#but i'm sure there's worth in it i just... need to READ...

[glowettee]

Hey girly~~

I'm a writer and blogger recently navigating Tumblr. Sometimes I worry that no one will really care what I have to say, or care about my ideas. What's the best thing to focus on when I feel this way? I think I'm just looking for a little encouragement💗. I hope this makes sense!

hey sweetheart, so sorry i've been extremely inactive. finals have been draining, exhausting, and overwhelming!! i'm almost done, but i wanted to answer your question because it made me sooo freaking happy!!!

this question literally touched my heart because i've been exactly where you are!! that feeling when you pour your thoughts and creativity into your writing, hit post, and then wonder if anyone out there is actually connecting with your words? i completely understand that vulnerable feeling, bestie! 

first of all, i want to say how brave it is to create and share your writing in the first place! putting your thoughts out into the world takes so much courage, and the fact that you're doing it already shows how much passion you have. that's something to be proud of regardless of the notes or reblogs!

when those doubts creep in (and trust me, they visit all of us, even people with thousands of followers!), here are some gentle reminders and perspectives that have helped me create my blog:

1. remember why you started writing

   ✧ was it to process your own thoughts?

   ✧ to connect with others who feel the same way?

   ✧ to create something beautiful?

   ✧ to document your journey?

   returning to your original purpose can be so grounding when the external validation feels uncertain. i keep this in mind whenever i'm planning ideas, writing my posts or even when i feel unmotivated to write a bunch of words onto the tumblr word processor. this generally just helps you focus on the purpose for your blog/writing.

2. focus on quality over quantity

   ✧ one genuine connection with a reader who truly resonates with your words is worth more than hundreds of passive scrollers

   ✧ some of my favorite writers and bloggers have smaller but incredibly devoted followers

   ✧ meaningful engagement > follower count (always!!)

3. celebrate the uniqueness of your voice

   ✧ no one else has your exact perspective, experiences, or way of expressing things

   ✧ the internet doesn't need more people trying to sound like everyone else

   ✧ your specific voice is exactly what someone out there is looking for

   ✧ authenticity always shines through and attracts the right people

4. remember that growth takes time

   ✧ most "overnight successes" actually took years of consistent posting

   ✧ tumblr especially works on connections and community building

   ✧ your words might be quietly collecting in someone's bookmarks even if they haven't engaged yet

   ✧ some of my posts that got almost no notes when first published suddenly found their audience months later!

5. create for yourself first

   ✧ write what brings you joy, healing, or clarity

   ✧ if you're excited about your content, that energy will naturally attract others

   ✧ when you love what you create, external validation becomes a bonus rather than a necessity

   ✧ the posts i'm most proud of aren't always my most popular ones!

   ✧ make sure to utilize aesthetics in your post, ones you enjoy are always a bonus, and it's so fun to design your post according to whatever aesthetic/vibe

6. engage with other writers/bloggers and creators

   ✧ leave thoughtful comments on posts you love

   ✧ reblog with your own additions

   ✧ join writing challenges or community events (example: tag games)

   ✧ respond to asks and messages

   ✧ community building is a two-way street! this is my favorrrrittee part of being a girlblogger.

7. trust the timing of your journey

   ✧ some days will be quiet, others will surprise you with connection

   ✧ consistency matters more than immediate results

   ✧ your words might be exactly what someone needs to read tomorrow, or next month, or next year

i also want to remind you that even the most popular writers and bloggers have moments of doubt! it's part of the creative process to sometimes wonder if what you're making matters. but just know your perspective is inherently valuable. your experiences are worth documenting. your creative expression deserves space in this world.

when i first started my blog, i would sometimes post things that got almost no interaction. but then i'd get a single message from someone saying "this was exactly what i needed to read today" and it would remind me why i started in the first place.

keep nurturing your writer's heart, keep showing up for your creativity, and keep sharing your unique voice with the world. the right readers will find you, i promise. and in the meantime, take pride in the courage it takes to create and share in the first place!

sending you all the creative inspiration and confidence vibes!! hope this helps <3

xoxo, mindy 🤍

> submit to the hotline so we can trauma bond: https://bit.ly/glowetteehotline

[rei-ismyname]

Uncanny X-Men #14 review

Rejoice! After 14 issues we finally find out what The Outliers' powers are, and even get to know Deathdream a bit. The Antebellum South Mutants plot intersects with the present, the X-Men lose the kids again, and Rogue endangers everyone needlessly (also again.) Some very curious choices were made that make me feel nervous. Dark Artery part 2 of 4 is... worth discussing.

Becoming dead, very useful.

Man-Thing guards this Ancient Place of Mutant Significance and demands character exposition from The Outliers before they can pass. Hotoru seems to know all about it, which must be from communicating with the dead or something. It's a gorgeous looking page that's a quite clever way of getting this information across while establishing Ransom as the leader and forcing Calico to face discomfort. I didn't know half this stuff and we're 14 issues deep. I can imagine a YA story where this scene happens really early to introduce the characters, but why is it this late in a flagship X-Men book? Maybe to show growth and self knowledge, I guess, as an indicator of the X-Men's successful tutelage. I don't think that's been earned, though. Everything they've achieved has been away from the adults - who've fought them, blown them up, let them get kidnapped and attacked by sentinels.

Saving this for a 'beating a dead horse' joke. RIP Ember

The structure of this issue really stands out to me as spread too thin. 4 plot threads and 16 characters is a LOT for a 20 page serial that's still establishing its premise and cast. The Outliers/Henry stuff is the most interesting, but all they really did was walk down a hallway. The Outliers in general are the highlight of the run, and I feel like Simone would prefer to be writing them. I'd prefer to be reading them, frankly; these X-Men are kinda boring. Have they actually taught these kids anything? They're terrible carers and I'm not sure the kids need it aside from a place to live. Considering Haven welcomes The Outliers regardless, the adults feel redundant. The best Outliers stories so far have been away from the X-Men and the worst are when they interact. Training sequences and childish misunderstandings can work, but as soon as they're on their own they're acting like adults and kicking arse.

Take Gambit for instance. Last issue Sadurang took him for a ride to the Savage where they had a meeting that could have been an email. He puts Remy to the choice and he just says no, so they return. I'm sure the cannibalism thing will pay off one day (he should eat Logan) but 1/3 of the two issues is taken up with flying to the jungle and back. It's a four part thing called Dark Artery - show us that shit. WTF is a Dark Artery and how is Haven this generational mutant hotspot we've never heard of? Marcus knows what's up but he's more worried about people wearing pants than the dangerous graveyard mutant magic zone under the swamp? I think the Gambit/Sadurang dynamic would be more compelling if it was shorter. By the time they finish bro'ing down the year will be up. I've been waiting for more information about this Endling business, and I've decided I definitely don't care. The dragon was making confident prophecies in the first issue but now he doesn't know except they've got 'female energy.' An endling is the last survivor of a species and it's too soon for more genocide. Also, I just don't believe they'd do it.

What a surprise - another fight started by Rogue over nothing. It's getting old, frankly, and the implication that Gambit avoids her for her entire period is ridiculous. It was cringe when 80s sitcoms did it and I'm surprised Simone went there. For once Rogue is actually punished for being a violent, reckless idiot but how many misunderstanding fights will she get into? The plot just grinds to a halt whenever it happens and it's boring. Maybe she'll reflect on her recklessness next issue but I'm just not that interested in Rogue flip flopping and making the same mistakes. I'll take all this back and write Gail Simone an apology letter if there's some serious social consequences for being the violent hardhead on a team with LOGAN. An intervention or something. I guess Logan casually impaled Scott last week so whatever! She'll defrost eventually.

It's cool to acknowledge Jubilee's son that she left in Otherworld a few years ago. Shogo loved it there, but he was a baby. I wonder if she'll go say hi and he'll be Future Shogo we've met several times. Maybe! I'm not super invested either way tbh, I think it's funny that Jubilee found the kid, kept him, and then YOLO left him in a fairy tale multiverse dimension. Little MF stayed an infant for a decade. I'd abandon him too.

The Henry Nawlins character reaches the end of her journey and agent fucko confronts her almost immediately. She might be a Johnny Devil or a Moonflyer! So glad to have some new slurs, you know? 150 year old ones with no etymology that sound incredibly toothless. Obviously these government agents are up to no good, rude racist assholes. He even says he's a sentinel of purity. Like the killer robots. I sure feel mighty scared for these black folks in a very racially charged time and place.

The Orphan Train was a real thing that is the precursor to the foster home system. It was hideously corrupt, and children were taken from the urban poor to provide cheap or free labour to rural landowners, clergy run orphanages, and whoever would pay. Verification and oversight was minimal, so a lot of these kids suffered abuse and/or virtual slavery. It's a horrifying bit of history that had similar institutions all over the world. It feels ... significant to me that all the kids are white and dirty, contrasted with Henry's blackness and middle/working class markers. The intersection of class and race is complex, but while it's great to nod to this history do you really want to do it set in the Jim Crow south? It's terrible optics for negligible gain, and considering that X-books have often suggested that mutant status subsumes class and gender it's confusing.

What TF?

George is literally murdered for the hell of it immediately, and Henry transforms in grief and rage. She takes the cops out (yay) with buckwild rock powers and glowing eyes. It's a pretty hardcore display and the cops deserve it for killing an unarmed black dude minding his own business. Not imagery you'd want to use lightly, in my opinion, and it runs into an issue the mutant metaphor often does. Superhumans actually are dangerous in the same way a gun is, often much more so. In the sixties Henry would be a villain for killing these cops. Yeah they're racist murderers but why make their fear valid? I'd be terrified of a hovering rock person with glowing eyes and golems. Rockslide-Bling-Cyclops vibes.

Are we just calling her The Hag now? Oof

She kills the fuck out of them with ease too as they scream for mercy. Well, Muller's fate is left hanging but the sympathy of the viewer whirls like a top. We've followed Henry for two issues and are inclined to sympathise with her, especially after witnessing her harassment and poor George's death. Boy I hope she's luring kids to this spooky AF graveyard for a benevolent reason. It would be really fucking weird otherwise, don't you think? I sure do.

The black dude being introduced then blown away by cops next page feels really uncomfortable without advancing a statement. Gail Simone is quite well known for putting forward Women in Refrigerators - I'd think she'd know better than to fridge a black dude in an intentionally racially charged story then flip the oppressed black woman protagonist into an antagonist/monster. Yeah, that's right - Henry is still at Haven in the present and she wants one of the Outliers to take her place as guardian. Oh, that's really not benevolent at all.

It's certainly a swerve and a cliffhanger, but why link the mutant metaphor to Jim Crow at all if you don't have a hook? I think it's too weighty to be used as set dressing. Introducing a sympathetic black woman on a mission of love then coding her as a graveyard monster antagonist is... I don't even know what to say. I feel like I must be missing something here. I don't want to be throwing out criticism of thoughtlessly including black history and people unless it's there because that's ugly shit. At best we're going to need a HUGE save handled very carefully to Not Be Super Problematic. The Podcaster is a flat black villain whose skin colour and experiences have been left out. No problem with two black villains, but when you're adding more racism to the racism book there's the expectation that you're doing it thoughtfully.

The superfluous presence of Man-Thing just raises questions, but the mystery of the Dark Artery feels like a flop. There's 2 more issues of it, so there's time to turn it around but I'm really fucking tired of saying that. The worst thing is that the most problematic aspect might just be for a cliffhanger. This book and adjectiveless love that shit - introducing a threat on the last page and undercutting it next issue. This is exhausting honestly. If we took the Gambit and Rogue bullshit out there'd be room to give an ambitious storyline like Dark Artery the space it deserves. Maybe next time.

[boilingheart]

my therapist gifted me a book about adhd to read and man. trying to read a book about adhd with adhd is proving to be a... colorful challenge.

i'm trying to replace doomscrolling with reading, yet i keep finding myself back on tumblr or twitter. oops.

[caldella]

Eeeeeee he looks so good! 🙌 I love that pose!

Who wears short-shorts? Stolas wears short-shorts!

I don't have any art or craft WIP to show today, but I can share an excerpt from the fanfic I finally convinced myself to write. I've had the idea in my head for a bit and even talked about it in a post or two here, so it's been good to get it out of my brain! I'm about 4500 words in RN. No clue how long the final will be. I plan to do it all in one big piece, since it's one scenario. It doesn't make sense in chapters, and I know if I make it that way, it'll unintentionally convince my brain to discard the project. 😅

Okay, trying to pick a part was kinda hard. This thing has a mix of IMP comedy, angst/catharsis, and progressively more cunty Stolas. Maybe we'll keep with the theme of the WIP art and serve a sample with a tiny taste of the last one. 😘 (He's only at like 50% cunty power with this but bear with me the full cunty mode is in progress.)

Without bothering to crouch and make up the height difference, Stolas held the pen and paper out towards Cash. “Any payment requests made on company property must be provided on paper, for record purposes.” Cash looked miffed, but the secretary didn't flinch, and the two stared at each other. Blitzø's dad caved first; he snatched both items so fast that they might as well have been actual money. He scowled at Blitzø, then he leaned over the desk, writing down an oversized, over-bloated number and shoving it back toward the owl's hand. By now, the entire team had curiously leaned in, just a little, to try and read. “What?!” Millie interjected first, followed by other expressions of shock around the room. Blitzø even heard an, “Oh shit,” from Loona. He barely managed a glance at the amount scrawled across the page himself before his stomach dropped. Fuck, Dad. Really? Moxxie leaned nervously over the paper. “This can't be serious.” He looked up at Blitzø. “Sir, the company can't afford this! It's already taken months for our finances to recover from--” “Shut up, Mox.” He winced. “You can freak out about it some other time, 'kay?” “Blitzø.” Even Millie looked uncomfortable. “Look, I know we don't know the full story here, but that seems a liiittle…” she met Blitzø's gaze, and her face dropped as she realized he had no plan to argue it. “I mean, are you sure?” “It's fine. We'll be fine. I'll deal with it.” Blitzø didn't know how he would 'deal with it,' but this was his problem, not theirs. He'd just… have to handle it. Cash had been holding the paper out this entire time, but Stolas had made no move to take it, nor had he reacted to the number. Of course he wouldn't, Blitzø thought; he didn't know if lattes were five dollars or fifty. That amount was almost everything I.M.P. was worth, but it meant fuck all to him. Stolas lightly crossed his arms. “It will have to be itemized.” “Eye-ta-what?” Cash questioned. “Finances here are properly sorted and carefully categorized.” Stolas freed one of his arms to gesture with his talons. “If money is coming in or going out, it can't be in one nondescript sum. The accounts will need a detailed breakdown of where the cost came from, and why.” His head tilted in a uniquely owl-ish way. “Think of it as an invoice.”

Woo-hoo another WIP Wednesday!! I have a few Mastermind pieces sitting on the back-burner and the majority of them have some amount of emotional/thematic weight, as most of my more polished pieces do. Not this one tho! 😂 I have 2 goals with this piece:

Do a mild study of how they gave Stolas that unhinged sexy energy during Mastermind

See how short I can make that romper (I know I can go shorter, I've worn rompers shorter than this 😤)

The sketch and the start of the value work I typically do for color tests! This one's a funny one to me because I usually keep my more self-indulgent silly stuff to doodles and sketches and something like this would definitely qualify but for some reason I don't want to leave it here, I want to color it and render it just....because. Even now, there's a part of my brain yelling "He's just standing there! On a blank background! This means nothing, why bother finishing it?" Because it's fun and I wanna draw my blorbo 😌 That's enough 😌

This week I'm tagging @lislass @caldella and @theradiodaemon if there's anything they'd like to show off (or just consider it a friendly wave hello 😌) and of course anyone else who'd like to participate!

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[vaguely-concerned]

ingellvar must have so many strange off-putting little personal habits in their day to day life that they don't even realize come across as weird, especially if they haven't ever dated outside of the watchers much. in rye's specific case I think lucanis has a capacity for such immaculate 'sure my life is already so fucking weird this might as well happen' energy that I believe he'd be able to roll with the punches admirably given the time, but it really would be a situation like

(what was going on there was that rook was placing down some experimental wards, by the way, it's what he does to calm down before bed and if he wakes during the night. what with the necropolis itself being a liminal space of lf sorts on a cosmic scale, watchers take the additional liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming extremely seriously b/c they know there are things drifting through that would just love to get their foot/tentacle/conceptual spores in that particular half-ajar door that should not be allowed inside. or outside, I suppose, depending on your point of view. rook and lucanis are also experimenting with whether solid wards can help any with lucanis' weird post-spite dreams even if they can't do anything for the more mundane ptsd ones. third reason because in my worldstate they still live in the lighthouse after the game: unless gently dissuaded wisps will sometimes drift by while you're asleep and hover over your face curiously as they sense your mind doing stuff in the fade, and no one likes waking up on an eldritch sneeze with a well-meaning yet terrified wisp zooming about the room. important watcher novice 101 lessons.

blessed mental image of rye cross-legged on the floor, barefoot in his PJs with his hair down and no makeup, peaceably tracing out elaborate geometric shapes that somehow make your eyes scared when you look at them* while lucanis sits on the bed and reads out loud to both him and spite and occasionally sneaks some carnal looks at rook's fully unleashed curly hair and bare wrists & throat...... okay I think I've found the thing that will help me through the day thank you for coming on this journey with me)

*what is the paint he's using made out of and why is it such a deeply unsettling colour? don't worry about it! :) patented mostly well-meaning yet also borderline condescending mortalitasi hand wave of 'don't worry your sweet little non-nevarran head about it we both know you don't actually want to know. do not ask questions lest you learn the answers, especially if you're going to be annoying at me and freak out about it. let the things man was not meant to know stay unknown. unknown by you I mean I'm built different'

[fiona-fififi]

...

[jewishcissiekj]

not to be a gatekeeper but comic wolverine fans should read the 189-issue (+annuals) ongoing series he had from 1988 to 2003. not because it's essential or really good or good at all but because it's 189 issues of logan being logan in the most logan way possible for too many issues so if you go through all that and still like him I have immense amounts of respect for you

[rachymarie]

Rachel Rambles re: SchizAuSpec Productivity

It's kinda so freeing knowing that, really, i don't HAVE to keep having a coffee + pushing myself to be "productive" past midday* bc that is actually when the Sleepiness begins and I'm better off resting until mid-to-late afternoon so I can get up "reset" for striving towards more productivity.

Sometimes capitalistic values / hustle culture / neurotypical values* gets in your head and you feel guilty for ever daring to be "lazy" (meaning we actually find it hard to relax/devote time to not being "productive" in any way.

*or even autistic- have noticed a lot of autistics on reality tv seem to have something against "laziness" and "lack of hygiene", despite the other half of the autistic/neurodivergent population struggling with hygiene and "laziness". Prob just the internalized ableism/parroting the views of those they grew up around/influenced by.

So yeah some autistics on reality tv have made me feel crap/alienated bc of this. e. Michael on LotS, Sophie on Glow Up, etc.

And I am actually a deceptively ambitious person, but I am no match for the debilitation of schizospec. And schizospec combined with ASD is a powerful KO combo, designed by whatever cruel malevolent higher power there is, to be enough to knock "the best of us" on our feet - and then keep kicking/stomping us while we're down amd the world around gets rougher

[phoenixcatch7]

Love how sometimes I'm like 'I've been doing pretty well recently, maybe I'm not as ill as I thought, I need to get out and do something' and then I go to the library, spend the whole time face down on the table, and then need to recover for a full week and I'm like 'nvm lol'.

[abyssalpriest]

I think whatever I end up doing the lesson is at its core "you need to stop seeing all attempts at saying you experience something as you taking up too much space and being dangerous, and you also need to understand everyone always makes mistakes sometimes (nothing anyone thinks is fully right) and you're not lesser and amateur at channelling because you aren't fully right, and also some third thing he says there is but idk what it is"

[quitedisastrous]

my mom told me i almost got diagnosed with autism as a kid (she says i wasn't officially diagnosed because the diagnosis wouldn't have been useful so i guess my symptoms were so on the fence that they didn't push for it) which. like i'm 100% sure i have autism but holy mackerel. she couldn't have told me this as a kid???? it's a good thing i'm both logical and oblivious so i didn't spend too much time thinking "something is wrong with me. what the fuck is wrong with me" but like. what the fuck?

[ub-sessed]

How Not to Break Your Sewing Machine

I work in a shop where we repair sewing machines (a LOT of sewing machines), and unsurprisingly we see a lot of the same problems over and over again, so I'm here with some advice on how to keep your machine running longer.

When you break a needle, dig around until you have found the broken piece. If you leave it in there, it can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and break something vital.

SLOW DOWN. The function of your sewing machine depends on the different moving parts ending up in the right place at the right time. Having to go through a lot of/heavy material slows the needle down, but it doesn't slow down the mechanism underneath the needle plate. If you try to go your usual speed, the needle will arrive too late and collide with something it shouldn't, breaking either the needle or the bobbin case. If the material is especially heavy (say you're sewing several layers of denim, or sewing webbing onto canvas), take your foot off the pedal and turn the machine by hand.

Clean out the bobbin area after each project. Really. Your machine comes with a little brush for this purpose. If it doesn't, a little dollar-store paint brush will work just fine. Remember what I said above about things being in the right place at the right time? Everything needs to be able to move freely for this to work. I know it looks like it's just a little dust and fluff, but it will jam up your machine eventually.

If you can, get your timing adjusted by a professional. I know most people don't have a sewing machine repair shop in their neighbourhood, but if you can do this, it's worth it. If the machine's timing is good, then you're more likely to have a little leeway for heavier fabric or a lintier bobbin case. When the timing is just a bit off, it takes less of an obstacle to put the needle in a place it shouldn't be.

If you can, buy a machine built before 1980. If it's still working 50 years after it was made, it's gonna keep working. Those older machines are made with metal gears and therefore weigh a ton, so they're definitely not a good choice if you don't have a permanent setup for your machine, but it means they basically last forever. Newer machines are made with plastic parts, and no matter what you do, they will break.

Don't buy a Singer Heavy Duty. I'm sure those machines have their benefits, but they are absolutely not heavy duty. We repair more Singer Heavy Dutys than any other single model of sewing machine. If you're already stuck with a Heavy Duty, then follow my advice above even more scrupulously, and start shopping around for a replacement if you can. You can get a used sewing machine of better quality for significantly less than a new Heavy Duty.

To keep things working properly, make sure you're:

threading your machine properly

using the right kind of bobbin

adjusting your tension properly

and using the right kind of needle for the fabric you're sewing!

(These things are unlikely to break your machine, but they will keep it from sewing properly.)

Other than that, get your hands on your machine's manual and read it carefully. If you can, bring your machine in for a cleaning and adjustment now and then. Your machine will need repairs every once in a while: it's a lot of little moving parts! But these are some basic precautions you can take to avoid some common problems.

[butyoudidthis4what]

No Man's Land

Jack Abbot x f!Reader

5.1k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || C.W.: mentions of blood, mentions of guns and shootings, mentions of death/dying/coding, CPR, anxiety about partner's safety, Jack's traumatized, reader's traumatized, mentions of dissociation and compartmentalization, poor description of medical events, potentially incorrect medical descriptions/knowledge, very very light smut, angst, age gap kind of implied with Jack but not explicitly referenced, no use of y/n or related, not proofread, no beta, I think that's all but if I missed any please (nicely) let me know.

Summary: This is my Pitt-Fest-But-Not fic. Development of your relationship through vignettes of the past and conversations between Jack, Dana and Robby. There's a shooting where you work. Jack is at the ED when the dispatch comes in and is terrified when he can't get in touch with you.

A.N.: If my Robby reads like John Carter I'm sorry, except that a little bit I'm not. I feel like I'm struggling with my Jack characterization but can't tell if that's just me hating everything I do. This is my take on one of my fave tropes where reader is in mortal danger. I needed a physical location that could be associated with reader and settled on a courthouse, but what it is reader does there is not described. Probably (definitely?) needs a part two. If you get the nickname, thank you, I feel seen. If you don't I explain it at the end. This is absolutely something I would call him, in part to fuck with people who know his real name. I would love to know if you enjoyed and to hear any thoughts you'd like to share.

“He has a girlfriend,” Robby smirks at Dana. 

She blinks at him. “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Jack Abbot.”

“Oh we fucking are.” Robby stifles his smirk and forces his lips to remain closed and as neutral as possible. 

“You’re shitting me.” Dana’s incredulous look breaks Robby a bit and he starts to laugh, tries to turn it into a cough when both he and Dana look up to find Jack staring at them as he takes his snow dusted beanie off. He gives Robby a ‘really?’ look even though he knew Robby would rat him out to Dana the second Robby had dragged it out of him. 

Dana looks back at Robby. “Who? How did they meet?”

Robby holds up his hands. “You now officially know as much as I do about her.” Dana makes a noise of vague discontent but knows Jack well enough to know Robby is telling the truth. That’s all that’s been revealed. 

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

“It’s not worth it,” you whisper. Jack blinks and looks around, unsure if you’re talking to him. He has no idea who you are, has never seen you before in his life but it appears that you are in fact whispering to him in the middle of this bookstore. 

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s not?”

You shake your head, give him an almost conspiratorial smile. “No, he must have gotten a new ghost writer. It’s really bad in comparison to his other stuff. Save your time and money. I’ll give you a summary right now for free if you’re that curious.”

Jack smiles to himself a little bit as he sets the book back on the shelf. There’s something about you, your smile, the way you just randomly spoke to him. He’s drawn to you. An alarm goes off in some part of his brain telling him to ignore it, ignore you, he could get hurt. He pretends to weigh his options as he turns to face you fully. “How about for a cup of coffee?”

Your brows furrow in confusion for a moment. There’s simply no way this unfairly attractive man is asking to buy you a cup of coffee. “The summary?” You clarify. “That I’d give for free. You want it to cost a cup of coffee instead?” You let out a nervous laugh and some part of his heart aches because you’re so adorable. “I just want to make sure I understand before I potentially make an even bigger fool of myself.” 

“Yep.” He can’t help but laugh a little. “You give me the summary over coffee. Actually, you know what? You’re going to have to give me a recommendation too because now I’m going to have nothing to read.” He clicks his tongue at you. 

“Well,” you laugh out, all breathy as you try to pull yourself together. “You drive a hard bargain but I think I’m willing to accept those terms…” you glance at his name badge, “Dr. Abbot.” You give him a full smile and Jack knows then and there he’s totally fucked in the best of ways. 

“Jack.” He smiles at you as you both begin walking towards the café. “Call me Jack.”

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

Everything quiet enough after handoff, Robby walks out with Jack into the morning sun that does little to warm the breeze pulling leaves off the trees. “Any chance you can cover a shift on Thursday night?” Robby is asking, yes, but he knows it’s not really a question, Jack is always willing to work.

“Can’t.” Jack says simply, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.” There’s an expectant silence that hangs between the two as they keep walking.

“Care to elaborate?” Robby finally asks.

“No.” Jack turns and smirks at him. “It’s none of your and Dana’s business.”

“Ha!” Robby laughs. “So it’s her, it’s about her! The ever elusive girlfriend. Will we ever get to meet her? Or does she not want to meet us? Is she real?” Jack stops walking and gives Robby one of his looks. “Holy shit, is it someone here?”

Jack snorts at that. “No it’s not someone here. She’s not even in the medical field.” He sighs, half longing and half resignation of some kind. “She’s honestly dying to meet you guys, especially you and Dana, but I’m trying to protect her from this hellhole. It’s hard with schedules too, to find a time.”

“That’s such fucking bullshit,” Robby laughs. “Are you afraid to truly commit? Think bringing her here will make it too real?” 

It’s a valid question but one that Jack nevertheless resents. “No, actually, if you must fucking know Thursday is our one year anniversary. We have plans. So you’ll have to find someone else to cover. But I’ll bring her around soon,” he laughs through his nose to himself at your stubbornness, “if I don’t she’s liable to just show up one of-”

“A year?” Robby laughs, incredulous. “A fucking year? How the hell did you hide it for three months before I dragged it out of you?”

Jack ignores him. “Also, I’m moving to days. It’s better for us.” He’s so nonchalant about it, just states it like he’s saying the sky is blue, like it’s not going to make Robby’s eyes widen and mouth drop open like it does.

“I don’t,” Robby huffs a laugh, “I don’t even know where to fucking begin.”

“Then don’t.” Jack smirks, starts to walk again while Robby stays frozen, running a hand through his hair. “Go do some actual work.”

“I thought you found comfort in the darkness?” Robby yells after him. 

Jack slows and turns around but keeps walking backwards, one hand holding the strap of his backpack to keep it over his shoulder. He glances down at his phone and the photo of you that is now his wallpaper. He smiles to himself a little, yells back. “Guess I find it somewhere else now.”

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

You giggle, honest to god giggle and Jack could lose his damn mind as he nibbles at your collarbone. “You know if my anatomy class had been this fun, I might have become a doctor too.” 

You’re laying on your back in bed as Jack kisses your sweat slicked skin all over as you both come down from your last round. He’s taken to 'teaching you anatomy' like this, identifying different parts of the human body with his mouth.

“Hmm,” Jack hums against you. “I’m glad it wasn’t then. Fuck doctors.” He starts to kiss down your chest. 

“That has become quite the favorite pastime of mine, yes,” you smirk. “Fucking one specific doctor, actually.” 

“Getting fucked by one specific doctor more like it,” he murmurs into your sternum. He kisses laterally, lips hitting your breast and moving towards your nipple. 

“I think we’ve established what those are,” you moan softly as he takes your nipple into his mouth. You let your hands run through his salt and pepper curls that you adore so much. 

“Can never be too thorough.” You giggle at him again and can feel him smile against you. “But fine, you want something new?” You nod, let your nails scratch gently at his scalp. 

“Nipple,” he kisses your nipple and then down your torso to right above your belly button, “to navel is no man’s land.” He continues to lavish kisses on the soft skin of your stomach before looking up at you when you don’t respond. 

“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or not.” You eye him with mock suspicion. 

He laughs and it’s your favorite sound in the whole world, you swear. Well maybe second, only behind hearing him tell you that he loves you. 

“I’m not. Nipple to navel is no man’s land. It’s a real thing. It’s one of the worst places to get shot or stabbed because there’s so many organs that could be hit and the place we’d expect to get hit would depend on whether the person was breathing in or out at the time, whether their lungs were inflated or deflated. And we generally have no way of knowing. It can be difficult to get clear imaging.” He starts kissing lower, down below your belly button, rubbing his stubble along your skin to tease you as he gets lower and lower. “It’s never a good time. Lots of poor outcomes.”

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

It’s supposed to be his day off and yet Jack finds himself staring at the board and running a hand over his face. “It’s still so fucking weird seeing you here during the day and it not meaning something catastrophic has happened.” 

Jack turns to look at Dana. “I’ve been working days for a month now and it’s my day off.”

“You can go, we’re fine for now,” Robby nods at Jack. “Thanks for the brief assistance brother.”

“No, no,” Dana interjects, “he’s not allowed to leave until we nail down a time to meet his girl.” 

Robby raises his eyebrows and starts to tilt his head and open his mouth to agree with Dana. A dispatch comes through before anyone can say anything else and Dana grabs it, pinning Jack down with her eyes, daring him to leave before discussing meeting you. 

“Saved by the bell,” Jack huffs, taking his stethoscope off and starting to walk away. 

“Shooting at a courthouse,” Dana relays to Robby, “not a mass cas, just a few people, two a little iffy, one they’re already doing CPR on, a few caught in the race to get out. Two dead on the scene.”

It takes a few seconds for Dana’s words to truly register with Jack, but when they do his hearing fades to only a sharp ringing in his ear. This wasn’t happening. He’d been so reticent at the beginning of your relationship, waited so long to give in and define it and hand his heart over to you, terrified he’d lose you because of himself and who he was, his imperfections, his past, his trauma, his PTSD, his baggage, as he thought of it. He feels so stupid now, in the moment, not having worried about how he could lose you from a random act of violence, that in the moments he can’t be there to protect you somebody could come in and rip you from him. Just like that. With the pull of a trigger. 

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

“You know, I can confidently say this is the most unique date I’ve ever been on,” you tease Jack. 

“Hey,” he pants, “me teaching you CPR is a great date.” 

“It would be better if you took your shirt off,” you whisper and wink at him before letting your eyes linger on his arm. 

“If I did that you’d be so distracted you’d learn nothing,” he smirks at you, sweat glistening on his skin just a little. Just enough to drive you nearly feral for him. 

 “I think I’ve got the compressions part down, but I may need more help learning the mouth to mouth part.”

He rolls his eyes at you. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You fucking love it,” you shoot back at him, leaning into his space and bumping him with your shoulder. 

He can’t help but kiss you. “Yes,” the word is muffled against your lips, “yes I do.” He gives you a firmer kiss this time before he pulls away. “But really. You should know how to do it, just in case. It will help you feel in control in the moment if the need for it ever arises. You’ll know what to do.”

You bite your lip and smile at him. 

“What?” He eyes you with suspicion. 

You shrug. “Nothing, I just love you so much. Sometimes it overwhelms me, how much I love you.”

He can see it in your eyes, how much you love him, can almost feel it physically squeezing him like a tight hug. He’s really not sure what he ever did to deserve you or your love. “I love you too, Doll.”

“I love you more, Peter.” Your face pulls up into that usual self-satisfied and silly grin you get sometimes when you call him that nickname. It’s a recent thing. You’re calling him it more and more though, it’s becoming a natural way of referring to him. From anyone else he would hate it, hearing it between another couple would make him roll his eyes. But from you? He loves it more than you’ll ever truly know. 

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

Jack spins around.

“Jack you can still go, we’ve got it covered.” Robby looks at Jack for a minute and then meets Dana’s eyes as she looks to him after taking her own look at Jack. 

“What courthouse?” Jack asks. It’s quiet, controlled and clipped and almost missable in the chaos of the ED. He’s not looking at either of them, staring past them at a wall with a chest heaving more and more by the second as his face grows paler. 

He tries to keep it together. Dana will say the name and it won’t be your courthouse and he’ll go straight to your actual courthouse, grab you, take you home and never let you leave. A perfectly reasonable reaction, he thinks.

“Jack-”

“What fucking courthouse?” It’s louder this time, almost enough to pause the chaos of the ED. 

Jack’s voice drips with what sounds like rage to most of those who hear him but is unmistakably fear to Dana and Robby. 

Neither of them have ever seen Jack like this, this scared, struggling this hard to keep it together, truly raising his voice for anything other than to quiet down an unruly patient. His eyes find Dana’s and they’re glassier than she’s ever seen them, the intensity of his gaze making it painfully clear he’s hanging on every word and the wrong ones will shatter him. 

She swallows and opens her mouth and Jack knows what she’s about to say before she even says it. And she does. The name of your courthouse. 

“I’ll triage.” He says it before Dana has even finished, the words hollow and breathless and commanding all at once. He spins and starts off to the bay doors with nothing more. He obviously knows from the report Dana gave that they won’t need triage. He just needed to get out of there and try to create an excuse to stay in the ambulance bay. He knows Robby won’t let him, that Robby and Dana already know you’re at that courthouse, could be a victim. 

Robby and Dana share another look, So you work at a courthouse. This courthouse. “Fuck,” Dana mutters, “I really hope we don’t end up meeting her today.”

Jack’s hand dives in his pocket as he strides to the ambulance bay. He already knows in his heart that there’s not going to be a text from you saying that you’re okay. He hasn’t felt his phone buzz. He never even kept his phone on him until you. 

Even though he knew he wouldn’t have any messages, waking his phone and seeing none hits him like a freight train all the same, right in the chest. It threatens to bring him to his knees, make him sick, but he can’t. He sets it all aside. If you do come out of one of the ambulances he can hear in the distance you’re going to need him at his best. But what if you’re one of the two people dead at the scene? He has to shove that out of his mind too, can’t give into the complete panic that threatens to consume him. 

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

His fingers fly across his phone automatically, calling you having become so routine. He prefers it so much to texting, hearing your voice, communicating more directly. “Call me,” he starts, “the second you get this message. Or fucking text me,” his voice breaks, “please. Fucking please.” He hangs up and calls again, knowing he’ll get your voicemail again but trying anyway because it’s all he can do. 

He’s helpless, powerless, he can’t do anything to try and save you and that threatens to swallow him whole. 

Your voicemail recording telling people to leave a message plays again and all Jack can wonder is if this is all he’ll have left of your voice in his life. Your voice on your mailbox, maybe some voicemails you’ve left him, videos, voice memos you’ve sent. All distorted by recording, not your real voice. He can’t remember what your real voice sounds like all of the sudden. What your laugh sounds like, how you sound when you’re sleepy or in the throes of pleasure or telling him you love him. God, did he even tell you he loved you the last time he saw you, when he said goodbye? 

“I need you to call me,” he says into the phone again, pauses. “I love you.” He takes a ragged breath in and speaks through his teeth. “I love you so fucking much, so you have to be okay and you have to fucking call me.”

He sends a series of texts asking you to call him or text him or call the hospital or do anything to let him know you’re okay, asking if you are okay, asking where you are as though you’re going to respond. He already knows you’re in the back of one of those ambulances because of fucking course you are, because he’s not allowed to have anything good in his life apparently. How could he be so stupid to think differently?  

“Hey, we don’t need triage for this. The numbers are controlled.” Robby walks out to stand next to Jack in the ambulance bay. “If you want to stay you can, but you can’t wait out here to see who shows up, you have to-”

“Yeah, yeah, jump on the first patient that pulls up, I know, I got it,” he interrupts Robby. 

There’s a silence as Robby passes him a gown and ties for him before he does the same for Robby. 

“Jack, if she’s in one you cannot-”

“Like fuck I can’t.” It’s just a statement. Cool and collected and a projection of indifference. It scares Robby more than if Jack had yelled. 

“No, actually brother, you can’t. I’m telling you right now. You’re not working on her. We don’t work on family, on significant others, and you would tell me the exact same thing. It’s too risky, you’ll be too clouded.” Robby watches Jack’s jaw clench and roll as he stares out at the street. 

He wants to argue that of course he’ll be clear, he’ll be focusing on saving you, he’ll have never been so clear in his life. But part of him knows that seeing you like that on his trauma table, your blood all over the table and him and his hands might make him freeze.

“Fine.” Jack whispers. “But if she’s,” Jack has to pause and take a shuddery breath. “If she’s gone or really going and it’s inevitable you have to let me in. You have to let me try to save her. You have to let me code her, Michael.”

He can taste the rising bile in his throat just at having to talk about coding you.

The first ambulance pulls up before Robby can respond and Jack’s on it so fast Robby’s surprised Jack doesn’t get smacked in the face by the door opening. 

It’s not you. It’s someone who is very much not you and is clearly one of the iffy ones. 

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

Jack forces himself to go emotionally numb as he listens to the paramedic rattle off vitals and history, trying so very hard to focus on this, something he can do, even if it’s not for you. By the time they hit trauma one Jack’s fine and in full swing, running it like he would any other trauma. Nobody on the team in the room with him suspects anything is amiss.  

He hates the way he can’t see the other’s who come in, that he has to stay with this patient until they’re stable and can’t go looking for you. He chastises himself for not having brought you here before or at least having you meet Dana and Robby. They don’t even know what you look like, couldn’t identify you.

“Jack!” He glances at Dana who stands at the door as he preps for the chest tube. “What’s her name?”

He yells your name at her, impassive and stoic as he reaches for the scalpel, ignoring the looks everyone throws each other at the slightest tremor in his voice.

“I’ll look for her.” Dana promises. He doesn’t respond. He can’t. He’ll fall apart. 

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

The restaurant you’re at has to be the fanciest place you’ve ever been to. It’s the hottest place in the city and you have no idea how Jack snagged reservations here for dinner to finish out celebrating your one year anniversary. 

The lighting and low hum of other patrons talking to each other and glasses and silverware and plates tinkling is cinematic. You feel like the main character. But then that’s always how Jack makes you feel. 

“I got you something.” He pulls out a wrapped rectangular object. 

You click your tongue and tsk at him. “We said we’d do them at home! I didn’t bring yours!”

“I know. I have something for you at home too.” His eyes sparkle in the flickering candle light, a little smirk pulling up. “I didn’t mean for it to be a double entendre, but both are true.” You snort a laugh at him and take the gift from him. “Open it.” He’s still smiling, eyes still sparkling,  but there’s something there. He’s nervous. It makes you even more curious. 

You carefully unwrap the object until it reveals itself as a hardcover book. That same one Jack had in his hand a year ago and that you told him was bad and gave him a summary of over coffee. 

“Oh, Jack,” you say softly, eyes getting a little watery. It’s so perfect. So sweet and sentimental. The book that brought you together, that gave you each other. It’s almost like a physical representation of the foundation of your relationship in a way. 

“You have to open it,” he instructs you in a whisper.

You raise an eyebrow but do as he says. 

‘Move in with me?’ is written on the blank first page. 

You look between the page and Jack. “Is this?” You look back at the page and then up at him again. “Are you really asking…?”

He nods. “Move in with me. Or move somewhere with me, we can get our own place, it doesn’t have to be my apartment. We basically live together anyway at this point. Let’s just make it official, yeah? Wherever you want, you can decorate however you want. Just as long as it’s our place.”

You bring a hand to your mouth for a second before using your napkin to dab at the inner corners of your eyes to stop the tears from falling and look back at him. 

“You’re a romantic, Jack Abbot,” you hum all dreamily. 

“You better not tell anyone. Can’t have you ruining my street cred.” He smirks, but his expression and the way he fidgets show he’s still anxious. “So?”

You realize then you never actually answered him. Sniffling a little laugh and letting a few tears fall you give him his answer, voice thick and full of emotion. “Yeah, I think I’m willing to accept those terms. I’d love to move in with you… Peter.”

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

He hears you counting to yourself before he sees you. “One, two…”

It’s not loud, just said in a normal voice, softer if anything because of how you’re panting, but Jack is so on edge and so desperate to find you he’d subconsciously been listening closely to his surroundings, military training kicking in. His head snaps to you and he doesn’t even know what to think when he sees you being rolled in on top of a gurney, performing CPR that would rival the quality of his own. 

“Why is she..?” He hears Robby question the paramedic as you roll in. 

“She was performing them just as well as we could and it was better to just scoop and run,” the paramedic explains. “She must have had one hell of an instructor.”

“Peter!” You yell, without looking up, not sure if he’s still here. You’re so used to it by now that the nickname is just what comes out of your mouth as you look for him. He’d texted you to let you know he was going in for a bit.  

Jack could sob and the entire team in the room with him can feel a crushing tension shatter. Maybe he does get a little teary just from the sheer relief. He tells himself it’s sweat in his eyes.

“Yeah Doll?” He yells back, not giving a fuck about everyone hearing him call you Doll, and you calling him Peter, knowing full well he’s going to have so much explaining to do about this entire situation, the confusion in the room palpable. 

“I’m okay!” This time he does laugh to himself. 

“Yeah I’d say so,” he mutters, smiling. He’s still anxious to see you, get his own eyes on you, feel you with his own hands. 

It’s only about thirty more seconds before his patient is stable enough and he can rip his gloves and gown off and start putting fresh gloves on as he walks into the trauma room you’d been wheeled into. Normally he’d yell out for someone to talk to him or ask what they’ve got but not this time. This time he doesn’t even care about who’s on the table, only the person who came off it. Only you. 

You’re standing to the side now, watching Robby and the rest of the team work, impassive as pink tears stream down your face from the dried blood on it. You’re just so fucking overwhelmed by everything and now that you’re not doing CPR everything that’s happened is hitting you at once. 

Jack says your name as he moves to you, needs his hands on you. 

“Are you hurt? Were you hit?” He rushes out. His voice brings you back and you look up at him with wide, terrified eyes. He goes to look you over but you latch onto him, hugging him tightly, shaking a bit. 

“I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m, I’m sorry,” you start to rattle off, fisting at his scrub top and clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to reality. In the moment he might just be. 

He hugs you back just as hard, kisses the top of your head. He doesn’t care who sees right now, all he cares about is you. “It’s okay, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m just so fucking glad you’re okay. I thought… I thought you were…” He doesn’t have to finish, you know what he means. “I can’t fucking lose you. I love you way the fuck too much.”

You’ve been so wrapped up in each other neither of you have noticed that Robby’s patient, the one you were doing CPR on, has started to code again. “Abbot, need you here!”

You let him go, nod at him. “Go on,” you whisper, “I’ll be right here. I’m okay. I love you more.” Jack nods at you and walks over, jumping in and assisting Robby.

It’s once you’re out of Jack’s arms, away from his warm body and more grounded in reality that you notice how cold you are, how you’re swaying because he was supporting you far more than you realized, how lightheaded you are, how your abdomen and chest really fucking hurt. You chalk it up to the adrenaline wearing off and being sore from the chest compressions you just did. 

On the other side of the room an instrument tray gets knocked over, metal hitting the floor in a loud clang. It startles you, makes you jump and twist quickly to see what it was, if it was another gun, another shot. You feel something almost tearing, a sharp pain across your abdomen and lower chest, a feeling of sticky warmth against your shirt.

You sway a little, start to realize how much worse the pain is now. It’s bad enough that you can’t even make noise to express the pain. There’s no air in your lungs, you swear. You realize your lightheadedness is now much, much worse, that you’re shivering from how cold you are. Or are you just shaking? You can’t tell. It doesn’t make sense. The room isn’t even that cold. You shouldn’t be so cold. Not unless.

You pull your shirt up slowly and look down and run your hand over your skin and sure enough, there’s a bullet hole seeping blood, about half way between your nipple line and belly button, skin now covered in a dark bruise. 

You cough a little, it’s quiet. It starts feeling like there’s water in your lungs. Like you can’t get any oxygen in even though you’re in a room full of it. The metallic taste in your mouth is what manages to seep into what’s left of your consciousness next. You cough again, into your hand, and feel something wet hit your skin. Blood. 

It hits you. You’re drowning in your own blood. That’s why it feels like you can’t breathe. You’ve been shot. In a bad place, one of the worst places, Jack had told you that night. You get scared, feel your heart pounding. It feels like you’re dying. You don’t want to die, don’t want to leave Jack. You’d just finished moving into your new place together, were going to spend all weekend unpacking and painting and getting furniture where you wanted it. You were going to make your home.

Time. You were supposed to have more time together.

“Hey, Jack,” you slur softly, struggling to keep yourself standing. Luckily he hears you. Your use of his first name and the slur to your voice has him panicking again already. Time slows as he turns around to take you in, eyes going from your face and the blood coating your teeth and trickling from your mouth as you try and smile reassuringly at him, down to your torso where you’re still holding your shirt up just enough for him and everyone else in the room to see the bullet hole and bruising marring your skin. “I think, I think I’m not good, it’s not good.” Your vision tunnels so fast you can just barely see Jack’s expression of sheer abject unadulterated horror and panic as you get out your last words. “Nipples to navel… no man’s land.”

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

Peter. Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. Yes, I worked in a bookstore through college.

Part Two is up!

[m00nbunny1]

⭐🌈 Age Regression Support! 🌈⭐

Hi everyone!

I wanted to give some things if you've been having trouble finding agere stuff! Enjoy everyone :)

🌟 YouTubers 💫

Moon Candy / Pinksugarhartt

lia ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ / angellimbed

tt's dollhouse / bwallerina

ItsSageʕ·ᴥ·ʔ / ItzMe_Sage

elfipup / elfipup

bunnie! 🩷🐇 / vexedbabie

pwincess smol bean / pwincesssmolbean

Chubibunbuns / Chubibunbuns

Minty (* ^ ω ^) / Mintyssocks

punziebell / punziebell

Babie Dani ♡/ BabieDani

Sugarplum's Agere / sugarplumsagere7141

AspenSprout/ aspensprout5212

🎼 Playlists 🎶

age regression / little space playlist! - uncreative

⋆˚࿔ 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 / 𝐀𝐠𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝜗𝜚˚⋆ - ♡ bugz safe space ♡

♠︎ 「 Agere Music Box Playlist V1 」 ♠︎ - funtomnoms

Silly Kiddo! - An Agere Playtime Playlist - Mikey_LittleSpace

Age regression / little space playlist - Kiki

🍼💤 Gamer baby! ☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★ littlespace music box playlist 💤🍼 - Tommy

agere playlist! - happy background music - Tommy

Relax Little One - An Agere Sleep Playlist (Music Box + Rain) - Mikey_LittleSpace

🍭 Ideas🌷

Draw!

Read!

Play video games!

Watch some shows!

If you have chalk, draw on the sidewalk!

Do a puzzle!

Play with plushies if you have them!

Write about your day!

Make some crafts! It can be bracelets, pottery, or whatever you can find around the house!

Take a walk if you feel adventurous!

🍀 Health 🐸

Make sure to eat plenty of food, you need to be healthy and strong to take on the day.

Drink plenty of liquids as well! It might be fun playing, but staying hydrated is just as important.

If you have any medication that's been prescribed to you, don't forget to take it as well. Don't forget to take care of yourself, and make sure that you have your medicine!

Exhausted? Don't feel afraid to take a nap! If you ever get sleepy, just know that you'll be able to play and have fun in the morning... Make sure to rest up and stay strong :)

Be sure to stay clean as well, and scrub good! Make sure that you wash properly and do a good job. I know it may seem daunting, but it's well worth it.

❤ Support and Love 💌

Know that without a doubt, I support you, and want you to have a great day / night! You are valid and are such a brave kid, even if you don't think of yourself as brave, I do. Stay your amazing self, and just know that I'm cheering you on every step of the way! :D

(Dividers made by @kodaswrld )

[woantohae]

In my arms || (Bob Reynolds x reader)

Summary: The Thunderbolts are constantly on missions, busy trying to do good and save whoever they can. One of them was Bob Reynolds, the defenseless yet powerful man who is part of this team and family. However, he doesn't participate in these missions so he can continue practicing controlling his powers.

Despite telling them he's capable, the team prefers to give him more time to get used to them, until one mission, when a member of the team is injured. And all Bob can think about is the fury he feels when he hears Y/N being hurt. And how much he wants revenge on whoever did it.

content warnings: angst, he fell first and he fell harder, "avengers" tower, fluff, thunderbolts being a family, violence, curse words, SPOILERS FOR THUNDERBOLTS*, Yelena and Bob being like brother and sister, "touch her and you die" trope.

Author's note: I WATCHED THUNDERBOLTS*!!!! And let me tell you, it was better than i imagined. Honestly, it became one of my favorites and it can easily be in my top 3 of Marvel movies. I just can't describe the experience with enough words, but the waiting was totally worth it ✨️ AND THE POST CREDIT SCENE 👀 MARVEL ATE WITH THAT ONE.

With that being said, i'm excited to tell you that i'm gonna write more of Bob Reynolds 👉🏻👈🏻 So here you go, a one shot with him, wich contains a few spoilers of the movie. At this point our reader will be polaris lol.

Hope you like it and comment what do you think of this one 💌

Bob was getting used to the place.

What had once been Avengers Tower had now become his new "home." He had an incredible view of New York City, several rooms to hang out in, thousands of dishes and meals he'd never been able to prepare in his life, and the pleasant company he shared every day.

The team had made him feel comfortable and part of something worthwhile, despite what they'd gone through to get to this moment.

Bob still felt guilty about what happened when Void took control of him and darkened everything in its path, even when Yelena reminded him it wasn't his fault and that he wasn't alone. The blonde had become a trusted person for him and was always there when he needed her. He told her his secrets and how he felt, and the Russian always gave him advice or a word of encouragement. Even with the trust he had in her, he confided in her something he never thought would happen to him. Or rather, something he thought was impossible to happen in such a short time.

He was attracted to Y/N.

The girl whom his other self had caused to see horrible things from her past, the one who could move metal objects with a simple flick of her fingers, and the one who made his heart race and his cheeks blush. It was a feeling that consumed him every time he was near her or even thought about her.

And Yelena, being the good spy she was and good at reading people, knew how Bob felt about Y/N. She always encouraged him to get closer and talk to her more, but Bob simply couldn't do it. It was not that easy.

"It sounds easy," John says, after hearing the plan for carrying out the mission.

Bob shakes his head to return to reality and ignore such thoughts.

"Wait until we get there and they welcome us with open arms," ​​Bucky says, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"We still made it last time, and look at us here," Y/N replies, shrugging her shoulders.

Ava laughs and shakes her head.

"We'd better get moving," she says.

Bob looks at the group with hope in his eyes, but feels unsure about what he's gonna say.

"Can I come with you, guys?" he asks.

All heads turn to look at him with a mixture of surprise and sympathy for his question. They know he wants to help however he can, but after Void was under control and hadn't appeared for quite some time, they weren't so sure it was a good idea to expose him like that again.

"Bob..." Yelena begins to say.

Bob hurries to explain himself.

"I know what you're gonna say. But I think I'm ready, I know I can control it" Bob says with determination in his voice "I've been practicing and trying to talk to him, so maybe I can do it, today"

"We know, Bobby," says John, "But we must complete the mission without any mistakes or problems along the way."

The brunette looks down and clears his throat, nodding. He raises his gaze to smile and meet Y/N's gaze, who smiles back.

"No, no, I understand," he says dejectedly. "When the time is right, I can come with you."

Bucky pats his shoulder and Alexei gives him a thumbs-up. Despite their attempt to lift his spirits, he can't help but feel useless and without any reason to be in the group, other than washing dishes, tidying the place, or reading books he finds lying around.

He hates the feeling.

But it is what it is, right now. And he has to face it.

After the meeting to organize the plan, the group dispersed to look for the weapons and prepare the car in which they would go to the location. Bob watched from afar as the rest of them prepared, while playing with his fingers. He shifted his gaze to the large window overlooking the city and didn't feel Y/N's presence approaching him.

"Hey," she said in a soft tone.

Bob turned his head to look at her and smiled delightedly.

"Hey," she asked.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He nods and laughs softly, pretending to be okay and swallowing the feeling that bothered him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine"

The girl mimics his smile and stares at him, while Bob feels the heat spread to his cheeks.

"Hey, how about we watch a movie when I get back?" she offers, patting his arm to get his attention.

Bob smiles.

"I was actually thinking it could be a movie night with just us. If you like that idea," Y/N says, crossing her arms and shrugging her shoulders with a smile on her face.

"A movie would be nice. I think it would be fun to have a movie night with the rest of the team," he says awkwardly "We haven't had one of those in a while, so..."

She lets out a soft laugh, thinking how cute he looks all flustered.

"Oh..." he remains silent to calm his nerves until he speaks again so as not to make a fool of himself. "Oh! Yeah, just the two of us. Of course. It could be fun. Count me in!"

Y/N smiles and laughs softly, wich sounds angelical to Bob's ears.

"Great. It's a date" she says.

Bucky calls her to let her know they're about to leave, so she starts walking away from Bob.

"See you, Bob."

"See you. Good luck," Bob says with a dazed smile on his face, remembering the girl's words.

It's a date.

Bob walks to his room with an excited smile, feeling happiness in his chest, but when he remembers the last thing Y/N said, his eyes widen.

"Oh shit! It is a date!"

He needs to prepare for it.

----------

Bob listened and watched from the communications room to see how the team was doing on the mission.

It wasn't going so easy as they planed back in the tower a few hours ago, as they had run into a group of mercenaries who weren't going to give up so easily. The brunette just hoped everyone was okay and managed to complete the mission—and he really hoped Y/N was okay and didn't get hurt.

A feeling of anguish and anxiety was causing Bob's chest to tighten. His leg kept moving as he played with the Rubik's Cube in his hands, unable to complete a color.

The sound of bullets filled his ears, and his jaw clenched as he heard and saw Yelena or Bucky being hit. Alexei grumbled as he tried to pull a man off John to help him, and Ava took care of a few. Y/N tried to stop the bullets as best she could, but there were some hidden snipers she couldn't sense with her powers so easily.

"There's to many of them!" John complains through the earpiece in Bob's ear.

"Fuck! If we don't stop the ones from the roof we cannot go back to the car!" Ava exclaims in an almost exhaustive voice.

"Shit. C'mon guys" Bob whispers while frowning his eyebrows at the scene.

"Bob, can you see how many are on the roof?" Yelena asks from the communicator in her ear.

"Uh, yeah, yeah" he says inmediatly "There's five on the roof. Three of them has guns and two of them are programming something on the computer. Seems like.... oh no"

"What Bob?" Bucky asks.

"It's a bomb! You need to get out of there" Bob says quickly.

"Shit," Yelena curses.

"I can try to stop them. But I need you to cover my back," Y/N says in a confident, hurried tone.

Bob watches as the girl begins to head toward the other side to attack the group of men with guns at the entrance. The others try to stop anyone from attacking her, and she moves stealthily between the bodies to reach the entrance. Bob focuses his attention on the cameras in the building that shows Y/N, his heart aching at what's happening in the footage. Or what could happen.

"Please, be careful," Bob whispers.

Y/N stops the guards' bullets at the entrance with precision in her movements and attacks some who plan to hit her. Bob's eyes glance at the rest of the team as they manage to escape thanks to the distraction caused by the girl with green sparkles flashing from her fingers. However, he doesn't stop for more than five seconds just to check on the girl again. He wants to make sure she's okay, even if it's from behind the computer. Far away from the place where she is right now —just the thought of it makes his inner self freak out.

Something it's beginning to awake inside of him. Something he thought he had buried for his own good.

Or rather someone.

"Y/N, all done. Let's head to the car. I'll try to get to you right away," Bucky orders.

"No. It's okay, I got this," she chimes in stubbornly.

Bob shakes his head.

But before she can do so, a stray bullet hits her shoulder, destabilizing the girl.

"Fuck!" she complains, touching her shoulder.

"Y/N?" Bucky asks worriedly.

"Y/N!" Bob yells, watching as one of the guards hits her with her gun on the back of her head, causing the girl to fall unconscious to the ground.

That's it.

Bob rushes out of the tower's communications room and runs to the balcony, where he takes to the air with determination. He doesn't stop for a second, because time is precious, especially after seeing Y/N getting attacked. The only thing that keeps repeating in his mind is the visual image of the girl being injured, so he moves quickly through the air until he reaches the others. He had seen the coordinates and the area where they were, so it was easy for him to arrive in time.

Bob tries to find the place that the camera allowed him to watched the area in wich the girl was back at the tower, and when he finds it, he is surprised to find that one of the men responsible of attacking Y/N is carrying her unconscious body in his arms. Fury courses through his veins at the sight, and he rushes to stop the bastard. It's as if he's being consumed by darkness, a sensation he knows all too well.

As soon as he's in front of the guy, he stops him and without a second thought, tries to attack him, careful not to hit Y/N. The man looks at him in horror and carefully places the girl's body on the ground, then raises his hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know..." he stumbles, but all Bob sees is red.

He growls and begins to mercilessly beat the man's body, making him bleed, and doesn't stop until he's unconscious. Blow after blow, unleashing all the anger he felt at seeing how the bastard hurt the girl. He can still see her grimace of pain and how her body fell unconscious to the ground, helpless, and who knows what they might have done to her if he hadn't arrived in time.

"Please...." the man begs almost unconscious.

Bob doesn't hear him. He doesn't want to.

And Void doesn't want to too.

The rest of the team arrives at Y/N's location, only to see her lying on the ground with a scarlet stain forming on the shoulder of her suit, while Bob kills the man. Ava approaches the girl's body and makes sure she has a steady pulse, while John makes sure that no one appears and attacks them by surprise.

"Bob," Yelena warns and tries to approach him to make him see reason.

"No! He hurt her. No one can touch her, or hurt her!" he exclaims in a mixture of anger and darkness. "No one! You heard me? Fucking no one!"

The others stare at the scene and notice how Y/N wakes up and observes the state Bob is in. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, she rushes over to him and wraps her arms around him from behind, resting her face on his.

"Bob, hey. It's okay," she murmurs in his ear, feeling the man begin to slow down the blows, so she tightens her grip on his body. "I'm okay. Everything will be okay."

Bob calms down and brings his now covered in blood hands to Y/N's arms, then turns his body and hugs her with all his strength, trying to cover her body to protect her just in case, and also feel her in his arms and make sure nothing happens to her anymore.

"You are hurt" he whispers in her ear.

"It's just a scratch. I'll be fine" Y/N says with a small smile on her lips.

"He hurt you. I couln't allow him to do it" he says in a broken voice.

Y/N looks at the rest of the team and smiles at them, letting them know she's okay. Kinda. Bucky sighs and shakes his head at the girl in that state, knowing she must be screaming from the pain of the bullet, while Alexei smiles sideways and tries to encourage her from a distance. The blonde russian girl mouths to her that she will get the car ready to go, to wich Y/N nods and indicates her to do so.

"We still have our date," she tells him, still standing with the brunette, glancing at the man's lifeless body.

Bob lets out a sigh and nods his head against Y/N's chest, agreeing with her.

"Our date," he says in a soft tone, relaxing at the touch of her fingers in his hair. Although he can't help but feel anger again when he smells the metallic scent coming from the girl's wound.

"Yeah. Are we still up to that?"

"Definitely" Bob answers and lets out a small laugh.

She smiles and then pulls away from him to look him in the eye. Those blue orbits who watch her with a spark on his eyes.

"So let's go home and have our date, okay?" Bob nods and then lowers his gaze to the girl's wound.

"First, we need to treat your wound," he says, pointing to the red stain on her suit.

"Would you help me with that?"

"You don't have to ask me twice."

They both stare at each other with a small smile on their faces, understanding how much they care for each other and would do anything to keep them safe and viceversa.

Especially Bob.

And as long as Y/N is in his arms, he'll be okay.