closes in his face. 

[tennessoui]

33 obikin 🙏

bless i can't write anything straightforward or normal to save my life

33. Celebrity/Fan AU (modern AU, singer Obi-Wan)(1.8k)

Obi-Wan had only wanted to cook, really.

He’d decided on Tuesday night that he would take Friday off as a sort of self-care day. He needed it. In the midst of a world tour, finally with a week to breathe back in his home city, he’d wanted to relax for a day. One day without music or an audience of any kind, just him in an apartment filled mostly with dusty counters and almost expired foods.

He loves his fans, because of course he loves his fans. He loves the fact that people relate to what he writes enough to listen to his albums, although he has gone through several different sounds over the course of his career. He loves that he can be 39 and still touring the world, even though he started his career as a 13-year-old-child-actor turned teen-pop-sensation turned serious musician turned perhaps-washed-up-serious-musician turned very-much-serious-musician-actually-this-time.

If not for his fans, he wouldn’t be able to afford this house on the outskirts of his town. He wouldn’t be able to boast his performances in three-fourths of the world’s major cities. He wouldn’t be able to continue to have a career. No. He loves his fans.

It’s just that sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he just wants peace and quiet, a moment to himself, where he can float away without concerning himself with the flow of the setlist, the timing of the encore, the lyrics and rhythms of songs he wrote a decade ago when he was practically a different person.

It’s just such a shame that Obi-Wan leaves the handle of the wooden spoon too close to the stove’s open flame when he stirs and adjusts the heat to low for an hour so he can go soak off his stress in the bath.

It’s just such a shame that the smoke alarms from the kitchen cannot be heard over the music he’s playing in the master bath.

Obi-Wan sinks beneath the water, enjoying the unyielding pressure. He doesn’t want to retire, he tells himself. He has so many more songs to write. Sure, he hasn’t written an actual good song in two years and people are starting to notice. Sure, the intense scrutiny is driving him up the wall and killing anything creative that he’s ever harbored in his soul. Sure, his muscles and bones ache and he had almost had a breakdown the other day when he first walked through the door of his home and couldn’t remember if there was a bathroom on the first floor, but.

But he doesn’t want to retire yet. He just has to admit he’s waning, even to himself. Whatever inspiration he had has been used up or otherwise escaped. All he has now to his name are songs that have already been sung.

He doesn’t know how long he spends in the bath, really. Long enough that the album changes twice. Long enough that his fingers prune up and his eyes grow lax. Long enough that he tells himself that no matter how soothing the lavender essence is, it would be very dangerous for him to fall asleep in the bath because the news articles alone would be enough to raise him from the dead only to strike him down again.

(Long enough for the wooden spoon’s handle next to the pot to catch on fire. Long enough for that fire to burn down to the oil on the spoon itself. Long enough for the dishtowel it was resting on to ignite as well.)

The smoke alarm clues in before Obi-Wan does.

Luckily, Obi-Wan had paid extra for a smoke alarm that, when registering a certain threshold of smoke, sends a notification to the closest fire department.

Luckily, this all happens while Obi-Wan is unaware, but before he becomes in peril.

He actually remains unaware of the whole thing right up until the moment a fully-suited firefighter kicks through the door of his bathroom.

That’s when he jerks up, very unceremoniously. “Fucking Chr--what?” he shouts, raising a hand to cover his exposed chest for reasons unknown.

“Obi--??” the masked firefighter starts to say, in something akin to shock, but like Obi-Wan is going to give ground here and now. He’s cornered the market on shock on this occasion, thanks much.

“What the--”

“Your house is on fire!” the man yells over him, looking around the bathroom wildly until he sees a fluffy off-white bathrobe hanging by a hook near the door. He throws it at Obi-Wan, who just catches it before it can get wet.

“My house is what?” Obi-Wan splutters, standing automatically to put on the piece of clothing. The helmet of the firefighter turns away to give him privacy. Despite himself, he finds it rather endearing. He ties the belt around his waist tightly, stepping out of the tub.

As soon as he’s out of the water, the other man swoops him up and over his shoulder. Obi-Wan lets out a scream which he’ll probably be absolutely mortified about later.

But now, what’s more distressing is the way his body is responding to the hold he’s been placed in. He’s thirty-nine years old. He’s definitely too old for this. He should definitely know better than to be even slight aroused by such a display of...strength and stalwartness and--

The man walks him out of the bathroom and the very first thing he notices is the heat that hits his skin. “Oh!” he whimpers and then yells wordlessly in absolute panic as he realizes what this heat must mean. His house is on fire. Actual fire. Actually on fire. There’s a fireman here. Because his house is on fire.

He’s only a little ashamed to admit that there’s a fair amount of thrashing that happens immediately upon this realization.

Enough so, in fact, that the firefighter transfers him from over his shoulder to cradled in his arms, so as to hold tightly against the movement of his limbs. “Stop--moving!” the man says irritably. Obi-Wan wants to tell him to work on his bedside manner, seeing as how his house is on fire, but he doesn’t have time before they descend the stairs and he can see the actual flames.

The stairs themselves are fine, which makes sense. Hot air rises. The dining room, parlor, and entryway look like they’re absolutely covered in fire though, so really his fireman was just in time to save him.

The smoke is acrid against the back of his throat, and Obi-Wan buries his face against the textured shoulder of his rescuer's uniform just so he doesn’t have to look or breathe the air, although he feels the smoke already working its way through his lungs. Well. That might just be his imagination.

They’re out of the house in a matter of seconds, and Obi-Wan’s eyes water immediately at the difference in air quality.

The man who’s been carrying him sets him down gently on the lip of the fire truck, far enough away from the house that he’s not in any danger--though most of the place is fine still--but close enough that someone can keep an eye on him. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t remembered to grab his phone. That phone was very important. Hopefully the other firefighters will be able to stop the fire before it reaches his bathroom.

His firefighter seems intent on hovering close to him, even as there's a fire raging in the background. Obi-Wan supposes that there's around five firefighters on his property, including the one in front of him. The other four should probably be able to handle it, whether or not the fifth decides to join in or stay hovering around Obi-Wan like he's a sickly orphan.

“Are you okay?” An earnest voice asks him from under the helmet.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to say he’s fine, that at most he just feels like an idiot for being stranded outside in his bathrobe as a group of public service officials fight a fire he certainly, most likely, probably caused.

But he starts to cough instead, and his firefighter steps forward immediately, placing one hand on his back and the other on his chest, both beneath his robe. He hopes the man can't feel his shiver. That would be even more mortifying than his current situation.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Obi-Wan wheezes after the coughs have passed. The helmet the man is wearing only shows a quarter of his face, but he looks awfully boyish. “Aren’t you a little young to be a firefighter?”

“Deep breaths, please,” the man (boy?) tells him, which isn’t a proper response. “There’s an ambulance already on the way--it’s protocol, sir--but yes, I’m trained in emergency medical response.”

“A man of many talents,” Obi-Wan says dazedly, rubbing a hand against his chest where it aches as he watches a few men run around his house with a house. “And here all I can do is sing.”

“Hopefully you still can, sir,” his firefighter responds. “Only I’ve got tickets for your show in two days, and my little sister has been excited for weeks over this.”

Obi-Wan laughs despite himself. He’s sure it sounds at least a little bit hysterical. “Would you like me to dedicate a song for you? The man who saved my life?”

Even the helmet can't hide the nice shade of red his firefighter blushes at those words.

“What’s your name?” Obi-Wan asks, smoothing down his still-damp hair. It feels important to know his name. It feels just as important to look his best, given the circumstances.

The firefighter ducks his head and takes off his helmet. Obi-Wan wonders if the man should be going back to work, or if he’s been assigned victim duty. Either way, Obi-Wan isn’t going to complain, definitely not after his firefighter shakes out his hair and turns to face him with a sheepish grin stretching across a handsome face. “‘M Anakin,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan is awfully aware that he’s dressed only in his bathrobe in front of a very pretty firefighter who seems to know who he is--who seems to have tickets for his upcoming show. “Call me Obi-Wan,” he tells him, already trying to remember his manager’s phone number so that he can bump Anakin and his sister’s tickets up to the VIP section. It’s the least he can do, after all. Anakin had just saved his life.

“Wish it was under better circumstances,” Anakin says with a shy sort of twist of his mouth. Obi-Wan gets the impression that it isn’t just his little sister that’s been excited for his concert. An impression that is solidified quickly as Anakin tacks on, “I’m a huge fan of your work.”

Obi-Wan laughs incredulously at this, at the entire situation, at the man in front of him, at the fact that some part of his brain has started composing a song the second his firefighter had smiled at him in his bathrobe with his tired face and wet hair, kitchen burning his house down because he’d forgotten basic fire-safety rules in favor of his own self-care soak.

“Well,” he says, patting his firefighter’s knee, “I don’t have to tell you that I’m a huge fan of your work as well.”

[traincat]

I feel like I've read a ton, but I'm honestly still pretty new to comics rn. That being said... What is one more day? Ik we don't like it and it happened a while ago, but that's about it [,=

Time for Spider-Man History With Traincat: Highly Controversial Storylines! And that feeling is totally normal with comics with huge canons -- you can read a ton and still have some fairly big blindspots in your understanding of the total picture. That being said, this is kind of a big one, both in terms of Spider-Man history/canon and in terms of how Spider-Man fandom functions. I would say probably no other storyline has had quite as much impact on how the fandom views and interacts with the source material as One More Day/Brand New Day. It's been the Wild West out here ever since it happened. (Which was in 2007, so like, yes, fairly long ago, especially when you look at how Spider-Man canon has evolved since, but in the grand scheme of things, also kind of recent. One More Day is not old enough to rent a car.)

So when people talk about Spider-Man's One More Day, they're usually actually talking about two related arcs: One More Day and Brand New Day. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to be covering both. For the sake of transparency, I am going to admit that I think One More Day, as a self-contained story, is good, actually. This is controversial! I admit that! But I stand by my stupid opinions on this blog, for some reason. I think One More Day when you examine it on its own, by which I mean you ignore the decade and a half worth of canon that came after it, as a Spider-Man story and as a PeterMJ-centric story holds up under scrutiny and that people who don't like it don't like complicated love stories and might actually throw their own mothers under buses. No offense to the OMD haters. Little bit of offense to the OMD haters. Brand New Day, which is the continuation of One More Day, on the other hand -- largely bad. Very largely bad.

But let's backtrack. One More Day is a four issue crossover storyline that takes place directly after Civil War, during which Iron Man and Captain America got divorced and divvied up the superhero community and Spider-Man made some startlingly bad decisions and made a fugitive out of himself and his family in a manner that got Aunt May shot, and Spider-Man: Back in Black (Amazing Spider-Man #539–543) which examines Peter's actions immediately after Aunt May is shot and ends with him humiliating the Kingpin in front of an entire prison. One More Day consists of Amazing Spider-Man #544 -> Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24 -> Sensational Spider-Man v2 #41 -> Amazing Spider-Man #545. In One More Day, Aunt May is dying, all of Peter's efforts to save her have thus far failed, and, consumed by guilt, he is rapidly running out of time. Approached by Mephisto, a literal demon from hell, Peter is offered a deal: Aunt May will live -- and Peter's identity, which was previously revealed to the world at large during Civil War, will once again be hidden from the memories of all but a select few -- if Peter trades him his marriage to Mary Jane. Peter and Mary Jane struggle with this, but eventually both agree to the deal. The clock strikes twelve, the deal is done, and Peter and Mary Jane's marriage fades into history.

(ASM #545) A reasonably simple premise for a story that caused so many problems -- most, I would argue, not actually the original story's fault. So obviously, this was an unpopular move -- Peter and Mary Jane had for a long time been a fan favorite Marvel couple, and in a fictional universe where most relationships are doomed as soon as they begin, the enduring Spider-Marriage was sacred ground. And then, with a snap of its fingers, it was gone: Peter wakes up in Aunt May's house, no longer married, with Mary Jane out of the picture. (She would not return to the book on any sort of consistent basis for over 50 issues.) In the wake of One More Day began Brand New Day, which is basically what it sounds like: a promised "brand new day" of "exciting" Spider-Man content and a publishing schedule where Amazing Spider-Man came out three times a month. (Which sounds good on paper but I think in practice caused more problems than it created good storylines.) Peter, newly single again, had new love interests! And also Harry Osborn was alive again for some reason! I generally like Harry's post-BND stories so that part's fine with me.

But overall? Brand New Day is a mess. It knows it wants to tread new and exciting ground with Peter -- tell new stories! ensnare new readers! make them fork out for a book three times a month. -- but it doesn't know what those stories should be. Readers who were invested in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship -- a major facet of Spider-Man comics for decades at that point -- felt rightfully betrayed that the marriage could be so easily traded in and that Mary Jane herself, perhaps the second most important figure in Spider-Man comics after Peter, could be tossed aside. From a personal point of view, I think Brand New Day fails in large part because it abandons what has always made Spider-Man such a compelling series, and that's the mix of Peter's personal life with his vigilante life. BND sees Peter with new friends, new jobs, new love interests, etc -- it is very much a brand new day! But it isn't a better day compared to the stories that came before it. I do like some post-BND stories, especially American Son (ASM #595-599) and Grim Hunt (ASM #634-637), but compared to pre-BND where I think the majority of canon is good, it's a very lacking body of work that is hurt by the way it divorced itself from the PeterMJ marriage as Spider-Man's central relationship.

"But Traincat, I thought you said you liked One More Day?" Yeaaaaah. I do. This is why I keep saying I like One More Day on its own merits, and not on the merits of the stories it opened the doors for. I like a good romantic tragedy in fiction, and the way Peter and Mary Jane's final scene in One More Day plays out is beautiful. I like the idea of Peter caught in this impossible situation, being asked to choose between two women he loves more than his own life. A really common criticism I see leveled against One More Day is that Peter should have chosen his relationship with Mary Jane over May's life, which is -- okay, I think it's weird that people keep insisting on this, not in the least because by asking Peter to sacrifice his aunt's life they're essentially demanding he commit a callous, out of character act in order to further his own interests. It's also weird because the thing is, Peter already chose Mary Jane over May -- that's what gets them into this situation. It's literally in the scene where May is shot:

(ASM #538) When the gun goes off, Peter's spider-sense kicks in, and he covers Mary Jane, leaving May in the path of the bullet. He does choose Mary Jane over May, regardless of whether he realized what he was doing. And that's why he can't make that choice a second time. His actions in One More Day do make sense for him as a character, whether or not any individual reader likes them, and Mary Jane's actions make sense, too -- after all, she's the one who ultimately tells Mephisto that they agree to the deal when Peter can't bring himself to voice it.

A lot of people also like to nitpick One More Day by going, well, why could (x) or (y) with life saving powers save Aunt May which is like -- yeah, I guess, but if we're going to ask that about this specific comic book near death setup, you kind of have to do it with every single one, and I'm not going to stake every single moment of comic book drama on whether or not that gold kid from the X-Men was busy at the time. Comics are soap operas in flimsy paper form: serialized longform storytelling that relies heavily on melodrama. Sometimes you have to go with things. Sometimes you sell your marriage to the devil. Stuff happens. That in and of itself doesn't make One More Day a bad story -- and while some people blame the Spider-Marriage's dissolution entirely on One More Day, I think that's a little shortsighted when you look at the history of Spider-Man since the turn of the century. It's clear -- and Marvel themselves have been perhaps a little too open about this -- that Marvel in the past few decades has had trouble with the direction they want to take Spider-Man. They WANTED Spider-Man to appeal to a distinctly youthful audience that they didn't think they were actually reaching -- understandable, considering that Marvel nearly went bankrupt around 2000 and was saved by Ultimate Spider-Man, an out of main continuity series which retold Spider-Man from the beginning and focused heavily on Peter as a teen -- but the problem was Spider-Man in the main continuity was at that point in canon a happily married man who was pushing the dreaded 30 whether or not they wanted to admit that. This is also why Marvel has continually pivoted away from Spider-Man having kids, because they feared that making him a dad would age him too much and make him unrelatable to their coveted audience of Teens. (This is also why almost every new Spider-Man property, especially the live action movies, perpetually stick him back into high school, despite that occupying a very small slice of 616 canon.) So around the year 2000, they started trying things in relation to the Spider-Marriage, which was viewed as a major problem -- after all, what's more adult than being married and liking your wife. First, they had Mary Jane presumed dead. Then, they had Mary Jane and Peter separate. Then, when Mary Jane and Peter had only recently gotten back together, One More Day struck. If One More Day specifically hadn't gone the way it had, it's pretty clear that the Spider-Marriage was going to go one way or another -- it's a little bit of a shame it happened when it did, because OMD is the end of J Michael Straczynski's run, and JMS wrote a really beautiful Peter and MJ relationship. But Marvel as a company and especially editor in chief at the time Joe Quesada viewed Peter and Mary Jane's relationship as a major problem in how they wanted to portray Spider-Man and thought that striking the relationship from the books would allow them more freedom in their portrayal of him as younger and more relatable to their Desired Audience of people who I guess really wanted to see Peter sleep with characters who weren't Mary Jane.

(ASM #546. Younger! Fresher! Less attached! Kissing random women in the club!)

The problem with One More Day has always been in the follow through -- from the content of Brand New Day to the pacing of events to the fact that Marvel withheld key information for such a long time that it allowed misinformation to thrive. After all, what does it MEAN to trade Peter and Mary Jane's marriage to the devil? It altered the events of canon in Peter and the majority of other characters' memories so that the marriage didn't exist, but it left people wondering -- did the relationship as they remembered it existed? How much of Spider-Man canon was altered? And the answers didn't come for over 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. One Moment In Time or OMIT (Amazing Spider-Man #638-641), which revealed that while Peter and Mary Jane never got married in the altered canon they did continue their long committed relationship up until just after Civil War, was published in 2010, so essentially readers were hung out to dry without answers for three years. That's a long time to string people along, but not as long as it took Marvel to confirm that the popular fan theory that Mary Jane retained her memories of the original timeline as part of her own deal with Mephisto was also true, which happened this year. I would say, at least from my perspective, a lot of the frustration doesn't come from the individual One More Day storyline so much as how Marvel has continually dragged out the aftermath, using the promise of a Spider-Marriage return to keep fans on the hook. Which is why One More Day continually comes up in discussion of current Spider-Man, because Spencer's run has relied very heavily on imagery from that period with a serious question of whether or not there actually was going to be payoff, something which is still up in the air.

This has been Spider-Man History With Traincat, brought to you by anonymice like you.

[doberbutts]

30 Days of Pride: Day Five

Your coming out story?

It wasn’t a huge thing, honestly. I told my sisters first. I specifically told my oldest sister before anyone else because at the time I was still being taught that being LGBT was synonymous with being a predator, and I wanted my sister to find out from me rather than a rumor mill, because I did not want her to think that I was going to be a creep with my nephew. I was terrified that she would never let me see him again.

Out of all of my family, I have always been the closest with my nephew from her and the bond we have is deep and filled with love. Due to her being quite a bit older than me, he is very close to my age and has always been more like a brother to me than a nephew. Additionally we both experienced a lot of family trauma at about the same time, and we ended up practically attached at the hip for more than a decade as we healed from it. He told me a few months ago that some of his most cherished memories are of me reading to him from the Hobbit after he woke screaming from a nightmare and I came to comfort him. Sitting next to me playing Smash and Soul Caliber together. Watching DBZ and “fighting” with each other like we were Saiyans too. In some ways, I raised him, as his mother was frequently out of the house for 12-14 hours due to her own trauma from the same event, and I was in charge of watching him as my parents were watching her. He called me out of the blue, late late late at night, saying he just needed to talk to someone without judgement. He ended up just having a conflict within his social group and needed someone to vent to and to tell him his feelings were valid- but he chose me, over his mother, to discuss this with. Because I’ve always told him I will always welcome him with open arms and zero judgement. Because, in some ways, he is the man I always wanted to be. And he knows that.

And to lose access to him would have broken me. I probably would not have survived if that had gone poorly, to be perfectly honest. I was already an emotional teen and not doing well socially or mentally in high school and if my sister had not accepted me that probably would have been the last straw.

Can you believe she had the audacity to look at me and say “I know”. Seriously!!! She barely looked up from what she was doing! I was stumbling over my words and crying and she just “I know” and then went back to cooking!!!

She did, eventually, sit me down and hug me and let me cry it out as she told me she’d always love me blah blah BUT I will NEVER get over that nonchalant “I know”. WHAT DO YOU MEAN “I KNOW”

My other sister was unintentional but basically she was badgering me, as normal, about why I never bothered to look pretty and why I always looked like a boy etc and eventually asked me how I thought I was going to get a date to Banquet (Mennonite version of Prom, no dancing allowed) without a beauty makeover and I was fairly tired of the line of questioning at that point and said something to the extent of “if I go to Banquet I’d be the one wearing a tux and they wouldn’t let me in”.

And then I kicked myself and she got very still and quiet and then said very simply “is that because you’d rather go with a girl?”

And I said no, and sort of had to explain at that point, and THEN

I FOUND OUT WHAT “I KNOW” WAS ABOUT

BECAUSE MY SISTERS APPARENTLY HAD A BET BETWEEN THEM SINCE I WAS 5 THAT I WOULD EVENTUALLY COME OUT AS LESBIAN

EXCEPT I NEVER SEEMED INTERESTED IN GIRLS AND IT LEFT THEM VERY CONFUSED AND LED THEM TO RESEARCH IT

AND THEY KNEW THAT I WAS TRANS BEFORE I DID I’M SO MAD

Anyway my oldest sister had bet that I would come out prior to leaving high school and my other older sister had bet I would come out after moving out and technically? My oldest sister won?

Anyway that was how I came out to my sisters and they were very rude about it but ironically are the most accepting of my family members with the exception of my aforementioned nephew, who I never formally came out to but his mother explained it to him at some point and he deliberately visited me as an adult a few years ago specifically to say that he hated that I felt like I had to hide my true self from him for so long and that nothing would ever change or damage the love we have and he made me cry in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and it’s very rude >:C

[trials-era-sam]

ana tell me more about These Forgotten Names bc the title sounds so interesting!!! (also can't wait to read the magda fic if u ever do finish it!! no pressure :DD)

Ella!!!!! <333 thank youuu 🥰

So I’ve talked about These Forgotten Names here - basically I was a teen way too much into Jared Leto’s music unfortunately lol I think the song went “we will take up these forgotten names” and since it was about Sam and Dean getting back into hunting together I meant that they’d take up their forgotten names of “hunters”?? Idk that’s my best guess, I wish I could ask my past self ;p

But since this one is yours, I’ll share what I’ve written of the fic very creatively titled, for now, And this one is Ella’s fault!!

They’re enjoying a rare moment of peace, as the Apocalypse World refugees have decided to leave the bunker and take a break from hunting for the weekend to explore the undestroyed, still-living world around them a bit. Can’t blame them, really - they’ve been living in a wasteland for a decade and hit the ground running when they got here, and as it turns out that getting them back to where they come from might take a bit longer than usual, they might as well take it easy if only for a couple of days.

Sam’s gonna worry about them, of course, because he considers them his responsibility even though most of them have proven time and again that they can take care of themselves just fine. But Dean’ll take the occasional nail-biting if it means not bumping into strangers every time he comes into a room. Besides, Cass and Mom are with them. They’ll be fine.

So tonight, it’s just him, his brother and Jack, who is currently busy showing his latest findings about zombie lore to Sam. He seems to share in Jack’s excitement for whatever is written on the page Jack is pointing at, but Dean suspects he’s just humoring the kid. He’s probably read every book in this library three times already.

Dean’s sat at the library table across from them, nursing a glass of scotch and just enjoying the peace and quiet. He leans back in his chair, catching bits and pieces of the conversation (“Did you know the word ‘zombie’ comes from a word that means ‘God’? It’s like they’re part of my family!” “Um, Jack, that’s not…”), and closes his eyes for a bit, savoring the moment.

Which is of course when Ketch decides to come in. He opens the door to the bunker, stops when he sees the three of them at the table and does have the decency to look a bit sheepish. “Oh. Didn’t mean to interrupt anything, I did expect a fuller house tonight.”

Sam exchanges a look with Dean - both of them briefly consider kicking Ketch out, but he’s helped them out quite a lot recently after all, and Dean and him have bonded a bit, besides Mom’s not here - and having come to a silent agreement, he goes back to what Jack was showing him, while Dean tells Ketch to come in and gets another bottle of scotch and three glasses. He hesitates to get a fourth one, but Jack sniffs at the bottle, makes a face and announces he’s going to the kitchen to get chocolate milk.

… uh yeah it’s just setup and nothing’s happened yet whoops :/