#it's also kind of important here

[gisellelx]

On Revising (Cien Años Ch. 6)

I do a lot of writing in my head when I drive and last week I went and visited a bunch of friends across three cities. There was a part of "Names," from Cien Años that has been bugging me for several years, which was that I really desperately wanted to have Esme have one additional crack when she starts naming off things that come in threes and this was what I imagined but I couldn't get it to work in the first draft. This time I figured out how to make it fall.

Stephenie Meyer doesn't seem to ever think hard about the peripheral characters in her writing, especially not in Twilight. She, I think, just imagined "Oh wouldn't it have been cute if Carlisle and Esme met before" and I bet it was a fleeting thought because it ultimately never affects anything else in the story. And I'm sure she envisioned it as being pure coincidence that Carlisle just happened to be gone within weeks. But it's so much more narratively satisfying if we assume that something happened in that brief encounter that rattled Carlisle to his absolute core. That made him run away from her in 1911, but which also made it impossible to turn away from her in 1921. I didn't quite nail it in the first round, and the edit is tiny, but I'm happier with this one.

(also on Ao3 and FFN)

(Incidentally, I also busted my thought process through a sticky spot in Pride Month, through "Boys," the next chapter in Cien Años, and through the next part of One Day. This may also just be because I have a really important article due in 7 days and my brain is rebelling by refusing to write anything but fic.)

Names

Cincinnati, Ohio Summer, 1911

Cincinnati wasn't nearly far enough, but it gave him more options. The C&O, the B&O, the L&N, Erie and Western and so many others. Tens of trains, leaving nearly every thirty minutes, with the ability to fling him anywhere from Boston to Kansas.

Some moves, Carlisle was able to make deliberately. Columbus had been one such move—he'd planned it months in advance, drawing up his papers—while others necessitated less premeditation. Chicago was the first train leaving Union Station and so it was the one he had picked; giving him less than an hour to stare out at the barges moving swiftly by on the glassy surface of the Ohio. The wet summer air hung thickly as the din of the station swirled around him; high and low voices speaking German and English, ticket machines clacking, the hiss of the steam.

It would be good to be in a bigger city. He longed for the days when smaller towns had been a better refuge; when he had been able to treat patients for years. There had been a gentle intimacy in attending to a mother's fourth birth by lamplight. But smaller towns meant more talking, and in these days when a telegram—or worse, a telephone call—could travel with news of the unusual young doctor with the light eyes, the smaller towns were becoming less safe.

There were two crates of art and books shipped ahead and which would arrive behind him. Those had taken an hour to pack, and another hour lost to visiting the post office at human speed. One hour to feign panic, to explain to the most senior physician about the terrifying telegram he'd received; the need to return immediately to his family home, that his father was gravely ill. Yes, he did have a father; yes, his only family; no, they didn't get on well and that was why Carlisle never spoke of him. Except for the telegram, none of these things were technically lies.

Well that and that he claimed to be going to New England.

Twenty-three hours. It had taken him twenty-three hours to fully dismantle his life. The better part of a decade spent here in the rolling midlands of Ohio, a handful of streets from the university, and in less than a day he had demolished all of it—the small house, emptied, his possessions no doubt making their way to some other train as he stood watching the river swirl. His office, stripped of his diploma, his stethoscope and otoscope nestled neatly in his black bag.

His hand flexed involuntarily over its handle now, just as it had the day before. His memory, so often a blessing for what it permitted him to do, was so readily also a curse, forcing him to relive the most jarring experiences of his unnaturally long life. And it had seized yesterday's encounter and refused to let go.

Based on the sound of its gait, the horse which had been pulling the carriage needed re-shoeing, the hooves clopping unevenly against the stone street. There had been only one patient in the hospital, down with the measles, and Carlisle had already finished rounds, if seeing one patient could be counted as such. He was standing near the back door to the hospital, nearer his examining room, when the carriage came to a stop outside. The metallic, salty scent of fresh blood had flooded the air as soon as Carlisle swung open the door.

From the trousered, dangling legs, he at first assumed his new patient to be a young male, and so he was shocked to hear a high, feminine voice take up bickering with the carriage's driver.

"It doesn't hurt," the voice insisted. "I could walk on it."

"You can't," came a gruffer voice. "What are we meant to do with you? The yield is low this year. We can't afford to have you falling out of trees, Esme."

Carlisle stepped outside, saying a brief mental prayer of thanks for the cloud cover which enabled him to act on his concern. "What have we here, today?" he said by way of greeting. The man turned and he got a good look at his patient. She was quite pretty, with long hair the color of an unfiltered honey spilling gently over slim shoulders. Though her high-necked blouse was cut for her figure, it was tucked unevenly into a pair of men's canvas pants, and if he wasn't mistaken, she wasn't wearing a brassiere.

"My daughter," the man said. "She's hurt herself. Our doctor in London is away; we've driven almost two hours." He shook his head. "And people told me it would be my son who would be a nuisance…"

The words seemed to be meant with malice, but Carlisle chuckled anyway. "Why don't we move into my office. I'm Dr. Cullen."

He pretended that it necessitated slight strain for him to help lift the girl onto the examining table but he could tell she was quite lithe—thin and girlish but muscular, her cheeks flushed and healthy. He gently swung her legs so that they were straight out in front of her. She winced but said nothing.

"Did I hear your father mention this injury was a fall out of a tree?"

She grunted disapprovingly. "Storm last week took out a branch and I forgot. Stepped on air."

His smile came unbidden. "Air isn't very supportive."

"So it seems."

Carlisle pressed his lips together to maintain his composure. He gestured toward her trousered thigh. "May I?"

She nodded. His fingers had barely grazed below her knee when she let out a scream which nearly shattered the window. Then she clamped her mouth closed and bit her lip so hard it drew additional blood.

"Right, then." Carlisle spoke half to her father and half to her. "I think the best choice here will be for me to scissor the leg of this trouser."

The father huffed. "Better for her not to have them anyway. Why we can't keep you in dresses I don't understand."

"Hard to climb a tree in a dress. Lord knows I've tried."

Carlisle chuckled quietly even as her father scowled. He used a pair of gauze scissors which were guarded against breaking the skin. But he knew the skin was already gashed, and if he was right, he had caught the distinct, thick, oily smell of subcutaneous tissue. He wasn't surprised, therefore, by the gruesomeness of the open wound, the flash of white among red blood and oxygenated muscle fiber.

The girl's father, however, staggered forward and swayed, and Carlisle moved at full speed to catch him. The man looked up confusedly.

"It might be better if you stepped into the outer room," Carlisle said gently. "More air."

The man gave a long look to his daughter, who scowled. "Go, Father. This is not going to get better."

Carlisle met the man's anxious eyes with a gentle smile. "I'll take good care of her." His hand was a bit more forceful than he intended. But the man nodded, and a moment later, Carlisle found himself alone with the girl. He turned to his desk, removing the bottle of laudanum and a pewter cup. He poured a finger of the dark liquid and gave it to her. She raised her eyebrows.

"It will dull the pain," he explained.

She nodded, swigged the cup, and winced.

"I'm sorry. It's not particularly pleasant, I know." He did not know, but he was used to his patients pulling faces after they sipped it. "We'll need to give it a few minutes to take effect. Would you care to tell me a few things more while we wait?"

He proceeded to take a brief medical history. She was sixteen. She had only ever lived in the house she'd been born in. This wasn't the first fracture, and from her determined expression, he suspected it wouldn't be the last. No surgeries, no diseases. No pregnancies, a question which made her blush. He found himself asking a handful of questions more than necessary, enjoying listening to her talk.

When her eyes went a little dull after a quarter hour, he asked if she would mind if he tried straightening her leg once more. She nodded. This time, when he placed his hands on either side of her calf, she didn't flinch. "Good," he muttered. "Does that hurt?"

A head shake. "It throbs a little." The corners of her lips turned up and she laughed. She looked surprised.

"That's normal," he said.

"Laughing?"

He nodded. "It changes all your senses, not just the ones I need to change."

Her pondering expression gave him just enough opportunity to move at his full speed, placing the fractured tibia back into place. It was a very clean break, all told. She didn't notice his movement until he turned to his supply drawer and removed a jar of catgut and his suturing needle.

"It will be best if you don't watch me," he said quietly, as he bent over her leg.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?"

Usually, Carlisle told his patients to lie back and count, or to close their eyes and imagine something they found more pleasant. But as he opened his mouth, he found that those weren't the words which came out.

"Talk to me. What took you into the tree?"

"I like climbing. Gives me something to do."

"Haven't you other things to do?" He saw her flinch as he poured distilled water over the wound. "I'm sorry. Your mother surely has things for you to do around the house."

"She does. They aren't interesting."

He laughed. "But she needs your help, I'm certain. Do you have brothers?"

"Jimmy. He's twelve. He can drive the tractor. But so can I."

Carlisle realized at once he could envision this; the girl with her long legs dangling to the pedals of the tractor, her hair gathered over one shoulder, unladylike and wild.

"It's good to be a help," he offered. "Do you get on well with him?"

She sighed. "He's a boy. Boys are troublesome." She paused. "Er, I suppose…"

He laughed heartily. "I was a boy once. As I remember, I was troublesome." He winked. They didn't say anything for a few minutes while Carlisle sutured the inner layers of muscle. Usually he went out of his way to make his stitches slightly uneven, like a human would. But he found himself paying close attention to them now, spacing them perfectly, tying the catgut just so. It would dissolve, and no one else would see them, anyway. When he looked up from his stitching, he was shocked to see the brown eyes fixed on him.

"This doesn't frighten you," he muttered. It wasn't a question, and she shook her head in answer.

"It's interesting."

Interesting was not the typical answer he expected to receive from a sixteen-year-old girl looking at her own exposed muscle. He continued sewing.

"Can I ask you a question, Doctor?"

He kept his eyes on his work. "Certainly." It wasn't uncommon, questions from his patients. He braced himself for the usual ones and sure enough, the first one was expected:

"Why did my leg do this?"

"You landed on your feet, did you not?"

She nodded. "How did you know?"

"The direction of the break. You were moving forward and getting ready to take a step, and the bone snapped in the direction you were going. That's also why it had the force to break through your shin like this. It's mostly inertia."

"Inertia?"

"An object in motion wants to stay in motion," he answered. Of course not something she would know, or ever be taught. "Newton's first law of motion. When you fall, your body wants to keep falling. But the ground had something to say about that."

"It most certainly did."

He couldn't help his laughter. He looked up to her inquisitive face, and then returned to his task, bringing together the skin over the sutured muscle. "When you fell, you created force. That's Newton's second law. You accelerate—get faster—as you fall. And the faster you get, the more force you create. If you'd fallen from a shorter tree, you might have just ended up on your hindside."

"And Newton's third law?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think there's a third law?"

"Things always come in threes," she said, almost exasperatedly. "Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three bears."

"The holy trinity?" he supplied.

"Oh, I don't believe in God."

His head snapped up. She'd said it so matter-of-factly, as though this were a perfectly typical thing to say. For a moment his hands stilled.

"You don't?"

She shrugged. "God is supposed to be good, isn't he? Then why do so many people end up hurt?"

What?

He frowned. "Well, as I said, in your case—"

"I'm not talking about broken legs, doctor."

He met her eyes. They should've been warm, that shade of brown. But they were steely. Firm. He had no reason to ever have such a humanlike reaction, but he felt the hairs on his neck raise, anyway. He gulped, and took a steading breath. Forcing himself to plaster a smile on his face, he went on.

"Well. In any event, you're correct. Newton proposed three laws. And the third law is the one that broke your leg." He bent over the wound, beginning to suture the skin at human speed. Already the blood flow was stanching, the blood on his hands becoming dry and rust-colored. 

"All forces between two objects exist in equal magnitude and opposite direction," he recited as he sewed. "So when you fell, you exerted force on the ground, and it exerted force right back. And that is what snapped the bone."

Her lips pursed. "I don't think I like this ground so much."

"Yes, I would suggest you stay in the trees." He chuckled. "Or at least, minimize the speed with which you go from the branches to the ground."

She harrumphed, but the edges of her lips were upturned also. He finished the topmost suture, and went to get the plaster of paris and a rag. When he returned, she was staring fixedly at the wound. She met his eyes as he began to wash.

"Still comfortable?"

She nodded. He was just finishing cleaning the last remaining traces of blood from her shin and calf and reaching for the plaster and bandages when she spoke again.

"What's your name?"

"Dr. Cullen," he answered absently, as he laid one of the bandages perpendicular to the break.

"No," came her voice more insistently. "I mean your actual name."

"Oh."

It wasn't as though it wasn't on the forged diploma. Princeton, this time, which had all but made the head of hospital begin to drool. It was easier if others thought he was from someplace else, someplace more prestigious. It was easier if they were afraid to offend him, if they thought he considered himself too good for them.

It was easier if they left him alone.

And so he couldn't explain why, but as he laid the next strip, he answered, "It's Carlisle."

"That's an odd name."

He looked up. The corners of her mouth were turned up; her eyes alight.

"It was a surname, I believe," he told her. "Perhaps my mother's."

"Perhaps? You don't know?"

He looked away again, back to her leg and to the plaster. He laid a few more strips before going on.

"She…died. Giving birth to me. I didn't know her."

"Oh." She gave him an intent look. "I'm very sorry."

He swallowed. Of course, he couldn't add the more difficult fact. That his memories were so diaphanous, that only the strongest things remained. He remembered his anger. He remembered his sorrow, but not over what. And if his father had ever so much as uttered his mother's name, he did not know it. Two hundred years ago now, he had made his way to the graveyard, now beside a grander church than the small one he'd once known. On the weathered soapstone he'd found the name he'd forgotten: WILLIAM, the last of their tiny family to die. Below it, worn so that only three partial letters remained: SLE. And then, the third name, obliterated by a century of wear, the only letter remaining a single A. He had traced that letter, over and over, hoping some memory would come to him. Even now, the pad of his index finger tingled with the memory, and he closed his hand as though to to hold fast the sensation of tracing the single letter that was all he had left of his mother.

He needed to change the subject.

"Esme is not exactly a common name either," he offered, lightly, as he worked a little more quickly. "One wonders why you are not a Mary, or a Margaret."

She giggled. "I don't like common names."

"So then you like mine."

A nod. "I've never met a Carlisle before."

"Nor I an Esme." He laid the final pieces of plaster. "I'll need you to be still for a few minutes. Can you manage that? It is something you'll need to get used to, unfortunately."

She pulled a face, but nodded, and he excused himself from the examining room into the open hallway to where her father sat, waiting. He briefly explained the break, and the treatment, invited her father back into the examination room, and then stepped outside.

Despite the overcast day, the summer Ohio heat was relentless, and the wall of the hospital was searing hot. His head dropped back so quickly that he accidentally shattered one of the bricks. He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled, loudly, unnecessarily, before drawing several more breaths slowly and rhythmically, as though he had need of catching his breath.

If God is good, then why do so many people end up hurt?

It took him several minutes to regain himself, nearly long enough to have raised second-degree burns on his back, had he been human. Finally, he raked his fingers through his hair, adjusted his shirt and tie, and strode back into the examination room. The father was there again, looking every bit as vexed as he had at the start of their encounter. Carlisle made a show of examining the plaster, despite that he could smell it was fully dry. If he took one moment longer, it would be one more moment of her gentle teasing, of his laughter, of her coaxing him into…

"She'll need to be fully still for several weeks," he heard himself saying, surprised by his own joviality. "In two weeks, bring her back so that we may check on the set of the bone." He turned to her. "That means no tractoring."

She smirked. "And no tree climbing?"

"Certainly not that." He smiled as he nodded toward her father. "Do you need help getting out? The set plaster is quite heavy." It was a question he asked often, but his forearms tingled at the thought of carrying her. But she was after all a slip of a girl, and her father lifted her with only a small amount of strain. A few pleasantries later and the unevenly-shoed hoofbeats were fading in the distance, leaving him alone.

Two weeks. His calendar appeared in his hand without him consciously thinking to take it, and that he did not know how fast he had moved scared him.

What would happen when she returned? What questions would she ask, and what information would she draw from him as a result? Before he meant to say it? While he was caught off-guard?

He swallowed deeply, shaking his head. The stethoscope and otoscope made their way into his black leather bag at an extra slow speed. There was no one waiting, and so he had removed his diploma from the wall also, leaving a discolored rectangle in the dust.

Then, with finality, he'd closed the door behind him.

As he stared at the trains belching their white steam into the heavy summer air, his fingers closed again around the handle of his bag. Lost in the odd symphony of the train platforms, he barely heard the conductor's yell for Chicago. His feet moved seemingly of their own accord, and it wasn't until he reached the platform and the door to the Pullman car that he even noticed the voice.

"Is that all you got, today, sir?"

Carlisle turned. The porter was a Negro man, his jacket impeccable and his hat on straight.

"Just this," he began. "I—"

And then he was stumbling for words. How did he explain this suspicious movement, the speed with which he had eliminated his entire presence, the lack of plans for what would happen when he arrived in Chicago?

But he needn't have worried. The porter shook his head and tipped his hat.

"It ain't my place to ask no white man his business, sir. You have a safe journey now." He moved to greet the next customer, taking on a heavier suitcase, carrying it ahead of the man onto the train as Carlisle stared.

Wasn't that what he wanted? For no one to mind his business? For no one to look too closely, to ask too many questions? For no one to ask him questions that made his throat close and his index finger tingle?

As he lifted his foot to the stair, however, he heard a voice call out for the train to Columbus, and for a hairsbreadth of a second his thoughts carried him away. The train was a little more than two hours—could he ask for his job back? Re-hang the diploma, re-open the bag, and wait for two weeks from now, when she would return…

But then he snapped himself violently back to the present. He had made his choice. He knew his obligation. He understood the danger, even if the joyful girl could not. He couldn't afford things like laughter and banter. He had no way to access smiles.

If God is good...

Perhaps the girl had been right. Perhaps there was only this. Perhaps there was only hurt.

And with the girl's voice echoing in his head, Carlisle Cullen swung his way onto the Chicago train, and erased himself…

…again.

[tired-and-swaggy]

[idontmindifuforgetme]

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

[freuleinanna]

The Fall of the House of Usher is many things and I'm making a conscious choice to not scream about every single one of them rn, but what left me staring at a wall in tears is just... kindness. Death was kind. She gave every choice, every reason to stop. She would take these kids anyway but she also regretted having to take them like that. She cared when nobody else would, even though they kept making the wrong choices.

She's never cruel for cruelty's sake. She wasn't cruel to Lenore. She just sent a child to sleep as lovingly as she could, with kind words and kinder touch.

And I don't even know how to express the absolute heartbreak with blinding warmth among the cracks, when Death herself kneels before one man, worst man, honest man, who refused her offer – and thanks him with such respect.

Mike Flanagan, you fucking did it again. Carla Gugino, you... I don't even have words for you. That's a whole-ass masterpiece of human soul, meaning, and searching right there.

Kiss Death with kindness in the end

And when she parts

You part as friends

[northstarscowboyhat]

Corn picking day.

[noodles-and-tea]

Haha he said the thing-!!!

[traumawhomst]

Mer Dad

Mer Dad with Mer Reader (1,500 words)

Life had not been, well, the kindest to you thus far. You’d been the only one hatched from your clutch, and a single hatching was almost always a bad omen. You’d be lucky that the Matriarch at the time didn’t believe it and you were accepted into your pod. Maybe things would have been better if that Matriarch didn’t die a few short years after your hatching, you weren’t fully grown when the new Matriarch ordered that you were old enough to hunt for yourself, not even bothering to hide her disdain for you. You were the reason the last Matriarch died.

Your last few years of growing were filled with hunger and loneliness. It left you as always the skinniest in the group, your bones poking out and always cold. No one bothered to teach you to hunt, and well, even with years of practice you still weren’t amazing. But you couldn’t practice as much as you like, the others in the pod quickly running you off ‘their’ hunting grounds, the best spots to catch anything. You’d had more than your fair share of nights unable to sleep with an empty belly because you couldn’t catch enough.

After a particular bad set of months were you couldn’t to manage to even pick up your usual meager offerings the Matriarch snapped and drove you off. The rest quickly joined in, chasing you swiping if you dared to even attempt to slow or hide until you were far away from the place you’d spent your whole life. You found a small cave just big enough to hide in you quietly purred trying to give yourself some sense of comfort as even the terrible life you had lead seemed better than this.

You spent longer in the cave than you would have liked to admit nursing your wounds and wondering what it might be like to never leave your cave. But hunger poked at you and the shine of fish scales pulled you out.

It was odd, being able to just eat whatever you caught, you’d only ever been allowed some of what you caught, if any at all. It was odd not to have someone else place judgement. If you wanted to eat you just hunted, it was oddly nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time. You half expected your pod to show up and judge you for daring to waste so much food on yourself. You still weren’t eating as much as you could, the injuries from being driven away ached and were slow to heal, most likely because of the stress before even receiving them. Your body was always slow to heal.

You began to venture further from your little cave trying to take on bigger prey. You’d gone decently far one day, when you found a mostly eaten fish carcass on the ocean floor. The fish was almost your size and as you examined it closer studying the way the meat had been taken off the bone, you realized it couldn’t been some other ocean animal, no this was the work of a mer, a very strong one. A low booming noise cracked through the water, and it spooked you so bad you dashed off as fast as you could. Your panic didn’t abate until you’d spent hours in your in your cave and nothing had come after you. You panicked like a hatchling over nothing.

Then you starting finding injured fish just outside of your little cave. The first one you assumed was uncharacteristic streak of luck. It was bigger than anything you’d ever caught, about the length of your arm. You gleefully ripped it to shreds forcing yourself to finish it even though it’d be more food you’d ever had. You were sure when you curled up in your cave you’d wake up and it was all a dream. But then it happened a few days after, and then again, and again after that. This was on purpose.

Was there a Mer that just liked to injury fish, for the fun of it? Even in your pod that was seen as unnecessarily cruel. Maybe it was even worse than that, maybe this was a warning, what could happen to you if you angered them. Maybe this was their hunting grounds and they were trying to tell you to leave. No matter what it was nothing good you were sure. You had to leave, you had to get away from this other Mer.

The Mer in question was wondering why you had decided to spend your next rest in an entirely new cave, miles away from your usually spot. You’d never done that before in his weeks of watching you. He’d seen you alone and half healed staring at the carcass and tried to speak with you. But he was roughly three times your size and a completely different subtype of Mer, which he didn’t think about when he vocalized to you. He watched you dash off and assumed you were heading back to your pod and he followed you wanting to apologize to your Matriarch for scaring you. His pod migrated and their usual hunting grounds were far enough away that they didn’t bump into stationary pods. He soon realized as he watched you dive for your cramped little cave that you were alone. He sat for hours out of sight as you hide, waiting to hear any other Mer, for someone to come and check on you.

It explained why you were so small, and the half healing injuries that you had. He knew that some types of Mer did cast out their runty hatchlings and it certainly looked like it had happened to you. He knew he should probably leave well enough alone, knew that you probably wouldn’t want his help if he offered it. But he couldn’t just leave you after scaring you. So he caught a fish injuring it to make it easy for you to catch and waited.

He told himself that after you ate it he’d leave. But the delight on your face when you saw it, the glee as you tore it apart, the high happy chirps as you ate. It was the cutest thing he’d seen in such a long time. He found himself judging your past pod, couldn’t they see what a sweet thing you were? He came back a few days later just to watch it again. By the third time he couldn’t deny he was attached. He’d already told his pod about you, and they were trying to get him to bring you with him. But he’d already seen how you reacted to him simply trying to speak to you, so he planned on slowly gaining your trust.

And then you decided to swim so far that you were about to run into a completely different pod’s territory. A pod that he knew wouldn’t let even a strange Mer into near their pod.

You thought you were about to die. You were swimming making progress when an arm the size of your body appeared in front of you and pulled you into the larger Mer. You panicked screeching and clawing at the arm. You’d never even seen another type of Mer before and this one was keeping you trapped as it swam in the opposite direction It didn’t even care as you did your best to make them bleed, biting, it didn’t make a sound. If you had attacked a Mer in your pod they would have screeched back at you but to be met with only silence, it was more terrifying. It stopped swimming seemingly at random, and for a few moments just stared at you as you fought.

He was just trying to figure out how to communicate with you without scaring you further. If you had been one of his pod’s hatchlings he’d just have clicked at you to stop fussing but he had a feeling that would not have the intended affect. He needed you to calm down so he started purring. It was so loud that you felt it in your bone, and you covered your ears making high pitched short squeaks. He’d never thought of quieting it before, but he managed it lowering it until your hands fell away from your ears and you stopped squirming.

You felt his body relax not long after yours did, the purr a steady thrum against your entire body. When you felt a webbed hand pet your hair you snuck a peak at his face to be greeted with a warm relieved smile, you eventually feel asleep in his arms. He swam keeping you tucked close as he tried to imagine how his pod would react to you.

[zylphiacrowley]

Left Behind

<previous - next>

[sengenism]

What's the moment you started shipping Sengen? Mine is definitely when Gen and Senku agreed they'll condemn their soul together to hell, it's small but it's the moment I started loving this ship.

I know there's the Gen asking for cola while injured scene but idk... They condemning their soul together to hell stirred something deep inside my heart...

- 🧅

the "senku ishigami and asagiri gen will be condemning themselves to an eternity of hell" scene is so insane i think about it all the time

funny thing about this scene is that the only other time they used such phrasing was in the light novel, where it narrates homura's loyalty to hyouga

Even then, Homura had no regrets. She had offered her very own future to the other prisoner, Hyouga. Even if the future was pitch black, if it was to fall to hell with him she did not mind in the least.

homura... who is in love with hyouga... hmm interesting

btw loved them ever since the observatory scene in the anime!! the anime, specifically, because i read the manga first. but only when the anime came out in 2019 did i realise how romantic the observatory scene actually was... like... it hit me that this was the most perfect gift one could present to senku then. how much thought gen put behind it all, to the point of manipulating senku into giving him a hint to calculate senku's birthday.

it's such a lovely scene and gen orchestrating the whole thing with the help of the villagers truly speaks volume for his love and care for senku. and i don't necessarily mean love in a romantic way– well, could be– but no matter the form of love the reader interprets this scene as, it's undeniable that gen genuinely loves senku for being senku. it is the purest kind of love, for he admits he likes senku regardless of the gain he gets from it.

and this scene is so so so so gen. there's manipulation, sure, but there is also kindness hidden behind it– that's the core of gen's personality. he is a good man who hides his kindness behind layers of manipulation. similarly, he manipulated chrome into picking the card that would allow chrome to ride the parachute first because he knew how baaaadly chrome wanted to.

and one of the best parts about the observatory scene? inagaki-sensei had revealed in a Q&A session that the saturn that senku saw through the telescope was merely his own mental imagery. with gen's limited science knowledge on making a telescope, the telescope made by him and the villagers wasn't advanced enough to see a planet. which means senku was so touched, he had lied about the telescope being good.

anyways, i've talked about how important gifts are to the ishigamis here and i'd like to point out that this makes the gift mean so much more to senku than a simple (maybe useless) telescope. thanks for coming to my ted talk~

[lefthandarm-man]

Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

[theactualsunshinechild]

I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!

That's right. Two hands.

One for his chalk.

One for his codex.

Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.

[shouyuus]

i think ppl truly don't talk about the fact that having emotionally unavailable (or even emotionally abusive) parents breeds an inability to ask for help even when you need it bc you could never trust that ur parents would be there for you, and so you try to do everything urself and that leads to exhaustion and overwork while simultaneously thinking that if you could just do it all and do it perfectly then perhaps you'd get the affection/affirmation from ur parents (and later on ur boss/peers) that you've always craved which leads to blaming urself for not living up to crazy expectations and then thinking u don't deserve love bc you couldn't do it, etc etc

[linkedin-offficial]

is this anything . sky:cotl au

details (aka my rambling) under the cut

mostly set upon the whole idea that caine came from eden and tries to help everyone gain their wings (albeit doing a terrible job the entire time)

bubble keeps the name bubble!

they r a mantatee :3 suprisingly chaotic for a light creature and sort of has the "eat light and puff out candles" personality that caine should have but doesn't

i contemplated caine being called "the creature" just for shits and giggles (and eventually went with it) since im absolutely certain everyone who ever meets him ever would be terrified for a little bit until they realize hes sentient; he doesn't understand that the name is supposed to be sort of derogatory

caine is the only one with wings because hes the only one who can canonically fly/float!

(and yes his head is supposed to be a dark plant . i like to think im big brain for this)

the reason why his dark plant head is tinted red btw . my thought process was basically "ah yes. red = good bcus eden :]" even though thats convoluted since everyone hates eden but that makes it better in a way. i think

zooble > mismatched worksmith

"bows" given to them by ragatha as an identifier; not like theyd need one though ..

constantly making their own prosthetics due to growing boredom with their previous ones (autism™) and also carved the designs into their mask themself

kinger > reluctant royalty

same old kinger as usual .. when asked what he rules he doesnt particularly remember nor have an answer so hes usually treated with respect out of pity for being old and senile

second tallest behind jax , also the oldest (if you dont count caine i guess? whos sort of. ageless)

ragatha > plush friendfinder

matching bow with jax :3 sibling moment! (yes i like the ragatha + jax sibling dynamic . its amazing to me)

right eye does not glow and actually looks like a hollow hole if you get close enough to her face! also clothing making buddies with zooble :] she taught them how to sew without pricking themself

gangle > wrapped up theatre-goer (i had such a hard time thinking of a name .. and to be honest?? im not solid on this but WHAGEVER.)

shortest. obviously

likes to write plays in her spare time and reads them to zooble while they work

clothes are sectioned and Very flowy, and has a few (cracked and broken) masks she likes to use for play improv (and also uses for herself sometimes if she has a hard time expressing a certain emotion)

jax > towering tease (it sounds stupid but THIS is so fucking funny.i cannot resist this)

tallest OBVIOUSLY. like stupidly tall . has its advantages and disadvantages (like being able to steal things from gangle with no consequences . on the other hand. doorframes)

him being tall and having that be the only thing hes got going for him is absolutely hilarious to me and im leaning into that hard

he has a tail also, but its small and not visible from the chart

pomni > jittery jester (i had to look up "other words for anxious" for this.my intelligence is showing)

pretty much the only one i referenced real in game clothing for, which sort of fits! protag moment

this was all i really had, since other established things like their personalities and relationships arent really changed much. but this was fun to think about :3 input is appreciated !

[trans-axolotl]

Hi! I'm trying to find some good antipsych resources for my younger brother. Ze's been passionate about a lot of related stuff for a while due to zir own experiences with psychiatry and I want to encourage zir but ze's only 16 and has never read the kind of complex or academic stuff that a lot of antipsych writing I've seen is. Can you recommend anything? Especially if it overlaps with youth liberation.

Hi anon! I'm mostly going to link resources that are more about the politics/principles/history of psych abolition/antipsychiatry rather then antipsych resources for coping with madness, but let me know if it would also be helpful to have those kind of resources.

content notes: a lot of these materials talk directly about psychiatric abuse, incarceration, suicide, and self harm.

Articles/Zines:

There is no abolition without anti-psychiatry by the Campaign for Psych Abolition

Myths of Psychiatric Incarceration by @ embracingambiguity (insta)

Belief in Psychotherapy by Kai Cheng Thom

Myth of Mental Health by Kai Cheng Thom

Mental Patients Liberation Front newsletter 1987

Abolition Must Include Psychiatry by Stella Akua Mensah

Psychiatry's Role in the Occupation of Palestine by Campaign for Psych Abolition

Sentenced to Trauma: Inside the volatility and disorder of prison by Carla J Simmons

Camille Moran Papers

Girls do what they have to do to survive by YWEP

Madness and Oppression by the Icarus Project

Asylum Magazine

Madness Network News

Books:

Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll

here's the link to my full drive of psych abolition resources sorted by topic as well.

if followers have nonacademic antipsych resources to add on, please do!

[deoidesign]

Quick re-do of a 4 year old piece

[sysig]

You’re looking a bit different than usual! (Patreon)