#im not sure what else to put

[book-reaper]

Closer

Please note that this is my first time posting on Tumblr so please be kind since I don't really know what I'm doing.

TW?: Smut, and biting kink (giving and receiving), ft. Will Graham at the end. Read at your own risk. No minors pls.

Also no use of Y/N, I sort of made up a character but if you guys like her I have a couple ideas for a story with the three of them. But buckle up this is longer than I intended it to be.

Amara was fast asleep beside Hannibal as something inside him woke him. Something deep and primal was demanding more and more attention, remaining unsatisfied and unrelenting until it got what it wanted. Opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling he took a moment to assess this new feeling. Soon enough he realized this feeling was directed towards the woman still sound asleep next to him, unaware of the new urge that plagued him. Taunted him.

As he placed together the pieces of what he was feeling he looked over at her. The woman that was so much like him and yet so different. He can still remember the day he met her for the first time with clarity that he hoped would never go away.

Hannibal was standing next to Will and Alana as they observed the girls. The Butterflies as they had referred to themselves several times. There were twelve sitting in the room hidden mostly by their hospital beds that they had pushed to the center of the room and placed in a circle. Each bed coming into place made them just a tad safer, a tad more hidden, as they sat in the center of the circle quietly talking to one another and seeking comfort in those that could truly understand what they had gone through.

“The other one, Amara, is upstairs. She was pretty seriously injured in the escape.” Jack’s voice came up from behind them.

“How bad is it?” Alana asked, always the first to worry.

“Gunshot wound to the leg, stab wound in the abdomen, a fairly serious amount of blood loss, some trauma to the head but it looks like she’ll be fine.” Jack reassured.

“I don’t think any of them will be fine for a long time.” Alana had remembered the pictures of the place they had been. Over two hundred other Butterflies had been chemically preserved and mounted into glass cases lining the walls of their hell.

Hannibal was intrigued by the wings. Each girl had a different pair of wings tattooed onto her back. A different type of butterfly. Each one was unique and crafted with care. The shapes were distinct and shading meticulously perfect. Each pair was a work of art.

“They are keeping her separate from the others?” Will asked, unsure if it is the best move to keep her separated from the only support network she had.

“The extent of her wound means they would need to keep a closer eye on her, change her bandages, and check on her far more frequently than the others; however anytime someone enters the room the butterflies get stressed out. They are most likely separating her so they can treat her without making what the others are going through worse for them.” Hannibal explained briefly.

“While the majority aren’t willing to speak to anyone much less talk about what exactly happened, she is apparently an open book.” Jack reiterated what the charge nurse had told him.

“She’s talking about what happened?” Alana asked, surprised.

When Hannibal had entered the room he remembers feeling an unexplainable sense of possessiveness at seeing her standing by the window rather than laying in bed. Two nurses were stood on either side of her asking her to go back to bed.

“Bailey, Dezeray, I understand that you’re trying to do what’s best for me, and I appreciate that, but if I have to lie around for another minute I think my mind will break here more than it ever did in The Garden.” She told them calmly. Something about her oozed a sense of serenity and calm. Whatever it was made the nurses feel comfortable to let her stand and move around with the promise she won’t over do it, despite that being the only things she shouldn’t be doing with her injuries.

Maybe it was that very feeling of serenity she gave him that made him fall for her in the end. Maybe it was how easily she got the two nurses charged with her care to let her do things she shouldn’t be doing. Maybe it was her wings. They were the wings of his favorite butterfly after all. Greta Oto, The Glass Butterfly. Maybe it was her small frame that came in at a mighty 5’3. Maybe it was the look in her eye that he nearly missed as she recounted the events that took place in The Garden and her escape. 

The subtle darkness that shifted over her eyes as she recounted how she killed each of the three men keeping her and the others captive before returning to her enclosure to free them. A predator disguised as prey protecting her kaleidoscope. Maybe it was a combination of her beauty with her cleverness, her logic, her level of emotional control and regulation, her persuasiveness that seemed to come as easily to her as breathing, her sharp instincts as he recognised her clocking what he was within a few moments of meeting him, her sense of hearing which complimented his sense of scent wonderfully.

Maybe it was all of those things. Maybe it was none of them. Regardless he found himself awake before the sun and the side of him that he had only ever heard telling him to kill, to consume, now telling him to hold her. To get closer to her. And so he did. He was careful not to wake her as he pressed his body against her back and locked her in place with his arm. 

Closer. It urged. He pressed his body flush against her and slid his other arm under where her head rested on the pillow, allowing him to gently place his nose into her hair and flood his senses with her. She stirred gently at the movement but remained asleep.

Closer. It voiced. He tenses slightly, the arm around her unconsciously pulling her tighter against him. He would have to wake her to get even closer. 

Closer. It demanded. Hannibal knew that when that side of him started demanding things it would get what it wanted in the end. There was no denying it but he could hold it off for a little while. Hopefully long enough. Hannibal gently brushed the hair away from his beloved's neck, exposing the soft sensitive flesh to the beast of a man. He gently placed feather light kisses all along the column, gradually getting firmer. Trying to slowly and gently wake her from slumber. 

Amara was a light sleeper, always had been, so she was awoken by the faint kisses being placed on her neck by rather familiar lips. Enjoying the unprompted affection she laid still and fought to keep the smile off her lips. A battle she lost as he got more firm. If she hadn’t known any better she would say that Hannibal was acting needy. Hannibal, not seeing the lazy smile on her lips, only pulled his lips back from their spot just behind her ear and paused briefly as she let out a content hum.

Now knowing she was now awake he kissed his way up from her shoulder to her jaw. As he got closer she shifted onto her back so she could look up at him. As he locked eyes with him she gently brought her hand up to run her fingertips along his cheekbone. Hannibal's eyes fluttered shut as his body relaxed slightly when it was satisfied for a meer moment before demanding more. Amara noted that Hannibal needed something although she wasn’t entirely sure he knew what he needed. 

But her touch seemed to soothe the fire coursing through his body but as he opened his eyes again she found a certain type of hunger within them that she had satiated less than 12 hours ago before they had cleaned up and gone to sleep. Hannibal knew she knew what he needed even if he hadn’t figured it out yet himself. He could see it in her eyes and soul that read him with an ease that no one else had.

She gently smiled at him and grabbed his shoulder, softly pulling and insisting he lay atop her. He did so without resistance and placed his forehead on hers, simply taking a moment to breathe in her presence and the passive effect it seemed to have on every part of him. Almost shyly, she reached up and kissed him. Short and quickly at first, hoping to get him to understand what it was he needed as she pulled back and gave him a moment to sort through his mind.

Soon enough he seemed to understand and as he settled a small bit of his body weight on her he kissed her with all of what he recognized as desire to be burning in his body like a blaze. The kiss was firm, urgent, and demanding as  it got louder.

Closer.

He pressed his tongue gently against the seal of her lips. She let him in.

Closer. 

He slid his hand under her (his) shirt and dragged it up to her back, up her wings to easily press her chest against his. 

Closer.

He tilted his head to be able to better explore her mouth with his tongue as he took in the feel of her breast pressed against his chest. And as if she heard its plea she locked her legs around his waist and pulled his hips flush with hers. A groan slipped past his lips at the feeling of his cock pressed against her, separated only by his silk pajama pants and the cotton of her underwear. 

Closer. It got louder. Instinctively his lips left hers and instead went searching for that one spot on her neck he knew brought her pleasure. While she ran her hands over the muscles of his back the hand not still pressing her to him slipped from its place in fisting the pillow beside her head to between the two and began unbuttoning the shirt she wore.

He needed to feel her skin against his. He craved to feel every inch of her. To mark every inch of her. To hear her moan and scream and wither beneath him. He needed these things as much as he needed to breathe. He needed to be closer.

Her hands wandered up to his hair and pulled gently. He felt the tremor that ran down her spine as he found that special spot on her neck. He attacked it with teeth, and tongue, and harsh sucking. The moans that slipped past her lips vibrated through him and granted his very soul pleasure. He needed more.

And more he got as his hand finally undid the last button. His hand came to support her lower back to help keep her hips against his as he sat up with her in his lap. The shifting from a horizontal position to a vertical one grinded her hips against his in the most delicious way. He could feel his patience waning as he pulled the shift off her as if it had offended him.

Closer. Feeling her slipping from his lap his hands quickly pulled her hips back against his. Although it was no use. The silk of his pants just kept forcing her to  slide.

“It will just be for a moment.” She whispered the reassurance to him before pulling away from him entirely. He didn’t like it. Faster than he had ever done before he stood and removed his pants before climbing back atop her. While he removed his only barrier she removed her last and threw her panties on top of his discarded pants.

Closer. It wasn’t as loud as Hannibal grinded his cock against her slick opening. He nipped at her collar bone and chest relentlessly. She knew what he needed. He knew what he needed, but he needed permission first. Permission she did not hesitate to provide.

“Bite me, Hannibal.” Those three words opened a floodgate in his mind. He bit down on her breast. Her head pushed back against the pillow as her back arched her breast into his mouth. Helplessly, her hips bucked up to grind against his cock. She had no control over it. A fact Hannibal knew and used to his advantage. With each bite and bruise he left on her she bucked against him, coating him more and more with her slick.

By the time Hannibal pulled back to breathe she had thoroughly soaked his cock and her slick had begun dripping down onto the sheets. With one final closer reverberating through his mind he pushed inside her. Hannibal wished he could say he was gentle with it, even with the very generous coating of her arousal Hannibal was simply too big to enter her as roughly and as quickly as he did without causing discomfort to her. Discomfort that was voiced through the sharp sound of a hiss as she sucked in a quick breath and tensed.

He shushed her gently and rested more of his body weight on her knowing that it would often help ground her. Delicately he cupped her face and placed kisses along her jawline and up to her lips. Despite wanting nothing more than to thrust and grind wildly against her he controlled himself. It was the least he could do after his demonstration of his lack of control. He held himself buried to the hilt, hips pushed flush against hers as he waited for permission from her once again.

After a deep breath or two she ran her nails along his back, gently up either side of his spine exactly how she knew drove him crazy. A test. She did this over and over again testing his patience when he did not want to use it. Once she deemed him in control, she clenched around him. Hard. 

That clench had been what he was waiting for as Hannibal pulled nearly completely out and slammed back in with a force that moved her up the bed. He couldn’t have that. Sliding his arm under her back, across her wings, he gripped her shoulder and held her to him as he thrust again and again. Each moan and soft gasp from her lips was like a melody, weaving its way through the room, enticing and captivating Hannibal, a symphony just for his ears.

As Hannibal was thrusting wildly but slowly, taking the time to gauge her reaction to each new spot he touched as he desperately searched for something. Amara had her neck bared for him. A temptation he could not resist. On the side he had been so gentle with previously, leaving a trail of gentle kisses earlier before the sun had begun to rise, he bit down.  His teeth sinking into the flesh giving him a pleasure he believed to be unmatchable. That was until he found the spot he had been searching for.

As soon as he had found his target her nails dug into his back. Marking his flesh in return as she very nearly screamed his name. Nearly screaming isn’t enough. He couldn’t stop the growl that rumbled from deep within his chest as his jaw tightened on her neck and his hips began moving faster than what she could keep up with. Now that he knew where his target was he would be damned if he missed it even once.

Amara was aware that she was simply along for the ride at this point. She clawed at him helplessly in an attempt to ground herself as he held her so tightly to him she had difficulty breathing. He held her so closely that she could feel every sound in his chest that he would kill as it attempted to make its way up his throat. He had always preferred to listen to her sounds rather than his own. He had once told her that her sounds of pleasure were more pleasing to him than any sound any instrument could produce.

Amara, in a desperate attempt to hold off her orgasm decided to cling to Hannibal. Her legs raised and locked around his hips. She made the wrong decision. The new position of her hips allowed Hannibal to not only thrust against that spot inside her with more force but now it allowed the head of his cock to kiss her cervix. After the mere second thrust she came with a scream of Hannibal’s name, her back unable to arch into him any more than she already was yet trying anyway.

He slowed, showing her momentary mercy. He could feel the sting on his back of her marks. Wearing her marks gave him pleasure. He needed more. Regardless of whether or not she was ready for more, his thrusts picked up speed again. She withered and squirmed beneath him as he quickly overwhelmed and overstimulated her.

“Just one more.” The words quietly tumbled from his lips. She knew he wasn’t just talking about one more orgasm. He wanted another mark on his body. A sign to show everyone he was not theirs. Just as his marks showed the world that she was not theirs either.

Amara just managed to scrounge up enough composure to latch her lips onto his neck. Her teeth scraping against his pulse allowed a moan to slip past his lips as he quickly became putty in her hands. He needed this. He needed to bear her marks. He needed the constant connection and sense of closeness to her that her marks brought him no matter how far apart they may physically be that day.

Amara, seizing the opportunity to drive Hannibal mad, took great pleasure in sucking multiple marks onto his neck and teasingly grazing her teeth over him yet never biting down. She could feel Hannibal’s control slipping. Each brush of her blunt teeth and of her sharp canines coming so close to sinking in, brought him closer to his end. 

Hannibal knew he wouldn’t last much longer while she was having her fun so he brought his hand down and played with her clit. The attention to her clit was the last little push she needed to fall into that blissful abyss once again. Her mouth being so close to Hannibal’s flesh, so tantalizing. In her haze of pleasure she hadn’t realized that she finally bit down in the junction between Hannibal’s neck and shoulder until her mouth was flooded with the rich taste of blood.

For Hannibal, the pain, the erotic act of your lover sinking their teeth into you, was what finally pushed him over the edge. As if he was only close enough to satisfy the darkness within him when she had her jaws fastened around him. His hips slowed to a grind as he emptied the last bit of his cum into her. Despite the sweat and heat Hannibal did not dare more from her. Even as she removed her teeth from his flesh and allowed her head to fall back onto the pillow, she didn’t dare move to push him away.

It took longer than if there were more space between the two but eventually they caught their breaths. A quick glance to the clock sitting on the nightstand showed it to be nearly 7 o’clock. He didn’t have to be in the office today until 10 so he was happy that he had plenty of time for aftercare. It took him a while to find the willpower to pull himself out of her and even longer to find the strength to pull away from her and finally allow her to breath unobstructed.

With a quick kiss to her forehead he got up and made his way to the bathroom, allowing her a few minutes to herself as he started the shower and made sure it was the right temperature. He was about to return to the bedroom to collect you when Will entered with you in his arms. 

“Will, I was not aware you were up.” Hannibal addressed his other partner.

“I wasn’t until you woke me.” Will grumbled, not happy about being woken up this early nor being excluded from the fun, as he carefully placed Amara down on her feet but not letting go of her since her legs were still shaky.

“Sorry. I would have gotten you but Hannibal was being needy.” Amara was quick to throw Hannibal to the metaphorical wolves all with a playful smile. Not amused by her words but always by her, Hannibal merely raised an eyebrow at her with a fond smile on his face. She got a chuckle from Will, albeit a still groggy one, but getting anything besides a complaint from him this early is a success in her books.

“Next time I will make more of an effort to pull myself away from her to get you Will.” Hannibal apologized before inviting them both into the shower with him.

[suddenly-frankenstein]

his guardian angel

[pixlatedvampire]

In my mind this is canon

[sheepthatgobaa]

sleepover with the buddies.

[samgatinho]

insert here very epic title

[mercurymacaroons]

arrives 15 min late with a latte

......sup

[amid-fandoms]

we’re in danger zone cause if the lack of info on the tour means that they will be “revealing stuff” and “spilling tea” then a hard launch post right before tour starts is the only logical step

[fallenclan]

hello im being Silly today

[harvestmoth]

melia rejuvenation who let you into pokemon masters

[starry-bi-sky]

honestly your dpxdc clone au gives me life, its adorable as all hell and im a sucker for found family but with that being said, its so freaking hysterical to me that Danny is going full feral liminal menace at Wes any time hes near and Wes himself is still 100% into it the freak (affectionate) and thats not even pointing out the paralles it could possible create since danny and dames gives massive parallels to dick and damian and dick does have a thing for redheads.

yeesSSSSS! I was planning on hoarding this to myself but i can't not reply. and i'll be able to find this again with the clone^2 tag so win WIN. i'm so glad you are as delighted by this as me. It's so hilarious to me that Danny just becomes a complete freak whenever he spots Wes, and I'm the one who wrote it into existence. Like- like i don't know how to explain my vision in words but like, its like Danny sees Wes and immediately goes 'what can I do to make his day worse'. And then he goes and does it.

(honorary read more because i talk a lot)

He's relatively normal around his friends too, which makes him going full-fledged unhinged around Wes even funnier to me. Like, Danny will spout weird shit sometimes to Sam and Tucker, but usually its prefaced with him talking about patrol or there would be context before he said anything. With Wes? Though?? he will just. say anything, completely unprompted. Slings an arm around his shoulder like they've been buddies since primary school and then spits out a weird new fun fact he learned about the bodily anatomy while researching his latest cold case. All vaguely-threatening but utterly insane things to say as way to start a conversation.

And sometimes its not even that, he'll walk up to Wes and ask him if he saw the latest daytime fight between Phantom and Skulker. And then he'll say "yeah i missed it myself but I saw clips of it being posted online" and then watch Wes mentally explode him with his mind. or he'll disparage Phantom for having such a young partner with him, "Can you believe he'd let a kid fight ghosts with him? I'd never let my brother ghosthunt with me if I was Phantom."

All of this with such a deceptive look on his face but the most delighted, shit-eating gleam in his eyes. Wes is chewing glass and he wants to yell that he does let his brother fight ghosts with him. Also you told him yourself that nothing would've stopped your demonic (Wes' words) little brother from joining you.

Damian gets in on the fuckery occasionally, but since he's not around often with Wes about, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does between Wes and Danny. Sam and Tucker know he's screwing with him too, and both of them are a little wary about him being careless with his secret id. But he's been doing this since he was 14-ish and it hasn't backfired yet. So. They're not actively stopping him.

Danny walks back to his lunch table after terrorizing Wes and Tucker just asks him what he said, because Wes was about as red as a tomato when he walked away. Danny offhandedly sighs and innocently says he tried to have a conversation about Phantom with him. Wes didn't seem to like it all that much. Weird.

And yes, yes. Wes is totally into it and is slightly enraged about this fact, because not even he knows why he's into it. The freak (affectionate). Danny gives him this troublemaker smirk, and i did say smirk, and Wes doesn't know whether or not if he wants to smack him or kiss him. Or both. Like, yeah, pine, white boy, pine.

(And this is a dramatized image but I'm also highly entertained by the idea that Wes keeps getting routine dirty looks from various peers because they, too, have a crush on Fenton. Except Fenton doesn't talk to anyone else unless its his friends and sometimes Valerie, and Weston, the guy who keeps accusing him of being the local vigilante, is somehow routinely having conversations with him?? And BLOWING IT?? Like everyone else thinks he's fumbling so bad, and yet fenton keeps tALKING to him.)

And yes!! i'm always so pleased whenever someone brings up the parallels D+D have to Dick and Damian, because that was lowkey my intention when I was making the solo clone damian au. Although it was supposed to be more implied since I don't really know much about Damian and Dick other than they're very close and Dick was Damian's Batman for a year. And then of course the very smaller parallel (??) 'what if' between Bruce and Damian and D+D in clone^2 considering who they are both clones of.

And man this just makes me want to talk about when batfam meet D+D because I just want them to see D+D be so brotherly towards each other. Like I want them to see Bby Dames wearing his goofy fun fact shirts and stealing Danny's hoodies/flannels/etc and blatantly lying about it when Danny asks. Only for Danny to then throw him over his shoulder like Tadashi from BH3 and jump around.

And also. I do not know what Damian Wayne's (DW as I'll call him) stance on being called "Dami" is - the general consensus I've seen is that its usually used as a playful nickname in order to get a rise out of him, and he doesn't really like it.

But baby Dames being called that freely, and often, and its sometimes used to get a rise out of him but thats typically what nicknames do. Its used as easily as his full name is with the same amount of affection. And its like his main go-to nickname. "Dami" and "Dames" with the occasional "Bud/Buddy", "Squirt", "Little man", etc. Not once is he ever called 'demon-spawn'

(which i know is a fanon nickname but its a relatively popular nickname)

but yeah, uhhh. i think thats all of my thoughts on the matter. for now lmAO

[jacksprostate]

Treatise on why No, the doctor just giving the narrator of Fight Club (full name) his requested sleep medication or sending him to therapy would not have Fixed Him

Firstly, saying giving him the insomnia meds would’ve fixed him ignores the reason he has insomnia in the first place. He is so deeply upset by his place in society that he literally cannot sleep. Drugging him to sleep would not change that. That, of course, is the easy, quick response.

But with regard to therapy? The biggest flaw is that it ignores a central tenet of the book. Part of what tortures the narrator and drives him to invent Tyler is that his feelings about this collective, systemic issue are constantly reduced to a Just Him thing. His seatmates ask what his company is. He’s the only one upset at the office. He gets weird looks if he says the truth of what he does. People will do anything in their power to pretend he is the issue, as an individual, because it is far scarier to consider the full implications of the systemic issues implied by what he is saying. Everyone treats it as if the issue is him, so he goes insane. He does anything to get someone to say, holy shit, that’s fucked up, what you’re a part of is wrong. In an attempt to feel any sort of vague sympathy and catharsis, he goes to support groups to pretend to be dying, because then at least people don’t habitually blame him for his anguish. 

Saying therapy would fix him ignores that his problems are not individual. They are collective. It’s the reason the entire story resonates with people! Something deeply, unignorably wrong with society, where people would rather blame you for bringing it up than try and address it, because it feels impossible. I don’t blame people for this, really, because it IS scary. It’s terrifying to sit and feel like you’ve realized there’s something deeply, deeply wrong, but if you say something, people will get mad at you since it’s so baked into everything around you. Or, even if they agree, it’s easier to deal with the dissonance by pretending it’s individual.

And it’s not like that’s not the purpose therapy and medications largely serve, anyway. Getting into dangerous territory for this website, but ultimately, the reason the narrator was seeking medication was because it’s a bandaid. A very numbing bandaid. For these very large, dissonance causing problems, therapy does very little. Medications do what they always have, and distract you with numbness or side effects. It’s a false solution. He is seeking an individualized false solution because he has been browbeaten with the idea that this is an issue with him alone, when it's plainly clear it's not. 

Don't get me wrong. Obviously he has something wrong with him. But it's a product of his situation. It is a fictional exaggeration of a very real occurrence of mental illness provoked by deep unconscionable dissonance and anguish.  There is a clear correlation between what happens and his mental state and his job and how isolated he is. 

The thing is, even if he were chemically numbed, I do think he would’ve lost it regardless. Many people on meds find they don’t fix things. For reasons I’ll get into, but in this case because even if numbed or distracted, once you’ve learned about deep, far reaching corruption in society, it’s very hard to forget. Especially if, in his case, you literally serve as the acting hand of this particular variety. He’s crawling up the walls. 

So why do people say this?  Well, it's funny I guess. Maybe the first time or whatever. But also, often, they believe it, to a degree. Maybe they've just been told how effective therapy and meds are for mental illness, they believe wholeheartedly in The Disease Model of Mental Illness, maybe they themselves have engaged with either and have considered it successful. Maybe they or someone they know has been 'saved' by such treatments. 

But in all honesty.... What therapy can help with is mentality, it's how you approach problems. For issues on a smaller scale, not meaning they are easier to deal with my any degree, but ones that are not raw and direct from deep awareness of corruption; these are things that can be worked through if you get lucky and get an actually good therapist who helps build up your resiliency. But when your issue is concrete, something large and inescapable? It's useless. At best it can help you develop coping mechanisms, but there is a limit for that. There is a point where that fails. To develop the ability to handle something like this requires intense development of a comfort with ambiguity and dissonance and being isolated and a firm positioning of your purpose and values and and belief in wonder and all the other shit I ramble about. The things that the narrator lacks, which lead him to taking an ineffectual death knell anarchist self-destruction path. Therapy, where the narrator is, full of the knowledge of braces melted to seats and all the people that have to allow this to happen? It fails. 

And meds — meds are a fucking scam. We know the working mechanism of basically none of them, the serotonin receptor model was made up and paid its way into prominence. We have very little evidence they're any better than placebo, and they come with genuinely horrific side effects. Maybe you got lucky. I did, on some meds. On others? I don't remember 2018. The pharmaceutical industry is also known for rampant medical ghostwriting, and for creating 'off-label' uses for drugs that have gained too many protests in their original use, then creating a cult of use to then have 'grassroots' campaigns for it to be made a label use (ie, legitimize their ghostwritten articles with guided anecdotes). 

The DSM itself is basically a marketing segregation plot. It's an attempt to legitimize the disease model by isolating subgroups of symptoms to propose individualized treatments for subgroups that are not necessarily all that separate. But if the groups exist, you can prescribe more and different medications, no? Not to mention, if you use the disease model, you can propose that these diseases are permanent, or permanent until treated, considered more and more severe to offset and justify the horrific side effects of the medications. Do you know why male birth control doesn't really exist? Same reason. They can justify all the horrible side effects for women, because the other option is pregnancy. For men, it's nothing. 

And they're not bothering to invent new drugs without side effects. When they invent new drugs it's just because the last one got too bad of a name, or they can enter a new market. Modern drugs don't work any better than gen1 drugs. They still have horrific side effects. At best, the industry will shit out studies saying the old one was flawed (truth) so they can say this new gen will be better (lie). They're doing it with ssris right now. 

Fundamentally, the single proposed benefit of any of these drugs is that they numb you. To whatever is torturing you. It's harder to be depressed if you can't feel it, or if you just can't muster the same outrage. Of course, there is people who find that numbness to be helpful, or worth it. But often, it's stasis. For the people who have problems that can be worked on, it serves as a stopgap to not actually work on said problems. The natural outcome of the disease model is stagnation for those whose need is to develop skills and resiliency. It keeps them medicalized and dependent on the idea that they're diseased and incapable. Profitable. Stuck in the womb. 

I’ve been there. It’s easier, to wallow, and resist growth because it’s difficult and painful and unfair and cruel and you can think of five billion reasons to justify your languishing. But don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re just permanently damaged, no matter how nicely they word it, no identity or novel pathologization, no matter how many benefits they promise, especially if they swear up and down some lovely expensive medications with little solid backing and plentiful off-label usage and side effects that’ll kill you. Some days it feels like they want us all stuck in pods, agoraphobic and addicted to the ads they feed us to isolate the markets for the drugs they’ve trained us to beg them to pump us with. Polarization making it as easy as flashing blue light for go, red like for stop, or vice versa. I worry about the kids, for fucks sake. That’s a bit dark and intense, and I apologize. But I want you (generic) to understand, there is a profit motive. Behind everything. And they do not mean well. They do not care about your mental health or your rights or your personhood or your growth. They care about how they can profit off of you.

For those struggling with immovable, society problems, like the narrator grappling with how his job fits into and is accepted by society while his rejection and horror in the face of it does not, it can work about as well as any other drug addiction. Your mileage may vary. From what I've seen, recovering from being on prozac for a long time can be worse than alcohol. They put kids on this shit. They keep campaigning for more. Off label, again. A pharmaceutical company’s favorite thing to do has to be to spread rumors of someone who knows someone who said an off label use of this drug helps with this little understood condition. Or, in the case of mental illness, questionably defined condition. And like, damn, I know I'm posting on the 'medicalization is my identity' website so no one will like all this and has probably stopped reading by now, but yall should be exposed to at least one person who doubts this stuff. Doesn't just trust it. Because I mean, that's the thing right?

It's so big. What would it mean, for this all to be true? Yeah, everyone says pharmaceutical companies are evil and predatory and ghostwriting, but to think about what that really entails. Coming back to the book, everyone knows the car lobby is huge and puts dangerous vehicles through that kill people. What does it mean if the car companies all hire people to calculate the cost of a recall and the cost of lawsuits? No one wants to think about the scale that means for people allowing it or the systems that have to be geared towards money, not safety like they say. Hell, even Chuck misses the beat and has the narrator threaten his boss with the Department of Transportation. And shit, man, if every company is doing this, you think Transportation doesn't know? That they give a fuck? You're better off mailing all the evidence to the news outlets and hoping they only character assassinate you a little bit as they release the news in a way that says it's all the fault of little workers like you, not the whole system. Something something, David McBride, any whistleblower you feel like, etc. 

So I don't blame you, if your reaction is "but but but, that can't be right, people wouldn't do it, they wouldn't allow it" or just an overwhelming feeling of dread that pushes you to deny all of this and avoid thinking about it. Just know, that's in the book. That's all the seatmates on the flights. That's all his fellow officemates. It's easier to pretend, I know.

But think about, how the response fits in with the themes of the book. The story, as a movie too. What drives the narrator’s mental breakdown? How would you handle being in his position? How would you handle being his seatmate? It’s easy to say you’d listen. But have you? Have you had any soul wrenching betrayals of how you thought society worked? How about a betrayal by the thing that promised to be the fix of the first? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t follow that gut instinct, saying follow what everyone says, that person must just be crazy, evil, rude, cruel, whatever it is that means you can set what they said aside?

For a lot of people, they can do that, I guess. Set it aside. Reaching that aforementioned state of managing to cope with the dissonance and ambiguity and despair is very hard. The narrator made the Big Realization, but he couldn’t cope. He self-destructed. Even when people don’t make the big realization consciously, they’re already self-destructing. It’s hard to escape it when it feels easier than continuing anyway. When it feels like the only option,

Would therapy fix the narrator of Fight Club? Would meds fix the narrator of Fight Club? No. He knows too much. All meds will do, by the time he’s in the psych ward, is spiritually neuter him. A silly phrase, but really. Take the wind out of his sails. 

Is he fixed if he doesn’t try to blow up town? If he just shuts up and settles in and stops costing money? If he still can’t cope with the things he’s unearthed? Do you see how this is a commentary in a commentary in a commentary?

Fight Club is an absolutely fascinating story because of this. The fact that it addresses the fallout of knowing. The isolation. The hopelessness. The spiral that results from a lack of hope. This is, I think, what resonates most with people, even if not consciously. Going insane because you’ve discovered something you wish you could unknow. It’s a classic horror story. Should our society be lovecraftian evil? I don’t think so. 

Do I think changing it will be easy? No. Lord knows a lot exists to push people who make these sorts of Realizations towards feelings of individuality and individualized solutions and denial and other distractions and coping methods. And to prevent people who make One realization from expanding on it and considering further ramifications. Fight Club itself gets into this; the isolation of men being a strict part of the role society shapes for their sex leaves them very vulnerable to death fetishes, in a sense, and generally towards self destructive violence. It helps funnel them away from substantial change and towards ineffectual change. Many things, misogyny, racism, serve to keep people isolated from one another, individualized, angry, and impossible to work with. Market segregation; god knows even appealing on those fronts has become such a classic ploy that companies do it now, the US military frames its plundering that way, etc. 

I’ve wandered a bit but ultimately, my point is this: Fight Club is a love letter to the horrors of critical thinking, and the importance of not falling into the trap of self destruction and hopelessness in the face of it. The latter is why Tyler was an anarchoterrorist instead of anything useful. The latter is why it was a death cult. It’s important to work through the horrors of critical thinking so you can do it, and stand on the other side ready to believe in each other. It’s worth it.

[daily-hanamura]

[mmehrunesraz0r]

this is what listening to cosmo sheldrake does to a man

[ultimate-word-tournament]

🎉WE HAVE OUR WINNER!🎉

Congratulations to Gatito/Gatita for winning Season 1 of the Ultimate Word Tournament!

[the-meme-monarch]

ok sorry i didn’t go insane over emesis blue like i thought I would but it is making me scared irl now. i can’t turn over in bed bc what if there’s a severed head positioned like it’s peaking around the doorframe. what if i look over and The Butcher is there

[darkwingswarrior]

hear me out...

What if moon/ sun had the “kitten reflex” when you grab his handle. 

I will be abusing this idea now...