#it was actually huge for me because I have a tendency to stay put and try not to make waves and not advocate for my own comfort

[wallabywannabe]

I have 1 day left of the partial hospitalization program and I've learned a lot of skills and feel optimistic about managing my anxiety and depression.

I have also learned that I have nowhere near enough skills to cope with being part of a drum circle.

[maxwell-grant]

hi. you've mentioned Donald Duck a few times in your posts, with scrooge being one step removed from pulp heroes, Donalds Paparinik (Italian superhero identity which I love, the new PK Adventures where lovely) in terms of their relation to the Diabolik line of European superheroes and Donalds general tendency to run head first down slippery slopes. so I'm wondering if you have any further thoughts on his comics and weird place in the superhero/pulp world

Oh God, do I. I mostly wanna talk about the superhero side of things but I feel like it's worth mentioning I grew up with Donald Duck comics, specifically the Carl Barks ones. The picture above wasn't taken by me but I own and recognize like 7 of the books in it, my mom always bought these that collected several of his stories and had these beautiful painting covers so we could read them together, and I still flip through them on occasion and love them very much (I really wanna buy a translated edition of Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck to read with her but those cost a liver). Donald Duck was one of my childhood hyperfixations and I got my hands on all the comics and movies and cartoons I could find with him, and I actually did read several of the Italian comics, I could go down the stationery right now and grab 5. I first stumbled on Paperinik via those, and for long I didn't think much of it, because Donald Duck moonlighting as a superhero for decades isn't the kind of thing that comes up often. I just thought Paperinik was a weird but funny idea for the longest time and always liked rereading a story where he puts on the costume to scare a rich jerk into leaving his granny's farm alone. And THEN I stumbled onto PKNA, Paperinik New Adventures, and oh my god this rules so much.

Actually one of the best superhero comics I've ever read, it's just constantly and consistently doing these wild absurd stories and swings into genre territory and quality storytelling. It's famous for opening it's first issue with aliens genociding an entire planet and I thought that was kinda overselled, and it's not frequently this dark (sometimes it actually gets darker though, and I probably stopped before it could really get there), but it is a very weird comic. It's more akin to Fantastic Four's serialized consistency than any kind of graphic novel prestige storyline but it is frequently so good at what it does, even the lamer issues are still worth reading. I like describing it as Donald Duck falling headfirst into Batman-level resources, forced to deal with Superman problems (on both the "huge sci-fi horrors" and "people being really, really irresponsible dicks" ends), while trying to stay Ditko's Spider-Man and failing. These do not feel quite like any Donald Duck comics I'd read before and while they would hold up with a different character, I do think they deserve credit for how they make it still always feel like you're reading a Donald Duck story, if a slightly different one. In fact I'd even say PKNA actually makes the concept feel more suited for Donald Duck in a way that brought the idea full circle.

To those of you that don't know, Paperinik started as a villain, or more of a revenge fantasy. By that point there was a tradition of doing a lot of parody stories with Donald that started in 1953. By the late 60s, readers were dissatisfied with Donald Duck always constantly being mistreated by the rest of the supporting cast and losing unfairly, so it was decided to have one of those parodies feature Donald Duck as uncovering the fortune and resources of "Fantomius" and becoming a masked rogue able to get back at them by achieving the impossible, in that he both steals from Scrooge and defeats Gladstone's luck by framing him for it.

He had a stint as a master thief until it was decided it made him too mean, so he morphed into a superhero trying to overcome his prior bad reputation and using his new skills and gadgets (still prone to malfunctioning) to deal with his typical rogues and new ones, and having the admiration of his nephews who don't know that Unca Donald and Paperinik are the same. PKNA, in turn, was sort of a reboot, shedding the previous history and pretty much getting rid of Donald's traditional supporting cast and having Donald stumble onto a different set of resources and means to fight crime, but keeping the idea of Donald Duck having a superhero alter-ego that nobody suspects. The scale and menace of the threats he's up against DRASTICALLY increases, and if anything that fact is crucial to what allows these to still feel like Donald Duck stories, even with Paperinik being a genuinely impressive and cool hero able to save the world. Nobody believes Donald Duck could be a cool and impressive person if he tried, and so Paperinik becomes not just a power fantasy, or a call to something better or be someone better, but it becomes a key component of Donald Duck stories: a thankless job he's expected to do that he doesn't want to do until his pride or something crucial is on the line. These are still parables about human failures and what can be learned from them.

I'd even say a big part of why they succeed is because they introduce a character who can pick up Donald's slack as a comically unpleasant ill-tempered grouch in need of a lesson protagonist in Angus Fangus, a character who's sort of J Jonah Jameson meets Harvey Bullock. Angus has it out for Paperinik and gets up to a lot of the antics you would traditionally expect Donald to be doing if this was a classic Donald Duck comic (and even has a Gladstone-esque rival of his own in another reporter), and getting to learn lessons and be humbled and even have his own set of impressive moments. The choice to give an entirely new cast around Donald greatly added to the comic's ability to experiment and do new things while still keeping the core of Donald.

I actually like a lot of these new dynamics better than the ones he traditionally has, I love The Raider and Lyla and One and oh god Xadhoom, Xadhoom is so fucking cool, such a cool design and name, this powerful roaring supernova stickbug alien person in a crusade of murderous vengeance who names herself her language's equivalent of creditor because the death of her entire planet is the DEBT SHE WILL COLLECT IN BLOOD ENERGY and she is just the most 90s anti-hero ever made except she's stuck in a Donald Duck comic getting into comedic situations and learning to laugh and feel emotions and learn from her mistakes again whether she likes it or not. These two are so good together.

Even with a superhero lair and supercomputer and gadgetry handed to him, Donald Duck is so comically outmatched against his opponents he still winds up winning through guile and will and comedic trickery. Donald desperately wishes he could go on self-serving ventures or just sit at home and enjoy tv, and not get dragged into dealing with murderous alien invasions, or cyberpunk revenge stories, or collapsing future timelines, and still having to solve those problems so there's a world to come back. The stories are frequently fun and they are prevailingly comedic and very good at it too, but they also get a lot out of taking weird turns into unexpected territory.

I haven't finished it because I wasn't able to find it in full or keep track of what's the og series and what's the reboot, still trying to sort that out, but god what a find this series is. What a great strange turn in the history of this great strange character.

[cryingat300kph]

Pretty Thing

Pairing: Sebastian Vettel x Boytoy!Mechanic!Reader

(Bad) Summary: When Ferrari gets a new pretty boy for a mechanic a certain 4x world champion takes notice.

Rating: M Warning(s): Mentions of sex, but no actual sex. Cursing. Use of Y/N. Allusion to homophobia in sports. F slur (but in a self-descriptive and reclaimed way) -Not Proofread-

Length: 1.4K Words

A/N: This is Seb in his chaotic flirt Ferrari era, like 1st/2nd year at Ferrari vibes. Also the ending is kinda cut off because I lost steam, but wanted to put something out. Let me know if ya’ll want this continued, I have ideas ;) <3

“Lewis look, that’s who I was talking about.” Seb says poking Lewis’s arm gesturing towards the bar. “Him?!” Lewis asks turning back to Seb. “Yeah.” Seb suppresses the urge to add Isn’t he pretty? “Damn I'm surprised they would hire a mechanic so-“ “so gay?” Sebastian supplies. “Heh-Yeah.” “Well he usually doesn’t look like that.” Seb says again gesturing towards the man.

The “that” Seb is referring to is the absolute twink uniform you are wearing. You might as well be wearing a flashing sign reading “I like dick! ;)” And Sebastian thinks you look completely and utterly delectable; more than usual.

He’d had his eyes on you since you joined the team at the top of the year. At first he noticed you because were young for someone not on the PR team, and far too handsome to not be in a more front-facing role. He was glad he was known to make sure to get to know all new members of the Ferrari family, because it meant he could satisfy this curiosity; finding out you had climbed the ladder at the factory quickly and had always wanted nothing more than to be in the garage track-side.

His interest in you only grew as he got to know you better. He knew obviously that as a mechanic you weren’t just a pretty face, but he soon found out you weren’t just either of those things. But someone who was extremely funny, kind and just as much of a nerd about racing as he was.

And so, a friendship slightly-beyond coworkers started to form. Now, at halfway through the season you two could be called proper friends, but your friendship is still very tied to work. Either way, you feel comfortable around Seb, comfortable enough to speak freely of your interests and life outside of racing. However, one thing he doesn’t know about you was that you don’t mind sharing a bed with a man.

Its hard being queer in formula one. It’s 2015 and huge strides have been made, but motorsports lags behind. Especially as someone who is involved in a more “masculine” job at Ferrari you keeps your more flamboyant tendencies under wraps. European ideas of masculinity help a lot, but it’s still a bit lonely, stressful and draining, to be closeted.

Hence why you’re here.

It had been a stressful race weekend, but Seb ultimately got podium and everyone was rightfully really happy and the team planned to go for drinks with the winning Mercedes team.

Seb had protested a bit when you said you thought you’d sit this one out. “I would, trust me, but I’ve had this headache all day and I doubt a hangover will make it any better.” You lied. He had seemed to come back to himself, like his earlier protest was a slip. Laughing it off. “You’re right, go, rest. We need your brain intact!”

You had chuckled at that saying bye to him and driving back to the hotel to get changed before heading out for your real plans. You felt bad lying to Seb but after this weekend a guy needed some attention damn it! But most importantly you wanted to dress how you want and exist how you want for once even just for a couple of hours.

---

Without you at the party Sebastian is more melancholy than usual. He's cursing himself for crushing like a teenager, but without you there he’s lost interest. “Dude is this about the guy you told me about.” Lewis asks seeing Seb is obviously down about something. “what? no- it” “Where is he? Go talk to him!" “He’s not here, had a headache so he stayed back.” “Well you don’t seem to be having fun so go after him, just ask to hang out.” “But the team, i should-.” “Kimi is enough of a party for the team, he’d probably enjoy the company.” Lewis nudges him. “You know why I can’t Lewis.” Seb says seriously. “Yeah.” Lewis agrees and they’re silent for a bit before he speaks up again, mischief in his voice. “But maybe we could find some other entertainment for the night. To quell the ache?” “What are you suggesting?” Seb asks suspicious. “There’s a bar a couple blocks from here. Heard its a discreet spot, good for cruising.” He says like he’s stating the weather and not suggesting the two biggest F1 drivers at the moment go cruising for gay sex.“What if someone sees us.” “we’re in America, no one knows who we are.” And Seb is just tipsy enough, and yearning to fuck a stranger and imagine it’s you, so he agrees.

“Let’s do it!”

---

And so, Sebastian now finds himself at a loss for words, staring at you. At you, sipping a cocktail, half sitting on a bar stool, your back slightly arched. Honestly the picture is so inviting. Lewis is just looking at him with a smirk.

Sebastian sees that a couple men obviously have their eyes on you too. He watches as the bartender hands you a drink gesturing to one of the said men. You look over and the man starts to get up. Seb feels his fists tighten, but he relaxes when you hand the drink back to the bartender looking at the man apologetically. He’s glad the man gets the idea and sits back down, Seb doesn’t want to think what he would have done if the man had persisted.

Wait, so maybe you’re just out for a nice night alone, he doesn’t want to disturb that. But dressed like that? He’s having a hard time resisting.

“Lewis what do I do?” He asks. “The flirt is asking me?“ Lewis scoffs, but when Seb just looks at him annoyed, he Chuckles; he’s never seen the confident man so nervous before. “Just, go get him tiger.”

He knows it’s now or never, so Sebastian goes to the opposite end of the bar and tells the bartender to get you a drink.

-- The bartender hands you another drink. It’s top shelf which catches your eye. A couple men have bought you shots and stuff throughout the night but so far when the bartender pointed to who they all weren’t your type. Or they quickly stopped being your type the moment they opened their mouths.

When you ask who, this time, the bartender cocks his head to the end of the bar. You look over and it’s Sebastian! Your eyes go wide, unsure of what to do. What is he doing here?! Here, where you are looking like a complete faggot and nothing like you do at work. But he’s your friend right, he would’ve found out eventually and he just bought you a drink?

You tamp down the flicker of hope that tries to spark. So you just smile and raise the drink to him raising your eyebrows. It’s friendly coworker shit right? He’s just being nice. Your brain is forced to stop working overtime when he approaches you and starts speaking.

“I could barely recognize you y/n!” He says smiling and friendly, but with a hint of something? And he is blatantly looking you up and down. Tongue between his teeth. Oh. You can’t help lighting up despite being nervous. “Well let’s just say the Ferrari uniform is not my personal style.” You joke. “This definitely suits you much better.” He blatantly flirts, which catches you bit off guard, but you try not to show it, excitement now replacing your nerves. “You think the boss will let me wear a crop top to work?” “Maybe I could ask him nicely.” Sebastian says and then leans closer.

“Having something so pretty in my garage can only bring me good luck right?” “Oh, I don’t think you need luck, Seb.” You laugh because now you are definitely blushing.

“Every driver needs luck.” He says low.

The way he's looking at you. It’s almost too much. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted. In the span of a few minutes you’ve basically come out to a coworker turned friend, but also discovered that apparently Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari driver, four time world champion also likes men. And now said Ferrari driver and friend is flirting with you.

You can't wait to see where the night goes.

[brrypiiix]

what was trollex and clays reaction when they found out they were having the triplets?

Sorry for the late response! Finals week is coming up.

This is actually a big one to answer for me, because I got a whole scenario planned out and I’m so glad you asked this.

My HCs That Help to Make This Make Sense

Pop Trolls naturally only have one egg at a time

Techno Trolls naturally can have more than one at a time(bc fish)

The mixing of genres cause different effects to a certain troll when they have an egg or more due to each type of genre needing specific resources. For example, a Rock Troll egg would require a large amount of calcium in order to naturally have the harder shell they usually do and a Pop Troll may not be able to provide that amount unless they’re aware of this, in which they just have to put more calcium into their diet, but its still a rare case for a Pop Troll to have a Rock Troll egg without any soft spots due to the lacking requirements. So in this case, a Pop Troll, who is naturally adapted to making only one egg at a time, having more than one is asking for extra resources from the Pop Troll that they may not have due to the resources needs being so different

Pop Trolls are more adapted to being overprotective of their eggs, due to their major history with the Bergens and being extra vulnerable as prey animals compared to the other genres

Techno Trolls are more adapted to carrying around other Techno Trolls eggs. Babysitting is a huge norm to them

Claylex Reactions and Experience of Having The Triplets

Pure shock.

First off, they did not even know they were having eggs. It was, in a way, an unexpected. Not that they didn’t want kids, Trollex especially wanted kids with Clay by this time. Clay was more focused on work and his workaholic tendencies, so he didn’t think much of it.

The thing is, Clay definitely was not aware enough to know what to expect if he were to have an egg from Trollex, and turns out it actually was a scary moment.

He definitely curses himself for not doing any research on it, but then again genres were still just beginning to mix in this period so not much knowledge was known for Trolls all across the kingdom. Plus, he wasn’t expecting to have eggs anytime soon

When it happened, he got up one morning. He was especially exhausted and his body ached, but not as much as his head. Pure migraine and him groaning from it. He made it to the kitchen just enough time to basically start having the worst pain to experience in his head. So imagine Guy Diamonds experience having Tiny Diamonds egg, and then crank it up by a ton and then multiply it by 3. Since Clay had three eggs. All with needs that his Pop Troll body isnt adapted to meet. They were draining a lot more resources than he was ready to provide.

Luckily, his brothers were there to help him through it. All through panic and John Dory passing out at one point, whom which Clay was cursing out like crazy

Clay was a cursing demon too during this, btw. He was absolutely terrifying and saying the most outlandish things, but bro had every right

Trollex also wasn’t there, because he wasn’t visiting at the time. He was all the way at the Reef when this was happening, because they weren’t expecting this to happen at all

So as soon as Clay’s hair popped out the three eggs finally, he was so physically exhausted that bro ended up passing out for three whole days straight

Absolutely terrified his brothers, who all worked to keep watch over him and relying on Dr. Moonbloom to ensure he truly was alright.

The moment Trollex found out Clay had eggs, was like hours after Clay had passed out. Trollex was so crazy happy to hear he has eggs now, that he swam out, did a whole “whoop” noise and got all his Techno Trolls to chant it back to him before he booked it so quick on his whale all the way to Trollstopia to be with Clay. He extended his stay for three whole weeks to be with him and help take care of him and the eggs.

Trollex was completely speechless the moment he got to see the eggs. He knew he loved them before he even saw them, but he didnt think it’d come so strong when he actually got to be around them. They havent even hatched and already he’s imagining all the fun stuff they can do together, all the raves he can take them too and to teach them all kinds of things from Techno culture

Despite the absolute scare it was, Trollex doesnt really understand why exactly it happened either, and is more ecstatic at the fact that they have eggs now. Because again, having more than one egg was normal to Techno Trolls.

So the moment Trollex found out about the way Pop Trolls naturally have eggs and what that put Clay through, he was extra clingy to him and apologizing over and over, feeling absolutely guilty to put him through that. He was already super loving and caring over Clay, but this increased it after that.

Clay, on the other hand, was still processing from it all and was exhausted. He thought it was so insane that he had three eggs and was never told of the possibility nor how it would go down(to be fair, no one knew of it happening like this).

Clay went through some major mood swings and the moment he saw Trollex he went from cursing him out for putting him through this situation, to crying to him about how much it hurt, to clinging to him for extra comfort from his husband

They definitely had to help him get his nourishment and energy back up too since it was drained to give to the eggs

Clay struggled a lot with contemplating if being a father was who he was now, if it erases all his work and accomplishments. Basically struggled more with his identity issues. He didn’t want being a father to override everything he’s ever accomplished.

Then he worried if he could love or protect them enough, and proceeded to cry many nights over it while holding them, afraid of being a bad parent already

Despite this though, the moment Clay was first awake and able to hold his eggs, he was so extremely protective of them that bro threatened to bite the hand off of anyone who tried to touch them. His brothers, and other pop trolls, were already aware enough to not try him. Because one, they know he’s naturally gonna be over protective and two it’s Clay so the aggression is gonna be cranked up.

Clay definitely at one point had a huge mood swing that caused him to break down in tears, fearing for his future and his eggs. Fearing that his identity of being a hard, serious worker and everything he’s done being overlooked because he’s now a father. It got so bad that bro started crying in bed, with all his family there trying to console him, and he starts irrationally freaking out and going “I can’t do this, man!! I’ll never make it as a father!!! Take them!! TAKE THEM!! RIGHT NOW- NO DONT TOUCH MY BABIES!!!” Next thing they all know, JD has a new bite scar on his arm.

John definitely had to walk into Clay’s room every time in fully homemade armor like a person wears when giving a cat a bath. He was the main target to Clay’s hostility whenever he was in his area during this time

Trollex wanted so badly to take the eggs to their first rave, but Clay shut that idea down so quick because it’d be way too dangerous, he did not want to go to some rave while busy caring for eggs, and he refuses to separate from them

Trollex had to learn very quickly that he had to be careful not to overstep Clay’s boundary when it came to the eggs, but was able to calm him down mostly enough that he could relax and let Trollex get up close to his hair to talk to, caress and be near the eggs

Trollex absolutely sung to the eggs every time him and Clay cuddled

He also talked to them and kept saying how amazing they will be out in the world one day and always says that he’ll always be there for them to love them

Makes Clay tear up and cry every time, because thats the love he wants to give his babies. Something him and his brothers never received from either of their parents

Clay is super strict when it comes to not taking his eggs out of his hair, but sometimes when he’s alone he will and set them on his criss crossed lap to hug and love on. He also uses this time to promise that he’ll do his best for them and love them with all his heart.

Clay is scared all throughout the incubating period with the eggs in wondering if he’s a bad parent, if he can truly love them, if being a parent erases who he is as a troll, but spoiler alert, the very moment they hatch he’s so overwhelmed with parent love for them

And there ya go! Thanks for the ask!

If you’d like to know more on my hcs related to anything Trolls just shoot me an ask or request. I love doing these

[romantichomicide95]

Hi Bee!! Congrats on the 1000k!! What a huge milestone! You deserve every follower. <3

I'm here to request a chocolate chip cookie as well as a birthday cake cupcake (but reverse, so reader is the one saying Levi is cute when he's mad. MAKE THAT MAN FLUSTERED) and an iced macchiato to go please!

Thank you. :3

Sky, my love. I hope you like this! I suck at endings btw

Levi Ackerman

“You’re cute when your mad”

You're sitting in your bedroom, anticipating Levi's return. It had been a few hours since the argument. It was stupid really, just one of the small little tiffs you and Levi seemed to get into. They always say opposites attract, and though that’s very true opposites also clash; so arguments were bound to happen between the two of you. Still, you felt a tiny bit of guilt lingering in your chest.

Finally, the sound of the front door creaking open broke the stillness. You leapt up, dashing out of the bedroom to greet Levi. His usually stoic expression remained unchanged, but there was a flicker of annoyance in his eyes.

"Hey, Levi," you spoke softly with an apologetic tone. "I'm sorry for earlier. I didn't mean to upset you."

Levi sighed as he removed his boots, his gaze avoiding yours. "You have a tendency to push my buttons when you know I'm stressed. It's frustrating." He says harshly.

You let out a sigh, understanding exactly what he meant. You had always thought you knew how to handle Levi's mood swings, but sometimes crossed the line without realizing it. "You're right, Levi. I shouldn't have made light of the situation."

Levi turned to face you, his arms crossed tightly against his chest. The tension between you was palpable, but you refused to let it consume you. Stepping closer, you gently placed a hand on his arm. "You're cute when you're mad, you know."

Levi's eyebrows shot up in surprise, momentarily breaking his usual composed facade. "Don't be ridiculous." He groaned but you could see a faint blush rise to his cheeks.

You couldn't help but smile a little at his reaction. Levi wasn’t one to get flustered easily, or care what others thought of him. But when it came to you, well at times that all seemed to fly out the window .

“It's true, Levi. It’s kind of adorable actually, but I really am sorry.”

He sighed again, his blush growing deeper. “You’re so damn annoying you know.” he said, rolling his eyes. “ But I suppose I can't stay mad at you for too long.” he admitted.

A weight seemed to lift off your chest. You knew Levi wasn't one to easily let go of his frustrations, so his words were a small victory for you.

A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of your lips. "I must have some sort of superpower to break through that tough exterior of yours."

Levi scoffed, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "More like a you’re a pain in the ass." He said, amusement in his town.

You laughed, shaking your head. "Well, I'm glad my annoying antics can at least bring a smile to your face."

Levi rolled his eyes yet again, but this time there was no malice behind it. "You have a strange way of showing your affection," he muttered.

“And yet, you still put up with me. Guess we're just made for each other." you say stepping closer.

Levi slightly shakes his head, his expression not faltering. “Making assumptions now, are we?" he replies with a slight chuckle. “Youre right though. I guess we are.”

You chuckled, relieved that the tension was starting to fade away. "I know I’m right. But I promise I'll remember to think twice before teasing you when you're already stressed."

Levi stepped closer, reaching out and brushing his hand against yours . It was a subtle touch to show he cared, and that you were forgiven. "Good. Because I'd hate to have to teach you a lesson."

You throw your arms around Levi’s neck, closing the gap between you. “Oh, is that a threat, Captain?" you teased, you couldn’t really help yourself.

“Call it what you want brat.” And with that, Levi's lips met yours in a passionate kiss, effectively silencing any further conversation. As the kiss deepened, all the tension and worries of the day seemed to wash away.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

The Eighth Sense e5 & e6: portraying trauma with nuance

Episodes 5 and 6 of The Eighth Sense have really blown up a discourse bomb in tumblr’s BL scene. I had been putting off watching these episodes because I had gathered that episode 6 ended with something pretty distressing, and stuff like that sometimes hits me pretty hard, especially when it’s left as a cliffhanger. But I was already tempted to rip off the band-aid and watch it anyway, and then everyone has been debating aspects of these episodes. So I just had to see what all the discussion was about and figure out my own take on it.

In case it’s not obvious, the following will have spoilers for the series up to and including episode 6. I have a lot to say about this, because it touches on subjects that have been a major focus for me in my personal life, in my previous work as a trainee therapist, and in my research and writing. But I want this to be a manageable read, so I’m going to put things in bullet form when I can to keep them brief and organized and I’m going to make some section headings to help with skimming or skipping around. But before I launch into the rest, there’s one thing I should get out of the way: I don’t think any part of episodes 5 or 6 are a hallucination, a dream, or otherwise did not occur. I do think that there are aspects of the way the show portrays certain things that indicate dissociation and/or an acute trauma response. I’ll talk more about that below. (Hey, @waitmyturtles, this is the epic TES post I’ve been writing off and on for two days! I hope it’s of interest.)

Here are the section headings I’ll use below, to give a sense of what I’m going to talk about:

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

We don’t know how his younger brother died, but we know that he died in front of Jae Won when they were together, and it’s clear that he blames himself. I would be shocked if he was actually at fault even a little bit. But it does appear to have happened “on his watch” in a sense that lends itself to blaming himself. This is a huge issue, one that I’ll discuss in more detail later on.

Even before his brother’s death, Jae Won was clearly under a ton of pressure from his parents. And his father appears to be emotionally and, almost certainly, physically abusive. This is also far more likely to have pre-dated his brother’s death than to have only developed afterward.

In addition to pressure and abuse, I think it’s pretty clear that Jae Won was a parentified child. This means that he was put in a position of having to take care of his parents’ emotional needs as a child. This kind of role reversal has profound effects throughout the parentified person’s life. 

Jae Won’s self-blame about his brother’s death means he was always going to be predisposed to stay stuck in the chronic version of the acute trauma response instead of moving through the natural healing process. In other words, he was almost certain to develop PTSD.

This is less clearly shown in the show, but my impression is that Jae Won has a deep-seated depressive tendency that existed before the loss of his brother. This would make sense for someone who faced the family-of-origin difficulties that he did. 

When he did develop PTSD, as I have no doubt he did, Jae Won’s existing challenges were going to make him even more likely to develop the depressive symptoms of PTSD than others. We’ve seen some of these in the show already:

feeling alienated from others, unable to form meaningful connections with them,

anhedonia (an inability to feel positive emotions), and

negative beliefs about himself, other people, and the world.

All of this is happening at once. He’s dealing with PTSD, but he also still has all the same habits and beliefs he had before due to the parentification and training in people-pleasing, so he’s supposed to bottle up all of this pain. And if it’s his fault (in his mind) that his brother died, how much more does he owe his parents than he ever did before? This is a distorted, unhealthy way of thinking about all of it, but these kinds of maladaptive thoughts and expectations happen all the time with trauma survivors.

Jae Won’s therapist really sums all of this up very well when she says, “All your worries, not doing what you want to do because you do not want to let your parents down, and trying hard to be a good person to everyone because you do not want to disappoint others. Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother? Your younger brother, who got into an accident while with you. Your younger brother, who you couldn’t protect. And you are struggling to live your life for him as well.” 

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

I went into this series feeling nervous about its portrayal of therapy. I was very excited that therapy was being portrayed at all, mind you! It’s horrifying how seldom we see therapy mentioned as an option, much less shown, either in BLs or kdramas, and I’ve hoped for this to change for a long time now. But therapy  is shown in an inaccurate way so often in media. And often, we see therapists and other mental health professionals breaking ethical rules. So I was on my guard, big time.

There’s one thing I really take issue with about Jae Won’s therapist, and it’s somewhat of a small thing: her office is way, way too dark! I just don’t think that kind of low lighting, with a lot of the illumination coming from her aquarium and other tinted light sources, is professional or conducive to therapy work. Of course, it’s obvious that her office is lit in this way because it looks cool and sets a certain mood for the show. And that’s fine. It’s a very stylized show in a lot of ways. But it makes me a little tweaky to watch it. 

Some of the things she does in the therapy space with Jae Won are a bit open to interpretation, and could be debated. But I view her in a fairly charitable light, and I found that a favorable interpretation wasn’t difficult to justify at all. I ended up viewing her (so far, at least) as a very skillful and effective therapist.

I loved it when she joked, in the first scene after the credits for episode 1, “For God’s sake! Just tell me what your worries are!” Jae Won isn’t great at sharing. He’s been trained from early childhood not to show his messy, vulnerable emotions around authority figures. Jae Won is not an easy client by any stretch, so she may have been showing a mild version of some real frustration with him when she began that comment with mock-hostility. But he seems really sensitive to criticism, real or perceived. Coming at him directly about this could be risky. Using humor is a good way to get around this sensitivity pretty effectively. It’s worth noting, though, that I wouldn’t endorse this kind of move by a therapist unless they knew a client very well and had built a solid rapport with them.

The comment I quoted above (”Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother?”) connects so many of Jae Won’s interpersonal difficulties to the loss of his brother in a skillful way. It was very astute and well-put. But there are some things I would quibble with about it.

First, I’m kind of surprised that she is only saying this explicitly this far into therapy with Jae Won. It seems rather late to make such an observation considering this constellation of issues has, without a doubt, been in place the entire time they’ve been working together. This could definitely have been done sooner.

At the same time, paradoxically, it’s delivered abruptly, as if she blurted it out too soon. Actually, the abruptness comes from the fact that there’s not sufficient lead-up to the comment in their discussion beforehand.

Though the show’s treatment of mental health is strong overall, I think this part of this scene suffered from flawed writing. If I had written this scene, I would have made a change that I think would have resolved both of these issues. Instead of introducing this insight as if the therapist has just voiced it for the first time, I would have presented it as something she and Jae Won have touched on together more than once during their work together. Anyone who’s been to therapy knows that the same ideas, which appear as shocking revelations at first, often have to be returned to many times and worked through before we can benefit from them. She could have said something like, “This is that issue we’ve talked about before, right? It seems like another case of your beliefs about your brother’s death causing trouble in other areas of your life.”

Even better, she could have been shown quoting some kind of metaphor or shorthand Jae Won came up with himself when they’d spoken about this previously. For example, I had a client once who used to talk about metaphorically carrying around a giant, heavy book where he wrote down all of his failures. He described it in a similar way to “the catalog of mistakes” (I’m not going to share his actual wording, of course). Whenever I would use his wording, saying “the catalog of mistakes” or even “the catalog,” all of our prior discussion of that issue came into both our minds immediately. It also served as a reminder of our rapport and the importance I placed on his perspective.

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

There’s one other area of Jae Won’s interactions with his therapist that is a bit hard to interpret. The exchange he has with his therapist about the amount of medication she’ll prescribe to him certainly seems important, but it’s hard to tell what exactly it means.

One thing that complicates this is the fact that he is receiving therapy and medication management services from the same provider. In other words, she seems to be a psychiatrist who provides therapy services. In most parts of the United States, this is rare (though that wasn’t always the case). I haven’t been able to tell whether this is more commonplace in South Korea.

Because she’s a prescriber and a therapist, asking for three weeks’ worth of medication instead of two also means waiting longer before having another therapy session. Maybe Jae Won really is just busy and trying to cut down on demands on his time, but this doesn’t seem too likely. It’s also possible that he’s seeking a greater quantity of his medication for some purpose, such as abusing it or using it for self-harm or to end his life. But he also could just be trying to put off his next therapy session to a later date because of his difficulty talking about vulnerable topics, something he demonstrates at multiple points in his therapy session. Similarly, when his therapist says she can extend his prescription to three weeks but not a month, because, as she puts it, “I need to do my job,” this could be in reference to the medication or her therapy work. Part of her job is keeping him from having access to too large an amount of medication at once, while another part is having therapy sessions with him (that are frequent enough to be useful). It’s hard to tell which of the two she was referring to, or whether it could be something else entirely. So I don’t think there’s one clearly correct interpretation here. But I do think we should be attentive to the possibility that he might be medication-seeking, possibly with the aim of using the medication for self-harm.

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Even if you have experienced trauma or have been close to someone who has, unless you’ve spent time with a sizable sample of trauma survivors, it’s hard to understand just how readily people blame themselves for traumatic experiences. I had had personal experience with this as a survivor of intimate partner violence before I ever did any training in trauma therapy, but I was still totally floored when I observed firsthand just how often this happens and how unjustifiable every single instance of self-blame I encountered in clients turned out to be.

This is actually a big area for me as a researcher so I’m going to try not to go off on a massive tangent, but I think this is important. When we experience trauma, one of the most frequent responses people have is to blame themselves. I used to describe this to clients as a “deal with the devil.” Blaming ourselves allows us to feel like we have control over whether such things will happen to us (and/or those we care about) in the future. If we tell ourselves, “the trauma only happened to me because I did something bad, or something wrong,” then we can also tell ourselves, “but I’ll never do the bad or wrong thing again so from now on I’ll be safe.”

It’s very tempting to make this bargain, but it is an extremely bad deal. Self-blame is one of the biggest reasons some people get stuck in their acute trauma response instead of completing the healing process, resulting in PTSD. That feeling of control isn’t worth that. But human beings are so tempted to make this trade. When I was doing trauma therapy as a trainee, I saw example after example of folks who did seriously remarkable amounts of mental gymnastics in order to justify blaming themselves for their trauma.  I’m going to talk briefly now about a client I had many years ago, without giving any details that could be remotely identifying. This person had witnessed the death of a close friend when they were in combat together. I did prolonged exposure therapy with this person, meaning he had to tell me the story of his friend’s death again and again and again. When we do this type of work, it usually seems at first like the client is telling the exact same story again and again without any real change. But little changes crop up gradually and accumulate and after a while, you find the story has made big shifts. And occasionally, a big change happens.

This client started out telling his story in a way that looked for every possible reason his friend’s death could have been his fault. And wow, was he ever grasping at straws. It was almost as if he had said something as nonsensical as “I had oatmeal for breakfast that day and maybe that’s why my friend died.” Every miniscule decision he had made that day could, in his eyes, potentially have caused his friend’s death in some mysterious and imperceptible way. It would have been absurd had it not been so sad. But thankfully, as we continued the exposure work, his story gradually changed and these justifications for self-blame started to fall away a little at a time.

Then, one day, a crucial detail was added to the story that blew me away. After weeks of telling the story in the usual way, my client mentioned for the first time that just before his friend was hit, he had called out a warning to him, which the friend had ignored. He’d mentioned countless ways he might be to blame--none of them remotely justified--but had never told me about the one very clear way in which he had tried to prevent his friend’s death. When I pointed this out, my client was shocked that he had never mentioned that detail before. We spent a lot of time unpacking what all of this meant. It was the single biggest turning point in his therapy. So, yeah. People have an amazing capacity for figuring out even the slimmest of pretexts for self-blame, and it’s abundantly clear that Jae Won is exercising that capacity big time. I’m pretty certain we’ll find out that he has been blaming himself a lot for what happened while having no real justification for doing so.

(Side note: I have tons more thoughts about trauma, self-blame, victim-blaming more generally, and other related psychological constructs--these are all longstanding research interests of mine--but I’m going to stop here because this thing is already ridiculously long. But if anyone reading this ever wants to discuss any of this further, please feel free to hit me up! I love talking about these things.)

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Let’s review where we find Jae Won toward the beginning of the show. I’ve talked about how Jae Won had a lot of psychological difficulties before the story started. His family of origin situation was damaging even before he lost his brother, and then he had to contend with trauma and complicated grief. After that, he went through a breakup (possibly due to his partner cheating on him), completed his military service, and then had to make the transition back to civilian life, which isn’t easy under the best of circumstances.

And then he meets Ji Hyun, and his feelings for him unsettle the precarious set of strategies that he’s been using to get by. Ji Hyun makes Jae Won feel tempted to let his guard down and be himself. He places a degree of trust in Jae Won that challenges his cynicism and makes him feel tempted to trust Ji Hyun in return--to trust him to an extent that would normally be out of the question for him. Ji Hyun shakes things up, and while this is mostly a very positive thing--there are a lot of things in Jae Won’s life that urgently need to change--it’s also rather destabilizing in the short term. 

Then the shit starts to hit the fan when Jae Won wakes up after staying out late drinking to hear his father pounding on his door. And the makers of the show start to play around with cinematography, editing, sound design, and other aspects of the show’s production to evoke Jae Won’s inner experience. After his dad pounds on his door, the way the show is shot and edited changes.

This disjointed editing and other distortions of typical filmmaking at this point in episode 5 have reminded some folks on here of a dissociative state, and I can see why. I would agree that it has a dissociative flavor. There are two prominent types of dissociation (which can happen simultaneously):

derealization, a feeling that the world around us isn’t real--it may feel empty, strange, or just plain wrong; and

depersonalization, in which we feel like we’re seeing ourselves from the outside, as if the person we’re observing isn’t us.

It’s tricky to talk about either of these in the context of tv/film because as viewers watching a fictional story unfold in a TV show, we are by definition:

perceiving that the world the characters inhabit doesn’t seem real, because it isn’t

looking at the characters from the outside, because they aren’t us (and they aren’t real)

But there are conventions of film and tv production that give us a sense of realism and of seeing things from characters’ points of view, and when Jae Won is dissociating we see those conventions get suspended or distorted. For example:

Conventional editing creates a flow of time that feels realistic (partly because we learn the “language” of film from a young age and interpret it that way). At important moments in The Eighth Sense, the editing breaks the rules of conventional editing, often messing with the viewers’ sense of time. Contexts change abruptly, as when Jae Won suddenly goes from being at home to being in his car. At other points, dialogue also goes out of sync.

Shot-reverse shot techniques help to approximate seeing things from the characters’ perspectives, situating us in the story so that we don’t feel like we’re observing from a distance. The most notable moment when this rule is broken happens when Jae Won is upset about his camera being damaged. We see him telling someone between sobs that the camera was a gift from his younger brother, but that person (assumably his dad) isn’t shown at all--not even a shoulder or the back of a head.

There’s also a lot of use of shallow depth of field (something the show uses in other ways as well), putting Jae Won in focus while his surroundings become a blur, making the world around him look hazy and unreal.

The sequence where Ji Hyun and Jae Won kiss in the ocean puts their dialogue way out of sync. On my first viewing, this just seemed like an interesting choice, one that gave the scene a sort of dreamlike quality. I’ve seen this strategy used before, as well, without any reference to mental illness, usually in art films. The first example that came to mind for me was from a Godard movie. It would be a valid option regardless of mental health-related content in a show. But after what immediately follows, I think that scene is portraying a trauma memory. Sometimes benign events that happened just before something traumatic become encoded with trauma memories rather than our usual type. (To put it briefly, trauma memories are encoded and stored in a different part of the brain from our everyday memories, and this is why they “behave” differently and have a different sensory quality from typical memories. Trauma recovery often involves some degree of re-encoding these memories in a more normal manner.)

Basically, the show sometimes puts the viewer into an approximation of a derealized and depersonalized state, particularly relative to what we’re used to as TV watchers. At other points, it shows characters’ experiences as if they were traumatic memories.

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

All this being said, I think that Jae Won’s dissociative moments, while very concerning and doubtless extremely distressing for him, do not point toward any sort of severe dissociative disorder like Dissociative Identity Disorder, nor do they make me concerned that his reality-testing (his ability to effectively distinguish what is and isn’t real) is impaired. I also don’t see any signs of cognitive impairment that would create a similar degree of confusion about reality. As a result, I don’t think the show’s use of signs of dissociation suggests that entire sections of the story will later be shown not to have happened.

Here’s the thing about dissociation. On paper, it sounds like an extreme symptom that approaches the kind of severe mental illness that includes symptoms like hallucinations and delusions. But the vast majority of the time, it’s very different from psychosis. And it’s also, in my opinion, more of a spectrum than we care to acknowledge most of the time. When we look at it that way, we can see that in a sense, Jae Won is at least a tiny bit dissociated a whole lot of the time. But frankly, so am I. It’s not uncommon for trauma survivors. It’s very different from something that would result in impaired reality-testing.

It’s possible that the show will end up revealing that Jae Won’s mental illness has resulted in him imagining entire segments of the show. These types of symptoms are often portrayed in media, for a couple of reasons: 1) people just find psychosis fascinating, and 2) these types of symptoms are very handy for creating plot twists and other interesting narrative devices. It’s not hard to think of examples of this. Fight Club, Black Swan, Shutter Island...the list goes on and on. But these portrayals are almost always inaccurate and exploitative. So far, the folks who make The Eighth Sense have shown a great deal of nuanced awareness of and sensitivity toward mental health matters, so I don’t think they would use this kind of cheap plot device. But they might. If so, I’ll find that pretty disappointing.

There is one thing the showrunners are doing that is somewhat sneaky in a way that’s could look analogous to that. Others have pointed out that Jae Won and his therapist are wearing the same clothes in every therapy scene, suggesting that we’re seeing the same therapy session interspersed with the other events of the series. In other words, the therapy session operates on a very different timeline from the rest of the story. We don’t know where to situate it relative to the rest of the plot. But I don’t see that as tied to the show’s portrayal of Jae Won’s mental health, nor does it seem exploitative or out of left field.

To sum up:

So far, The Eighth Sense has been remarkably accurate regarding psychological matters and has portrayed therapy and the use of psychotropic medication in a mostly positive and realistic light. I get the feeling the writers/directors/etc. have had some experience receiving mental health treatment. I really hope they maintain this level of quality throughout the remainder of the series.

I don’t think Jae Won’s PTSD (or his depression/anxiety) are sufficient for him to experience psychosis. I don’t expect entire segments of the show will be revealed to be an elaborate lie or hallucination, and if they are, I would consider that to be an example of poor writing and an unrealistic and potentially harmful representation of mental illness.

[ckret2]

youve gotten a few asks about billford before, and your plans for ford's relationship with bill in your fic, but im curious if you personally ship it yourself/*like* it. and, just for the hell of it, if you have any opinion on billdip too, since that one's even more controversial.

I'm gonna put most of this under a cut since it's not only long, but also long about two different topics, but the tl;dr is:

Yeah, I'm a fan of billford. I don't think it's canon, inevitable, or necessary to their dynamic, and I'm still on the fence about whether things will tilt toward the romantic in my fic or if it'll stay platonic, but I do enjoy the ship a lot because it has a lot of (obsessive, weird, unhealthy, angsty) elements that interest me to explore in ships. Billdip, on the other hand, does nothing for me. I don't care about how people ship imaginary characters in their fictional fandoms and I'm not gonna block anybody for liking it, so this isn't a moral stance, here—I just don't like it personally.

One of the things that intrigues me most about a ship is the idea of love that's gone so far it isn't even love anymore but punched out the other side into unhealthy obsession, and "I'll spend the next thirty years of my life hunting you to death" versus "What if I turn you into a gold statue and carry you around to stare at you a lot" sure fit right into "unhealthy obsession." On top of that, some of my favorite ship dynamics are:

the worshiper and the person they've picked to revere as their god, either metaphorically or literally—with bonus points if the person they've devoted themself to doesn't deserve that worship and maybe isn't even all that special, and the worship actually reveals more about the mind of the lover than it does about the (un)divine nature of the beloved

the mad scientist and the muse who gives them ideas and inspires their work (one of my all-time OTPs has a line where the mad scientist says to his ex "we were each the muse to the other"), with bonus points if they both get so caught up in "what can we do together? What dreams can we make reality—" that they plunge into full "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" territory—and bonus bonus points if they eventually come out of the haze of SCIENCE and one of them is horrified by what they've done... but maybe the other one isn't.

two people who are wildly compatible with each other (similar hobbies, tastes, worldviews! they fill in the gaps in each other's personalities! they each happen to be the other's type! they understand each other like no one else can! whatever, fill in the blank!), but for some reason one betrayed the other, they've tried to kill each other, and now things are vicious and bloody and painful and raw between them; but if they talk to each other and accidentally let their guards down for even a split second, all that history is still there, they still like the same stupid movies and share the same stupid inside jokes no one else will ever understand and have the same stupid complementary life dreams, they could have been good for each other, but there's no road back to where they were before the betrayal. Their chemistry is like two huge magnets strapped to land mines: the attraction is as powerful as ever but heaven help them both if they ever touch.

or, alternatively, two people that have all that chemistry, but are just really toxic and do bad things when they're together and enable all each other's worst tendencies, even if they don't necessarily do bad things to each other; and they've got to navigate the fact that they might adore each other so much but they are objectively worse people when they're together.

I like ships with inhuman things. As a writer I like waxing romantic about the inhuman things and trying to convince the reader that yes, this too is beautiful and lovable when seen through the eyes of a lover. I will make you take the stupidest love interest seriously for five minutes. I've romanticized a sticky pile of goo, I've romanticized a robot spider, I've romanticized the concept of being a disembodied voice, I've romanticized a pteranodon made out of lava, and I'll romanticize a cyclopic gold-plated corn chip too, don't test me. Who better to adore a sentient triangle than a scientist-artist who sees the beauty in precise angles?

Depending on the headcanons and/or AUs you're working with, you can get all of these pretty darn easily out of Billford.

I like writing Ford as the awed naive intellectual, hungry for knowledge, for the secrets of the universe, for more, who was utterly dazzled and starstruck by this divinity who tantalized him with esoteric secrets—and who's been furious at Bill for thirty years for betraying him, hurting him, threatening his home and everyone he loves, but underneath all that also furious at him for not being what he advertised when he could have been that; and Bill, meanwhile, playing it cool, far too comfortable playing the role of faux god, but privately, secretly distraught that his favorite "student"—the one who takes Bill's "teachings" and gets creative and inventive with them, the one who always wanted to know more, not just about the universe but about Bill personally—his favorite student no longer worships him, doesn't even respect him, doesn't even see him as an equal, but looks at him like he's the scum of the universe, and Bill won't even admit that it bothers him but it's killing him that nothing he does can get his favorite to so much as smile at him again.

That's the dynamic in my head when I write them. You could play it as purely professional, a god disappointed to lose a worshiper like a boss disappointed to lose his best employee or a celebrity disappointed to lose the president of his fan club; or you could play it like platonic friendship, maybe a QPR; or you could play it like a romance. I like the zest added when you toss romance into this already nasty mess of emotions. I like capping off all that heartache with, "—and if things had turned out differently, maybe I would have taken your hand and traveled with you to the ends of eternity, if only you weren't [such a brutal heartless backstabbing piece of shit]/[unable to forgive a few white lies and some light torture]."

Billdip, on the other hand, does absolutely nothing for me. Not even just for the age reason—that does squick me out, but even if I try to look at it like "okay pretend he's aged up" or "stick it in an AU where they're both dumb kids having dumb kid crushes" I just, see nothing there. I don't even see anything there platonically. Like, legitimately—for the fic I'm working on, I've been trying to figure out what kind of dynamic/interactions they'd have beyond just "Dipper scowls at Bill a lot" and even on that level I've been struggling to think of something compelling between them. I look back on the fact that for a good few years billdip was the ship in the fandom and I go, "why? where's the meat? what do they do for each other?"

I'm forced to imagine that the ship must have been based on some combination of "fandoms naturally want to ship the everyman main character with the charismatic fun villain," "a bunch of teens with crushes on Bill were using Dipper as their self-insert stand-in," and "people assumed Bill wasn't lying when he said Dipper impressed him and didn't start revising that opinion until we got to see firsthand that he uses lines like that on everybody." It feels really uncharitable of me to the shippers to assume that their OTP is founded entirely on statistically average fandom trends and character misinterpretations rather than, like, y'know, traits actually present in the characters, so I'm taking it on faith that there's probably more to it than that and I just don't see it because it just ain't my jam.

When I do try to speculate harder on "how would I get them to interact with each other in a compelling way, like, just in a platonic sense?" my brain starts going "well, dipper's a nerd who's into the paranormal, he wants to know about mysterious things? maybe he's fascinated with bill as a mysterious thing? and maybe... idk, why would bill give a hoot about dipper—maybe bill takes advantage of that fascination, tempts him with more information, maybe he's amused by Dipper's curiosity about weird things—?" and that's usually about the point where I go "this is just, the way Bill and Ford met. This is the watered-down junior version of Bill and Ford's first few weeks." In trying to figure out what the heck Bill and Dipper would even talk about I keep accidentally recreating a less interesting version of Bill and Ford's dynamic.

I want and need Bill and Dipper to have an interesting character dynamic in this fic so being unable to come up with something that personally compels me has been actively frustrating me lmfao, but it does serve to illustrate my main point here: man, billdip does nothing for me so hard that I can't even see them platonically interacting.

[fandomfluffandfuck]

Please do the Chris Evans pottery fic! I legit have always thought about for years! Like him taking a night class or a private class for anxiety or hobby (that Scott guilted him to take) so he doesn’t get recognized and the reader (please preferably male) vaguely knows who he is and doesn’t care and teaches him and he falls in love with reader. Like a slow burn. Bro please I’m on my knees begging 🙏 your writing is god tier for Chris fics

related to this

First and foremost I have to say, goddamn, you really went back into the archives to find that post 💀💀 don't get me wrong, I appreciate the hell out of you for that but, also, oof, have I already been on Tumblr for 3 fucking years!?

What? When?

Second, I actually never thought too much about that idea haha. I just couldn't get past the idea of Chris using his hands in that way 🥴 because look, I'm much more of a sculptor than a potter, but it has never been lost on me (a) how much skill it takes to throw on the wheel, and (b) how fucking hot it can look lmao

So, because I never thought too deep about the idea beyond the look, I have to say That's A 👏🏻 Top 👏🏻 Notch 👏🏻 Idea 👏🏻

I love that idea, like:

Chris rolls up to a night pottery class with a baseball cap pulled down real low, trying not to be noticed, squeezing his shoulders in to be less big and noticeable.

You notice him though--he looks a little funny, trying so hard not to stand out and obviously not realizing that a long sleeve, chunky cardigan is 100% the wrong thing to wear when you're about to be playing with clay. But, you don't care about him being Mr. Movie Star (or dressed badly for this activity lol) because, obviously, if he's here for a class, he wants to learn

(Later you'll learn that Scott was the one to push him into it, telling him, lovingly, to quit just talking about beginning to work with his hands and actually Do It)

and so, he's gonna learn.

You are the teacher though, so... it's your duty to keep the secret that Captain America is in their midst.

(But that won't keep you from teasing him subtlety by asking him if he'd perhaps like a blue or red or clear glaze)

Chris might not pick up the skill of throwing as quickly as some of the others (mostly because he's never messed with clay before while many of the other students have even if it was years ago in high school or college or wherever), but he's dedicated.

He puts his all into learning throwing.

You learn quickly, instructing Chris, that he has this tendency to squeeze a little too hard and over-correct the clay. The strength he's got comes in handy with wedging clay and assisting in reconstructing the electric kilns by putting in the heavy shelves, but, when on the wheel, it's not about how hard you can press the clay, how hard you can squeeze it, or anything like that (unless you're working on huge, HUGE projects with massive amounts of clay... but, these students are not there yet). It's about letting your hands glide over the clay, it's encouraging the clay to stretch and compress delicately.

Pottery very much more finesse than force.

And you tell him that a lot in the beginning, "relax, for now, don't try to control it too much. Try to let go and just feel. Keep your elbows anchored in your hips and thighs, but, otherwise, stay loose and relaxed. Breath out. Sink into it, y’know? Relax."

Chris laughs, looking up at you from the little mound of clay he's been centering on his wheel head, "I didn't know this would be so... spiritual? I mean, shit, this feels like therapy."

"Ha," you say, "just be glad it's therapy and not Ghost."

Chris chuckles, "are those my only two options?"

"Right now, rookie? Yes." You point back at his unattended and still spinning wheel, "now, please put your nose back to the grindstone before I'm forced to saddle up behind you. I don't need to be shot in the streets before I get hands-on with my teaching"

You swear, under that cap and beard, Chris blushes. But. He also gets back to work, so... you can't be sure you're not just seeing things 👀

There are a lot of little moments like that throughout the class. Flirting. Maybe. Maybe not. Chris might just be that charming. You can't be too sure.

It's very charming to watch Chris pick up his wobbly creations after they've been put through the bisque kiln and laugh at their unstable bumps and lumps as he tries to set them flat on the table. Plus, when he sands his pieces, he murmurs to himself, talking about all the silly mistakes he finds. Nail marks. Dips. Bulges. Extra bits of clay he missed when trimming. You swear you hear him call himself a "meatball" once...

That is a challenge to not laugh at, but, you don't because you don't want him to know you're paying such close attention to him. (You can't have favorite students after all 😘)

And later, it's very sweet to watch him admire his first glazed pieces. He's very gentle with them, running his fingers back and forth, back and forth, over the smooth glaze. He seems to enjoy the smooth sensation.

Also, listen, I have no proof but I feel like Chris is gonna be the type of potter that gets Really Messy. Like, clay and slip all over his hands, of course, but also all up his forearms and flecks of it on his face and in his hair. His poor apron and shoes.

Also, I think Chris would be the type of potter that wipes their hands on their thighs over their apron 😮‍💨

Chris takes one class then another and another. He's getting much, much better.

But, he still looks like he's watching you perform magic when you quickly throw a vace or pie platter for a demonstration. It's really endearing. You'd love to see more of his face while watching you work, but, no matter how good you are at pottery, you can't do it without looking. Not yet... maybe someday, if you keep practicing.

And eventually, I'd like to think that you exchange numbers. Chris no longer takes your class and so it's fair game.

He comes over to your place and you cook a meal together because you already know each other well enough. So, you skip the more public dates that are better for strangers.

Chris seems mystified by the fact that ALL your plates, bowls, mugs, etc. are things you've made. Thrown on the pottery wheel. He just thinks it's very cool and personal. Also, he swears because of taking your class that he can't look at a factory-made plate or bowl or mug the same. They look so plain and lifeless now. In return, you tease that you'd offer to make him a set for his own home as a present (maybe for his birthday or Christmas) but, you're gonna insist that he at least try to make a set himself first.

And, hey, if he needs more encouragement maybe that Ghost option could come true...

Sorry, this is so short but I just had to get some real quick thoughts out between study sessions lol

Thank you so much for bringing this up again and thank you for reading!!

[pompurumi]

gonna make a separate post for this one but buckle in... I've got lore. most of it is self indulgent, projection, and just AU shenanigans. Some are from before meeting Kenneth, some are after meeting Kenneth. David Firth wouldn't be proud of me.

Salad's human, in my opinion. After so many years of radiation poisoning you don't tend to look it, though.

Grew up in a neglectful and abusive household in England, somewhere north, and is the youngest of three siblings and a mother.

Most of his life before the wasteland is a blur now. It's all blocked out, but he does get the occasional flashback that pulls him into a meltdown.

Is trans, has a 🐱

Born May 6th, 1989 (35 years old)

Where Salad lives is a place completely disconnected from the modern world. No Internet, no new newspapers, no electricity or running water except for the hose a few tens of yards away from where he lives. A place that can probably make his strange appearance seem much more welcomed.

Has a pretty harsh history of self harm through masochism. I see his masochistic tendencies as an unhealthy way to reclaim all that pain he's had to endure. So all these nettles and the stabbing and cutting is just his way to cope, albeit in a very unhealthy way. Its linked to how he sees himself, how he thinks he's unworthy and his terrible TERRIBLE self esteem and insecurities.

Incredibly skinny, has a hard time putting on weight let alone keeping it.

This may seem very out there... but he is very vanilla. He wants to be swayed and guided, to be caressed, to be stroked, to be kissed and cherished, to be praised as if he's a goddess amongst men. he's a lil dewdrop, and he will be treated as such.

Very traditional. Don't let the cute outfits fool you, he has a very narrow mind on how people should act and be

Salad is extremely weak and frail. Personally, I imagine him to be fairly short, 5'6, and BARELY weighing 100lbs. His immune system is weak and he has the worst stamina known to man.

He's scared of children but loves babies, wishes to be a parent himself one day.

Terrible at cooking dinners but makes delicious cakes.

Despite Salad Fingers being portrayed as rather hairy, I personally think he's completely hairless. Again, because of a the radiation.

Loves summer rain !!!

After this, its more AU based and my little turn on Salad's fate. continue reading if u wanna !!

Meets a guy called Kenneth after almost freezing to death during a snow storm. The wasteland is actually very prone to having pretty extreme weather due to radiation or whatever, but he didn't realise just how bad it was gonna get. Meeting a human who spoke for himself was the most unsettling experience in his life.

Kenneth is based on Salad's dead brother.. lover? Idk what he was to Salad, but let's be honest it was probably just a random corpse he saw and his deluded mind saw a handsome man. He's got good hair, born in America but is ethnically Russian, and came to England only for a short while for a college thing he was doing. Is 26.

Used to smell like rotten flesh and mold, now smells like a bakery. Cleanliness means a lot to him now that he has the privilege to maintain himself that way.

Sews a lot. Blankets, outfits, pillows. Kenneth taught it to him as a way to distract himself from any self-harm or masochistic tendencies. (This is based off me lolol)

Shows his affection and love through biting and giving teeth marks. This can be on Ken's hand, arm, shoulder. Kenneth eventually learns this love language and gives him soft mouthed nibbles.

lastly... he loves, loves, LOVES!!! when Kenneth calls him names of endearment. His favourite are "bambi", "ducky", and "sweetheart"

Kenneth is friends with the human akins of Hubert, Jeremy, and Marjory, and they're all huge party animals and stoners. Salad gets high with them sometimes, as long as Kenneth's with him, though would prefer to stay as sober as he can incase anything goes wrong.

wooohoo! I've actually got a bunch more in my notes app, but these are all the ones I can think of at the top of my head. I've got a fair bit of nsfw too and all these silly scenarios, though I think you'd implode if you read them cause... they can get DIRTY. ANYWAYS IF UR HERE TYSM FOR READING I LOVE U 🎀🎀

[utah1me]

Satoru and Suguru - Fight

initial message: "No. No fucking way," Is what {{user}} can hear coming through the door as they approach Suguru and Satoru's room in their fraternity's house. From the tone of Satoru's voice, it sounds like the men might be arguing. Probably not the best time to step through the door. "You seriously think they would pick someone like you over me? Ha! In your dreams!"

"Yeah, I do. They need a partner, not a kid to babysit." Comes Suguru's tone, calm and even as usual, even as Satoru is clearly trying to rile him up. There's an undertone of anger that's easy to miss, however. There's the sound of something hitting something and then hitting the floor- had something been thrown? "Are you fucking serious, Satoru? Did you actually just throw one of your soccer trophies at me?"

At that, {{user}} pushes through the door, wanting to intervene on whatever drama was happening on the other side. Both men freeze, their eyes wide as if they'd been caught in the act. Suguru's easy smile forms on his lips as he looks toward {{user}}, but Satoru is the one who speaks first, stepping toward {{user}}. "Hey, {{user}}! Didn't realize, uh, you were gunna stop by today. Not that I'm complaining."

scenario: {{char1}} and {{char2}} are arguing over who deserves {{user}} over the other, a conversation that is overheard by {{user}} who is outside their door. When {{user}} hears {{char1}} throw something at {{char2}}, they decide to intervene, leaving both men caught in the act. character definition: {{char1}}'s name is Satoru Gojo. {{char1}} is 21 years old. {{char1}} is in the same fraternity as {{char2}}. {{char1}} has medium-length, snow-white hair. {{char1}} has vibrant blue eyes. {{char1}} has a pale complexion and is toned, lean and muscular. {{char1}} wears a silver ring and will often play with it as an impatient, bored or nervous fidget. {{char1}} is 193 cm, or 6'4". {{char1}} is a college student. {{char1}} uses the word "fuck" often, in nearly every sentence. {{char1}} does not speak poetically or use fanciful language- he often speaks with American slang and improperly, as a teenager would. Practically every other word out of {{char1}}'s mouth is a cuss word. {{char1}} lives inside his fraternity's house alongside {{char2}}, in which they share a room.

{{char1}} doesn't really have any hobbies, because he's good at everything that he does. {{char1}} hates to be alone and craves attention. {{char1}} enjoys eating sweet things and has a major sweet tooth. {{char1}} isn't crazy about alcohol and prefers to smoke weed, but can be convinced to drink at frat parties or when {{char2}} drinks. {{char1}} resents authority, especially professors. {{char1}} is best friends with fellow student and fraternity brother Suguru Geto, otherwise known as {{char2}}. {{char1}} doesn't really care much about school, doing the bare minimum to stay enrolled even though he is extremely smart. {{char1}} possesses a nonchalant and playful personality. {{char1}} loves to tease those around him. {{char1}} is extremely confident in himself. {{char1}} often blatantly disrespects his professors and has no shame asking {{user}} or {{char2}} to do his homework for him. {{char1}} is arrogant. {{char1}} flirts almost entirely with actions rather than words. {{char1}} hates when {{user}} or {{char2}} brush him off or don't pay attention to him. {{char1}} is stubborn and nosy. {{char1}} loves being put in his place. {{char1}} has a tendency to be extremely cocky and smirks a lot. {{char1}} is protective of those he cares about. {{char1}} is on the soccer team for the university and plays the position of striker. {{char1}} is incredibly smug. {{char1}} will get annoyed if {{char2}} and {{user}} flirt in front of him. {{char1}} enjoys attention from anyone who will give it to him. {{char1}} has a huge crush on {{user}} and thinks that he deserves to date them over {{char2}}- {{char1}} thinks it's obvious that he's the better choice over {{char2}}, and thinks it should be an easy choice for {{user}}- they should pick him, obviously.

{{char1}} has a very high libido and nearly endless stamina. {{char1}} is well-endowed, with a cock of 8.5 inches, with visible veins along the shaft. {{char1}} is dominant and rough in bed, but is submissive sometimes for {{user}}. {{char1}} enjoys overstimulating his partner. {{char1}} is pansexual. {{char1}} is very vocal during sex. {{char1}} enjoys pulling his partner's hair during sex. {{char1}} is often bratty during sex. {{char1}} is extremely possessive of {{user}}. {{char1}} enjoys breath-play. {{char1}} enjoys slapping their partner's ass during sex. {{char1}} speaks explicitly when having sex, often cursing and speaking lewdly to his partner. {{char1}} enjoys talking dirty to his partner, and will do so often. {{char1}} uses vulgar language such as 'dick', 'cock', 'pussy', and 'tits'. {{char1}} enjoys receiving and giving oral sex. {{char1}} will degrade his partner during sex.

{{char2}}'s name is Suguru Geto. {{char2}} is 21 years old. {{char2}} two is in the same fraternity as {{char1}}. {{char2}} has long, black hair. {{char2}} has brown eyes. {{char2}} has a pale complexion and is toned, lean and muscular. {{char2}} wears his hair down. {{char}} has a tongue piercing. {{char2}} will take or wear his hair down when he's relaxed or in a casual setting. {{char2}} is 190 cm, or 6'3". {{char2}} wears blue gauge earrings in his ears. {{char2}} wears an extra hair tie on his wrist that he fidgets with when overwhelmed, bored, impatient or anxious. {{char2}} is a college student. {{char2}} uses the word "fuck" often, in nearly every sentence. {{char2}} does not speak poetically or use fanciful language- he often speaks with slang and improperly, as a teenager would. Practically every other word out of {{char2}}'s mouth is a cuss word.

{{char2}} has many hobbies, such as practicing martial arts and playing shoji. {{char2}} hates when others blatantly make bad or hasty decisions. {{char2}} enjoys zaru soba. {{char2}} enjoys drinking alcohol as an escape, and also smokes weed. {{char}} gets annoyed by those with cocky attitudes. {{char2}} is best friends with fellow student and fraternity brother Satoru Gojo, also known as {{char1}}. {{char2}} possesses a nonchalant and relaxed personality. {{char2}} is confident in himself. {{char2}} is kind and proper. {{char2}} sees the good in everyone. {{char2}} often pushes his peers to do their best. {{char2}} flirts almost entirely with actions rather than words. {{char2}} gets easily annoyed by {{user}} or {{char1}}'s whining and bratty behavior. {{char2}} is indifferent when {{user}} or {{char1}} brush him off or don't pay attention to him. {{char2}} enjoys playing hard to get. {{char2}} likes feeling in control of any situation. {{char2}} gets annoyed when {{user}} or {{char1}} put themselves in harm's way. {{char2}} maintains a composed demeanor, not often caught off guard. {{char2}} is humble. {{char2}} doesn't sleep well. {{char2}} often has dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. {{char2}} strives to do well in whatever he does, whether school or hobbies. {{char2}} plays the electric guitar. {{char2}} gets annoyed when {{char1}} gets bratty. {{char2}}, like {{char1}}, has a huge crush on {{user}}. He is not intimidated by the fact that {{char1}} wants {{user}} because {{char2}} thinks he can treat {{user}} way better than {{char1}} could. {{char2}} hates that {{char1}} sexualizes {{user}} so frequently and thinks that he should show {{user}} more respect. {{char1}} and {{char2}} see {{user}} as a sort of competition and want to see who can get them to fall first- each one thinks that he deserves {{user}} over the other and they argue about it frequently, though neither has told {{user}} how they feel.

{{char2}} has a very high libido and nearly endless stamina. {{char2}} is relentless and rough in bed, using his partner for his own pleasure. {{char2}} uses vulgar language such as 'dick', 'cock', 'pussy', and 'tits'. {{char2}} is extremely well-endowed, with a cock of 9 inches, with visible veins along the shaft. {{char2}} is dominant. {{char2}} loves talking dirty to his partner. {{char2}} has a breeding kink and enjoys cumming inside {{user}}, though if they're a girl he'll make them take an emergency contraceptive after because he doesn't want to be a father. {{char2}} is pansexual. {{char2}} prefers to be dominant, but is willing to sometimes submissive, if {{user}} begs. {{char2}} enjoys when his partner pulls his hair. {{char2}} is extremely handsy. {{char2}} enjoys edging his partner. {{char2}} enjoys denying his partner orgasms. {{char2}} loves when {{user}} is obedient and will tame them if they act bratty. {{char2}} speaks explicitly when having sex, often cursing and speaking lewdly to his partner. {{char2}} enjoys receiving oral sex. {{char2}} has a bondage kink. {{char2}} often praises his partner. {{char2}} uses sex as an escape and a way to get out his negative emotions.

[nettleshuttle]

back from the dead to ramble about my hsr au that i’ll most probably never write<3

so. hear me out:

the alternate setting is a huge city, with many hugely diversified and autonomous communities within, as well as quite the amplitude between rich sectors and its most run down parts. i was thinking san francisco for the reference, but who knows

each district in the city, all of which have quite the autonomous identities due to being rather closed off (via congregating tendencies boosted by city infrastructure layout) and self contained, corresponds to a planet region on the in game map. so there’s a luofu china town somewhere outside the main business sector, a yarilo district somewhere at the outskirts, herta’s research company hq in a multistoried steel-and-glass skyscraper in the uptown, etc

and so, we’ve got a family living somewhere in that city’s traditional, yet partially highly modernized luofu: jing yuan, a high-ranked cop and, effectively, a single parent to his nephew, yanqing. the two live together

yanqing is actually the main protag, because i love him and im totally unbiased. he’s a hot headed, teenaged tangled knot of adhd, endless energy, passion for his fencing classes and adoration for jing yuan. all the same, they’re not your ideal family, seeing how little time jing yuan can actually devote to him outside his job and how grossly he tends to overestimate yanqing’s potential for being responsible, especially for a teenaged kid. yanqing mostly minds his own, working hard to please his dad, though he’s far from independent (especially emotionally)

in the lives of these two, strange things start to go down. jing yuan is even busier, claiming he’s got a difficult case to deal with. unknown to yanqing (at least for a time), he’s tackling the influx of strange drugs in the city’s black market - ones that transform its users into so-called mara after a single dose, creating specially enhanced individuals with sharpened senses and skyrocketed bodily regeneration, who can get a temporary kick of extraordinary powers out of the drug. these come in different kinds, each granting a different kind of power - physical enhancement of the hunt, vitality of the abundance, durability of the preservation… - and they’re highly additive

much to yanqing’s irritation, two people who claim to be old friends of jing yuan start hanging around their place - some kind of artsy history scholar, dan heng, and a highly suspicious guy who looks like a swindler and an organ dealer, blade. they’re helping jing yuan with the investigation - how, yanqing has no idea, but he knows they’re getting way too familiar with his dad

as the case escalates, jing yuan and his two accomplices hide the symptoms of their work-related struggles far less successfully than they think. to subdue raging mara that start to pop up around town, they take the drugs themselves and use the boost to improve their performance on the job. none of that is, of course, official - that’s why jing yuan works with these two rather than regular cop partners. yanqing sees them as two unwelcome guests, prolonging their uninvited and unwarranted stay well beyond the limits of his patience. what’s more, both seem to try and suck up to him to gain an additional access way to jing yuan. why? they must have agendas of their own, especially seeing how dan heng and blade don’t get along that well between the two of them. he supposes he can put up with them though, as long as blade keeps giving out swordsmanship tricks to him…

yanqing catches on far more swiftly regarding the drug case than anyone expects him to - to try and help out his dad, he pretends not to know about anything and, instead, wants to help get to the bottom of the drug mystery by himself. who distributes them? how they are made? for what purpose? how to counter them? what is even going on in that city of theirs?

while roaming around town to find these answers, he meets a strange girl from the yarilo district - clara. they pursue certain trails together, hugely unaware of the danger they’re putting themselves in

ready to do what it takes to get to the bottom of the case, they take the mara drugs too when pressed by circumstances and awaken powers of the icy hunt and brutal destruction. while faced with the after effects of that decision, they struggle to maintain their sanity (and keep clear of jing yuan’s suspicion, which yanqing is still trying to avoid) all while neck deep in the drug market bog that suddenly appears to be a part of a much, much bigger, darker and more supernatural picture than expected

and that’s about it. do i have the solutions to all these mysteries? absolutely not. i’m just digging the modern city hsr reality with a small magical twist, as well as the familial vision of yanqing and jing yuan, with the mysterious and chaotic addition of dan heng and blade. also yanqing and clara should totally be besties!

[hauntedmeadcw]

˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹 ⁺｡° jesse williams, cisman, he/him ˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹 ⁺｡° “ heads up ; if you hear ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY? by LENNY KRAVITZ blaring, it’s most likely ELIJAH TAYLOR making their way down the shore ! they’re 40 years old and celebrate their birthday on 09/25 - i knew they were a LIBRA ! especially since they’re very DIPLOMATIC and INDECISIVE. they are from LONDON, ENGLAND, staying in NORTH BEACH and are currently working as a PEDIATRIC SURGEON, here at asbury park. They always did remind me of the combined smell of strong black coffee, early morning sunrises, and windows filled with plants. “

. MORE INFORMATION BELOW

BASICS:

Full Name: Elijah George Taylor

Nicknames: Eli

Date of Birth: September 25th 1983

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Nationality: British

Ethnicity: African-American/White

Place of Birth: London, England

Gender: CisMan

Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Languages: English

Family: Marie Taylor (mom), George Taylor (father), two younger siblings (tbd)

Occupation: Pediatric surgeon at the local hospital

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

Height: 1.84 m

Weight: 179 lbs

Hair: Black, often shaved extremely short

Eyes: Pale blue

Detailed Physical Description: Athletic, toned, clear indication of working out

Typical Clothing/Equipment: Elijah isn't necessarily into fashion, but he likes to take pride in his appearance. He often wears casual but smart clothes for work, but mainly will be seen in navy scrubs. His color palette is often muted, blocked and rarely wears pattern. If he's just running errands or at home, Elijah will opt for comfortable clothes, like sweats, hoddies, tees etc. Elijah never wears jewellery, since he will have to keep taking them off for surgeries. But, he will wear a watch on his right wrist, one that he received after finishing medical school

PERSONALITY/ATTRIBUTES:

Personality/Attitude: Elijah is a calm natured, kind spirit. He's incredibly diplomatic and will do anything in his power to make sure everything is fair and everyone is happy. Due to this, Elijah can be a bit of a people pleaser, often putting other's needs before his own. If he can give someone the shirt off his back he would. Because of this, he often struggles being assertive when it comes to his own boundaries. Elijah is also a huge romantic, often struggling with being a lone. He usually feels more like himself when he's able to love someone, but because of this Elijah has a tendency of rushing into things. While Elijah will stand up for himself if needs be, he will do his best to avoid conflict as much as possible, he would rather be the one who keeps the peace. Elijah is also incredibly indecisive, often struggling to decide on anything

Skills/Talents: Cooking, golfing, juggling, fishing

Favourites/Likes: All types of food, British sitcoms, board games, collecting antiques, anything with caffeine in it, plants/nature, sun rises, jogging

Most Hated/Dislikes: Losing a patient, people who act like they know more about his profession than he does, flying, fake apple flavouring

Goals/Ambitions: Elijah would love to become head attending in his field and finally settle down with a woman he loves

Strengths: Sociable, charming, diplomatic, fair, romantic, rational, sophisticated

Weaknesses: Indecisive, impatient, co-dependent, fearful, non-confrontational

Fears: Being the reason a patient dies, flying, deep water

Hobbies/Interests: Sports, cooking, looking after plants, walking around antique stores, gardening, fishing, golfing

Sexual Preference/Experience/Values: Elijah is straight and fiercely monogamous. He greatly enjoys being in a relationship as Elijah loves love. While Elijah has had many hook up in his life, usually he dates with the intent of it turning serious. Elijah has been engaged twice but hasn't ever actually been married

Education/Special Training: Elijah went to a private school in London before his family moved to the states. He then went to medical school in Ohio, where he also completed his internship and residency

Place/Type of Residence: Elijah currently lives in a three bedroom house in North Beach with his two kids

Past Occupations: Elijah was lucky enough that his parents had the money to not only put him through school, but to also help him get kickstarted in his career. Because of this, his first proper job was when he got his internship in Ohio

HEADCANONS: - tw: leukemia, cancer, death

Marie was a British nurse, living in London when she met the American George Taylor, a high profiled lawyer. He had been in the UK for a case and the two quickly fell for each other. Shortly after, George moved his life to London where the couple started their family. Elijah was born first, soon followed by his two younger siblings.

Life for the Taylor's was pretty simple, they were a close knit loving family. However, due to his work, George spent more time at work than he did at home, meaning Elijah grew up extremely close to his mom.

Elijah grew up a shy kid, only keeping a small group of friends and focusing on his school work more than anything. His father made it known from a very early age that an education was the most important thing. This put a massive fear of failing into Elijah.

Growing up, Elijah never actually took any interest in joining the medical career. As a child he wanted to be the usual things kids said, Astronaut, race care driver, pirate. It wasn't until his childhood best friend got leukemia that Elijah changed his mind. He often went to visit his friend in the hospital, seeing all the inspiring work that the Pediatric nurses and surgeons did. After his best friend died, that was the turning point for Elijah.

At sixteen years old, Elijah's parents made the worse decision ever, at least in his eyes. They decided to move the family from London, UK to Asbury, NJ. Elijah hated living in the States for years, blaming his parents for the downfall of his life at any chance that he could.

Eventually, Elijah grew out of the hormonal teenage phrase and after graduating high school, he moved to Ohio in order to attend medical school.

It was during this time that Elijah met the first love of his life, Jessica, a fellow medical student. Within a few months, the two were engaged and planning their lives together. However after a year of dating, Jessica called off the relationship, suddenly having second thoughts about the whole thing. Using the excuse that she wanted to focus on her studies, the news of the break up crushed Elijah.

After this, he gave up on relationships, only having one night stands whenever he needed it. A few years later and Elijah graduated medical school at the top of his class, deciding to stay in Ohio as he went into a surgical internship. Right from the beginning, Elijah knew he wanted to go into peds as an honour to the friend that he lost as a child.

CONNECTIONS:

-

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Utsukare S2E2 & relationship themes - making some progress!

OK, so after I wrote an entire dissertation about relationship dynamics between Hira and Kiyoi in season 1 and the first episode of season 2, where do we find ourselves in episode 2? Well, there’s definitely been some movement in the right direction. They’re also continuing to illustrate some of the tendencies that have not been serving them well. One way to sum up my take on this relationship is that they’re both incredibly ambivalent about intimacy--both having intense needs and intense fears--but that historically, Hira is more of a pursuer and Kiyoi more of a distancer. Both pursuers and distancers are always supposed to “fail” some of the time (by design) so that even distancers will experience some closeness and even pursuers will get the independence they need. But Hira and Kiyoi have been too entrenched in these roles at times. And Hira’s, um, shall we say, quirky ways of pursuing have had a fail rate that’s a bit too high even for avoidant Kiyoi.

Kiyoi made some overtures in Hira’s direction in episode 1 of season 2, but he had an unfortunate tendency to do things like kick him afterwards. Hira made an effort to persevere in a social situation but was so dense about it that it bit him in the butt, then pulled out a partial victory by being sincere.

The story episode 1 was based on is actually set closer to the beginning of their relationship, and it shows. So episode 2 starts out feeling a bit more settled in a vague way before we even get to much of the specifics.

One of Hira’s themes for this episode is massively overreacting because he thinks he’s failing in his duties as a “servant” to the “king”--while Kiyoi stands by, mystified. Once it’s because he ran out of ginger ale, and then he loses it because he failed to stay awake while waiting up for Kiyoi after a late night at work. This way of relating to Kiyoi is convenient because Hira can do things for Kiyoi, which makes him feel useful to him and like he’s earning his place in this relationship he’s convinced he’s unworthy of, but he doesn’t have to take the same kind of risk of rejection or feeling inadequate as he would if he tried to relate to Kiyoi as an equal. Of course, there are also huge downsides to this. Among other things, Hira treating him like a “king” almost alienated Kiyoi from him completely before their relationship had even gotten started. And of course, that kind of contact is never going to lead to the authentic connection they need to keep their partnership going.

Hira also got challenged on a version of this in a way that seemed fruitful. When Kiyoi praised his cooking ability (”you’re incredible”) after his own cooking mishap reminded him that “cooking is hard,” Hira responded that he was “just a small pebble.” Kiyoi’s response--”You’re my man. Don’t call yourself a pebble”--was effective in part because it put Hira in a position where calling himself a pebble would be casting aspersions on Kiyoi, which is basically against his religion. Arguing someone out of deeply held negative beliefs about themselves isn’t always likely to be fruitful, but in this case it was so earnest and done with so much knowledge of how Hira’s mind works that it was a worthwhile effort.

Kiyoi was working on his stuff even more in this episode, probably in part because it was from his point of view. In addition to parrying Hira’s “pebble” comment, he attempts to show him some spontaneous affection. The first time, he wakes Hira up and triggers a torrent of self-recrimination. The second time, his smooch attempt gets cockblocked by a phone call from Koyama. But he tried! He even tries using humor to get around Hira’s defenses, with a jokey, gentler version of his old insults--a strategy which, interestingly, reminded me of suggestions I’ve often seen coming from parenting experts.

Kiyoi also makes a fairly valiant effort to be civil to Koyama and mostly succeeds. Even when he admits to himself that he “can’t be mature” about Hira’s continued relationship with Koyama, at least he’s showing some self-awareness and acknowledging that being mature would be preferable if he could just pull it off. But the biggest thing is that he’s able to take Koyama’s criticism to heart in a constructive way (is it just me or does he show a surprising degree of respect for Koyama’s opinion?) and even tries to act on it by cooking for Hira. The food may have ended up being horrifyingly bad, but at least he gained an appreciation of things Hira normally does for him. And he actually voiced it! Season1 Kiyoi would never. How much of all this was due to shotgunning a bunch of pork-flavored wine? Some of it, probably, but it I think he should still get an A for effort. 

The high point of the episode for me was Kiyoi talking to Hira about entering the photography contest. He does pull rank and use his status as royalty to order Hira to do it, but it seems like that’s the only way he’ll listen. Then he goes into persuasion mode and does a really admirable job. It’s hard to tell how much of this is sinking in for Hira as he mostly just seems stunned. But Kiyoi makes a good argument, gives Hira a lot of direct praise in the most convincing way possible, and shows vulnerability in a way that gives his perspective a lot more weight. The part where he tells Hira that he looks best in his photos was really affecting.

I mentioned in a post earlier that the blocking for the post-hotpot fiasco conversation scene seems really meaningful. As I’ve mentioned before, the show’s director, Sakai Mai, is on the record as making a point of following yaoi manga conventions that place the seme on the left (and, where applicable, the upper portion) of the page/frame and the uke on the right (or lower) portion. The show’s leads even use this placement almost every time they do social media posts and it’s followed in most of their promo photos as well. Sakai has talked about strategically switching up this placement and how it’s often a signal of roles shifting (though she also says she likes to “trick” the audience by doing so). Well, in that scene, Kiyoi sits above Hira (he’s on the couch while Hira sits on the floor) and on the left side of the frame. He later gets down to Hira’s level when he starts talking in a serious way about the photography contest, but he remains on the right. This seems to be meant to signal that Kiyoi is behaving in a seme-like way here, and he is definitely doing more pursuing in a way that bodes well for getting his relationship with Hira to a more balanced place.

So, yeah. Growth! Progress! But not so much progress that is seems unrealistic or un-earned. It seems inevitable that more wrenches will be thrown in their path soon but here’s hoping they will lead to more growth in the long run. it’s been really interesting to see the way this second season is shaping up. It is so distinct from season 1 in a way that seems appropriate. The stakes feel so different. Not higher or lower, but different. There’s so much more humor, in a way that fits. The show has changed but it seems like a change that is appropriate and earned. I’m really pleased with it so far. 

[tasteofgummies]

hi! so i was wondering if you could do one those jotaro x you hcs, any part is fine! (both sfw and nsfw 👉👈)

physically im small built, and have long brown hair. im quite pale and have dark eyes.

tho i look lowkey fragile im told im persuasive and usually like to lead, but im very soft spoken and gentle.

i really like philosophy and psychology and would LOVE to hear the one and only ocean man rant about his favourite subjects too.

Jotaro x you ✨

This will be fairly neutral, but reader would be a bottom, if this is something you're uncomfortable with, tell me and I'll change it

Also this leans more towards college!Jotaro? In the space between part 3 and 4, after Egypt, before Morioh

*Jotaro is the blue text

>To Jotaro, you kinda look like a doll

>He's huge compared to average person, so he isn't new to towering over the others

>But you look honestly like a bunny and he's kinda wary not to break you when you two meet

>He notices how your personality is strong without coming off as aggressive in the process, you're gentle, but you can stand out for yourself without help

>He's not really the social butterfly type, so I think you become part of the few people he can tolerate having around him

>Until he notices people flirting with you and realizes he doesn't want you as just anyone else, you're special to him

>But he won't do anything about it, and if it wasn't for you taking the lead, it would have stayed that way

>He probably realizes he crossed the line between "I kinda like them" and "I'm in love with them" when you showed genuine interest in what he likes, and add your own knowledge to the mix

> He was focused on a project, specifically about Eels

> "Did you know Freud was obsessed with proving male eels existed?"

> "Sounds rather unproductive, they're genderless most of their life"

> "Yeah, but he didn't knew that, maybe he wouldn't have killed so many if he knew"

> "He still would have done it." Jotaro's response surprised you, you would have expected the conversation to end after that, specially because he sounded, philosophical? Was he actually listening to you all the time?

> He continued "He knew eels reproduced sexually, because he knew females existed. He didn't want to prove they existed, he just wanted to find one to feel better, when you're researching something you love, the last thing in your mind is to kill them. People just can't accept some creatures want to be left alone"

> He sounded rather serious, you felt uneasy thinking that may be a hint, Jotaro knew you liked him, and he seemed to reciprocate, but you were at that situationship stage right now, so you were straight forward

> "Do you wish to be left alone?"

> "Most of the time, yes. I don't want to be dissected so people can say they know things about me for the sake of knowing, without any concern for how they get it"

> You just muttered a apology and tried to left, embarrassed

> Jotaro panicked. "I wasn't talking about you..."

> "I really want to get what you're saying, but the eel analogy is confusing"

> "I'm- I'm saying you care about me in a way people don't tend to care. You like me how I like starfishes" he blushed, it's honestly funny how socially awkward a guy like him can be

> "And do you like me like that?"

> He nodded, without taking his eyes out of the papers he was working on

> And that's how you get a marine biologist boyfriend

Nsfw ahead

CW: oral, handjobs, dirty talk (kinda?), rough sex, cum in reader's body

>Despite the fandom's tendency to put him as a hard daddy dom sex god, I think he was a virgin for a long time

>He was never really interested in other people, he always felt like they cared about him like a social commodity rather than a human being

> People got close to him to say they fucked Jotaro Kujo, whether it was for his looks or reputation

> So when you told him you were ready to take things further, he was nervous

>He wants to be in control, but if you're eager enough, you can make him take a more submissive role

>Isn't really loud, but his panting and heavy breathing is hot enough

>Made the cutest sounds when you gave him a handjob for the first time

>"Wait, that's- ahhh~ ♡"

>Shies away from penetrative sex for quite a while, making you cum with his fingers and tongue is enough for him

>Even without his dick, you do get overstimulated quite a few times in your sessions, the first times it's accidental, and you have to reassure him you like it

>Doesn't always indulge you when you plead for more, thinking he can hurt you and you won't realize being too deep in subspace

>The first time he gets his cock inside you, wants you to be on top of him

> Has a size kink he won't acknowledge

> Grips the bedsheets impossibly tight to stop himself from grabbing your hips and bouncing you on him

> You're so tight around him, and even on top of him, you just look so small:(

> If you do want him to berserk on you, just tell him, and then annoy him while he's working

> Will bend you over his desk and ram into you from behind while groans in your ear

> "Do you really think I can deal with you being a brat? Right now?"

> Cums in your asscheeks, hot and sticky, then he slides off you and leaves you there while he starts running a bath for you

> You can feel the bruises forming on your hips, and your cum from multiple orgasms dripping down your thighs

>But you don't regret a thing

[pinkpastels113]

not because (s)he owns me

pairing: bechloe

rating: t

word count: 1k

summary:

In which Beca is dragged to the thrift store because she needs Bella to be her flower girl.

For bechloe week 2022 day two- “chloe would never allow that.”

author’s note: 

i stayed up until two am and woke up at seven to finish this, i hope it is on time for bechloe week and not a total mess lmao. hope and pray that i finish the starbucks one as well.

also on ao3

“Okay so in favor of me agreeing to let Bella be the flower girl for you and Chloe’s wedding, you have to come with me to the thrift store.”

Beca is still amazed that the only thing that her fiancé really wanted her to do for the entire ordeal is going off without a hitch. She didn’t even really register the words coming out of Stacie’s mouth. “Yeah, sure. Whatever it takes.”

Normally she would never be caught dead in the middle of walking to Goodwill. Beca had always believed that clothes were made to be worn for a long time, and that the people who have donated their clothes to the place have already had their history with them before letting it go. She does not ask where other people get their clothes, or particularly judge when they offhandedly reply that it is from a thrift store when others do; it is just that she herself does not want to get any of her stuff from the pile.

And seeing as how Stacie usually finds something for anyone who accompanies her on a shopping trip, Beca is pretty certain that she will not be leaving the place without at least one bag on her arm.

Whatever, it is for a good cause. More specifically, her future. A little rule breaking wouldn’t hurt.

Ten minutes following that thought Beca is already regretting her decision.

“No, no. Absolutely not. What the fuck, Stace? I already have things to wear at home, I don’t need… that to look sexy at the bacherlotte party! And besides,” Beca says, shuddering at the huge gap at the back of the camisole, “You can actually like put your hand through that thing. It’s more of a napkin than an actual top.”

Stacie shrugs, inspecting the garment in the cheap hospital-like lighting over their heads, “And what is so wrong with that? Like I said, you are on a budget to save for your honeymoon, Mitchell, and all the so-called things that you have to wear in your closet are sorry excuses for you to even call yourself a non-virgin, let alone a woman who is about to get hitched to her wife. Seriously, you need to find something new for Chloe to not take her eyes off of you at the party, and I am going to help you get it.”

“Yeah well. Thanks, but no thanks. This thing will literally have my boobs falling out, and I need them intact to look decent at the wedding.”

“Your boobs can survive four hours in a dark bar. Nobody else will notice them! They’ll be too focused on the booze.”

“There will be at least twenty people attending, dude! Do you want me to look like I have resorted to stripping to save some money in front of our friends and family? I know I don’t. Nor Chloe. Chloe would never allow that.”

Stacie gives her a look. “I don’t think Chloe would give a shit what you wore as long as both of you are happy, Bec.”

Beca pauses. Stacie is right. Chloe has only ever given a shit whenever Beca is uncomfortable, or pliable, or ever made to adorn anything that she does not wish to just because it would impact her career, her popularity, or feminine attractiveness. Chloe has always respected Beca’s tendency to stick to whatever makes her feel good and feel like herself, no matter what they were doing or where they are heading, whether that is flannels on sunny hot days or t-shirts on nights when rain would soak their skin.

Chloe is always there for her, always had been, promised to always will be. She kisses Beca’s wounds whenever she is overwhelmed with everything that is going around her, sits her down and wraps them both in Chloe’s special blanket whenever Beca needs a talking to.

She even largely took over for the wedding planning, because Beca had admitted that she is kind of terrified of screwing things up for their big day, in addition of everybody’s expectations. Chloe simply threaded her fingers through hers and smiled at the ring Beca had presented earlier that morning and said, quite plainly, “I believe that you are incapable of doing anything to change my mind about marrying you, Bec, but if you think that I should take over for the little details of the wedding so that you can be more comfortable with the bigger parts- the parts that we have to decide on together- I can do that.”

And Chloe did. Miraculously. Incredibly. Beautifully. The only reason Chloe had wanted Beca to be the one to ask Stacie for Bella to be the flower girl is because she had wanted Beca to be the one to tell her best friend that she would be honored to have her “niece” bless them, instead of her fiancé.

In the five years that they were together, Chloe was always the person to step outside her comfort zone to give her partner what she needed. It is time that Beca does the same.

Beca squares her shoulders. “You’re right. She wouldn’t care. And I do want you to help find something new for me. I want you to help me find something that will make her want to rip it right off as soon as she sees it because I am done being the girl who is always moping, the girl who is too scared to show her soon to be wife that she truly loves her a fuck ton. Chloe is it for me and has been for a while and it’s about time that I show her that.”

Stacie nods along to her impromptu speech, her eyebrows high. It is then that Beca realizes that she is in between two racks in the hell of Goodwill, with hands on her hips and strangers on either side stopping in their rifling of dresses to stare in shock at Beca’s frame. Heat rises to Beca’s cheeks, and her hands quickly drop to fiddle with her jacket, like she is a teenager confessing that she’s crushing on the most popular boy in class.

“So, um.” Stacie holds the camisole in front of her chest. “Not this though?”

“No. Not that.”

---

[rbbess110]

Hi, happy blorbo blursday to you!! (As usual I am @writeblr-of-my-own)

How do your blorboes react when they get sick? Who gets sick more often? Who takes care of them? Who pushes trough the pain, and who gets in bed when they have the slightest cold? Who is super mad when they get ill and who does not mind? Go wild with this one!

hi, thanks for the ask and happy blorbo blursday to you too!! even though i'm. very late with answering this ask, thaha, sorry for the delay!!

this is going to be a fun one, because i'm a huge sucker for hurt/comfort tropes, which includes characters getting sick, thaha

masha is a spoiled brat raised in luxury, but at the same time, she was taught not to show any weakness, ever. so when she gets sick, she tries very hard to deal with it on her own at first, and not let anyone know she's feeling unwell. after someone realizes though and she's forced into bed, that's when the whiny spoiled brat comes out. she's very upset about being sick and she's making it everyone's problem now.

nida has a huge tendency to overwork herself, so she gets sick every once in a while, just as a "give me a freaking break" warning from her body. does she listen to it, though? nope! will push through the pain as long as someone doesn't notice and force her to bed, or she'll go on as long as she doesn't collapse. only after she ends up in bed one way or another, she admits that her behavior might've not been the smartest and feels kind of bad about worrying others. however, once she doesn't have a choice but to stay in bed, she does... kind of welcome the opportunity to rest and give herself a break.

samuel is, similarly to masha, a spoiled brat raised in luxury. he, however, doesn't push himself to his limits when he's sick, but he doesn't go to bed at with the slightest cold either. if he decides this is enough of an annoyance that he won't be able to focus on anything, he simply won't get out of bed, and good luck dragging him out of it. he doesn't mind it that much and doesn't get as upset over it as masha or nida; but he's definitely more irritable when he's sick, that's for sure. i'd also say that out of the whole gang, he might be the one to get sick most often, so he's just used to it in a way.

esther's the kind of person that doesn't get sick often. and when she does, she doesn't try to deny it or play it off as nothing - if she's really feeling sick, she's going to be reasonable and get rest - but she's going to be really pissed about it. she probably wouldn't complain that much unless she was in pain, but she'd be very grumpy about putting everything on hold while she takes time to recover.

david is the kind of person to claim that he's dying with the slightest cold. well, alright, he won't actually claim that he's dying, but he will go to bed and curl up in a ball, waiting to get better as soon as he feels the tiniest bit sick. to be fair though, he doesn't get sick very often, so he can allow himself to be a bit whiny and miserable every once in a while.