#for a medical condition anyway so it doesnt matter but if it WERE for a mental health day umm 🤔)

[electoons]

Like fr if you interview or start a job at a small place and you're like wow this place is so chill and cool it's nothing like that big corporate retail place I worked at!!................keep your head on a swivel that's all im saying. keep your guard just as high up as it was in that corporate place and demand documentation of every meeting you have w your boss

[tears-of-boredom]

okay The Hustle is like actually a pretty cute movie, like it fr left me a smile on my face. I can even endure the annoying pop song of the credits for it. also, that is another white boy. slightly different breed but like, same genus still if you catch my drift. but i think i missed the comedy part? like I was very doubtful of the movie at first because it was a comedy and i don't usually really like them tbh, but I like, did not notice any joke in this?? like I know that there were some, but i guess i just thought myself a bit more perceptive. anne hathaway's accent stuck for me apparently. was the part with penny in jail supposed to be comedy? i guess i just dont know what a normal reaction to comedy is. I also watched the first episode of the first season of doctor who, and this is related because I laughed so hard when it was confirmed that the london eye was the like transmitter. not because of the actual joke they did, but because it was literally the first thing i thought of when the doctor gave the description. it was really funny to me that it was literally like one of the top 5 tourist attractions. and also it was funny that they both needed to see the ferris wheel to realise that it's even a possibility. like, london + big circle? you should think about the eye of london immideatly, and then keep thinking of other answers because why the fuck would it be that simple. and I genuinely laughed at that. but then like, i just kind of,, enjoyed the vibe of The Hustle. like there was no part where i laughed, or thought "thats funny". instead i just really enjoyed how light and silly the vibe of the movie was. though, you know, my eat the rich senses were going off the whole time with anna's character, so I didnt enjoy her that much. like, I know that people will just see a girlboss and like her because she "slays", but honestly i never get those things. rich people should be slayed, regardless of whether they slay or not. especially if theyre not even like nice people.

like, I just...I guess she gets a bit of sway with me because she seems to just rob other rich people, but still. whats it matter when she seemingly just hoards the money anyways.

sorry i am like especially on my communist bullshit rn because i personally dont have much money, and that makes me feel really anxious. i could handle it if it was just my own expenses i needed to consider, because like i can handle starving myself a bit if it comes to that, but i live in a household. and I feel really fucking guilty just living here for free. so i feel the need to cover some expenses of others when I can, although i do not need to. but now i cant do that. also I am trying to wait out the deadline of my birthday, when a medical thing i want(need) will be free.

i just fucking hate rich people ya know. oh look at me i bought this car that uses gas that has methane gas in it aren't i so cool.

why are rich people, of all people, always pushing for poor people to invest for later profits. invest 40 years of your life to 24/7 work and maybe youll be able to buy a house, easy as that! and then the same rich people are literally living every day like its their last. what are they investing in when they support oil companies? they are literally living in the moment so hard that they do not care of the "whole fucking planet actively dying" thing.

i hate hypocrites. and rich people. if I was allowed to kill every billionaire(and millionaire), on the condition that i had to literally eat them, i would leave no fucking crumbs. and I would get on some drugs to deal with whatever the side effects of cannibalism were.

wait wasn't this post about the hustle. well, you know. movies about crime are always bound to unleash my red rage. also I'm joking about me being a communist, kind of at least. because i dont know what the like, official ideals of communism are. but its just like a thing of, if someone doesnt like it when I call myself a commi, i probably wouldnt like them anyway. you have to at least be able to joke about being a communist. and I guess this works for facism too, in the way where if you joke about being a nazi, i will not like you. cus acting like a racist "as a joke" isnt really funny.

anyways I am sorry. im tired. and the whole day ive been thinking about how i want to read fanfics. and also how i want it to rain properly. and I know that I could just read the fanfics, there's nothing really stopping me,, but I guess I just dont want to be dissapointed again. the scenes and athmospheres ive been imagining in my head will always be better than any fanfic writer can create. im sorry, I genuinely am tired. i dont know whats up with me, cuz i literally woke up at noon. like I hope it isnt anything long term thats making me so tired.

[dinoburger]

no actually I do need to talk about how magical thinking about medical conditions can be extremely damning

I have coeliac disease, which is an intestinal disease meaning I have specific dietary requirements that restrict what I can eat, specifically: nothing with gluten (no not glucose, I can eat sugar, its part of wheat, malt, barley and oats are also bad for me)

even a fragment of any such substance can set off a reaction. this isnt like an intolerance, my intestine literally starts destroying itself in the process. people who don't abide the diet can make themselves extremely ill and have dire consequences such as being more vulernable to intestinal cancer.

I was diagnosed as a 14 year old. I made a lot of dumb decisions with my health because of this. the worst thing was how irresponsible other friends of mine were about it too

I let other people play russian roulette with my health all the time and even with seemingly nice gestures like "oh I made this gluten free thing especially, please try it 🥺 (despite me not knowing how thorough you were with preparation, avoiding cross contamination, checking all your ingredients etc.)" to someone literally outright saying shit like "oh yeah my friend has coeliac and can totally eat normal bread"

once I had to spit something out because the person didnt bother checking until I started eating if it was actually something gluten free or not

even if its just one mistake on your behalf, I have to suffer the consequences. If I let every other person who insisted on it gamble with my health I'd be ill all the time. I've gotten way more mature and better at self-managing but I used to be so so vulernable

being well intended doesnt justify that at all. and just because it isnt a crippling illness and isn't glaringly obvious doesnt mean it doesnt effect me or that it doesnt matter, just because you can ignore it

dont get me started on the diet obsessed nutjobs who try to make like my literal fucking illness is somehow virtuous fucking "oooohhh gluten is so bad for you anyway" man you know what they often replace gluten with in gf products? Sugar. they replace it with extra sugar. its not automatically healthier for you.

hey, if youre intolerant and it makes you feel better to avoid, good on you! but butt the fuck out of other people's health. I dont exist to justify your weird calory counting bullshit

it is the sort of thing where. Yeah, I would love for all this to be easier. I would love to take someone's word for it and be able to just enjoy myself and whatever they've made for me. But that doesnt make it a good decision, nor should you be pressuring someone into making that gamble on your behalf. its their decision. and just better not to take the risk whatsoever.

[petewentzisblack1312]

Hi… I wanted to ask this on anon so I didn’t ask on your personal, idk if this is too personal or anything to ask but

Do you have a problem with people saying they have a mental disorder if they don’t have a diagnosis? Like for me so… I have been diagnosed with anxiety but I am like 99% sure I have bipolar disorder. And like I know you can’t diagnose me so I’m not going to go into depth with my symptoms but ever since I was like, 11, I used to get very depressed to the point where I contemplated ending it but then i would snap out of it and I think for me my manic phase are hypomanic bc ive never experienced like the full range of those symptoms but my depressive phases get very rough esp if I have external stressors but it will go through what I assume to be these phases like sometimes within the day esp if I have a stressor.

I am in nursing school and I work at a psych hospital so like this isn’t coming out of nowhere, I am very familiar with all mental disorders and it was actually during my psych nursing class and learning about bipolar disorder that I was like… hm… why does this feel like a mirror right now. I am aware I should get to a therapist and get an actual diagnosis (if I had money I would lol) but like idk. Idk if it’s worth going to my doctor at my physical and being like “hey I think I have this” I am lucky enough now that I am in a good place and can manage my symptoms but I am terrified I will go through a stressor again and lose it so idk. I mean I feel like I already know the answer but I wanted to ask anyway to see your take :/

Anyway idk as a future medical professional I think self diagnosis got a bad rep and it’s like idk I think for mental disorders esp you can tell if you have anxiety and it’s a persistent problem. You can tell if you have depression. I know bipolar disorder is harder to diagnose but idk I think since I’m in the field it’s easier? Idk I felt like a sense of relief with learning about it and finding similarities and being like “well maybe that’s why I’m like that”. But idk now I’m feeling uneasy bc I don’t have a diagnosis and I don’t want to be like, stepping over people who were diagnosed. Thank you in advance if you read all this and yeah I’m sorry I know it’s a lot and this is controversial

ok this is a long post so im putting it under a cut but tldr, no i dont have a problem with it. it doesnt matter if you actually have an illness, it matters if you find a solution to your problem. if treating yourself like you have a certain condition makes it easier to go through life, then keep doing what works for you, you are doing nothing wrong. this all goes for physical and mental illnesses.

im a firm proponent of self diagnosis. i wouldnt be here if i didnt have the confidence to research mental illnesses and advocate for myself. as someone who is extremely familiar with the medical profession on account of being the daughter of a doctor and a nurse and spending my childhood running around a hospital, im extremely privileged to even have the knowledge and ability to do so, and i try to bear in mind the understandable hesitancy of people without this advantage. i know that you are well within your right to refuse medication that makes you sick, i know that you can complain about a doctor that isnt listening to you, i know that you are allowed and encouraged to be adamant about things you are told dont matter, and in addition to that, i have a VERY well known doctor and a nurse in my corner, and i am STILL treated as though i do not understand my own experiences enough to have any authority more often than i am not.

the reason self diagnosis gets a bad rep imo is because people have constructed this boogeyman of the worst case scenario, people collecting mental illnesses they dont have for attention as opposed to what it is, people doing research into their experiences and making theories on what they have so they can manage it. youll often see the take of "i dont hate self dxd i just hate people who do it for attention" and i think thats very irresponsible considering a symptom of many mental illnesses is thinking youre faking it and doing it for attention, nevermind the fact that attention seeking behaviour is literally a symptom of many mental illnesses people often dont want to empathize with. gatekeeping whos illness is real just keeps people who need help out. i could go into an anarchist screed about democratizing health, but basically, as someone whos life has been saved by my insistence on self diagnosis, and whos life has been made significantly easier by treating myself as though i have the conditions that i theorize i have, self diagnosis saves lives, and i, as an advocate for disabled people of all kinds on my island, will never put any conditionals on self diagnosis. it doesnt matter if you find the right name for your problem, it matters if you find a solution that works. i have yet to meet any of these fabled people who never try to receive a professional opinion, only people who literally cant.

as for feeling guilty, ill repeat how i opened this answer: it does not matter what exactly your problem is, it matters that you find a solution that works. in medicine generally, there will be a wide spectrum of problems with overlapping treatments, things which are similar but distinct, things which look identical but are completely different and at different levels of concern. it doesnt really matter which grab bag of bullshit your brain is reaching from, it matters that you know how to deal with what it throws at you, whatever that may be. dont worry about getting it right, worry about getting it working. okay?

for advice on how to deal with doctors, its helpful to pose it as a hypothetical as opposed to an absolute. when i bring up things im dealing with that i have a theory about i say "i think i have x" or "i think i might have x" or "i have a lot of symptoms of x". doctors are often egotistical and are easily challenged so it helps to pose it at a problem they can solve as opposed to one youve solved for them otherwise they get spooked. in my experience posing it this way leads them to actually interrogate this line of symptoms, and theyll ask you why you think that, and you can bring up symptoms that led you to that conclusion, and ones that give you trouble especially. for example, ive said "i think i may have autism or adhd? or both" to several doctors, and they either agree with me (i believe its been put in my file as a possibility now although i cant get an official test done due to financial and resource restrictions) or they ask why i think so, and i detail what i believe is due to my autism. its small, but this reframing helps a lot.

i think this covers all you said but my head is empty as hell.

[autumn-foxfire]

What Im thinking about today: BNHA n stigmatization of psychology.

The thing is, we as humans are very ready to help each other (most of the time). Thats why we try to rehabilitate prisoners, thats why we volunteer, thats why proffesions such as doctors, social workers and psychologists etc exist. I think we talked here before how most villains in the series havent been failed by heroes, they've been failed by societal safety nets that were meant to catch ppl like them, just like social workers try to catch endangered kids and psychologists try to catch people with mental problems.

Now i study psychology so ill concentrate on that. Obviously it depends from place to place but mental care is still very often looked down upon as 'something for crazy people.' I have personal expirience with that as when i suggested to my dad that maybe he should look into a psychologist too (after my brother started going to one) cuz he has some issues that he could use a hand dealing with, his response was 'what? But im not crazy'. I study psychology and he still often makes jokes about me treating crazy people in the future. I interviewd a school psychologist for a class and she told us that one of the first things she has to do in a school is get students to relax and feel comfortable coming to her with problems cuz there is a very clear stigma in everyones mind that asking for help with your mental problems is something bad, something wrong, something that means you are crazy, wierd, other and people do fear that stigmatization. Going to a psychologist doesnt mean you are crazy, it means you are having problems that you cant deal with on your own and that you need proffesional help with. Nothing more, nothing less. Those problems can be depression or they can be helping you to deal with lingering emotions from your divorce. Big or small, psychology is simply there to give you support and tools you need to feel good again. You wouldnt stigmatize someone for going to the doctor for a soar throat or cancer so you shouldnt stigmatize someone seeking p much the same help for mental illness.

But people still do because things ingrained in society are very very hard to uproot and things are going for the better with every generation but its a painfully slow process and there is no telling how many people fall through that net because they dont seek help when they still can because they think 'im not crazy im not gonna go to those mumbo junbo psychologist that mess with your head' which is very much like going 'im not gonna go to a doctor for my infected wound, they would mess with my body'. Untreated infections spread and get worse and people fall through.

This is what leads me back to bnha. We dont know exactly how long the world of quirks existed, i think i saw a post breaking it down to be for about 100-300 years but for the life of me i cant remember. We know its not terribly long. 100 years may seem long until you remember a single human can live to 100 years old. Now my question is, if a science such as psychology that has been present since like ancient greeks n egypt n stuff can still be stigmatized.

How accepted would quirk counseling be?

Lets not forget that quirks were heavily discriminated against in the begining, treated as monsterous and the other and the acceptence of them is still something fresh and more extreme mutations still face hate groups. Like its completly canon that there are people alive now in bnha whos parents or grandparents faced discrimination or died because of quirk discrimination (cough redestro cough).

Imagine being Togas parents.

Your child displays a quirk like that. You still have in memory your parent or grandparent who was discriminated and monsterized because of a similar quirk. Quirk counceling exists but why should you take your daughter there. Shes not a monster, this isnt something you should get someone else involved with, its a family matter and what do those counselors know anyway, they will treat your daughter as a monster and make everything worse. You can handle this yourself, you can teach her to supress it. Shes not a monster.

The wound festers.

This especially goes hard for japan whos big on the keeping things in the family aspect and not discracing the family. The stigma is still fresh in the memory and you dont want to be that family whos kid goes to quirk counseling. You shut the doors, you shut the windows, you deal with it within the family.

I think that while quirk counseling exists in bnha, it would most likely be seen as something thats shameful to atend, a admitance that you dont have control over your own quirk. Your friends might say 'what the fuck man why are you going there, you arent a monster' even if a quirk that has negative effects should be treated as shortsighted eyes that need glasses. Just because it doesnt function well, doesnt mean its bad. But well stigmatization of disabled is a whole nother thing our society also has problems with and that also connects to bnha (cough aoyama cough). I think thats why its so easy for people in bnha to fall through those safety nets. I do belive they exist but they are new, probably not the most super effective as most new things tend to be and are probably looked down upon.

And hate to break it to shiggy and the crew but thats the kind of a problem that can only be fixed my longterm education and normalization of asking for help rather then burning the systhem to the ground.

I hope that made sense i always get a little loopy with my points when i write a long one fgdgff

No, it makes sense.

Mental health is still stigmatized everywhere, even here in the UK where we’re supposed to have some of the best health care available (which is debatable). To bring something a little personal into this, my flatmates and I were playing a guessing game where I had to describe a word with other descriptions being taboo (in my case it was headache) and as my flatmates know I suffer from chronic headaches, I said as a clue that it was something I get often. Well, a flatmate who was a little tipsy at the time who knows about my depression shouted depression to my other shocked flatmates (I didn’t mind, in fact I found it hilarious). But after we had all calmed down, one of my flatmates said something that stuck with me: “Maybe you shouldn’t overshare things”.

Now, I don’t see telling people I have depression as something I’m oversharing. It’s not private, it’s a mental health condition I suffer from that can kill me if it goes unchecked (before starting medication again, I was very suicidal). In fact, it benefits both me and my flatmates to know that I have depression just in case. And yet it was viewed as something that I was “oversharing”.

This attitude has only arisen because people treat mental health as something that is shameful and should only be known among family members. In fact, I had no clue that DASS (a disability service in uni) was actually also for mental health issues because we’ve been raised with people treating mental health as something “in our heads” and so isn’t as important as physical disabilities, it was only until my uni pointed out that it was there for every condition, physical and mental.

The point I’m making is that I can totally see mental health in BNHA be treated as a shameful secret. Japan doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to mental health anyway (don’t they have some of the highest suicide rates?) so it wouldn’t surprise me if the BNHA universe is the same. In fact, the only mental health issues we’ve seen in BNHA currently are the extreme examples of it such as Twice and Dabi’s mania.

I would love to see Horikoshi delve a little more into quirk counselling and the potential stigma behind it. I know it’s been brought up once or twice (UA treats it as something normal but as teachers who see mental health issues all the time, it’s no wonder that they do) but not enough in my opinion when it’s probably one of the most important stop gaps between making villains.

I don’t have much hope, admittedly, but it would be something fun to explore in fanon too!

[nightcoremoon]

don't get me wrong, fat positivity is good and necessary but now I've seen my first post about how it's now ableist to say weight has nothing to do with their health because health isn't the pinnacle of human achievement and to imply otherwise is bigoted against people who have health complications. so basically if you say that fat people shouldn't be treated as lesser because fat has nothing to do with health you are oppressing people with asthma, diabetes, and cancer. not only is that really fucked up in the "fuck fat positivity" manner as well as the "trivializing health complications for woke points" manner, it's also fucked up because heart disease and such caused by morbid obesity caused by overeating shit food and doing zero physical activity caused by mental trauma, an explicitly american invention (since most other countries around the world are super intolerant towards people of a wider disposition), is a huge problem afflicting a few million people. morbid obesity is not fatness, it is itself a medical condition that leads to strain on the heart and knee problems. people DIE from it. most of the problem is that this is such a new medical phenomenon that's become a potentiality only in the past couple decades that there's very little available help for people like that that isn't just "give them liposuction" because THAT DOESNT ADDRESS THE ISSUE. which is usually they were abused as a child or raped and turned to food to cope or make their body as sexually undesirable as possible (not to say that fat people cant be sexy but society instilled otherwise in people's minds). and by pushing the "ableist" angle, you're sweeping them under the rug to push your own agenda.

there are obese people who exist who are negatively impacted health-wise by all of the excess cellulite. it is a health condition. it isn't something that makes a person lesser. there are fat people whose weight does not affect their overall health. there are fat people whose weight does affect their health. but the fact of the matter is that there are people who treat fat people like shit because they don't know the goddamn difference between fat and obese because they think they know everything. the problem is the ignorant and intolerant people prejudiced against those with different shaped bodies. not the fucking vocabulary that fat activists use.

and anyways, asthma and diabetes and cancer are not identities. they are sicknesses that we need to find cures for in order to save lives. because people DIE from these. in large part, children who can barely formulate coherent thoughts, whose lungs and livers and cell growth kill them before they have the chance to live a fulfilling life that isn't shackled down by buying overpriced inhalers and insulin and destroying their bodies with radiation in the hopes it could extend their lives by a couple years. it's not like being deaf or paraplegic, or other physical disabilities of that ilk. that's why thise are called disability rather than disease. stop policing fat activists vocabulary for woke points. you're annoying.

[dragonwitch77]

Subcon Apartment Ch2

Snatcher was not a nice person.

Nope.

Totally not a good guy.

A very not so nice guy you would want to meet.

Mean?

Yes.

Rude manners?

Defiantly.

Find your pain fun?

Most certainly.

Any friends?

No.

Pick a fight?

Been to jail a couple of times.

Weaponry?

Advise not to leave anything sharp or deadly within his reaching range.

People person?

Only if he wanted something. Usually nothing good.

Listen to loud obnoxious music?

Loud enough for the neighbors neighbors to hear. And he does this on repeat.

Trickery?

…

Thieving or robbery?

He’s not low enough to steal from a bank. Doesn’t mean he shoplifts time to time.

Blood on his hands?

Well, he wasn’t sure.

But, still, Snatcher was NOT a good person.

Yep, most defiantly not a good person.

So why did he have a pecking small girl in his arms?!

“WHY DO YA HAVE A KID?!”

Snatcher flinched, the child in his arms flinching and burying her face against his chest. “Jeez, lighten up old timer. You’re scaring the kid.”

“Ah’m Scaring The Lass?! Why Do Ya Even HAVE A Kid With Ya?!”

“My word! They’re as thin as a twig!” Cookie came over, looking at the child top to bottom. “They’re in rags and—are those scars?! What in the world Snatcher!”

“I didn’t do this! She always had them!” Snatcher slapped a hand over his mouth. Eyes were on him.

“Snatcher, darling. Is there something you’re not telling us?” Grooves peered over his sunglasses, staring in worry with Cookie and the Conductor.

Seeing there was no way out of this now, Snatcher sighed in defeat. “I’ve been visiting this kid over a month.” He rolled his eyes as collective gasps filled the room. “Nothing important mind you! Kid was barely alive when I found her so I’ve been giving her some scraps to eat.” He adjusted his hold on the girl. “I just recently got her trust me enough to hold her.”

“Ya shouldn’t even be holden her!” Conductor stomped over to the tall individual, making a grab at the small child.

“Whoa! Mind your hands old timer!” Snatcher backed away from the Conductor’s grasp, keeping the child out of his reach. “She’s a fragile thing!”

“An’ you are a no good peck neck bum!”

“Language man!”

“Boys! Boys! Enough!” Cookie got between them, shooting a stern look at the Conductor. “You’re not helping anything and jostling the poor girl around!” She turned to Snatcher, looking him dead in the eye. “Snatcher, where did you find this girl? And why haven’t you told us about her till now?”

“Like I could even tell you about her.” Snatcher snorted. “Like I said earlier, I’ve been visiting her for over a month now. She… wasn’t living in the best place.”

“Where?” Conductor glared at him, placing his hands on his hips.

“Sheesh. Pushy much? At an old abandoned building I was, uh, exploring.”

“Exploring? Or vandalizing?”

“Hey! It’s not vandalizing if no one owns it.” Cookie rolled her eyes. “Anyway, the kiddo was hiding in one of the rooms and… in bad shape.” Snatcher chuckled slightly though, there wasn’t any mirth in his tone.

“Darling, why haven’t you taken her to the police? Or anyone with medical knowledge?”

“Do you people have short term memory or something? I said I just recently got her to trust me to hold her.” He looked at the girl. “She’s… shy around other people. Plus, what could I say to the police? Hey! I found this kid in an abandoned building that’s on its last legs with a bunch of open wounds and scars on her body! She’s pretty thin too, almost like a skeleton! Her parents? Don’t know! I hadn’t seen anyone else around who could have done this to her! Have a nice day~” Snatcher frowned deeply. “Yeah, that’s sure to go over very well with them.”

DJ Grooves gave a disproving look to Snatcher, crossing his arm. “Snatcher.”

“Look I don’t have the best track record okay?! One way or another they’ll think I did this to her, which I didn’t. I couldn’t take her to the police because I’d end up in cuffs. And I couldn’t take her to see a doctor because… I don’t know any good doctors to go to for… this.” He gestured to the kid. “I mean. Are there any doctors for this?”

Silence hung in the room as the three looked at each other. The child’s condition was bad. But was there a doctor out there who could help fix what this small girl had been through?

“Ay ay ay ay ayyy… Spook, yer really puttin’ yerself in a deep end. Are ya even sure she was alone?”

“Checked every nook and cranny of the place. She was the only one there.” Snatcher sighed, easing the girl to his other arm.

“Darling… you know we can’t let this slide under the police radar. They have to know about this.”

“Yeah? Well it’s not going to be me walking right up to them.”

“Listen, boys.” Cookie claimed everyone’s attention onto her. “Maybe it’d be best if this girl sees a doctor first before bringing the authorities into this. Just to make sure that she’s not in any danger.”

“Works for me!” Snatcher smiled, gazing down at the kid. “Though, it’s going to be some difficulty for the kid. She’s still a shy little thing.”

“Little is right!” The Conductor shoved his way forward, looking at the girl up and down. “She’s no bigger than a toddlin’ toddler! No bigger than a wee babe! How old is she even?”

“two.”

The four adults looked at the child in surprise. She silently stared back at all of them.

“Wait, two?!” Snatcher choked. “You’re two?!”

“That can’t be right darling!”

“THE LASS IS A TODDLER?! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS WOULD—WHEN I FIND THE PECK NECKS THAT DID THIS!”

“Conductor please! Calm down!”

Much to say that that night was a night that wouldn’t easily be forgotten. No matter how much they wanted to or couldn’t. And to say the least, no one slept easy that night.

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Somewhere on Your Road Tonight (ch. 14)

Sara and Leonard made a life for themselves, together in 1958, after the Waverider left them, Ray and Kendra behind. But now they're back on the ship, Mick has been twisted into Chronos, Kendra is pregnant, and Savage is still out there. They'll deal--together. (Sequel to "Chances Are.")

Second "Destiny" chapter. Pieces are coming together. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Since Rip, Raymond and Mick seem like they might have the better chance at anything having to do with the ship and getting away from the Time Masters, Leonard takes the responsibility of getting Stein to the medbay. The older man is trying to move as best he can, but he’s clearly suffering, and Leonard can’t help a prickle of sympathy.

Once the professor is settled into one of the chair-bed things, with an IV of medication Gideon has prescribed to at least keep him more comfortable, Leonard hesitates, uncertain. He wants to go find Sara, but leaving Stein alone to contemplate his plight seems…well, cold, even to him.

“Anything help you other than getting the kid back?” he drawls uncomfortably, sidling toward the chair. The ship shakes a little as he does so.

Stein opens an eye and regards him with an expression that’s understanding and almost kind. It occurs to Leonard that while he may have been the one on this ship who’s changed the most, the professor has changed too. He’s a far cry from the arrogant man who’d scorned Leonard and Mick back on that rooftop in Central City.

“No, sadly, Mr. Snart,” he says with a sigh. “It’s just a matter of time, I fear. And now, with Captain Hunter’s revelations about the nature of our quest itself…it seems that it’s all been for nothing.” He shakes his head. “At least Jefferson is well out of it.”

Leonard wants, no, needs, to find out more about that himself, but while they’re still in the process of getting the hell outta Dodge, it seems best not to storm onto the bridge demanding answers. As the ship jolts again, he decides to sit down next to the other man. Stein watches him do so.

“Mr. Snart,” he asks after another moment, “may I ask you a question?”

The ship shakes, lurching. Leonard decides he’d rather be distracted. “Shoot.”

“Back in the beginning. When Captain Hunter invited us on this whole…adventure.” He stops, then continues again as Leonard continues to regard him. “Why did you decide to go?”

It is, truthfully, a good question. Leonard can remember how scornful he’d been of the whole thing, at least on the surface he’d presented to the others. And it seems like the least he can do is to offer the truth to the man before him, who, it seems, is all too likely to be giving his life on this mission.

After a moment’s thought, he starts to speak, carefully. “I’ll deny it if you tell the others,” he warns Stein, who rolls his eyes but also inclines his head. “But I do care about my city.”

“At least, insomuch as no one could hurt it but you, eh?” But the professor waves a hand when Leonard gives him a weary look. “I’m sorry. Carry on.”

After a minute, he does. “I did wonder if I could…” He thinks of Sara’s words back then. “…change my fate. Either by changing the past or, as it turns out, becoming…a rather different person.” He shrugs. “And I got even more of a chance for that than I’d expected.”

Stein tilts his head and offers up some of his occasional uncanny understanding. “Your time in 1958?”

“Yeah.” Leonard hesitates again. “Amazing what a clean slate can do.”

Stein’s closed his eyes again. “Hmm,” he muses. “I daresay Ms. Lance’s presence in your life didn’t hurt either. The love of a good woman…or rather, a good person…has saved many a lost soul. Clarissa…in some ways, I think she effectively saved me.” He sighs. “I hope I get to see her again. At this point, however, I rather doubt it.”

Leonard’s not sure what to do with that. “C’mon, professor. I thought cynicism was my hallmark.”

“As you’ve said, Mr. Snart, people change.” But Stein shakes his head. “Still. I suppose that there is always hope.” He smiles a little. “In a world with time travel, is not anything truly possible?”

“And in a world with burning, nuclear-powered heroes,” Leonard tells him seriously. “And speedsters. And…”

“…and where Captain Cold is a hero.”

Leonard frowns at the older man, but Stein just chuckles. “Don’t deny it,” he tells Leonard mock-seriously. “Your actions prove otherwise.”

“Eehhhh.” He decides not to argue. “You get back to 2016, professor, don’t tell Barry Allen and his ilk that.”

Stein chuckles, closing his eyes. “I do believe I shall have to try to survive this, Mr. Snart, just to collect on all these favors you’re going to be owing me.” He reopens one eye and regards Leonard. “Please tell the others that I will endeavor not to blow up while I’m here.”

Leonard feels his own lips twitch at the words. “Appreciate that, professor.”

“As well you should.”

Despite the others’ reassurances, Sara’s still relieved when Leonard finally ambles onto the bridge. He catches her eye and she catches his, and that’s enough for now.

“Professor's in the medbay,” he drawls, approaching the others. “Promises not to blow up while he's on board, which I thought was considerate.”

Rip sighs, moving toward the holotable. “Yeah, the professor's condition is the least of our worries, I'm afraid.”

That seems a bit callous, but as Sara frowns, Ray chimes in.

“Yeah, much to my chagrin, it turns out everything we've done, maybe even our whole lives,” he says woefully, “has been determined by the Time Masters.”

“What?” Sara asks incredulously, leaning forward. She glances at Leonard, who leans on a jump seat, eyes sweeping the room. He doesn’t look surprised. Instead, he wears an expression of intense concentration.

Granted, he’s been insisting for a while that the Time Masters are pulling their strings, but this…this is more than that. Those words--which no one is arguing with--suggest that it goes back farther and deeper, that…

No. No, Sara doesn’t want to think about that right now. As it is, her stomach is twisting, thinking about the choices she’s made and the places she’s been…the people she’s hurt…

She doesn’t look at Leonard now. She can’t.

“The Time Masters have this thing called the Oculus, which allows them not only to gaze into the future, but to engineer it,” Rip tells them resignedly. “Yes, Mr. Snart. As I said before, you were right.”

But Ray speaks again before Leonard can respond. “A future where I'm dead.” Sara’s heart goes out to him as he closes his eyes, swallowing. “Guy, you gotta get Kendra back. I mean, for her sake too, but Alex…”

“We won’t leave your kid without a family, Haircut,” Mick cuts in roughly. “No matter what.” He shrugs uncomfortably as everyone looks at him. “Don’t know that we’re what you and Bird Girl would want for uncles and aunt, but I s’pose we’re better than nothing. And, hey, Snart and I know what not to do, anyway.”

Ray looks like he’s going to cry, or hug somebody, but the captain speaks up again, shaking his head.

“This is a lovely moment,” he says, just a touch acerbically, “truly. But in my opinion, Dr. Palmer's death is not part of their plan.”

“Not reassuring,” Ray mutters, then “Ow!”

Mick, apparently deciding that enough sentiment was enough, had leaned over and whacked him in the arm. Then he turns challengingly to Rip.

“You sayin’ the Time Masters wanted me to do that?” he growls.

Rip gives him a long-suffering look. “What I'm saying is that they've been engineering our lives to move in very specific directions,” he says. “And we are playing out that script even now.”

The Gambit? The Pit? All the people she’s killed? Sara closes her eyes, then opens them, rising from the captain’s chair and moving toward them. Her eyes catch Leonard’s very briefly, and she can see similar thoughts there. Did the Time Masters make sure he’d be a criminal no matter what, with the perfect skills to do what they wanted on this mission? Did he ever have a choice? Did they create Lewis? Or Barry Allen to prod him down another road?

And what about them…

Before she speaks, though, he does.

“But they’re not controlling everything,” he says, staring at Rip. “And we can still surprise them.” They’re statements, not questions. “They didn’t know that I’d left the ship in Harmony Falls.” He glances at Mick. “We know the Time Masters didn’t know I’d been left behind too.”

Rip blinks, considering that, and Mick grunts thoughtfully in agreement.

“Yeah,” he says. “They told me just what to do. And things were all different from what they said.

Ray, looking a bit encouraged, nods. “So they didn’t have anything to do with what happened to any of us in 1958.”

Sara looks at Leonard, who’s looking steadily back at her. This is still disconcerting and awful, but at least…at least they have that.

“No. They can’t control thoughts, and they can’t control feelings,” Rip tells him, almost gently. “And…they’re not in there all the time, fiddling with every little detail.” He shakes his head. “It’s a rather jarring experience, the Oculus. It’d be like performing delicate surgery with a hacksaw.”

“So, it seems they sort of…set the program and let it run, with occasional course corrections.” Ray looks thoughtful.

Sara takes a deep breath. “Well, this is interesting…and encouraging in a few ways, anyway, for what that’s worth. But we still need to figure out what to do.” She puts her hands on the holotable, scanning the others. “So, we can go to 2016, but that might be what the Time Masters want. Or we can go get Kendra...”

“Which could also be what they want,” Leonard mutters.

“Then we need to do what they don't want,” Ray says, determination brightening his voice. “If the Oculus is what they're using to control us, then we need to destroy it.”

Sara nods, but…

“No,” Leonard cuts in, getting to his feet and approaching. “Or not just that, anyway.” He takes a deep breath as the others look at him. “Look. They’re expecting us to act according to our natures. Right? That’s the whole point. They did their best to create those natures.”

“Yes?” Ray looks inquiringly at Rip, then back at Leonard. “But…”

“And the Time Bastards just made sure to give their biggest rebel, a bunch of heroes—and me and Mick—the information that they control time.” Leonard tilts his head. “What do you think they think is going to happen?”

For some reason, as soon as he’s delivered those words, something in Leonard relaxes. Not entirely, but a little. Like he’s passed a test. Delivered a message.

It’s an odd sensation, but he decides not to examine it for the moment.

“I acted against my nature—what had been my nature—when I left the ship in Harmony Falls,” he says, looking at Sara. “And they didn’t expect it or plan for it. What, now, would they not expect us to do?”

Sara hums thoughtfully. Raymond shrugs. “Give up and go back home,” he points out. “But we can’t do that.”

“Well.” Rips frowns. “I do think that going back to the place we just escaped from would seem rather unexpected.”

Leonard snorts. “Not with this group,” he says. “Seriously, Rip?”

The captain gives him the ghost of a smile. “True, indeed, Mr. Snart. But we still need to get rid of this Oculus, if we’re to have any hope of truly changing things.”

Raymond’s looking off into the distance. “I’ve spent my whole life wanting to be a hero,” he says quietly. “A hero…a hero is brave. Helps others. Makes a difference. If I can do that, to make a better life for my son…”

“So, basically, the Time Bastards would expect you to do some shit like dying while trying to blow up the Oculus.” Leonard nods when the scientist gives him a startled glance. “So, you can’t do that. You’ve gotta be selfish, Raymond.” He glances at Rip. “Can you take him back to the Refuge?”

“No!” Raymond says, even as Rip considers and nods.

“And the rest of us, Mr. Snart?” he says with resignation, but also with a small smile on his face. “As you just might be onto something here?”

Leonard can appreciate what it’s cost the captain to say that…and maybe Rip’s arrogance was something the Time Masters were counting on too. He gives the other man an understanding smirk in return.

“The rest of us…” he says slowly. “What if we split up? Rip, they’ll figure you’ll go back to the Vanishing Point. It’s personal. You and…and Sara and maybe the professor, if he’s up for it…go after Kendra.”

“Wait a minute…” Sara starts as Rip lifts an eyebrow.

“And what are we going to use to do that?” he asks drily, spreading his hands out before him. “One ship.”

“The Pilgrim’s ship is still at that old outpost, right? Leonard looks around at Mick. “You hid it.”

His friend grunts thoughtfully. “Yeah. I could fly that. Good ship.”

“Great. Then, Mick and I will blow up the Oculus.” Leonard ignores the immediate arguments. “They won’t expect the criminals to be playing heroes.”

Mick nods. “And I like blowing stuff up.”

“You’re not…”

“Mr. Snart…”

“He’s got a point.” Raymond shrugs as everyone looks at him. “We can make it work. We’re Legends, right? But one change.” He holds up a hand. “I get your meaning, Snart, about going against what they expect. But…I won’t do any good to the mission if I’m back at the Refuge. I want to go with you.”

Leonard regards him a moment, then glances at the captain. “Rip,” he drawls. “What was the Boy Scout here doing? When…What did you see in this Oculus thing?”

Rip hesitates, thinking. “He was…” His eyes widen. “It was an explosion. How did I forget that?” He looks at Raymond. “You were working on something. And there was light…you started to come apart…”

“I think that’s enough,” Sara breaks in as Raymond winces. “Rip, even if we—or some of us—return to the Vanishing Point, can they mess with us there?”

The captain shakes his head. “No, Druce told me that the Oculus' ability to control our actions doesn't work in the Vanishing Point, most likely because the Vanishing Point itself exists outside of time.”

“And we need to move,” Leonard says firmly. “If you want to have any chance to save Kendra. And your family.”

Rip looks a bit wild-eyed, but Gideon cuts neatly in, her voice calm.

“I apologize, Captain,” she says, “but I’ve already diverted us toward the outpost. Mr. Snart’s plan is a good one, and I chose to…anticipate your orders.” She pauses as Rip collapses into a jump seat and Mick barks out a laugh. “May I also point out that you have always encouraged such independence, but…a time ship AI knows what it is to be controlled by the Time Masters. I wish to help, although they are not all like me.”

Rip rubs a hand over his face. “Ah, Gideon. No one is quite like you.”

“Thank you, Captain. I shall take that as a compliment.”

“OK, then,” Ray says firmly, turning for the corridors. “I’m going to go talk to Stein, figure out how we’ll need to destroy this Oculus wellspring. Rip, we’ll need what you know.”

The captain shakes his head but gets to his feet. “This is not how I envisioned this going at all,” he comments with a sigh, then smiles. “Which just may be precisely why it works.” He glances at Mick. “Mr. Rory. You have experience as a time ship captain—and a reputation as a sneaky and very effective one. Would you work with Gideon to plot a good intercept course for Savage?”

Mick shrugs, but Leonard thinks he almost looks pleased at the words and the request. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

Leonard stands with Sara and Mick, watching as Rip and Raymond leave, then looks over at his friend. “You want help?” he drawls, folding his arms. “Might not know how to fly a time ship, but I know how to plan.”

Mick’s already deftly pulled some schematics up on the holotable. He glances over and snorts. “No,” he says, “I want you two to go get your shit together before we all trot off to hunt psychopaths or blow stuff up.” He looks back to the display. “So, get. I got this.”

“We got this,” Gideon announces. “Mr. Rory, please take a look at the path skirting Jurgens Ridge. I believe…”

She continues, and Leonard blinks at his old friend, then looks at Sara.

She gives him a slight smile and shrugs.

“OK, then,” he mutters, turning aside and heading for their room. “I know when I’m not needed.”

“Don’t whine, Mr. Snart,” Gideon tells him snippily, stopping her comments to Mick for a moment. “It’s not a becoming trait.”

Well, he thinks with resignation as he saunters for the door, at least the comment makes Sara laugh.

“I can’t believe we were just…dismissed…like that,” Sara says with faint amusement as they enter their quarters. She looks from side to side restlessly, then turns to face Leonard. “I mean, I know my skills lie mainly in hitting things until they stop moving, but…I would have liked to do something.”

Her words get a slight smile, although it’s a distracted one. “Got the feeling maybe we already did,” he drawls, leaning against the bed and watching her. “But…you OK?”

Sara laughs a little, knowing that the sound isn’t very sincere. “Well. I’m trying not to think about it too much,” she says, boosting herself up onto the bed and looking down at her hands. “I don’t know how profound the directions the Time Masters steered us in are, and I don’t think I want to know. I know I still feel responsible for everything I’ve done. And it still keeps me up at night.”

After a moment, she hears a sigh and glances over at Leonard. Her lover is staring off into the distance, a complicated expression on his face. It’s melancholy and uncertain, very unlike anything he shows the world, and something turns over in Sara’s heart as she watches him.

“Len,” she says quietly, putting a hand out and resting it on his shoulder, “what are you thinking?”

Leonard shrugs, after a moment, then looks at her.

“It wasn’t just a script,” he asks, a still, opaque expression on his face. “Was it?”

Oh.

Sara tightens her grip on his shoulder, pulling him toward her, and after a moment’s resistance, Leonard allows her to guide him. After a moment, he’s facing her, although his eyes are still darting around and not meeting hers. He exudes uneasiness and apprehension, and she can see and feel how stiff his shoulders are.

“I thought we agreed that the Time Masters didn’t even know we were there, in 1958,” she says. “When our relationship…changed. Or evolved. They weren’t pulling our strings.” She reaches up and rests a hand against his jawline, feeling the tension there. “And…Rip said, they can’t change feelings.” She takes a deep breath. “Everything we feel…it’s real.”

Finally, Leonard’s eyes meet hers, heartbreakingly wary.

“Yeah?” he asks quietly. “And what…” He pauses. “I’m not a good person, Sara. Not the sort you should…care for. I…”

Sara huffs out a breath. “Stop…listening…to Lewis,” she tells him sharply, shaking his shoulder a little, then feels guilty as he flinches. “He’s been dead for months, or longer depending on how you look at it. Stop giving his voice space in your head.”

Leonard actually looks thoughtful at that, and Sara presses her advantage, reaching up and putting her other hand on his jaw, holding his face in her hands and making sure he looks at her.

“I think we went through all this back in 1958,” she tells him. “About you being a good person. Leonard, no one’s a good person all the time, and you’ve been actively trying to be better.” She hesitates. “What would Rebecca say? Or Ginny. David?”

He mutters something, but Sara doesn’t let him off the hook. “You know perfectly well what they’d say, because they’ve said it,” she tells him fiercely. “Now, stop insulting the man I love. Or I’m going to be pissed.”

That actually gets a smile, and he studies her, eyes a saturated deep blue. It’s impossible, as the tension fades—replaced by a different sort of tension--not to realize how close they are or how very charged the atmosphere is. Leonard reaches out deliberately and puts one hand on either side of her on the bed, looking through his lashes at her, and smiles.

“Well,” he drawls, sounding a little more like himself, leaning toward her. “Can’t have that. The woman I love is quite the badass, you know.”

“Yeah?” Sara smirks in return, moving her hands down to rest on his hips, where she threads her fingers through the belt loops on his jeans, pulling him even closer. “She sounds awesome.”

“Oh, yeah.” Leonard studies her, then glances away, expression going serious again. He looks like he’s trying to make a decision, and Sara waits, wondering.

Finally, he nods, as if to himself, and meets her eyes.

“Being on this ship,” he says, quietly, bringing one hand up to touch her cheek gently, “traveling through time…” A pause. “…I’ve been wondering what the future might hold for me... and you…and me and you.”

He stops again. Sara feels like she can’t quite breathe. Is this…a proposal, Leonard Snart-style?

“You want to steal a kiss from me, Leonard?” she says lightly, giving him the chance to defuse the moment even as her pounding heart wants desperately to know what he’s going to say. “You better be one hell of a thief.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. A light in his eyes, Leonard starts to speak again…

But Gideon beats him to it.

“I am very sorry, Mr. Snart, Ms. Lance, truly, but we have arrived here, at the outpost,” she says carefully. “And time is of the essence…ah, in more ways than one. Can you meet the others at the bridge, or…”

A sigh explodes out of both of them at once, and Leonard shakes his head roughly as Sara closes her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. She wonders, briefly, if Leonard will tell Gideon that they need another moment…but then Leonard’s kissing her, his hand moving to curve behind her head, his lips warm and intent on hers, and Sara kisses him back, pulling him close, trying to memorize the feel and the taste of him before they part. It’s dangerous, what they’re going out to do, and they both know it—but if they ever want the future Leonard had spoken of, it’s something they both have to do.

They part slowly at first, staring at each other like they’re trying to memorize the sight, too. Well, Sara knows that she, for one, is.  She tucks a strand of hair behind an ear and takes a deep breath, knowing that they have to move.

“I love you,” she tells him breathlessly. “Leonard, be careful. I know you’re playing the hero now, but…I’d rather have a live crook. Got it?”

That gets her a wry, if somehow melancholy, smile. “Got it,” he shoots back. “Sara…I love you, too.” A glance away, then back. “Give Savage hell, and don’t let Rip do anything too stupid.”

He steps back, and Sara slides off the bed with a sigh, grabbing her good White Canary leathers. “I could say the same to you,” she tells him. “Don’t let Mick and Ray do anything dumb. I want you all back.”

“Promise.”

She’ll remember that, later. He’d promised.

[weareallfallengods]

Survival

Writing prompt:

If you’re over 25 and haven’t done something remarkable, you are hunted down and killed. Some people invent things. Some make cures for diseases. Others become established members of their community. You’re pushing 30, and somehow not dead yet, even though you cant think of a single thing you’ve done thats remarkable in any way. Why aren’t you dead?

I write for adults about adult themes with adult language. I try to tag possible triggers (but I know I'm not going to get all of them), so if violence or implied death or cussing bothers you, you'll probably want to find a different author.

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Somehow, that date came up again. Not quite sure how, but somehow, the number circled on my shitty wall calendar with the coffee splatter on it managed to be today. Again. It's been doing that for 5 years now.

At first I wanted to be a surgeon- save people's lives, make a difference, all that shit. Yeah, I was caught up in the hype for a while too. Just like everyone. Thought I'd make some ground-breaking discovery and change the world. Just like everyone. And then, at 22, I flunked out of med school. That was it. Dream over, kaput, fin.

When I opened my termination letter, it was like reading a death sentence. 10 years of prep and study down the drain. 3 years left. 3 years, and no idea what to do. No clue what I could do to save my own life after all those years learning how to save others.I drank for a solid month. I dont even remember that month now. My only memento from it is an entire skip of liquor bottles. It's a miracle I didn't die from alcohol poisoning. Not that I didn't try.

See, I was afraid. Scared, actually. Terrified would be more accurate, if I'm honest. I knew I only had 3 years left until they came for me. Unless I managed to do something extraordinary within the next 3 years, they'd come for me, and the only thing that would remain is a 2 paragraph obituary in the local paper, followed by a vacancy announcement. When you're suddenly forced to confront your own imminent demise, and see every dream, hope and aspiration you'd had evaporate, right in front of your eyes, its perfectly natural to drown that in a swimming pool of vodka.

But then, after a month of drowning, and a week of curing a hangover that would make Satan shudder, I got angry. Like Bruce Banner angry. As I was leaving an all night diner, the notice board caught my eye. Having nothing better to do with my life, I stood there for a while just reading every single card in detail, every single lost cat, every used car, every 5k charity run. And then I saw it. And I thought, "You know what? Fuck it, why not. I've spent all this time trying to do one thing that I've never actually done just whatever I feel like, had hobbies, anything really. Why the fuck not."

And that's how I ended up 2 days later in some shity warehouse district, rolling around on a mat with some dude I didnt even know, sweating and swearing profusely and having the time of my life. "Sasha's Self Defense" it said on the small, weathered and rusted sign on the brick wall out front, next to a door that looked like it had been transported straight from the proverbial gulag.

I'd naively thought this was going to be one of those Karate Kid knock offs for some reason when I first arrived. Sasha soon disabused me of that notion. In fact, when he saw I'd brought a new gi in a duffle bag, he laughed so hard he had to slap his ass down on a rickety folding chair just to keep breathing. Once he calmed his mirth at my expense, he let me know in a no-nonsense, 'I'm an old-timer and seen some shit in my day' heavily accented tone that this would be a class that focused on survival at all costs. "No bullshit wax on-wax off," were his exact words I believe.

And boy was he right. When I told him I'd set aside my year's tuition for lesson payments, well, wouldn't you know it, I became his most prized pupil; I quickly learned this was not a good thing. It meant 14 hours a day of the most humiliatingly punishing activity ever dreamed up by Moscow's Finest. I couldnt even move the morning after my first day. But somehow I limped my battered frame down to the bus stop and was only an hour late. Ha, only. Sasha seemed to take it as a personal insult. The only thing he hated less than sloppiness was tardiness it seemed. Apparently the 10th Circle of Hell was reserved for those who dared be late. And he made you earn your way out of that circle.

His only saving grace was fairness. If I had to suffer, at least I wasnt alone. Well, at first anyway. The few other students that suffered his wrath along side me doing slavic folk dances with wrist and ankle weights very quickly learned that this wasn't the type of class they had thought it was and soon I was alone with Sasha.

On the days I did well, I got treated to pierogies. Oh man, I lived for those pierogies. They were made by angels and served by someone I can only describe as if Jesus came back as a woman. Who was Russian. And spoke even less english than Sasha, if that was possible. His sister was as completely opposite to that sadistic maniac as it was possible to be and still be a human being. Where he was loud, she was soft. Where he was tough, she was gentle. Where he was strict, she was generous, even indulgent. Blonde to his brunette. Slim to his barrel chest. Cousin by marriage, I think they said. Well, relatives of some kind anyway. And she was the only one who could make him laugh. And when he laughed, the whole block knew! He was just that loud, that boisterous, with everything he did.

But I loved his little Anya. Just like everyone. But like in a wholesome, mom-ish kind of way. I loved her because I got to sit for an hour when she was around. Because she"d always tuck a to-go container of pierogies into my bag. Because she'd chide Sasha for pushing me too hard. In short, she was an angel.

But I have to hand it Sasha- in 4 months, he took a scrawny bookworm into someone who could pose for Men's Health. In 6 months, I could beat Ivan, his partner, in 5/10 sparring matches. In 7 months, I ran a marathon. In 9, he had me enter a triathalon. And I made it into the top 50 out of 500 entrants. Not too bad if I say so myself. In 12 months, I was beating Ivan almost every time.

And that's when the other Ivan showed up. After a year, Sasha decided it was time I learned weaponry. After all, no real fight was fair, he said. And Ivan (another cousin? Sasha had one heck of an extended family) instructed me on everything from broken beer bottles, to knives and pool cues. And my medical training paid off, because more often than not, I was the one stitching myself up if training got a little rough that day.

Eventually, I moved into the gym. Not sure how it happened, but I think I just got too tired to leave one day and never really left. Sasha didnt seem to mind since it meant I wasnt ever late again. Plus the coffee he imported was the best thing ever. Like it was so good that's probably the Extraordinary Thing he did to live as long as he had.

The days just melted together, into one long symphony of beautiful exhaustion and physical torment, as I poured myself into the first activity I could remember doing purely because I wanted to, something that numbed the dread of the finality of my life expectancy.

But then one day, one specific day, the one I'd been dreading in the back of my mind for a year came around.

They found me.

I guess they were a little slow in finding me, not surprising since I'd basically just disappeared from my old life, no forwarding address type thing. It wasnt intentional, it just sort of happened, what with me diving head first into something purely for me, without the thought of doing it for someone else. But they found me. Just like they find everybody.

See, it doesnt matter if you try to run, if you move, or change your name. They always find you eventually. I just hadn't thought about it in a long while. That year was the first time since I was probably 14 that I'm hadn't thought about the Gardeners. I guess that's why it surprised me so much.

Yeah, Gardeners. I dont know who came up with the name, in guess some misguided attempt at a positive PR spin bullshit to pass off squads of government assassins who's only job was to track down the NCs of the world and eliminate them. Sorry, NCs- Non-Contributors; the people who hit their expiration date without doing something noteworthy, something that was deemed to "advance or bolster the Human Condition" to borrow a phrase from the civics classes we had to take every fucking year of school. A cutesy sounding name that was supposed to make the government sound like a benevolent old couple pulling weeds from their garden of humanity. The worst lies always sound the sweetest, dont they?

And I was now 25.

It happened a few weeks after my birthday. Just another routine day for me, going for a light 5k run after my soak in a mineral bath. Light rain, most of the streetlights out, the few lights on in the warehouse district reflected beautifully off the streets. That's why I ran at night, all the colors changed that normally bleak neighborhood into something beautiful. It was just one little thing to balance out the harshness of reality, and I reveled in it.

I don't actually remember what happened exactly. I do recall seeing a suspiciously conspicuous homeless guy huddled under a loading dock awning, and then just a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. I think it happened really quickly; at least that's what Sasha said the next morning as he was making arrangements for me to visit another cousin of his "back in the old country". It could have been. God, after seeing the bodies around me in the aftermath, I hope, for their sake, that it was fast. 5 bodies. All still. I still remember my breath turning to blue fog, blurring the details of them. Helping me to be able to pretend I didn't see the blood mixing with the rain and oil, spreading out over the concrete like a macabre inversion of the cloudy sky above.

I'm glad they wore masks. It's bad enough having that scene burned into my brain forever, without specific people's faces being etched there as well. I'm glad I dont see their faces in my mind every time I close my eyes. I just wish I could still enjoy the rain. They managed to take that from me, even if I'm still breathing, so I guess they didnt completely fail. They just killed a part of my soul instead. But hey, there's plenty of people that don't like the rain, right? But I bet they don't smell blood when it does though.

And that was pretty much it. No sirens, no manhunt, nothing. Before I could process what was happening, I was on a bus, headed for "the old country", which, as near as I could tell, looked an awful lot like Pittsburg. Sasha's 'cousin' met me at the bus depot there, a man of very few words. Not as loud as his cousin, Zhena tended to communicate with looks, grunts and shrugs mostly. Same work ethic though.

And then the cycle repeated- 14 months this time before they caught up with me. Too bad that Zhena got caught up in it, he was a great guy. He and I didn't really become close or buddies or anything, but it still hurt to see what happened to him. To what was left of him anyway. The Gardeners definitely were trying to send a message with that. To quote an old wise man, "I didnt want to know, but now I do, and I'm telling you, you dont want to know." And that's coming from someone who was training to become a surgeon, so just trust me on this one.

This time, they were waiting for me. I think they'd planned on Zhena being enough of a distraction that they'd be able to take me out easily, but since since I woke up the next day on the floor of the sparring ring in a too large pool of blood that wasnt my own, I'd say they failed. The difference this time was I was on my own. No 'cousins' to call in favors from. No family I could call because I didnt want them getting a visit from the Gardeners either. I was alone this time.

Weirdly, I was actually OK with that. I'd been surrounded by family, teachers, advisors, tutors for so long that solitude was actually kind of nice. I could hear myself think my own thoughts for the first time in what seemed like forever.

I'm not ashamed to say that I took what little of value there was from Zhena's gym (I knew him well enough to know that Sasha was his only family) so that I could get a seedy hotel for a while. I did at least have the decency to let Sasha know, and that that would be the last he ever heard from me, to keep him out of trouble. Bad enough that 10 people were already dead, I didn't want Sasha or Anya's name added to that list because of me.

And so I vanished. Completely. Sure I travelled, kept studying and training like I had been, but never staying longer than a few months, never using the same name, copying other random people's habits and patterns so I didnt have one of my own for them to track down. Yeah it was cliche, but hey, I figured my dad watching all those spy flicks when I was young had to be good for something, right?

Sometimes I was a baker, sometimes a delivery driver, even a dock hand. Whatever it took to make a buck so I could eat.

I got really good at other things too. Like disposing of bodies. Not really a skill I ever thought I'd want or need, but Necessity is a harsh and demanding teacher. Sadly, my skill as a surgeon came in handy- bodies are easier to get rid of when they're in smaller pieces. And people are easier to turn into bodies when you know how they're put together intimately. Not what I had in mind for my life, but since it was the choice between this or dying, well, I guess I can put up with it.

I suppose that catches us all up to the present, more or less. OK yeah theres a lot that's gone down between Pittsburg and now, but it was all pretty much the same: lather, rinse, repeat. Literally sometimes. Those were the days it felt like there wasnt enough soap in the world to get all the blood off.

So here I am, I'm my single room in Kandahar, staring at the date that had somehow come up again. Every year, they send someone. Usually a team. And I survive. No matter how they come at me, or when or how many. I survive.

And I'm sitting here, staring at the calendar, steaming cup of espresso, just staring, as a light breeze fluttered the corner of the calendar page, sending the orchids dancing in the vase next to it. All I could think is, "How? How does this keep happening? I'm not even supposed to be here, not supposed to be alive."

As I raised my cup of espresso, something slid under my door. "OK that's weird," I said aloud as I stood.

The chair made an ungodly screech as I pushed it back and made my way over to where a small, cream colored envelope sat on the floor, a couple inches from the bottom of the door. It was heavy for it's size, but not because anything was in it, just the paper was that thick. Probably hand-made. It's odd the little things you notice in times of stress. Heavy, rough paper, no postmark, nothing written on the outside, just the flap tucked in, not even sealed. Reminded me of how my mother used to give out birthday cards. I always thought that was a little weird, but it was just one of her quirks that made her even more endearing to everyone.

I sat down a little heavier than I had planned and felt the chair crack a little. There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded in half; I was right- handmade paper. But that wasnt important, what was important was the heavy, blocky hand-written message it contained.

"We've been looking for you for a long time. It has come to my attention that you may have something unique to contribute after all. We may have been too hasty in judging your Ability to be a Contributor. I believe you do actually have a remarkable Ability to Survive. I'd like to speak to you this afternoon in the plaza outside the Blue Mosque. I will be alone, and you can approach me, so as to allay your justifiable suspicions. I will have a silver coffee set on the table in front of me.

I believe we can help each other, if you're willing to listen to my proposition.

-Soon,

Baddar"

Well, this is interesting.

[vaguewriting]

pjo / vld au based off of this art by @staryns​

potential outline:

First off the members of team voltron in this au are alteans will and piper, black paladin jason, red paladin leo, green paladin annabeth, blue paladin percy, and yellow paladin frank

Sometime after team voltron forms they find out about the galra’s newest weapon, a ship similar to voltron called the gemini; 1 bc theres two of them and 2 theyre basically the same age if u dont count the time travel and i like to think theyre almost like twins

The two ships that make up the gemini are basically reyna’s dogs aurum and argentum and they combine to form the three-headed dog cerberus but as a robot that’s all silver and gold

nico and hazel are the paladins obv but a little while after team voltron happens the galra get to earth and kidnap nico and hazel who are half galra and brainwash them pretty much and condition them to fight for the galra

theyre trained by commander minos who nico ends up killing bc hes aggressive and unstable and the galra are like “ooh boy lets get him out somewhere thats not here so that he kills others and not us” and they get reyna who is their engineer for some reason to create the gemini for them

They have 0 problem learning how to fly the gemini bc they know how to fly an individual ship and the two of them together are so bonded that its harder to fly individually rather than as the gemini bc of their bond

So basically the gemini harasses voltron a few times but the fights never escalate to much until one time it does and team voltron manages to separate team gemini and they capture both ships and take them back to the castle where they also basically end up keeping nico and hazel hostage

When nico and hazel are brainwashed theyre very different than normal,,, hazel is very quiet and observes everything to find something to use against others but whenever she has to interact with someone shes like that flirty kind of polite in like a very deadly way if that makes any sense??? and nico is incredibly aggressive and violent and doesnt know his own strength and hes super unstable u know like i already said and hes hella protective of hazel (but when isnt he) and he lashes out at literally anything and will fight until he literally collapses from exhaustion

When theyre not brainwashed theyre both just,, happy tbh like hazel opens up and talks to people like normal and has no idea how to flirt and nico calms the heck down and gets more quiet in the sense that hes no longer screaming profanities at his captors and talks at a very quiet volume compared to everyone else and especially compared to how he literally shouted every word beforehand

theyre pretty much rehabilitated in the castle like they get over their brainwashing i guess??? u know with a lot of help from frank and jason and will who basically handles the scientific and medical parts of all of this but through this frank and hazel bond and nico and will bond

Basically all the humans were at the garrison together so frank and hazel were like 95% together on earth and kinda wanna pick up where they left off but thats not healthy for someone who just got over being brainwashed by the enemy, and nicos was somewhat bros with the rest of them so yeah they all know each other and nico kinda chooses will over the rest of them bc im solangelo trash so ofc he will

Nico and hazel are still conditioned not to share galra secrets bc if someone finds out theyre dead for sure but nico ends up sharing with will at some point anyway bc he cant help himself and talks about how they wanted reyna to start developing another superweapon so they discuss ways to maybe get reyna to join their side bc nicos pretty sure he could convince her

Him and hazel sneak back onto the galra ship that the gemini is always stationed at and they act like theyre still brainwashed and nico gets to talk to reyna for half a second and she immediately knows somethings up but her and nico are bros and she hates working for the galra so ofc she’ll leave and they almost all get out but either nico or hazel screws up and nico gets rebrainwashed like midfight but hazel and reyna force him back onto the ship and reyna can aurum bc she designed it ofc and hazel leads her back to the castleship and they have to restart the whole process of getting nico back to normal again

Tbh its a whole lot easier this time bc will just kinda waits until nico tires himself out from trying to get away and then like,,, hugs him and like holds his cheeks and stares into his eyes and maybe kisses him idk and nico gets mostly better but hes still pretty messed up for a few days and doesnt really interact with anybody but will and hazel but they got reyna and thats all that matters tbh bc now itll be a while before the galra tries to attack

the original gemini paladin suits have some kind of galra symbol on the chest but sometime after they rescue reyna the whole group helps nico and hazel to replace that symbol with the voltron symbol that the rest of the paladins have

[yallarewild]

20 reasons why i think self dx is dangerous (as a nd/mentally ill person who’s spent a decade researching psych)

this was made purely to highlight the dangers of self diagnosis and the importance of necessary medical treatment

important disclaimers:

self dx =/= self advocacy, i.e. researching symptoms that you think you might have and trying to compare them to your own behavior without actually dxing yourself, regardless whether you are going to seek medical help. i believe this is extremely important: it can provide you w/a sense of validation to know you’re not alone, and it can put you in touch with your feelings a little more once you realize there actually may be something going on with you. 

this post is not made for the intention of judging the character of people who self dx- there are many other posts out there about the ableism factors,  the trivialization of mental illness, or the way tumblr communities handle mental illness, etc.

tl;dr: .it’s not a fucking joke, please go get checked out by a professional medical practitioner, or don’t (but pls do), but whatever you do please don’t self dx

i often see the phrase “no one knows you better than yourself” as a justification for self dx and while you’re the only one who has access to your emotions and thoughts, no one is objective about their health, thoughts, and emotions. it’s impossible to truly dx yourself with any mental disorder because you subconsciously bring different types of cognitive biases into the process – this is why “medical intern syndrome” is such a prevalent phenomenon. you might know your emotions and thoughts, but this fails to address the fact that your perception of your feelings are grossly affected by your true mental illness (which says something ab your mental illness in and of itself).

not having access to mental health care doesn’t mean you should dx yourself with a mental illness, its not black or white. i often see teenagers saying they don’t want to get a prof dx because they don’t want their parents involved and i totally understand that, ableism is so terrible and i’ve experienced it for so long, trust me. luckily, there are ways to access mental health care at little to no cost, insurance or not, without getting your parents involved, but im not here to judge those who struggle w/resources to care.

untreated mental illness does not go away & a pro dx is crucial for access to treatment, disability benefits or other types of care or services. this could literally mean life or death. the prognoses for untreated mental illnesses are across the board terrible and may have devastating effects on your life: the longer they���re left untreated because you decided to not seek treatment, the more disabling they’re going to become. like one argument for self dx is that not everyone can access mental health care/resources…so instead they do something that literally prevents them from accessing resources….. uhhhhhh ??

you could put yourself in grave danger because symptoms of mental disorders may actually be life threatening symptoms of serious physical issues requiring medical care: thyroid issues, liver damage, vitamin deficiencies, blood/bone/brain infections, neurological disorders, many types of cancer, autoimmune disorders, brain tumors, epilepsy, diabetes, etc

you could put yourself in grave danger because you may be dealing with early symptoms of a more serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, DID, etc. there are many early symptoms that mask other disorders. obv all mental illnesses are very serious but if you self dx with depression because you’re experiencing the “negative” symptoms of schizophrenia: lethargy, lack of affect, etc. you may not think a pro dx is necessary and early treatment is crucial for successful long term treatment of schizophrenia.

there is so much misinformation about what symptoms look & a psychiatrist is able to determine the degree and direction of the symptoms. there is a huge spectrum within each symptom and it honestly takes a trained medical professional to determine the severity. for ex: mood swings are common in both bipolar disorder & BPD but they look and feel totally different for each disorder. people justify this with: “well i fit the literal dsm diagnosis” except,,,, you probably dont. the dsm was NOT designed for people who are not medical professionals to interpret- there are nuances of specific symptoms that determine a dx

just because you experience several behaviors doesn’t necessarily mean you have a mental illness at all, diagnoses are based on the specific combination of symptoms. you may look at mood swings, anxiety and issues w/interpersonal relationships, and think you def have bpd; however it’s important to factor in that mood swings/anxiety are associated with hormones, eating patterns, stress, situational conditions etc but since you’re in the lens of looking for a diagnosis you might point to that and think it fits within that diagnostic criteria. im not saying you’re faking or don’t have a mental illness, im saying one or more of your symptoms may not be accounted for mental illness.

if you self dx and then don’t get treatment and/or medication you’re generally at a HIGH risk for self medication which may or may not include self-harm and substance abuse. since mental illnesses generally do not get better over time, so the longer you wait, the higher your chances of engaging in self destructive behaviors. there are some mental disorders that are literally inherent chemical imbalances that can really only be treated with medication, no matter how much self care you engage in.

i often see the argument that “psychiatrists just go down a checklist to diagnose you and that’s it!”, as well as, “My psychiatrist googled ‘x disorder quiz’ and printed the first one that came up!! i was in and out in five minutes!!!” as justifications for self dx: like either your psychiatrist needs to get their fucking license revoked or that’s just not true. the testing process generally takes an hour and involves diff types of observations of behavior as well as a very long list of questions- it’s not a fucking list printed from the internet from a random site.

additionally i see, “psychiatrists make mistakes too!!” right, true but the chances of a psychiatrist making a mistake vs the chances of you making a mistake are very slim in relation to each other due to the reasons listed here, i.e. decades of research on a phd level

just because some people go to the psychiatrist post-self dx and learn they were correct about their self dx doesnt mean that it applies to everyone and REGARDLESS it doesnt mean you shouldnt get professionally diagnosed anyway. these are a few experiences out of a million. it literally doesn’t mean that you are definitely right in yours.

quizzes taken on the internet aren’t fucking diagnosis (and neither is 6 months of research)??? like i don’t care if you’ve taken ten of them. if they’re designed with the proper controls they could def help SCREEN for mental illness symptoms, but even then it requires a lot of second party consulting, it’s something you’re literally not qualified for, for the reasons listed above.. if i took diff quizzes or tried to research my symptoms i could def try and self dx with so many diff disorders that aren’t even comorbid. they need to be interpreted by a medical professional and are usually designed to help guide ppl towards treatment

“all psychiatrists are neurotypical and dont understand my mental illness!” how do you know they’re neurotypical? they wouldn’t tell you even if they were??? also what does being neurotypical have to do with their ability to correctly do their job???? would you expect an oncologist to have gone through cancer in order to do their job?

the concept of self fulfilling prophesy is hard at work with self diagnosis; if you attach a label of depression to yourself it’s going to influence your behavior and self perception whether or not you’re aware of it. you might end up seriously damaging yourself because youre trying to fit the diagnosis. when i obsessively tell myself i feel very depressed, after awhile i actually prevent myself from feeling better because i keep telling myself i’m depressed, for example.

one phrase i see a lot: “well people self dx with a cold, why is this any different?” well, for one thing, the physical ramifications of a cold and a chronic mental illness ie a literal chemical imbalance in your brain are miles apart. they’re not even medically comparable in terms of immediate and long-term effects. additionally, it really highlights the fact that many people treat mental illness as a personalized experience whereas they treat their physical health w/objective opinions from medical professionals. this analogy is not only inaccurate but it’s dangerous as fuck.

people might not be aware symptoms they’re experiencing are abnormal because that’s their normal state based on their actual mental illnesses. for ex someone who suffers from an anxiety dx might just be used to adapting to it their whole life when they actually have a serious disorder and not even think about getting help for it. your baseline cannot be assessed objectively.

sometimes the self dx community is enabling in a bad way- the lack of treatment for disorders real or otherwise make them more susceptible to encouraging/justIfying unhealthy coping habits. its kind of like the blind leading the blind. like it’s just not a good idea.

just because it might take a couple diff psychiatrists to get an accurate diagnosis isnt a good justification for self dx. this can be due to a million different reasons- maybe you were diff ages when you saw each one, maybe you were exhibiting signs of something else at the time- i was originally diagnosed with depression before bipolar disorder because my mental health hadn’t stabilized so my mania wasn’t present.

using the excuse of “ask someone close to you what they think about you possibly having [x] dx” as a legitimate step towards self diagnosis is as bad as saying you don’t have a personal bias… like the answer from your friend/family member is based on so many factors: the nature of the relationship, how honest the person is, their emotional state at the time, their own ability to analyze the people around them, how aware of psychological symptoms they are, their bias towards mental illness, the way the symptom description is presented,   the setting the discussion took place, etc etc

last but not least, i see the phrase: “well mental illness didn’t suddenly appear as soon as i got a diagnosis!” obviously it was always there but you may have mislabeled it before your diagnosis if you self dx’d first, thats it. no one is pretending mental illnesses suddenly appear when a professional diagnosis is assigned

your best “research” on the internet is not equal to ten years of medical school, its just not, and it’s concerning to me that self diagnosis is such a prevalent trend on here. please seek treatment, even if it’s in the form of your high school or college counseling center; the links i’ve provided in number 3 may be helpful in locating mental health care, whether it’s a community mental health care center, or a therapist close to you who offers reduced cost treatment.

you owe it to yourself, it’s 10000% worth it.

[arthurflecksgirl]

Hello !!! Can I have Arthur x reader? Reader has been so caught up in her work that they forget to eat. They get extremely lightheaded and stumble a little. Arthur steadies them and he is worried when he finds out they forgot to eat. While he is making food they faint and land (luckily) on the couch. When he's done, he comes back , at first he thinks that they're just laying down but he kinda freaks out when he realizes that reader is unconscious. ( I forget to eat sometimes) THANK YOU🥺💚

Thank you for so much for your request @theichabbieclub !!! :)

I wrote you this piece and I hope you`ll like it !!! :)

Coming home from work was one of the best parts of the day for you. Especially since you moved into Arthurs apartment with him. Apartment 8J was not just a place to live. It was home to you. You have only been here for a couple of months now, but it felt like there was no life before Arthur. Sometimes you forgot what life felt like before his arms around you, before the unconditional love he felt for you. All those years before him didnt made sense. But sometimes things just don`t make sense until they do. He was your reason to get up in the morning. The reason why you always had a song on your mind. Every song you listened to seemed to be about him. Every poem you read reminded you of the love you shared. Arthur was everything you wanted and more. Even the simple act of turning the keys and openening the doorlock to get back home to him felt special. Sometimes you got so caught up in work, it felt like working was stealing your time. Knowing  Arthur would be home, waiting for you to lie down on the couch and relax with him helped you to get through the day. You kept a polaroid photo of the first day you met in your purse and looked at it, everytime it got stressful at your working place. The photo was all shaky because Arthur was really shy to get his photo taken. He was convinced that his hair didnt looked good enough so he tried to steal the camera from you. He loved being childish and playful at times. That was when the picture was taken and you loved the pure and honest engery to it. It was so him. You stumbled through the door and threw the keys beside. A headache started to set in and made you feel a little weak in the knees. You were thankful that the building had an elevator. Climbing up some stairs would have been a chore on days like these. "Artie, I am home". Arthur was sitting on the couch, writing in his journal as an old tape of the Murray Franklin show was playing. He immediately stood up to welcome you in his arms. You loved his sloppy kisses upon yor forehead. It was something he did a lot when you came home and you thought it was an adorable thing to do. What an loving and caring boyfriend he was. Always so thankful to have you on his side. You rubbed your own dimples "You`ve been writing?" Arthur pointed at his journaly "Yeah, I was making some notes about Murrays behaviour and his timing. I can learn a lot from him. And I wrote two or threee jokes. I have to figure out the punshline of the last one though." You nodded. Your vision seemed to blurr a bit. "Y/N? are you okay? You seem like you don`t feel so good? " Now that you were home it seemed like all the stress from work was falling off you. But you felt so incredibly weak. It was the kind of tiredness that got to your bones. "I´m okay. Just a little....dizzy" you covered your face with your hand and closed your eyes, hoping the dizzyness would go away as soon as you´ll open them again. "Oh baby, I dont don`t think so. I`m kinda worried. Is there anything I can do ?" you felt his hands stroking up and down your arm, but you weren`t even sure if this was really happening right now. Everything became a blurr, even the sensation of being touched. "Arthur....I....I dont....know....I´m not sure" you walked up to the bathroom "I`ll be back in a minute. You stumbled over your feet and almost landed on the floor. Thank god Arthur was there to make you steady. Everything about your condition seemed familar to him. Being lightheaded, stumbling, feeling dizzy and weak. He was struggeling with this a lot when he wasnt eating due to his medication. He supported you to stand up straight. "Did anything happen to you today Y/N? ? I mean, something is causing your condition. Are you in pain or something?" his hand caressed your back in small circles, which felt so good. His hands always managed to make you feel better. No matter how stressed or drained you felt. His hands gave you hope and life. The gentlesses of his touch was the most wonderful comfort you could have ever imagined. "I`m not sure...it`s hard to concentrate right now...is all so blurry" you mumbled into his hair as you hugged him. All you needed was him right now. His arms around you. To be steady. He would be there if you were about to fall. Your anchor. Arthur pettet the back of your head "Ummm...honey, I now how it feels. I feel like that when I`m unable to eat because of my meds. You gotta rest a bit. " Now that Arthur mentioned this, it came to your mind. You `ve been so cought up in work that you totally forgot to eat! His arms still held you tight, so your knees wouldnt give in. Arthur could feel the weakness of your body through his embrace. Usually he was the one who must have been held and supported. You couldnt even remember how many times you had to pick him up from the floor. Now he was there for you. And thats how you knew that no matter what, you would always still have each other. No matter what kinda storm was closing in. You and Arthur would face it togeteher. Hand in hand. Arthur loosened the embrace to be able to face you "What? Oh no Y/N. Thaat doesnt sound good. I`m familar with that. It can make you weak up until a point where you get very lightheaded. I dont want this to happen to you. You gotta eat something! I´ll be in the kitchen and make you some food. I´ll be right back, okay?" You nodded thankfully. "Yeah. Thank you,darling". He stroke your cheek "Can you stand?" "Yes Arthur. I guess I feel a bit better now compared to when I just got through the door". "Thats good. I`ll hurry up to get you something. You can take my journal and check out the last three pages if you want. Let me know what you think of my lastes jokes". Arthur smiled the sweetest smile when he got to the kitchen. You saw him standing there, making some sandwiches while you picked up his diary. There was no wall between the kitchen and the  living room, so you were able to watch him making you food. You loved him so much. He had a worried look upon his face but he was humming. It was something that calmed him down when he was nervous. He cared so much about you. Arthur glanced at you. You could tell from the look in his eyes that he was madly in love with you. You tried to read the latest stuff written in his diary but the letters became all blurry... Rubbing your eyes wouldnt help. It was impossible to concentrate on what has been written on the pages. You tried anyway "One clown says to another `Hey you know whats funnay?` ....." Your vision started to fade and you took a look around to the kitchen to check if Arthur is done making food, before everything blacked out. ... Arthur decorated the last sandwich with a little heart he cut out of a pickle. It was the little things. He loved to decorate your food to make it look a little bit more special and to make you feel loved. Cutting out little hearts of vegetables was one of his fave things to do. Showing you attention made him happy. He waited for someone who loved him back all his life and now that he finally had you, he wanted to make sure to make you feel loved every second you spent with each other. Sometimes you gave him so much love that he felt like it was hard to keep up with. He held all these feelings inside of him and tried his best to let them show. Some days it was a little harder for him to put them into words than others. So he was always thinking of a way to proof his love to you. "Y/N? Do you want tea, coffe or a hot chocloate?" he asked you, while he opened the cupboard. No answer "Baby?". Arthur looked over to the couch. It seemed like you fell asleep. For a moment he asked himself if it would be better to let you rest. But then again he really thought you should eat something. So he walked up to you and put the plate with the self made sandwhiches on the table. His hand caressed your cheek but you didnt felt it. " I`ve made you yor fave sandwiches. Wake up, my love." Arthur looked at you with concern "Y/N? " He realized that you lost your consciousness and -thank god- landed on the couch. "Oh no,no,no, Y/N....wake up, please". He touched your face with his shaking hand. Arthur. He felt overwhelmed by the situaton and started to sweat within seconds, running his hand through his hair.  "You gotta... wake up. Can you....can you hear me?" You looked like you had a fever dream but still no reaction. Arthurs eyes wandered to the phone. Should he call a doctor? He would, if you wouldnt wake up within the next two minutes.   He got up from the couch and walked up and down the room. What now? He never was in a sitiation like this before. Usually he was the one fainting or seeking help. He felt like he wasnt very good in what he was doing right now.  "Arthur. Think. Try to think for gods sake. She needs you now. Y/N needs you now. " he talked to himself, getting more nervous with every second that past. There was no time to waste. He had to wake you up now. He couldnt handle seeing you like this. The love of his life lying fainted on the couch. So powerless. He sat down beside you and kept talking to you, while his leg started to bounce. Something he had to deal with everytime he got nerveaous. And this time it was bad. He felt like his whole body was shaking from his bouncy leg. Arthur pressed his left hand against his  upper thigh. "Y/N....I`m right here. Can you hear me? Please answer me or give me a sign if you can hear me?! Otherwise I will call a doctor...please". Arthr felt a laugh crawling up his throath. Not now.  He coughed it away. Trying to keep it down. He felt his eyes watering. His heart was racing in his chest. Arthur flet close to a panic attack. He knew this. He felt it before. But never because of someone he loved as much as he loved you. This fear was worse. If anything every happened to you..... This was too much. But he had to stay calm for you. He was the only one who could help you right now. And he would. Arthur took your face between his hands "Baby?" You finally moved. A quiet mumble escaped your dry lips. Arthurs face lighted up. "Oh thank god" he whispered to himself. "Arthur?" "Yes Y/N....can you hear me now?" "Yeah....what....happened?" "You fainted and landed on the couch. I first thouht you fell alseep but you were unconciousness and couldnt hear me. Arthur would tell you that he was close to a panik attack. He wanted you to feel as save as possible. "Oh...Now I remember I was feeling dizzy when I got home.." your hand reached for his. "Right. You said you fotgot to eat. So I made you some sandwhiches and when I got bck from the kitchen thats how I found you. I got so worried...." "I`m so sorry I scared you, Artie. This happened to me before. Sometimes I just forget to eat and thats the result. I never wanted you to deal with this. Sorry, darling". He handed you the plate "Please eat something, okay? Your body needs it. No one knows that better than I do. Remember when I stopped eating for days because my meds made me feel sick everytime I took a bite? I couldnt even leave the bed anymore. Don`t do this to yourself. We need to stay strong for each other. And later I will try to eat something,too. Okay?" You nodded thankfully  and took a bite from the sandwhich "Mhh....self made?" "Of course! They will make you feel better soon" he smiled. "Ohhh Artthur. There is a little pickle heart! You`re always so thoughtful. Now that I know that you made it with so much love it tastes even better." Arthur placed the plate with the rest of the food in his lab and put his arm around you. "I`m glad to hear that Y/N." Arthur watched you eating and felt his muscles relax again. His leg was calm. Arthur took the last sandwhich in his hand and let you take a bite after another. "I´m feeling better now. Thank you so much, Arthur. For taking care of me." Your hand played with one of his brown curls. "Don`t thank me for that. Thats what im here for. Loving you. Taking care of you.  Just the way you do take care of me. And I know I am no easy patient to handle" . There was so much love in Arthurs eyes. "So what do you think of my new jokes?" " I wanted read them but I guess that was  the moment  I fainted". "Oh....I see. How about we cuddle up in bed after you finshed the sandwhich, I´ll make you a hot chocolate and read you my latest jokes? I guess you need some good laughs now?!"

You took the last bite of the sandwhich before you placed a soft kiss upon his lips "That sounds wonderful, Arthur. Your jokes are the best medicine anyway."

[debovair-blog]

      ♡ — * » what up, i’m kylen, i’m nineteen, & i never fucking learned how to read ( vine ) so i currently live in washington which puts me in the pst timezone. i miss vines ;( but i make due by playing video games like overwatch & life is strange. other than that i go to concerts way too much & i took some college courses on video game coding - so i know how to program some minor things. anyways, i’m going to throw my three beans: marceline emery ( maia mitchell ), jiahao koeq ( amber liu ), & mok mirae ( park jimin ) at ya’ll ! so feel free to like this & i’ll message you for plots ! ------- i do have to go to work in a few minutes though ! so messages might take me a bit.

MARCELINE “MARCY” EMERY. TWENTY-TWO. SHE/HER. COMIC BOOK ARTIST.

lived in seattle until she was two, then moved to derry, maine

her parents were v v into fashion

wanted marcy to be into it too but in middle school she was actually into art ??

her parents amused her art & shit mainly bc they thought it would be a phase

but in high school marcy started up an online comic & it got super popular so no way was she gonna do fashion

junior year her parents said “us & fashion or your dumb art” & marcy chose her art ?

lol she got kicked out of the house & her parents moved away bc wow they didn’t want her if she wasn’t going to carry on the family business #rude

she’s pretty happy tho. she’s had a pretty simple life using the weird websites like deviantart & what not. 

kind of a rebel at heart ? shes not going to go breaking car windows, but skinny dipping in a neighbors pool at 2am is something on her bucketlist. 

kind of weird... also kind of scared of love ? idk she just doesnt understand it tbh

her fear is being attacked by zombies. she doesn’t want to become a brainless fool who tries to eat other people so zombies being real is literally terrifying for her

MOK MIRAE. TWENTY. HE/THEM. PHOTOGRAPHER.

korean names are written last name then first name. so his name is mirae

mirae is actually a girl’s name so as a kid he prolly got teased about it but not like he cared

he lived with his dad ( death tw - his mom passed away when he was young )

his dad taught him everything about photography tbh

car crash tw - yet when mirae was sixteen his dad was teaching him how to drive & mirae had ended up ‘ blacking out ’ long enough to get in a car crash ( he didn’t crash into anyone else…. jsut a tree aha. ) neither were badly hurt !!!!

what mirae thought was him blacking out was him actually having very bad fuzzy/blurry vision which made it highly difficult for him to see.

five months later & the boy was diagnosed with macular degeneration ( a medical condition in the eyes that can cause blurred vision or loss of eyesight ) mirae didn’t let that stop him from continuing to do photography at all though. he is so determined to continue to do it even if he becomes fully blind. 

he’s super headstrong for the most part & refuses to let his father bring his hopes down about being a photographer all his life.

he thinks… very pessimistically by himself though. bc he has no idea how he’s going to do it. no one knows, not even his dad, but mirae is completely blind in his left eye. he doesn’t want people to start worrying about him bc he thinks he can take care of himself.

but bc he thinks so lowly of himself is why he’s really just.... soft spoken ??/

 he can speak korean, english, & french. he can also read braille

JIAHAO KOEQ. TWENTY-THREE. ANY PRONOUNS. TATTOO ARTIST.

androgynous; so they don’t care what pronouns are used. ( so feel free to use whatever pronouns you want when writing )

jiahao realized they didn’t care for genders when they were about sixteen, it wasn’t until they were nineteen that they officially determined they were androgynous

upon deciding that though, jiahao’s father kicked them out saying that it was ridiculous to not just grow up as the “typical girl”

her & her dad fought a lot tbh for so many years & at that point jiahao was already on a thin line

but she got a tattoo & that was it for her dad: he disowned her (:

after being disowned, she moved to the complete opposite side of derry to get away from him. she’s actually enjoying life one step at a time.

they’re also an activist for a lot of things so there’s that too. 

jiahao has a v v strong personality. he can be super blunt & honest & a lot of people think he’s super scary just because he has resting bitch face

once someone gets to know jiahao though, most find that hao has a snese of humor about the world & most topics while somehow maintaining a passion to fight for what they believe is right

but no matter how grounded jiahao comes across if there’s a thunderstorm they’re locked in their home probably crying their heart out.

[doozerror]

But when that person literally made me kill my lover, left me and my remaining family and a few close friends to die, kidnapped me and held me hostage - I wouldn't ever love them!

Blarke Broken Record Lexa Hate volume #61

And yet... you all expect Bellarke to be a thing even though hes done the same repetitive shit over 4 SEASONS with even worse motivations.   Jesus Christ, How are you all clinging to this nonsense still?  HOW are you not seeing the hypocrisy in your own ship when making dumbarsed claims like that to demonize the lesbian that threatens your precious “unhealthy M/F trumps respectful F/F” trope “relationship”. Did you all seriously miss:      --Bellamy handcuffing clarke in S3 and dragging her to pikes cells/audience against her will where she would more than likely face obvious judgment, interrogation, and imprisonment for her support of the grounders and collusion with Commander Lexa - the leader of them all.       -- Clarke had bellamy drugged in S4, dragged into a bunker, held via handcuffs at gunpoint against his will (while his sister was condemned to death outside), and when he escaped got shot at by Clarke because he was endangering what mattered most to clarke which is and always has been the survival of her people and she was threatening what mattered (at this point in time) the most to him, his sister - such a constant and healthy respect to what matters to each other; especially after four seasons of “development” eh?  They still dont really care or understand each other on a personal level to go out of their way to respect each others feelings when making leadership decisions. They never go beyond the usefulness of a work camaraderie that frequently in itself doesnt make any sense due to the repeated breaking of trust between the two.   -- Bellamy goes out to get the water device in S4 to save 500+ people with the end of the world fast approaching, but idiotically chooses 25 over that 500 (25 that are going to die anyways, without that water device) - then lets clarkes make the list while he snoozes;  A heavily reduced number he was a direct cause of and dumps the now even more difficult list of responsibility on her, while also forcing her name on the list and never questioning if his should be on there - he shouldve crossed his own out - hes not a good leader, and he has no valuable skillset beyond idiotically murdering people.  Dont get me started on clarke putting bellamys name on there after all the lives he’s ended that WOULDNT make it onto that list because of yet another one of his dumb decisions clarke just lets go.  Seriously, clarke is an unhealthy enabler of bellamys problems - hes not learning because shes there to do it all (and take all the shit it develops) for him while he sits and stagnates in problematic territory with his pathetic angst and blames others for his problems, like clarke and octavia.  Like a parent doing her kids homework, or never addressing her own kids bullying of other students and instead just praises him with no discipline.  Now give that kid a gun.  Now imagine that kid is 7-8 years older than you.  Yeah, fucking stupid.    -- Bellamy condemns Lincoln in S3 and his fellow grounders and allies (INCLUDING ENDANGERING KANE, MILLER, SINCLAIR, OCTAVIA, AND ABBY - as well as the whole of Arkadia, CLARKES FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND CLARKE HERSELF) to a jail cell and execution while also being denied basic medical care, threatens and disrespects his own sisters choices to associate with and also be a grounder; bell rather sides with a man who has no qualms in killing such folk and their supporters.  WHere in the hell does bellamy think this road is gonna go?  How stupid can you be?  Basically ignores clarkes power of influence in polis to keep an eye on lexa and does his own recklessly shortsighted and dangerously over emotional shit within his own ignorant bubble - shit that could've very likely put clarkes and HIS PEOPLE’S lives in a whole lot of danger.     -- Bellamys whole “DEATH TO THE GROUNDERS!” alongside pikes regime of shortsighted xenophobic prattle basically led to the buildup and uprising in polis that got lexa CLARKES LOVER killed (yes titus shot the gun, but WHY was he so nervous to begin with, what pushed him into that extreme? Arkadia’s xenophobia and grounder slaughter, correct!) - not to mention the whole descending into chaos because lexa wasnt there to play mediator with the well respected commander chip.      --  Lets go back to season 1, when the ship started to build iteself - where bellamy condemned the ark to cover up his cowardice of facing justice for shooting Jaha, he was willing to let AN ENTIRE ARK die INCLUDING CLARKES MOM, to save his own ass.  But yes, lexa is the evil one - got it. (This is just a small handful, i can find more if you still dont see how irrational youre being in regards to this spite for C/Lexa on this level.) And yet...with ALL THAT SELFISH SHIT surrounding both characters OVER 4 SEASONS (no development really, how dumb is that!?), ALL OF THESE MATCH THE CRITERIA TO A GREATER (if not repeated) EXTREME IN WHICH YOU DESPISE LEXA - Be||arke still seems to be strongly supported by you hypocritical lot while lexa gets shit on. Crazy... At least lexa had Clarke’s interests in mind (her peoples survival, clarkes mental health and importance of her survival for arkadia\grounder relations, and her own peoples adjustments to coexist with skaikru - if ice nation got their hands on clarke, its a safe bet skaikru AND clarke, as well as her mission for peace were all royally screwed) when she “Kidnapped” her (clarkes presence was necessary for a bigger purpose; one lexa knew she would care about at her core, also clarke was being self destructive - lexa cared for clarke, can you sit and watch someone you care about self destruct without intervention?  Communication is necessary for either party to address problems before moving forward.)  and “held her hostage” (yes, holding her in a lavish guest bedroom with free reign of the grounds temporarily until her own people got there to take her home so ice nation wouldn't have the opportunity to kill her was totally monstrous, EVIL!!) and then so obviously devolved into this weird stockholms syndrome bullshit you all cling to without any real understanding of the condition or evidence of it in the show to base it on.  NONE of that has been supported by writers, showrunner, or actresses.  Seriously, go find your common sense guys - you seemed to have dropped it in your senseless hardcore shipping of a heavily problematic to downright abusive crackship that Jroth has been spending 4 seasons hopelessly butchering to horribly railroaded and nonsensical extremes. And lexa didnt force clarke to kill Finn, that was entirely finns doing - Clarke chose to mercy kill because face it, there was no other way out of the situation for him.  Dont erase finns deeds and pin it on the lesbian who was as much a victim of the circumstances HE put into motion with needless slaughter.  He captured and murdered innocent people without provocation, raided their village; a crime he stepped forward to face their justice for to not only atone but also ensure an alliance could exist between the two peoples - something finn had attempted back in s1 before suffering a nonsensical jroth 180 for shock value.  They have a 100 yr old culture based on “blood must have blood” - you saw what happened when lexa decided to change that, what did her people do? Titus was reflection of the anger, betrayal, and scorn of the grounder population.  And what happened to Lexa?  Yeah thats exactly why you dont rush big changes like that into an entire friggan culture.  It HAS to be gradual so an understanding can be grasped.  Something lexa was attempting to do, as we saw when instead of annihilating the ark decided only to barricade until a prisoner bargain could be reached, but then got rushed because she “Had to die” for nonsensical shock value.  Lincoln himself told you all WHY she couldnt just let finn live, but like always youre all willing to ignore large chunks of the show to demonize the lesbian that threatens your ship.  Your motivations are so disgustingly shallow its pathetic...

But yeah, sure, Lexa was the despicably evil one.  No wonder youre the only fanbase left watching jroths garbage.  No brain needed for the shit he peddles out these days due to how nonsensical and inconsistent it all is so you can hope that bellamy will one day force himself onto clarke.  All the racist undertones, the colonist narrative, all those offensive creative decisions you berate the clexas for supporting but then continue supporting the show itself that perpetuates them...  Lets face it, Thats really what this show is all about to you lot, right?  Bellamy giving clarke what the stupid bitch deserves right? Nothing more. His dick and repeat abuses that clarke should condone and cater endlessly to in this heavily one sided ship of douchebaggery.  So romantic.  Shits not even healthy on a platonic level... but yeah sure, the 1oo is all about bellamy and clarke.. its too bad its turned into poorly written shit to prop up bellamy while turning clarke into a meek subservient woman catering to his mass murdering shitstorm causing feelings...

[tumblunni]

I had some sudden more ideas for npcs in the monster petshop game, and a bit of worldbuilding and stuff!

I was just consideringwhether maybe this should be a fantasy setting with different non-human races, or one that’s just all humans. I dunno, games with catchable monsters seem to ALWAYS be just humans, that’s weird now I think about it! I guess its so the line between sentient magical beings and the pet ones isn’t blurred, but in my petshop idea the monster pets can all talk anyway so that’s not an issue. Tho I dunno if it’ll be to the same degree as in the Monster Rancher anime where monsters are all so similar to humans that they can live their own entirely separate lives without a human partner, and like.. start shops and hold property and stuff. Seriously that worldbuilding is so surreal and cool, you get to see stuff like a giant golem running a little metalwork jewelry store in the background of a crowd scene. I wanna see the story of that guy! Tho it gets a bit confusing cos some monsters can’t talk, and some monsters seem to have more petlike intelligence, and those two things don’t often coincide. I still cry forever about that episode with the guy who abused his giant worm monster, and how with its design and how it doesnt talk you’d probably assume its a mindless evil monster but its actually just a quiet sad good guy and like.. how its full sentience level is revealed by it choosing to refuse an offer from the bad guys to join them, and dying trying to save the life of its abusive trainer. And how it actually does succeed in making him realise how wrong he was to treat it like an animal, and to treat animals like mindless toys! And how he breaks down crying and then how he cradles the lil baby worm and promises to do better this time, and then how his original worm comes back to life way WAY at the end of the series and I CRY FOREVERRRR ... Anyway, sorry, where was I before I got distracted?

OH YEAH! Fantasy races! Which really should be called species, but I guess it stuck cos they’re often used as metaphors/replacements for actual racial diversity, especially in traditional fantasy. IM GETTING DISTRACTED AGAIN!!! So yeah that thought led me to an idea for a particular fantasy “race” I could add. But then it somehow developed into... I dislike designing overly humanlike fantasy races, like seriously what is the point of even bothering if they look identical to humans except short or with weird ears? So I thought.. what if this “race” is actually a disease instead?

MORE LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT!

So, I was thinking they could look like just normal humans but with a greyish skin colour, odd coloured eyes, and some sort of flower growing on their head. They’d be like ‘flower spirits’ but in kind of a negative way? They look like humans because this is a sort of magical genetic condition that turns humans into this. Though they still get predjudice because people are afraid of ‘catching’ a disease that isn’t actually contagious through touch or anything, but people are happy being ignorant fucks and excluding them from society ‘just in case’ their paranoia comes true.

But anyway! The details! At any moment an inherited carrier could manifest symptoms, and rather literally manifest a glowing flower from their forehead. It grants you enhanced magical powers, but at the cost of your life being tied to that magic. The flower is like if your soul has been forcibly pulled outside your body in a very fragile form! You have to tend to it like a normal flower, and you also have to sorta feed it by doing enough magic or absorbing the energy from magical objects. (So these guys’s magical power is to negate other magics.) If left untreated it will eventually be fatal, and if the flower wilts it’ll also kill you even faster. If you fail to take care of it, it drains energy from your soul instead, which leads to the grey skintone and general weak health. But even if you keep the flower alive it’ll eventually grow too big and you’ll be unable to drain enough magic to keep up with its energy consumption. By the time the story begins, medical technology has actually advanced enough to find life extending treatments for this, even if we don’t have a complete cure. You can’t get rid of the flower but you can take medicines to slow it’s growth. I mean, really the problem is just that this thing outpaces its host, its a really impractical parasite! It ends up killing itself by getting too greedy! (Which makes me think probably the predjudiced slurs around these people would be like... ‘you got that disease cos of your greed/sin/etc’. Even though its just genetic.) And then I think the final breakthrough to save people from this disease wouldnt really be a perfect cure, just to regress it to a budlike inactive state. You’ll always be physically marked as a victim of this disease, and you’ll always have the ‘demonic’ magic-draining powers. And it’ll probably be a long time before people stop treating the sufferers like shit, even after this...

So umm.. yeah. Its kinda gonna be like an analogy for the horrible HORRIBLE way the AIDS outbreak was handled by the government, and how it happened because the victims were ‘undesireables’. And how in this post-outbreak world the whole thing’s practically been covered up, lessened, forgotten. And people still deny it, and still treat gay people like shit, and its taken so damn long to make all this progress and just... gahhhh... How pretty much every LGBTQ person who’s that old lost a dozen friends, how people got so desperate they used to hold ‘die-ins’- protesting by literally saying ‘leave me here on the doorstep’ when they were about to die. Make the politicians see exactly what they’ve done! And similarly the massive MASSIVE quilt full of patches commemorating everyone who died. God... And seriously just HOW LITTLE EDUCATION there is on this subject! Even amoungst modern LGBTQ communities! How eager we are to sweep things under the rug, even if its LITERALLY a rug made of dead queer folk! *sigh* umm.. sorry for the heavy subject matter there.

So yeah, this would be a ‘race’ in this setting, or rather a minority group, but in fantasy terms its a ‘race’ but.. whatever. Dumb language rules! Very small community of flower disease folks, treated like demi-humans. And this leads to a bunch of new ideas for npcs that could deliver this plotline! Of course, the main one would be an actual member of the flower disease folks.

I’m imagining her as just an absolute sweetheart shy gentle giant sort of lady. She’s introduced being this terrifying presence walking into the town, your protagonist being the only one who doesnt understand why everyone else is being all hushed whispers and closing all their shops. Since you come from a sheltered rich kid background, you’re very out of touch with common issues and had no clue this disease even exists. (Even though rich folks are the ones who had the power to help them, are the ones who refused, are the ones who spread the propeganda and then tried to cover up all their own failures...) So you’re the only one who treats this seemingly terrifying vagrant as a normal person, even though it’s (initially) just because you didn’t know the situation. Because of this, she ends up seeing you as a friend and coming back again. And then its up to the player whether you fall for all the predjudice and decide to cut all ties with her from here on, or whether you continue to stand up for her rights and try and change the way society treats her.

ANYWAY, her personality once she opens up to you would be the total opposite of her imposing appearance. She’s a chronic sufferer of self-hate issues, who’s been living completely alone in the forest for a long time, after being kicked out by her family and having no-one to turn to. I’m thinking she constantly speaks like... shy equivelant of Fuujin from FF8? One word sentences, but whispered instead of yelled. And like.. “.......ah..............s-....sorry........?” *questioning inflection of silence* “......uhhm........?” *unfurls hand hesitantly from under cloak and points at loaf of bread* *counts out coins meticulously, making sure to spread her hands and show she’s wearing gloves, she’s keeping them in a pouch, she hasn’t touched them* *places them on the very edge of the counter and backs away slowly, assuming you’re thinking the worst of her* *won’t take the bread directly from your hands, just in case* *struggling to speak again* “... th-.... ah-...... t-thank....... you.....” *mumbles her way out of the store quickly and awkwardly* This is kinda how she’s had to deal with buying supplies from EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. This tends to happen with like the one store in town that’ll take pity and throw her some food, at a greatly inflated price. She’s just had to like.. keep trying. Wear them down. If she keeps coming to a town repeatedly they’ll eventually get frustrated enough to give her what she wants.... or they’ll call the sheriff to chase her off. Either way she finally gets a yes or no answer on that place, and can tick it off on her cross country map of spots to find actual supplies. So she like.. CAN NOT function in a regular shop environment anymore. Probably the first hint that she isn’t really scary is how she’d totally freak out at you treating her normally! She’d be TERRIFIED!! There’s no way she’d actually agree to talking normally, she’d adamantly refuse to taking anything for free, seriously WHAT IS YOUR DEAL, ARE YOU A DEMON??? *sobs into the complimentary bread* It’d be a few visits before she actually opens up to you, and even then she’s very monosyllabic. She literally hasnt talked to anyone for years, she’s become so hardened to loneliness and cruel treatment that she can’t remember how to react to kind people anymore. And her voice is so hoarse both from this and from.. well.. the disease. She hasn’t even had the minimal treatment that’s available nowadays... for the rich, at least. So along with her sidequest being to help everyone understand her, you’re also searching for a doctor who’d treat her, and trying to save up the ridiculous amounts of money it would take. Its far easier if you succeed at destroying enough of the town’s ignorance, and make at least a few friendship links between her and your other sidequest pals. You can start having a town-wide fundraiser to get her the lifesaving medicine! Tho probably that leads to its own sidequest of having to track her down after she runs away, worried that she doesn’t deserve it and she’s just gonna cause more problems for her new friends. NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyway, the general structure of her as a customer is that she kinda accepts ANYTHING, and doesn’t have much money to do it with. She’s very lonely, and only built up the courage to come to this town on that first day because she heard about your petshop that sells to lower class citizens, and the idea of getting her own monster friend was like a ray of hope in her life! If you decide not to chase her away from the town, she settles in the nearby forest where all the stray monsters live, and becomes like the scary local cryptid. “I totally saw an eight foot tall woman feeding the crows!!! What the fuck!!!” She has a problem with sacrificing herself to protect all these wild animals, they’re just SO BEAUTIFUL and MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING!! She’s always going hungry cos she gives all her food to them, and then they start to love her in return and she gets a veritable army of feral pals that’ll defend her from anyone who tries to burn her tent down again. So she starts off desperately trying to buy a monster from you, any monster, and then after she gets her first one she starts befriending the forest monsters with its help, and becomes your biggest customer of monster supplies instead. She wants to give all these wild babies the closest life to a normal pet as possible! But she also still will buy literally any monster from you, ever, anytime. Doesn’t matter that she already has fifty, she can always take care of more! Though you do get better results if you give her ones high in defense stats and etc, cos its tough to live out there in the forest, even if your trainer is going hungry to ensure you get the best snacks. Oh, and she’d probably be ABSOLUTELY OVER THE MOON if you could sell her a monster that also has flowers or flower patterns. (Tho i think protagonist would be worried it would be insensitive, but she actually does like them cos they make her feel less lonely) She’s also an incentive to help out with your cookery crafting skills! Cos initially she’s having trouble being able to access any of the other shops in the town, she’ll just buy whatever spare food you have lying around. Even your absolute worst failed dishes are like heaven to her! So you can get more exp from cooking and also make a profit from it, thus helping you get better at crafting fancy dishes for your sweet monster pals. (And your strange tall pal!) Oh, and it’d probably also be an element that people in the town try and ‘politely’ advise you that you shouldn’t sell to her ‘for your own safety’. Because of the flower people’s magic draining powers, there’s the very real worry that one of them could be buying monsters from your store just to drain them dry and slow down their own death. But it sucks to assume the worst of her before you even know her, and honestly even if someone was doing that it’s dishonest to frame them as evil and predatory when seriously they are only committing a crime TO SLOW DOWN THEIR OWN DEATH! I bet that would be the most terrifying depressing situation for them, having to kill a small animal cos you’re having an attack of your symptoms and you just desperately don’t want to die...

And now on to the other supporting npcs I thought could be useful to this plot!

I thought of maybe there being bakers cos... well, the first scene I thought of while planning her personality was her trying to buy a loaf of bread. SIMPLE BRAIN PATHS! WOO! But somehow these bakers ended up gaining a way bigger plot role than I intended O_O I’m imagining them as some sort of Super Duo, just cos this plot idea requires one who starts off sympathetic to flower lady and a boss that provides an obstacle in this. I’m thinking maybe the good guy baker sneaks bread out to flower lady, and their greedy boss is all like ‘no! There are laws in place! Food waste must be destroyed! No giving to the homeless!’ (THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS. Almost every major fast food company does it! You can get arrested for stealing food from the bins, or for being an employee who tries to give the food to someone, even if it’s excess food that would just be binned anyway.) But then I ended up humanizing the grumpy boss instead of having them JUST be an enemy. I started imagining this as a family business, and the grumpy boss is their grandma? And then i thought maybe that would be a good vehicle to deliver the backstory worldbuilding about this disease, and now I am REALLY SAD about this grumpy grandma! I was thinking maybe she’s actually someone who lost a lot of friends in the initial outbreak of flower syndrome, and used to protest against it, and became all bitter and depressed after what happened, which is why she’s such a cynical mess nowadays. I think maybe the plot would work better if its like.. the grandkid baker just THINKS that grandma would object to serving a flower disease customer, and then when grandma actually sees who’s been ‘stealing’ her profits, she breaks down crying. Nobody in her family even knew she was so close to the tragedy, she’s been keeping it secret cos even though she isn’t infected she could still be ostracized for being part of that community and all. I’m thinking its gonna just be a very direct analogue, I’m gonna say that LGBTQ people were demonized as the ‘cause’ of this disease back when it was poorly understood. ‘Its caused by greed and sin’ = people pick whichever subjective ‘sin’ they wanna blame... So grandma shows you all her quilt that she’s been keeping secret, full of patches commemorating everyone she knew who died, and tells you about how the tragedy went down and how she got her start as such a cold and untrusting person out of the fear of ever loving anyone again in case she lost them. And everyone gets to have ALL OF THE HUGS, even though hugs can’t erase what happened :( But finding a family that can support her can help flower lady right now, grandma is determined to find a way to save this one person and make up for everyone she couldn’t save! They help you on your quest to track down a doctor, and they give flower lady a place to stay as part of their family, no matter what anyone thinks! And then i think maybe after flower lady manages to get her medicine, grandma actually leaves on a journey with the doctor, to learn how to become a doctor too. She was in medical training when she was younger, before she had to drop out of education due to all that happened. And she just ended up inheriting the family bakery, even though she personally sucks at baking and hates it. (Which is why employee/grandson does all the work and stuff) So now she sees this as a chance to redeem herself, you help convince her that its not too late! She’s gonna use however many years she has left to help people! if she has to be cursed with outliving everyone, she’ll use this long life to make a difference! So its sad cos grandma has to leave on her journey, but grandson takes over the shop and flower lady is employed as an assistant. And they keep in touch with grandma in the mail. (You can sell them a good carrier pigeon monster to help!)

Another npc there could be is... another greedy guy!! I started thinking him up cos i was just wondering about who could be a friend to the grandma. I mean, the npcs have to have relationships and rivalries between each other, its not like the protagonist is the only one who matters, lol This idea i have is (for some reason) someone who looks like a younger AZ from pokemon, wearing a cowboy hat. Kinda? He’s a travelling merchant and ssssssort of the same greedy archetype as grumpy grandpa, but sort of not? He’s an even more huge penny pincher than her, but he doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. He’s constantly desperately wringing any potential money out of anything, overcharging as much as he possibly can, getting himself hurt doing silly get rich schemes. But then he’s not really a jerk about it. He’s very friendly and cares about his customers, unable to actually scam them even as he announces his intentions to do it. He’s constantly betrayed by his own kindness, and ends up giving away free stuff to anyone who has a sob story! He also never seems to actually really spend his money on himself, its not like he actually has any of the luxury he’s always rambling about. I mean, he does indeed seem to have a genuine greed and a few lofty dreams, but then he just puts all his profits in his savings no matter how much it hurts him to do it. *crying over a fancy hat as he dumps his purse in the Swear Jar*

So anyway, his connection to this plot about the flower disease is that his Secret Reason For The Greedy is only revealed if you befriend both him and the flower lady. After you progress the story enough to get her first Happy Ending of getting adopted by the baker family, her second Happy Ending of finally getting the medicine, and her third Happy Ending of becoming the new assistant baker after grandma moves away, the plot still stubbornly continues because really no ending is an ending, yknow? I’m thinking this sort of formula could work really well with a game that has no real overall plot, and is more of just a slice of life theoretically endless thing. When you’re playing Monster Rancher there’s never really any huge changes in the town you still always have the same shopkeepers and nobody even ages. And even though Animal Crossing has villagers moving in and out, its also kinda the same, there’s never any real character development or shifting of the status quo. So I’m thinking having changing generations of the town and continuity between them could be a good way to keep stuff engaging even as you keep playing the same sort of gameplay forever. Maybe some people move away, maybe some people move in, maybe some people get married or have kids, who knows!

So yeah, after the status quo change of the baker grandma moving away and flower lady leaving her homelessness tent to become a full time resident, thats’s when this new sidequest starts. Stuff still isnt instantly perfect for her, she’s still facing predjudice from some people, especially now she’s in a rather public position as an employee. All the controversy over having her work with food, even though SERIOUSLY, DUDE, you can’t catch it from just touching someone who has it! I think she’d feel absolutely terrible, she’d be worried that she’s causing her benefactors to lose business because she’s here. And she’d also have just normal social anxiety adjusting to doing her first job ever, and having to do so much talking. She was homeless since she was very young, she even has trouble with complex mathematics cos she never finished school. Another reason merchant guy could be a good friend of the family, he could help tutor her on this stuff! And general shopkeeping techniques, cos both her and grandson are both super good guy pushovers and all. (”Don’t worry, I’m a wimp too, and even I can manage to be greedy with these five simple steps! ....that’ll be 50 dollars.”) But the main plot for him and flower lady is how he finally reveals his secret reason for being so greedy. One day he just comes along leading a little girl by his hand, and lifts her up so she can see the lady at the bakery counter. “Daddy, she’s got flowers like me!!” He’s been sending all of his profits home to pay for his kid’s medical bills, and he finally decided to let you know once he met someone else with the same condition. He’s been keeping it a secret because people hate flower sufferers so much, and he desperately needs to keep up the trade route with this town otherwise he can’t afford to look after her. he’s so damn relieved to be able to stop lying to you, and to finally introduce his lil bundle of joy! And to let her see someone else with the same condition, for the first time in her life! And then the lil girl could become friends with tall flower lady, and be all like ‘you look so pretty!’ which is something nobody’s ever said to her since she got sick, and just... HEARTWARMING TIME And it could help flower lady keep hope even though predjudice hasnt completely stopped in the world. At least now she’s found some good people, and she can see that her bravery in working at this job is inspiring young sufferers to feel that their life isnt completely over. So they all send off another letter to grandma together, and have a nice family dinner with this other family, and with yours too. :3 (...also, merchant guy apologizes for lying to his close friend grandma for so long, and they laugh at how they both had so much in common and never found out until now! And she is HELLA EXCITED to meet his daughter when she comes back ^_^)

[dawnowar]

Lawson died today :(

I’ve been a fan of this special needs goats rescue on Instagram for a long time now. Some of these little guys’ issues resonate with me. I dont remember the one goat with the knee problem they got surgery and its good to go now. Thats my knee problem and maybe ill need that surgery one day. But i try to keep my legs working so I wont need it.

Lawson was a baby goat with a heart problem that required a complicated surgery that could only be done by a people surgeon and a team of people to coordinate and agree to make it happen since it couldnt be done in a people operating room and etc etc etc.

It was a huge undertaking and this woman never hesitated to try and figure out how to make it happen at any expense. She wanted to give this little guy a chance to live a long life. 

Nevermind that he couldnt use his back legs, she just put him in a cart and away he went. She posted video of him looking healthy and happy and I had trouble in my own mind getting on board with the idea of this surgery for him.

Because I took care of a sick cat for years who didnt want any medication. And I realized pretty quickly that her medical conditions didnt need diagnosing because she wouldnt take medicine anyway. So I just let her live her life and tried to give her as much joy as I could for however long she was with us. And she lived to be a very old kitty. 

Now I’ve got a 6 yr old with a heart condition that I never got diagnosed because I feel like he should just live his life. However long that is. And that it doesnt matter because I’m not getting him open heart surgery. 

But i totally get why she got this goat open heart surgery. So I’d followed Lawson’s story in hope of learning something. He was so strong and happy and playful, like my kitty... its hard to believe they weren’t healthy. 

She had another baby goat who seemed to be doing well die suddenly one night and then was more convinced that she needed to get this goat surgery ASAP. Where I’ve sort of made peace with the idea that my little guy may not live to be an old cat. 

Lawson had surgery and recovered and went home in a few days. She said he could live to be 10-15 yrs old! And i started thinking about getting my kitty ultrasounded at least to find out what’s going on in his heart. 

But then Lawson died today and Im back to thinking I should just let my pretty little guy live his life however long that is or isn’t. 

Because cats dont understand surgery and don’t want to go to the vet and probably dont worry about their mortality the way people do. 

My first kitty spent most of the last 3 weeks of her life in and out of the vet’s office getting tests and tests and tests done, each more invasive, none of which yielded any results that could save her and I regret not just keeping her home with me to live out her last days. 

My second kitty, i did that for her. It was still sad and awful but I knew it was better for both of us not to have to be put through living in a cage in the animal hospital getting poked and prodded while dogs barked and sick animals whined around her. 

Because this one’s got a heart condition, he might go suddenly one day. Ive not had that experience before. Sounds like what happened to Lawson. I’m not sure there’s any good way to go for any of us truthfully. As much as I don’t want to see his life cut short, theres no way im getting my cat open heart surgery. Thats always been my feeling on it. 

For a minute there, when Lawson was doing well, I thought maybe i should change my mind. But he died anyway. Maybe even prematurely as a result of the surgery. 

I dont know what the right answer here is. How can you know? If it was me, itd be different because I would understand what was going on and what the risks were. And I’d probably still struggle to decide what to do. 

I had a friend with a hole in her heart. One of the most energetic people Id met ever. She got really weak one day in her late 20s. Like it happened suddenly. Or mabye she was just hiding it until she couldnt. She got endoscopic surgery and they fixed it and she was good to go. They cant really do that for little animals i dont think. Maybe they can now. I dont know. 

If it was my heart I dont know what I’d do. Probably depends how I was feeling and how invasive the surgery was. 

If i was a disabled baby goat, probably id be glad someone cared that much about me. If i was a ginger cat probably id be scared to go to the vet at all. 

I think i will get him an ultrasound. Then at least I’ll know what decisions I may or may not have to decide.