#let me get a break from my existential dread ok

[lyss-butterscotch]

Mom : what's everyone up to this morning?

Me : drawing

Mom, unprompted : you took the wrong major then, we shouldve put you in architechture

My 'you shouldnt pay attention to other people's progress but look at this 20 yo japanese student with 5 businesses' mom everybody 👏

[sarcastic-bubble]

“Leave me alone” and “Did you just kiss me?”

With Anakin if you are ok with that :)

Paring: Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Work count: 1.5K

Warnings: It gets a little angsty down there.

A/N: Oh my god guys I'm on a writing roll! I also wasn't about to finally switch everything over to my other blog without clearing my inbox first. Like I'm an ass, but I'm not that big of an ass. But I do really hate trying to format fics on the tumblr mobile app. So just pop on over to @sarcastic-bubbl if you want.

Masterlist

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You lay on top of a large pile of cushions. If a passer-by were to peek in they’d think you were napping, but that wasn’t the case. You were meditating. Every Jedi had their preference when it came to positioning and yours just happened to be laying down. You found it easier to forget your physical form and fully immerse yourself in the force when laying. Maker knew you needed all the help the force may offer at the moment. Your master had sent you to meditate hours ago and told you not to come back until you’d made a decision. At first, this had seemed cruel, but it was your fault for taking so long to make this decision. You tried to search the force for the answers you were looking for but it only echoed the fear and uncertainty you felt. Your breathing deepened and slowed as you worked your way through various meditation techniques but your mind simply refused to clear. This should be a simple choice. The council believed you were ready to ascend to the rank of Jedi Knight. You should agree with them. You should be grateful for the chance to complete the remaining trials that you hadn’t during the last few months of your training. Everyone believed you were ready yet you didn’t feel ready. The more you were pressured the less ready you felt. You could just say no, but making a habit of defying the council and your own master hardly seemed like a good idea. Why couldn’t this be simple?

    You were far too lost in thought to hear to door open and close. Nor did you notice the sound of cushions being moved to create a small pile perfect for lounging on. “You need to relax more,” stated Anakin very matter-of-factly as he sat down next to you. 

    This was finally enough to pull you from your thoughts. “Leave me alone,” you grumbled, “can’t you see I’m meditating?” Why was he here? Anakin was a pest. He had been one since he had arrived at the Jedi temple all those years ago. He was, however, your favourite pest and easily your best friend. As often as he drove you crazy with his reckless antics and sarcastic wit you found yourself drawn to him. He was someone you trusted and could talk to but right now he was a pest and you wanted to be alone. 

    “I’m not sure you can actually call what you’re doing meditating, (y/n).” His sentence was punctuated by the crisp crunch of him biting into an apple. 

    You opened your eyes only so you could properly glare at the Jedi next to you. “What would you call it then?” 

    His soft blue eyes met yours. The cocky expression he so often had around you faded into concern. “The beginnings of an existential crisis.” 

    You missed the concern that had begun to creep into his voice and his change of expression. There was just so much on your mind and even though you were looking at your attention was still only halfway there. “Are you just here to tease me or is there a reason you’re here?” You hated yourself for it but you could feel tears begin to form as you spoke, the frustration stemming from indecisiveness was already too much and Anakin was threatening to tip you over the edge. 

    Anakin set the apple down on a bare patch of the floor before place his hand over yours. “I came to check on you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” You weren’t okay and Anakin knew it. He had the force to thank for that. Upon his return to the temple only half an hour early he had looked for the gentle yet mischievous waves that were your presence in the force and had been since you were children. He never found it. Instead, wave after wave of uncertainty had crashed into him. At that moment he had decided his duties could wait and he set off to find you. 

    “I don’t think I’m okay,” you whispered. The tears you had been trying so hard to hold back took this as permission to quietly stream down your cheeks. 

    Anakin slipped his mechanical arm around your waist and pulled you against his chest. You shuddered against him as you cried. You waited for him to say something. He always had something to say, but Anakin remained quiet. He simply held you tight until your tears had run their course. Once he was certain you were done crying he spoke to you softly and pressed a small bottle into your hands, “have some water. You don’t want a headache.” 

    You were grateful for the cool liquid. Each sip soothed your parched throat and seemed to chase away the impending headache that Anakin was so worried about. Not trusting yourself to speak just yet you gave the man a weak smile. 

“If you want to be alone I’ll leave,” a gentle thumb brushed the few remaining tears from your cheeks,” but if you want me to stay I will. It’s up to you.” 

“Please stay,” you whispered weakly. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really.” That was all it took for silence to return to the room. You relaxed against Anakin’s chest and once again his arms encircled you and held you tightly.

 You weren’t sure how long you laid like this, just enjoying his soothing presence, but when you peaked out one of the rooms small windows stars littered the sky. You were the first to break the silence, “thank you.” 

“Of course,” hummed Anakin in response. 

“You probably had more important things to do than sit here with me,” you pointed out quietly. 

“That’s what the council will try to tell me, but nothing is more important than you,” he brushed his fingers through your hair before continuing,” and whatever decision you make I’ll support you.” He felt you tense beneath him. “You can tell the council no. As wise as they claim to be, they don’t know everything about you.” 

“And what about my master?” You could feel the dread rushing back into you. 

“What about him? If he’s that determined to get rid of you then I’ll take you on as my Padawan until you’re ready.” He realized how ridiculous the idea sounded as he spoke it. He had only been knighted a few months ago and as far as skill was concerned you were his equal, and there was the was fact that he was only your senior by a year. It wouldn’t be the most conventional pairing.

“You can’t possibly think they’d let you do that,” you replied with a small smile. 

“I’d like to see them stop me,” his words were sincere. He had no clue how would do it, but if he had to them he’d figure out a way to make you his padawan. He’d have to get Obi-wan on board with the idea if he ever hoped to have a chance. 

“You’re insane,” you laughed in response. It was quiet but it was there and thats and Anakin needed. 

“Probably,” he chuckled. He was a little disappointed when your body shifted off his. You did keep one had in his as you shifted into a half-sitting position next to him. He could see the real you coming out again as you giggled quietly to yourself over the idea of being his padawan. He could feel you again too. The uncertainty was still there but the force was once again filled with your gentle presence, “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thank you, Ani.” 

“Good.” He wasn’t sure what drove him to do it now of all times but as he finished speaking his lips met yours in a soft, short kiss. He regretted it almost immediately, but that didn’t stop him from lingering for a few moments. 

“Did you just kiss me?” Your expression was an unreadable mix of emotions and so were your thoughts. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… that was wrong. I-” You pushed a finger against his lips effectively silencing him. 

“It’s okay, Ani. I just didn’t expect it is all” your finger left his lips and your hand fell to your side,” but if you wanted to try again that would be okay.” 

Anakin’s expression was a mix of sheer relief and pure joy as his lip once again captured yours. His lips were softer than you’d expected and far more welcoming than you had ever imagined. “How was that?” He chuckled. 

“Much better.”

“Are you ready to go tell the council your decision?”

Your eyes met his,” as long as you’re with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Anakin pushed himself to his feet and held a hand out to you, “ now let’s go face them together.” 

[pluviophile-bookworm]

HSMTMTS 2x9: so dreaded, so exciting, 'Sword!' (yeah, I went there, I've been thinking about this scene - you know the one - since yesterday for some reason)

After two computer malfunctions and a very tough, very sleepless night, here I am with a third attempt to write this post. The universe is against me today. Is Mercury in retrograde or something? Ugh, I just want to get this over with already. And I haven't even managed to see half the episode yet. You better like this cursed post because it's taken me two hours at this point, and will probably take another to finish - and that is if nothing goes wrong this time. Please bear with me. This is my reaction to HSMTMTS 2x9, take 3. Let's hope and pray it's the last one.

I'm normally [unpopular opinion alert] a very spoiler-positive person (it's the combination of anxiety and ADHD and a bunch of other stuff, I suppose), but for this one I've been refraining from looking at the tag all morning, so by now I'm simply bursting with impatience. But before we dive in, I need to get some stuff off my chest.

Some pre-watch thoughts and feelings (let's see how well they will have aged by the end of the episode):

Seriously, what is with whoever writes this show? I know it's impossible, but I feel like they've been toying with my emotions specifically all season. Like:

Ah, so you were a Rini shipper last season? Great, now we'll make them obnoxious and borderline toxic to the point where you actually want them to break up, but then their old chemistry will be back just for the breakup scene so that you can cry your eyes out over the one couple you couldn't stand - even though you can't seem to relate to a single song from Sour, we'll make you feel like you do for a hot second. At least it will remind you that you loved Ricky.

So you say Redlyn own your heart and soul? Great, we'll make you dread something going wrong with them for a week straight, and mess up your sleep schedule beyond repair over it. You're welcome!

We heard you said Rodfini give you life? Perfect, how about a big Seblos fight? And would you like a side of questioning your choice to stan Carlos with that? Because what is life without a little anxiety, a bit of doubt of your ability to read people, and a pinch of existential dread, right?

Ah, so you claimed not to ship Portwell romantically, is that right? Brilliant, we'll make you ship them and then we'll use that to torture you, too.

You've been excited about ABF and Asher Angel guest-starring ever since they were announced? Magnificent! We'll make you hate ABF's character to the point where you can't even look at him, and we'll make you call him names you thought yourself incapable of uttering. And as for Asher, you'll be left waiting for him until the last third of the season, and then you'll dread the possibility of hating his character, too. Do you love us yet?

Oof! Right then, I've got that out of my system. Time to dive in.

Miss Jenn playing around with the backgrounds is, like, 90% of the people who had online school this year, and honestly, I love that for her.

Wait, why is Nini first on this call? Are they going through with the Rose thing? Cos like, the song is nice and all (and, might I add, much more to my taste than nearly all of Sour, don't @ me), but if they use it, it will get them disqualified. They’ve been told that! Gosh, please let me be wrong about this.

We get it, Carlito, rich and fancy and over-the-top is kind of your thing, but have you stopped for a second to think about how others will feel about this? Especially Seb, whom you claim to care about. Seriously, though, I love Carlos and would not hesitate to die for him, but I’m getting the feeling that, unlike my other favourite (you know the one), he wouldn’t do the same for me. Oh well, he’ll figure it out. He’s just a kid. Give him time.

Wait, Milky White? Is that an Into the Woods reference I smell? Cool! If I had a cow, I’d totally name her Milky White (or Gertrude, but don’t ask me why). I just hope they don’t have to, like, take her to the market and exchange her for magic beans, if you catch my drift.

Ahhhhh, Caswell cousins content! We love to see it!

‘You guys are watching, like, old old movies’ WTH, Nini (or is it Nina)? Scary Movie is literally younger than me. But what do you know about it, you 21st-century baby! Ugh, I don’t know why I’m being so hostile today... must be the lack of sleep. Hope it doesn’t influence my reactions to the episode so dramatically as to make me forget how much I love this series. Because I do.

Yay! Big Red is here! I can finally smile. And did Ash just say they’re soulmates? Because yes they are! Ahhh my heart is going to explode.

‘Nini, have you heard from [Ricky]?’ Yikes, awkward... but of course, Big Red can be counted on to save the day here, too.

Ok, so that was a cool cold open. Time for some nice in-person scenes, though. I did not spend all of three semesters doing online school just to have the characters of my favourite series do the same.

Wow, Gina is really embracing that French accent thing! And I really don’t want to think about, erm, ‘Napoleon over here’ right now, but I really think the fact that she’s doing it better than him will be another piece of evidence towards my theory of fake-French!Antoine... ugh, I said his name. Oh well. Back to Gina. Too bad the French thing didn’t work out for her.

Ahhhh, Portwell with Ash in the background! And Ash is going to paint EJ’s nails! I feel like he’s going to end up loving that, despite what he says right now. But seriously, I just love how comfortable these two are with each other. Can you blame me now for shipping them as friends? Well, I mean, it’s obvious they will be more than friends, and somehow, despite the amatonormativity of it all, I’m here for it.

Wait, was that Asher? That was Asher, I’m 100% sure of it. And Gina said ‘a sign’ and then looked at him, even from the back... what am I supposed to think and feel here? I’m confused. Moving on.

Ahh, poor Ricky being a burrito... good thing that breakup scene last time reminded me that I love him, because the entirety of the season before that was very good at making me forget that.

Wait, did she say ‘the Bean’? As in, that Bean? The infamous Bean? LOL.

‘So the only time you two talk to each other is to gossip about me’ Boy, did I feel that. I once got my hands on my dad’s mobile and I... kind of went through his texts with mum. Yep, all about me and my brother. At this point I feel like they’re only together because of us. But this is getting too personal. I’m here about the episode, not to rant about my family. Moving on.

Yikes, looks like Nini’s got writer’s block all over again. Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Because I kind of don’t. I mean, no hate towards her, none at all, but that entire scene just felt awkward and unnecessary. And not just because it’s her first time going live. That I can understand. What I don’t understand is why the writers can’t seem to do anything creative and interesting with Nini. Olivia is being wasted there. Idk, that’s just how I feel. Again, no hate.

Ahhhhh it’s Asher! And well, he’s not Jonah, but I kind of really like him as Jack. I wonder if that will last.

So is it just me, or is anyone else not quite sure how to feel about Ricky’s mum? I mean, their interactions seem kind of awkward and strained, but that’s how it’s supposed to be given their recent history, and yet something just doesn’t sit quite right with me.

‘You there, Muse? It’s me, Nini!’ Ah, so it’s Nini again? I didn’t get the memo. Gosh, this episode is kind of really underwhelming. The most exciting thing so far (but not nearly as exciting in practice as it was in theory) – Asher and Sofia’s on-screen reunion. The second most exciting thing? The thought of Ash painting EJ’s nails. Everything else? Kind of ‘whatever’. Is this what I tossed and turned about all night? Totally not worth it. This episode better get, like, 300% better right this instant. It’s just not worth all the frustration and excitement and dread so far.

Looks like my prayers from just now have been heard! That improv scene was hilarious! Guess it was lucky that Miss Jenn had them do improv before this moment. But I need to know more of Jack’s backstory now.

Ok, so that was awkward! So Kourtney is talking to Howie again, I guess. And I guess I know now what Carlos did that was all public and no subtle. Still, what’s wrong with posting photos from your holiday? Guess I don’t exactly know yet what Carlos did to piss the others off so much.

Great, now I’m tempted to google butterfly faces. Good thing I’m not eating anymore. *** Ughhhhh this was a mistake! Please don’t ever look a butterfly in the face if you want to stay sane. Don’t be like me.

Ahhh the Duke sweater! ‘Is that your boyfriend’s?’ Well, not quite yet, it’s not... *screams in Portwell*

Oh, now we’re talking! But seriously, Ricky? The ‘my friends think’ card? Why don’t you just say ‘I think’? It’s clearly something you’ve thought about a lot. I feel like I’m going to love this scene or cry over it or both.

Ooh, therapy. It’s not just... basically the entire fandom... who says it now. Please tell me that means Ricky will be going to therapy at some point. Says the girl who is currently firmly refusing to go to therapy in favour of hyperfixating on HSMTMTS and getting back into the good old practice of having imaginary friends... yeah, I’m one to talk.

My, my, my! Seb has really had it now. I mean, it was about time, but... not quite like this. My heart is starting to do some weird stuff, I can feel it. I might need to lie down.

Ok, so as much as I envy North High for getting to see so many shows on BWay – basically living out my dream – stalking East High on Instagram and being shady about them taking a well-deserved break... just goes beyond all limits. I mean, if you’re so into Broadway shows, you should know as well as I do what happened the last time a certain founding father did not take a break. Maybe you’re the ones in need of a break here.

Nini on the call with the Caswell cousins, though... ‘I’m obsessed with both of you’ – first relatable thing she’s said or done all season. And EJ playing with old toys is pure gold.

Oh, so Jack’s dad is a pilot. Makes sense, I guess. I’m kind of intrigued by this guy. Just as long as he doesn’t try to come between Portwell before they’ve had the chance to happen, you know...

Ashlyn might need to stop swooning over Nini’s songwriting or Big Red might get jealous... I mean, I would not have pinned him as the jealous type before 2x7, but ever since then... I guess insecure + dating a girl like Ash = the jealous type. And although that looks good on him, I’d bet anything it doesn’t feel particularly pleasant on his side. So... wait, why am I talking about Big Red? He hasn’t even got anything to do with the scene at hand. But then again, there’s been so little Big Red content in this episode that I seem to be trying to make up for it. Still. Stay focused.

Ooh, so Big Red did edit that video! Is there anything my boy can’t do? Ok, now I feel like he’s even more criminally underappreciated than he was before. But let’s look at the video. I’m curious to see the whole thing because that sneak peek from yesterday simply hasn’t been enough.

That was... really, really cool! I love how they took the ‘when they go low, we go high’ line from last time and run with it. Now if only they were putting as much effort into BATB... North High wouldn’t know what hit them.

Hmmmm... I guess Gina and Jack could be what I originally wanted Portwell to be... really cool friends. Unless it’s one of those ‘airport magic’ things. Oh well. It probably is. Was that all we’re seeing of Asher here? I did not wait 2/3 of the season for this. Though it was nice.

Ooh, Ricky’s solo song... why is there more Rini chemistry in this song than there was in all the season? Not counting the breakup scene, of course. Also, I feel like it’s just as much about him and his mum as it is about Nini. Some say music is the best therapy. I think they might be right. And no, I’m not crying. You are.

The granola bar, though... this episode might have been very underwhelming in the first half, but... it delivered in the Portwell front, and the music was *chef’s kiss*, so I’m willing to let it slide that the advertised Seblos ‘big fight’ was not touched upon nearly enough. Maybe next week...

Ok, now that we’re done watching the episode, let’s see how my feelings from the beginning have aged:

The Rini breakup: apparently, along with reminding me that I love Ricky, it has rendered me unable to look at Nini. What’s up with that? If this is some sort of tactic along the lines of ‘Olivia might be leaving the show so we’re making you hate her character so that you won’t miss her’, it’s not really working. Because I don’t want to hate Nini. Believe me, I don’t.

Redlyn: ok, so there’s nothing wrong with them whatsoever - we even got a ‘soulmates’, which I loved - but first they’re being swept under the rug, and then the antis come at us with that ‘their relationship is underdeveloped’ nonsense. Individually, though, I liked them in this episode (even if there was a significant shortage of Big Red), and Ashlyn collaborating with Nini again was cool, but... what I really wanted to see was her painting EJ’s nails. Did she even get the chance to actually do it? Maybe next week.

Seblos: I’m still failing to understand exactly what Seb thinks Carlos did wrong (please enlighten me if you did catch that, I’m kind of slow), but he (Seb) does have reasons to be mad at him (Carlos)... and at other people, too. Still, if you want to have a fight between two people in a relationship, you could do much better than whatever this episode was. Maybe next week. I notice I’m saying that a lot. Guess I’m putting a lot of hopes on 2x10. I just pray it doesn’t disappoint.

Portwell: boy, am I happy that my frustration on this front did not age well! What I mean is, apparently they’ve decided to bless us, not torture us for once. Even a rather disappointing episode like this one had to have some sort of silver lining. And Portwell is it.

Asher as Jack: well, luckily I didn’t hate him, but... it’s kind of the opposite problem. I loved him and now they’re taking him away from me. Guess I just can’t win here. Oh well. At least he didn’t have the screen time to get in between Portwell...

All in all: 2x10, my hopes and prayers are with you!

[aclosetfan]

if you are still taking prompts

may i suggest

“he focused the sound of her feet walking towards him. damn, he is so fucked”

@over-under-through1 (Lol you don’t even have to request stuff btw, Id literally just write stuff for you b/c youre so nice)

I thought of a few ways I could go with your prompt, but everything was coming up either hella boring or too predictable. I can’t say I’m too happy with what I wrote, but I know you like the greens so I settled on fleshing out a scene from a never written fic about Bubbles and Boomer’s engagement, and Bubbles forcing their families to meet (against Boomer’s recommendation). The twist is that everyone already knows each other, and unsurprisingly, no one likes their bridal party counterpart. (no powers au)

For the sake of context: Butch and BC are both the kid-siblings in this story. They know each other because they go to the same high school. Butch is one strike away from being sent back to juvie, and BC has the incredible (self-imposed) pressure of living up to her amazingly successful older sisters. Prior to the blue’s engagement, none of the green’s interactions had been particularly positive b/c Butch is considered a bully and BC’s best friend (only friend) Elmer is often bullied. BC’s personality is very closed off and Butch thinks she’s creepy. (lol I could go on forever about the potential outline of this story, but this is enough for a dumb excerpt)  

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Prompt: He focused on the sound of her feet walking towards him. Damn, he was so fucked.

Summary: Butch needs a hero, he’s holding out for a hero—wait no, not that one! He wants another hero; he’s holding out for literally any other hero. Buttercup would just like one night of normal jogging.

Pairings: greens (but not romantic more like the very, very beginning of a positive relationship)

Genre: friendship/action

Rating: like 18+ for language and violence; t/w: thinly veiled sexual harassment (just threats, NO action—located towards middle) My warning/rating is just precautionary. Honestly, didn’t write anything that wouldn’t be shown on TV.  

He was slammed against the fence by the scruff of his collar, and it was the first time that night that Butch thought, maybe, things weren't going to work out in his favor. "Come on, guys." He coughed, still recoiling from the punch to his gut, "Three of you, one of me? You may want to call the rest of your friends over and make it a fair fight."  

The smart and playful banter was neither appreciated nor reciprocated, as another jab connected with his stomach. He gagged, and they allowed him to drop to his knees.

 "What?" He coughed, as bile burned the back of his throat, "Skipping the dirty talk? Got somewhere better to be?"

"Do you ever sssshut up?" Snake, one of Ace's fave little goblins, growled.

"My incredible wit is half my charm, and you want me to s-s-s-sssshut up?" Butch argued back, mocking Snake's ever-present lisp. It wasn't the smartest move, but the way Snake's face contorted into something uglier, Butch believed his inability to keep his fucking mouth shut had been worth it. Snake kicked him fully to the ground and pinned him there. Face smooshed in the dirt, he cursed at them, and Snake pulled his hair, peeling his head off the pavement.

"What you sssay, kid?" He hissed.

"I said," Butch spit, "how's it feel to finally be the guy on top?"   

Snake smashed his head down hard onto the pavement, and Butch saw a wave of stars.

"Piece of sssshit!"

"Takes one to know one, right?" He groaned as his vision became less and less spotty.

"I jussst," Snake chuckled, "I jussst can't fucking wait to sssee you get taken out."

"Like murder? Or on a date, because, like, you're not my type."

That earned him a punch to the back.

"Ssshut the fuck up, man!" Snake huffed, shoving his face back into the dirt.

"Fuck thisss kid." Snake said to the other two idiots, "Billy, hold him down. I'm gonna get Ace. Tell him we found him."  

Butch tried to break away, as soon as Snake had let him go, but Big Billy, the biggest, dumbest, motherfucker that Ace probably kept around for his size and his size alone, stomped down on his back, replacing Snake, and effectively keeping Butch in his place on the concert.

"Yeah! That's right, pillow princess! Run home to daddy!" Butch barked after Snake's fleeing form, before a foot connected with his head. This time his abuser wasn't Snake or even Billy. No, this painful encounter was best accredited to Grubber. Grubber was another one of Ace's favorite minions. He was a short ugly man who, Butch swore, was suffering from some thyroid disease that made his ugly eyes bulge.

Butch couldn't tell if Grubber was dumb or smart. Butch couldn't even tell if Grubber was human. He looked more like the reanimated corpse of a dog-troll with the way he hunched and let his tongue lull out of his mouth. Regardless, the guy haunted his nightmares.

Butch let his head drop back to the ground in a daze and cried out when Billy applied more and more of his weight onto his back with a giggle. Butch was sure he'd end up snapping in half.

Mentally, he pleaded with the universe for a miracle. He had never been much of a believer in anything before. He figured when he died, he'd just die. Really nothing more to it. What he had not figured on, in all of his existential wonderings, was his death taking place in the middle of an abandoned McFatties parking lot, and frankly, he found the whole ordeal a little unfair. An abandoned McFatties parking lot was possibly one of the worst places he could think of to die in, and that was coming from him, a kid who had been forced to visit the state of Ohio once. So, mentally, he pleaded with the universe for a miracle.

"Hey!" A voice cried out, and because he was 99.9% sure he knew that voice, Butch filled with even more dread, taking back his pleas to the universe that had only happened mere seconds ago. He actually didn't need a miracle. He needed the sweet release of death.

Please. Please. The Death. Please! Not this! I don't want this! He mentally chanted, Death, death, death!

"Duuuh, hello?" Billy asked the parking lot, and Butch lifted his head a bit to get a look. When no one presented themselves, Grubber and Billy shared a look before shrugging, and they continued to bounce on his back until a brick sailed through the air and hit Grubber on his head. The shock of it caused Grubber to bite down on his tongue, and he cried out in pain.

"Grubber?" Billy asked, his voice thick with worry.

"Get off that guy!" The “mystery” voice rang out, and another brick flew through the air and hit Billy on the shoulder.

Big Billy stumbled off of him and looked around, "Who threw that!"

"Go!" The voice was closer, and Butch could hear the sound of running, "I'll call the police!"

The threat was enough for Grubber, who was still clutching his mouth. He grabbed Big Billy by the shirt, and they took off.

"We're telling!" Billy cried out like a five-year-old as another brick made contact with his back, "We're gonna tell on you!"

"Yeah! Keep running!" The "stranger’s" running came to a halt a little away from him, and yep, he 100% knew that voice. He groaned, his eyes screwing shut with pain, as he laid out on the pavement. He focused on the sound of her feet walking towards him and groaned again. Damn, he was so fucked.

"Shit are you ok—wait, Butch?" Buttercup asked, barely masking her surprise.

"Don't tell my brothers." He cracked an eye open when he felt her standing over him.  

"I could care less." She scoffed at his weak begging, "Are you dying?"

He flexed and wiggled, but besides some major bruising, he seemed to be functioning well enough.

"Like," he grimaced, "not physically."

There was a shout, and Buttercup bristled above him. "Good enough, now get up," She huffed, yanking him up and his knees locked in pain.

"I take it back." He bent over, clutching his stomach, "I take it back, I'm dying."

"They were over here, bosssss!" The Snake called from around the corner.

"Well, now's not the time." Buttercup hissed at him and threw one of his arms over her shoulder to help drag him along, "I'm really gonna need you to get your shit together."

"Give me a minute." He hissed back, gritting his teeth, as he tried to get his legs to corporate, "Internal damage doesn't just fix itself. I don't have fucking superpowers."

"Consider getting some," She huffed back as they hobbled along in the shadows, ducking into a random alleyway.

He scoffed, "What are you even doing here?"

"What are you even doing here?" She echoed as they exited the alley and took a random right. She was moving them towards a bus stop. The street lamps shone over the bus stop bench like a spotlight, and the seat sang to him like a siren. His head was still reeling from the blow Grubber had dealt, and sitting down was exactly what he needed to stop the world from spinning.

"Touché." He said after a moment. Her business was her business. His was his. He was fine keeping it that way.

They made it to the bench, and Buttercup set him down. He slumped, holding his head in his hands as she paced around, peering into the shadows that the bus stop lights couldn't reach.

"Buses aren't coming anymore." He mumbled, and she looked back over at him with a frown, "Obviously, I know that."

"Then can you stop pacing.” He demanded, “You're giving me a headache."

"I'm giving you a headache?" She scoffed, "Listen, get up. We need to get somewhere with more people."

She was right; he knew that. The street they were on was desolate. They were still too far from both the City's hustle and bustle and the neighborhood cop patrols in the outlining suburbs. This was an awesome no-man land for shitheads like Ace and Co. to hangout.

At the same time, though, it hurt to move.

"Are you suggesting we run away?" He snorted, putting on a brave face, "Not my style, cupcake."

"Don't call me that." She shot back without missing a beat, "And I'd say this is more of a tactical retreat. I can't spend the rest of the night saving your ass. There are better things to do to waste my time with."

He stood up with the full intention to say something witty and badass back, but he moved too quickly and swayed. Little black dots filled his vision, and he plopped right back down onto the bench with a grimace.

"Five more seconds," He ended up spitting out as he gripped his head in his hands.  

"Okay, for real, are you going to be okay?" Buttercup asked, kneeling in front of him, "Your head's bleeding."

He brought a hand to his forehead and tried to swallow the wince as his fingers brushed the wound. He frowned and examined the blood on his hands, "Well, that explains a few things."

She frowned back at him, "You could have a concussion. We need to get help."

"Probably not." He waved away her concern, cracking a smile, as he thought back to a particular conversation they had had in the school cafeteria not too long ago, "I've been told I've got a thick head."  

She opened her mouth to retort, but somewhere in the shadows, there was a scuffle, like the sound of a can being kicked, that made her snap her mouth shut. She stood, whipping her head in every which direction looking for something terrible to appear.

"You're gonna have to walk faster." She looked back at him, "You're too heavy to carry."

"Excuse me, ma'am, it's not very polite to comment on a person's weight."

Buttercup glared down at him, "Do you really think right now is the best time to be a smart-ass?"

"Yes, in fact, I do. It's how I cope, thanks."

"You cope with humor?" Buttercup blinked with a dry stare, "Why?"

"Well, Ms. Doom-and-Gloom, I know this may be hard for you of all people to understand, but laughter is the best medicine."

"No," She snorted, rolling her eyes, "I'm aware. I just don't get how it works for you since, you know, you're not funny."  

Butch opened his mouth to retort, but a hand shot out of the shadows and gripped Buttercup by the shoulder. She gasped in surprise, and he shot up a little straighter, ignoring his headache.

"Gotta say, Butcie-pal, I agree with the girl. I neva thought you were too funny either." Ace leered, "Who's ya pretty little friend, anyway, hmm? I don't think we've ever been introduced."

"Oh," Buttercup grimaced, shaking her head as she flicked Ace's hand from her shoulder, "no. No. Touching me won't be necessary."

"Fancy seeing you here, Ace." He gritted out through a forced smile, "A little birdy told me you got out of the joint early."

"Good behavior." Ace's face split into an equally condescending smile, "Did ya miss me, kid?"

"I've been countin' the seconds, buddy."

"Wait, Ace?" Buttercup's eyes went wide with recognition, "The Ace? From the Gang Green Gang?"

"The very same." Ace winked down at Buttercup, his sunglasses slid down his face as he checked her out, "I see my reputation proceeds me."  

Buttercup ignored Ace, and whipped back around to glare at him, "Seriously, Butch? You were fighting with the Gang Green Gang?"

He rolled his eyes, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I not get around to telling you that, Buttercup? I've been a bit preoccupied."

"Buttercup?" This time Ace froze with recognition, and jabbed a slim, long finger in Buttercup's face, "Now, hold on. I know you."

Buttercup's lips pursed as she hit his hand away, "No, no, you don't."

"Yes, yes, I do." Ace continued to wag his finger in her personal space, "You're that prissy prosecutor's sister, ain'tcha, the one who had the pleasure of locking me up for three years?"

Buttercup's eyes darted over to Butch before going back to Ace, "Can't say exactly. The City has a lot of prosecutors."

Ace's face broke back out into a smile, "Yeah, yeah. I remembers seeing you in the paper, right next to ya sista."  

Buttercup frowned, "Not ringing any bells."

"Aw, come on, don't play dumb with me. We're all friends here. Your sister, she's the one with the red hair, wears a ribbon, funky eyes. What was her name again? Tulip? Rose?" He snapped his fingers in though a few times, "Something floral."

"Blosssssom?" Snake suggested from behind.

"Ah!" Ace's smile grew, "Blossom! Yes! Thank you, Snake!" He grabbed Buttercup by the shirt and dragged her close. Practically nose to nose with her, he smirked, "Ringing any bells now?"

"Just a few." She glowered, no longer feigning cluelessness.

Ace threw his head back with a laugh, "This is the night that just keeps giving, boys! We've caught this shitbag." He jabbed a finger back at him on the bench, "And now we've got Blossom's pretty little sister to play with." He pulled her closer by the sleeve of her shirt, smashing her against his chest, "The only thing that would make this better is a beer! You drink, sweetheart?"

Butch scoffed because even though Buttercup was obviously a secret witch necromancer in her spare time, he wasn't a fucking degenerate who enjoyed watching men scaring girls, "Your issue's with me Ace, leave her out of this."

Ace threw Buttercup away, pivoted on his heels, and stalked back over, "Oh, oh, don't worry 'bout nothing Butch. I haven't forgotten about you. Sees after me and the boys get done having a little fun with your girlfriend, I'll be taking care of you."

Butch bristled in sync with Buttercup, "Oh—"

"—no—"

"—Wait!"

"Time out!" Buttercup cried, forming a 'T' with her hands, "I'm—"'

"—She's—"

"—not his—"

"—girlfriend!" They denied simultaneously.

Ace blinked, "I'm threatening both your dignities and your lives, and that's what you're choosing to focus on?"

"Yes!"

"Alright." Ace conceded, shrugging. "Say, fellas, get Butch's. . .acquaintance?" Ace asked, looking at him for confirmation.

"Eh, sure—" He conceded with a shrug, as Buttercup huffed from behind Ace, crossing her arms.

"—I wouldn't even say that."

"Yeah, okay then," Ace corrected himself, ignoring Buttercup, "Fellas, get his acquaintance nice and ready for me while I have a few words with the kid. Don't rough her up too much, though. You know how I like to work with a clean canvas."

"Ssssure thing bossss,"

"Oh, hell, no." He heard Buttercup growl, but his view of her was cut off by Ace, who pulled him up by the scruff of his collar. The adrenaline was pumping once more through his veins, so this time, standing at least didn't hurt.

"Seriously, dude, I don't think you wanna fuck with me like this." He threatened, but even he knew how empty it sounded.

"Seriously, dude," Ace mocked with a smile, "I don't think I give a fuck. Gotta admire your balls, though, kid. Takes a lot of guts to talk to me like that."

"What's your fucking deal anyway? I did what you asked for, I—"

Ace, a cheap bastard who fought dirty, kneed him hard in the groin. Butch let out a strangled gasp, and Ace laughed, letting him drop to the ground.

"It's that fucking mouth of yours." Ace answered, squatting down to get in his face. His breath smelt like cigarettes, weed, and rat piss, "Anyone ever told you it ain't becoming cussing in front of your elders all the time?" Ace reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack. Taking a cigarette, Ace offered it up, "Want one?"

"I don't smoke." He replied curtly. It was a semi-lie. He smoked. He just wasn't an avid cigarette smoker. Considering his family, though, he did, in fact, fancy himself a professional second-hand smoker. Brick chained-smoked. Boomer was always in a perceptual state of "I'm quitting tomorrow." Mojo could typically be found puffing on some pipe or cigar. And HIM was more of a social smoker, but a smoker nonetheless, since he liked using the cigarette sticks that made him look like Audrey Hepburn too much not to smoke.  

If he died, Butch had always figured, it'd be lung cancer that took him out.

"That's smart." Ace nodded, chuckling, "It's shit for ya anyway, but what vice isn't, right?"

Butch watched Ace wearily as he searched around for his lighter. The pain in his groin had subsided into a dull ache, but he stayed on the ground. With Ace, he had to play it smart. Five against one weren't numbers in his favor, and there was Buttercup to consider, unfortunately. The little priss was probably scared shitless.

Ace flicked his lighter on a few times before it caught light and puffed his cigarette for a moment. Finally, he looked back down at Butch and exhaled a cloud of smoke in his face. It didn't bug Butch, but Ace seemed to think it was pretty funny.

"Now, kid, these manner problems you seem to be still having, I think, you know, that someones gotta teach you a thing or two. Seems like your shitbag brothers ain't doing too good a job, huh?"

"Don't talk to me about my brothers."

"Yeah?" Ace smiled, the cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth, "And whatcha gonna do, huh, do I gotta remind you about the position youse in?" Ace stood up and kicked his foot hard into Butch's gut. Again, he lost the air in his lungs.

"Fuck you." He coughed, and Ace shook his head.

"See again with the cussing." Ace sighed, "Figured since your brothers are too good for us now, that they'd do a little better by you, but I guess somethings neva change. Once a rat, always a rat, right?"

Butch opened his mouth to retort, but the commotion behind Ace caught his attention. Ace didn't seem to notice as he continued to lecture Butch on manners, respect, and a bunch of other things gang-bangers seemed to believe they automatically deserved. Through the gaps of Ace's legs, he watched as Grubber hit the ground hard.

His eyes widened as Buttercup swooped in on the fallen man, stomping down onto his back to keep him still. The taser in her left hand sparked to life as she spun around and lodged the offending weapon into Snake's neck. Snake cried out and made a swipe for her arm, but she ducked down, invading his hold. Squatting on the ground, Buttercup jabbed the taser into Snake's crotch, and the noise he made was finally enough to get Ace's attention.

"Wha—" Ace started, his sunglasses sliding down his nose in shock. Butch probably didn't look any better.

Buttercup ignored Snake's pleas for mercy and kicked his feet out from under him. He collapsed to the ground, still holding himself in his hands, and Buttercup smirked. Using her hands to launch herself into the air, she flipped away from Big Billy, who had been clambering up behind her, without a second glance. Billy’s nose was already bleeding, and based on the feral way Buttercup was taking the gang out, Butch would have placed money that a good headbutt had caused it.

Billy was too slow for Buttercup. Butch didn't have a clue where Arturo was, but if she kept bolting, he was pretty sure she had a clean and clear shot out of danger's way. To his surprise, though, Buttercup didn't run away. After landing her flip, she slid to a halt and turned back towards Billy. Squatting down low, like a sprinter, she took off back towards him at top speeds. Butch knew Buttercup was fast since she was always running everywhere like a madwoman, but he didn't think she could go that fast. She was on a high-speed collision course with Billy, a guy four times bigger than her, and it was the first time in his life that Butch had ever seen her smile like that.

Billy was ready for her, though. His arms were opened up wide as he got ready to grab her. Butch almost called out to her in warning, but instead, he watched in astonishment as she collided with Billy at a nearly perpendicular angle. She jumped slightly up before impact and threw her weight down onto Big Billy, using her shoulder to break his block and knock him off balance. The force of her momentum caused the big guy to stumble off to the side. He cried out in surprise as he tried to steady himself, but Buttercup didn't give him a chance. Like Snake, she dropped to the ground so that she could kick his unsteady feet from out underneath him. And like on Snake, it was quite effective.

Billy hit the ground with a loud crash and Buttercup stood over him, clapping the dust off her hands as she shot Ace a look.

Butch shared a bewildered look with Ace for a moment, before they both turned back to the fight.

"Billy!" Ace cried out, "Get up, you lug!"  

Billy didn't get up, but he did start crying, and Butch laughed, "Ah, come on Ace, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?"

Ace glowered at him and called out to both Snake and Grubber, who both, in turn, moaned from their spots on the ground.

"Arturo!" Ace shouted, "Where the fuck are you?"

"Here, boss!" Arturo cried, sprinting out of the shadows and towards Buttercup with a battle cry. He lunged for her, but Buttercup seemed unfazed as she reached into her hoodie and pulled out a can. She sprayed whatever it was into Arturo's face, and he dropped mid-lunge to the ground with a horrible cry. She sprayed his face two extra times for good measure and then pocketed the can of mace like it was as unimportant as Chapstick.

She whipped her head back around towards them and again shot Ace a death glare.

"Holy shit." Butch blinked and then let out another short laugh, looking back up at Ace, "Like damn, dude, you're so fucked."  

Ace balked, taking a few steps back. He began to root around in his pockets before pulling out a switchblade and flicking it open, "Don't take another step!"

Buttercup brushed some dirt off her jacket as she continued to advance, "What, Ace? Is the canvas not clean enough for you?"

Without his lackey's, Ace trembled with fear, "I said, not another move."

"Cute knife," Buttercup shrugged, nonplussed, as she reached back into her pocket, "Wanna see mine?"

Ace looked between the two of them, as Butch began to find his footing once more, then at his fallen minions. He dropped his hands and backed further away.

"This ain't over!" He sneered and took off running.

Buttercup pulled her hand out of her pocket, sans knife, and dropped to her knees to inspect him.

"Do you just piss everyone off for fun?" She asked, helping him up.

"Something like that," he shrugged.

Behind them, Billy began to groan as he attempted to pick himself off the ground. Buttercup's eyes went wide.

"Let's go." She hissed and pushed him into a run. She pulled him along for a moment as she ran before letting him go and taking off on her own. He tried his best to keep up, but the beating he had been put through quickly caught up with him. He slowed to a stop and watched her disappear into the distance. Taking a few deep, heavy breaths, Butch bent over and put his hands on his knees.

In. Out. Wince. In. Out. Wince.

He wanted to call out to Buttercup, but she was long gone, and, for once, he couldn't find his voice. 

What a fucking night, though, he ended up thinking to himself. 

There was nothing else that the world could throw at him that would surprise him at this point.

But right on cue, the world took him up on that because immediately after he spoke the challenge into existence, red and blue lights flashed behind him. A cop car chirped, its siren turning on and off once to get his attention. Butch slumped further down with a sigh, because of fucking course. He should have known better.

Jumped and thrown back into juvie all in one night—it was a new personal record! He couldn't wait to hear the opinions his family would have. With another heavy sigh, he threw his hands into the air and turned around to face the officer since he wasn't too particularly keen on adding "racially profiled and shot in the back" to his long list of shitty sob stories.

"Well, well." The officer stepped out of his car, but Butch couldn't see which one since the officer had neglected to turn off the headlights shining right in his face, "What do we have here?"

He kept quiet because he knew his fucking rights. The cop stalked up to him and blinded him with a flashlight. He didn't quite understand why that had been necessary given the patrol car's headlights, but cops were a different breed of stupid in this City.

"Now, if it isn't the most illustrious Butch Jojo. I've heard about you, kid."

Butch grunted back.

"Hmm, not much of a talker?" The cop asked conversationally, and Butch twitched with annoyance. He didn't get why everyone—especially adults—always wanted to do the small talk bullshit.

"That's fine. I'll get to the point—" Butch already knew he actually wouldn't, "—where are you coming from looking like that?" The cop flashed his flashlight up and down, emphasizing the tears and bloodstains on his clothes. "Are you aware of a robbery that took place on 5th tonight?"

Butch seized up, knowing exactly what the cop was implying. "That's like forty minutes from here on foot!" He protested.

"I wasn't asking for directions, son."  

"I don't know anything about a robbery on 5th." Butch spat back, and the cop's mouth curled into a sneer.

"Then, care to explain what you were running from?"

Taking a deep breath, Butch glared at the officer, "I don't have to say anything."

The cop chuckled, "Well, maybe you'll change your mind at the station."

"What!" Butch yelled, "I—"

"—Calm down, kid, I'm not playing games!"

"Wait, officer, wait! He's with me." Buttercup ran forward, reappearing from the shadows and linking their arms together. Slightly, she pulled him away from the officer and his blinding lights, "I was showing him the loop I run, and he tripped. I—I was doubling back to bring him a—uh, a bandaid?" She (poorly) lied.

"Buttercup Utonium?" The cop blinked, and she offered a strained smile.

"Hey, Officer Smith."

The officer's face contorted, and he jabbed the end of his flashlight toward Butch's face, "He's with you?"

"Uh, yeah." Buttercup shrugged, stepping slightly in front of him like a barrier, "His brother is engaged to my sister."

The officer lowered the flashlight and blinked in surprise, "Blossom's engaged? I just saw her the other day."

"Not Blossom." Buttercup shook her head, "Bubbles."

"Bubbles! Engaged?" The officer exclaimed, blowing air from his lips, "Time flies! I remember you being this tall—" He indicated a little past his knee, "—when your sister starting working for the Prosecutor."

Buttercup nodded her head, curtly, "Yep."

The officer smiled at her and reholstered his flashlight, "Well, you tell Ms. Bubbles I said congrats, ya hear me?"

"Alright, no problem." Buttercup nodded again, nudging into him, so he'd start backing away. The officer shot him a quick look before turning back to Buttercup. "And you keep this one in line, ya hear me." He told her as he wagged a finger in his direction. "It's about time you found some decent friends to hang out with." Officer Smith lectured, staring him down, before he addressed both of them, "Now, it's past curfew, you two need to head home."

Butch kept his mouth screwed shut, but Buttercup seemed to read his body language loud and clear because she threw him a nasty look before turning back to the officer.

"Sure, sorry, Officer Smith, we lost track of time." She apologized to the officer as she elbowed him into walking away, "I'll tell my sisters you said hi."  

"Goodbye, Buttercup." The officer waved as he made his way back to his patrol car. "Butch." The officer nodded at him, giving him the once over again.

 He rolled his eyes, turning away. "Fucking cops." He grunted, but when he looked over to his right, Buttercup was gone. "Hey, where—" He spun around looking for her, only to find that she was practically halfway down the block, "—Hey!"  

Ignoring how sore he was, he jogged after her. She didn't bother to look at him as he knocked into her.

"Okay, three things—" He started, as he kept in step with her, and Buttercup heaved a heavy sigh. "One, how do you three know everyone in this fucking city?"

She shrugged, "Just do."

"Two, why do you just have a taser and mace on hand?"

"Because I'm a teenage girl, and I run at night."

"Yeah, soooo…"

"Sooo," Buttercup emphasized slowly with a dry look, "sex trafficking, rape. Teenage girls always seem to be a pretty hot commodity. Recent events should have probably tipped you off to that."  

Butch stopped dead in his tracks for a moment and blinked, dumbfounded, "Oh right. Cause you're a chick. I, like, forgot about that."

"Yep." She agreed over her shoulder since she hadn't stopped to wait for him to process the obvious.

He jogged to catch up with her with a nod, "Guess that's smart then."

"Guess so." She muttered back and took a sharp left down a pathway he hadn't even known existed.

"And three," He slowed them down, rubbing the back of his neck, "uh, thanks, I guess, for back there."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

Buttercup looked past him towards where the cop car had been and then back at him with a shrug, "Don't mention it. Like, seriously, don't."

He nodded, and she turned away, going back to fast walking speed. He stumbled after her.

"So, where we going?"

"I'm going home. I don't know where you're going."

"Going home?" He repeated.

"Yep."

"But why—how! You can't just go home! Not after all that shit back there!" He speculated out loud, "Aren't you, like, pumped up?"

She sighed, "Nope. Are you going to keep following me?"

"Buttercup." He huffed, running in front of her to block her way, "dude, that shit back there was fucking badass, and I don't say that kind of shit lightly. I don't know whatever fucking voodoo god you're praying to every night, but it's working. You gotta—" he scrambled for anything his mind could come up with, "—you gotta, like, at least get something to eat with me for like, like, closure."

Buttercup stared up at him, her eyebrows pulling together, "Did…did you just ask me to hang-out?" She paused before clarifying, "With you?"  

"Uhhh…" He frowned, his own eyebrows pulling together as he mulled over his previous statement, "huh?" He shrugged, "I guess I did."

Her frown deepened, and she pushed past him, "You should probably go to the hospital. Thick head or not, it was obviously hit a lot harder than you've let on."

He snorted and turned around to catch up with her, "I think I'm serious, though."

She looked him over again, "Seriously, you're starting to freak me out. Should I call 911?"

They made it out of the alley and emerged near a little corner before Townsville blended into the surrounding Pokey Oak County. There, like a beacon in the night, was Pops, a burger joint that he liked.

"Ha!" He proclaimed, pointing towards the 24/7 diner, "Come on!" He grabbed her by the elbow and began to drag her with him.

"Hey!" She protested, digging her heels into the ground as she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, "Cut it out!"

"Listen. We're getting a burger, whether you like it or not. Brick's treat."

She stopped her struggling and a raised eyebrow, "Your brother's paying?"

He rolled his eyes with a smirk before he pulled his older brother's debit card that he had stolen earlier that night from his back pocket and waved it in the air, "Duh."

She looked back over her shoulder towards the direction of her home, then over again towards him and the burger joint, "Welllll, if he's paying," She hummed, shrugging, "sure, why the hell not."

He laughed and dropped her elbow, "Good choice, Butterfingers, let's go."

 ---------------------

 I’m sorry if you hate it—I know the pacing’s a bit off and my dialogue punctuation needs work, but it’s been a crazy few days lmao and I just wanted to get this out ☹ if it’s absolute shit let me know and I’ll try writing you something else! Also, the body slam BC used on Big Billy is a move Jammers use in roller derby to get past blockers because, hint, in this world BC is “secretly” in roller derby. ((“Secretly” because her fam and Elmer knows, but no one else.)) I just suck at action scenes so it doesn’t come across well

[wheezykat]

You’re smiling but I don’t believe you!! SPILL 😍

YES. HELLO FRIEND. ❤❤

Let me wax poetic about this one for a min, because I’m very very excited about it! And that’s pretty new for me - I’m usually really unsure about the things I’m writing and worrying about how a piece will be received. This one is different for me - I feel like I’ve poured out a part of myself in the story. It’s entirely self-indulgent, and something that really took me by surprise with the force in which I needed to write it. 

This started as a lil 400 word drabble in response to a drarrymicrofic prompt for the word “metamorphosis.” And then a down and out chainsmoking!Draco took over my brain, and I literally couldn’t help myself. I’m just shy of 8k right now, and still going strong - I’ve got a few more scenes left to write before it will be complete. 😈

you’re smilin’ but i don’t believe you (before&after) is largely a story focused on Draco’s character arc after the war and him dealing with the aftermath- the guilt, the regret, and all of the hardships he has to endure just to get by after losing everything. It’s entirely Draco POV, and hops through several years, centered around encounters he has with Harry and the cause/effect of those encounters on his life; how he shapes himself, rebuilds, and grows. I absolutely adore the Draco I’ve written for this, and I really hope everyone who reads it will too. I tried not to shy away from the reality that he’d be faced with, and the reality that life can be hard. But that we can keep pushing, working for a better future for ourselves, even in the face of those hardships when everything feels hopeless. And I guess ultimately, how we deserve the ending we’ve worked so desperately for. Accepting that we deserve it, regardless of our past, because we’ve changed for the better. As you can guess, it’s quite heavy on the angst in the beginning, but it does gradually (v gradually) recede, leaving room for a happy ending. 

OK, now that I’ve had my existential crisis about it, here’s a snippet for you below the cut. 😅 

ask me something about my WIP folders!

(tw: angst, reluctant sex work [implied, not pictured], general misery and depression)

It was getting to be the end of the month, and by his quick calculations, he’d be about a hundred pounds short for his rent this month. Losing his job as a dishwasher meant he lost more than just his pittance of an income, but also his access to cheap, and sometimes free, food. He’d managed to snag a position as a barista in a shabby, rundown coffee shop just down the street only a week later - but his additional food expenses, and the loss of just a single paycheck, put more of a dent in his earnings than he’d previously thought. Not even trying to subsist on purely caffeine and leftover scones had made up the difference, it would seem.

A sense of vague despair shivered up his spine as he looked at himself in the only mirror in his flat, fingers pressing against sharp hip bones and slightly protruding clavicles, as he tried to think of a better work around than the one currently on the forefront of his mind. Working at the greasy spoon had been hard, often back breaking work, fingers pruned and skin sticky with residue by the end of his shifts. But it had been awhile since he’d had to resort to - that. The months had soothed his shattered soul like a balm, happy to be able to exist in his dull routine and the safe return to his bed and slightly ratty blankets every evening. Feet aching, sometimes with an empty stomach, but with the relief of knowing that he’d get a reliable paycheck at the end of the week. 

He watched his lips turn downward in a frown, a mockery of the pouts he often saw painting the faces of those models on the front of those awful muggle magazines. His cheekbones were too sharp, eyes bloodshot from his early morning shift. He was shadowed and thin and hungry. And he didn’t have any better ideas. 

With a heavy sigh and shaking hands, he grabbed his kohl eyeliner from the counter, rimming his eyes to conceal the dark circles. He quickly downed a series of preparatory potions, among them a Draught of Peace to ease his nerves. He’d learned the hard way to keep those on hand at all times, even if he thought he’d closed this chapter of his life for good. Thank Merlin for owl deliveries and fake names - at least Knockturn shops hadn’t altered their proclivities too much after the war. 

Feeling a familiar sense of calm wash over him, he turned from the mirror without another look to dig around the bottom of his drawers before finding a pair of leather breeches and the silky shirt he preferred for nights such as this. He dressed in absolute silence, only the sound of his soft breaths and the rustle of fabric filling the room.

Finally dressed, Draco briefly rubbed his palms against his sides, taking deep breaths to try and quell his growing resentment at his situation. His life, in general, if he were being honest. Puffing one last breath out, fringe ruffling against his face, he grabbed his packet of cigarettes and walked out the door of his flat, locking it wordlessly behind him.

It was late into the day, but not quite late enough for the activities he would need to solicit to earn enough to meet his rent, the twilight just beginning to fade from the sky as the dark overtook and the shadows of the shabby buildings he passed by lengthened. His booted feet drug as he made his way along a familiar path, sparing a longing glance at the former greasy spoon as he passed by, heart panging with the loss of its reliability. He lifted a cigarette to his lips, flicking a flame to the tip as he took a deep inhale and let it steep in his lungs. 

Draco continued to trail his way down the emptying streets, the hollow shine of streetlamps flickering on reflecting their light off the Thames back at the rising moon. He was in no particular hurry, legs and limbs lethargic in their dread for the coming night. He’d likely be out late, but would have to make it to his early five a.m. shift at the coffee shop regardless of his lack of sleep if he had any hope of avoiding this particular fate again next month. He did, assuredly, want to avoid it. 

His hopes dwindled every time he found himself back at this place.

He paused on his path, crossing the street to lean over the stone ramparts, dragging in another ragged breath of smoke. A pale, shaky hand rested beneath his sharp jaw, the other vaguely tracing runes against the cement as he chased his melancholic thoughts, smoke billowing up to the winking stars. He wondered, briefly, if this was it. If this is what life had in store for him, for the inevitable future. Giving himself away for a price, for a meal, for a roof over his head and a shaky sense of security that could be toppled at any moment. He wondered, not for the first time, if he could take it much longer. He rubbed his hands roughly against face, palms digging in against his eyes. He wasn’t sure anymore.

His cigarette burnt down to the filter, smoke turning acrid without the tantalizing smell of tobacco to coat it, embers turning hot between his fingers. He opened his eyes, slightly dazed and weighed down underneath the potions he’d taken earlier and the dark thread of his thoughts. Watched red move ever closer to his skin. Heaving a sigh, he flicked it out across the river, before reaching into his front pocket to light up another. 

[all-time-logan]

I don't know if your still using the prompt list but if you are, #7 immediately followed up by #4 with Prinxiety please :)

Hello!! Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but as we’re all aware, the world’s been pretty crazy and I haven’t had much energy to write. I’m kind of considering this a 2.5 to my By Any Other Pet Name verse, though it’s honestly long enough to be a part three. Thank you @angelablue for the request, and I hope you enjoy!!

Part 1 - Part 2

Warnings: None that I can see, but please let me know if there are any!

Word Count: 1252

***

Virgil sighed. “I’m bored and I’m blaming you. How did you convince me to do this again?”

“I convinced you, Sour Puss-in-Boots,” Roman started, tapping one of Virgil’s combat boots with his own shoe, “because I wanted to make Patton and Logan confess their undying love to each other and I needed help.”

“They’re already dating, though.” Virgil said, watching Patton and Logan from the top of the stairs. The two were in the living room, quietly talking as Logan watched Patton knit, his book closed in his lap.

“I’m well aware of that, Virgil, I lost a bet to you about it.” Roman muttered. He leaned forward, and Virgil had a short burst of impulse to tug Roman back to keep him from tumbling down the stairs. He ignored it, knowing Roman had better balance than that.

“However,” Roman continued, “Dating does not equate to true love. Their cutesy nicknames and endearing honeymoon phase are admirable, but it doesn’t make up for the drama and flair of a true romantic affair!”

“I don’t think Logan and Patton are ones for dramatics.” Patton giggled below them, and Logan grinned at him, leaning over to kiss Patton’s forehead. Roman cooed at Patton’s blush, not deterred by Virgil’s doubts.

“They may not be, usually, but when one is in the throes of love, they do crazy things,” Roman threw his hands up, gesturing around has he talked. “They will go to great heights, defeat terrible foes, put themselves in embarrassing positions, preform wonderful deeds, just to look at their love and say, ‘I love you!’”

As he said the last line, Roman turned towards Virgil, making eye contact as he said the last three words. For some unknown reason, Virgil felt his face flush, and Roman’s eyes widened. His cheeks turned pink, and Roman cleared his throat before turning away.

“Uhm, yes, they will do many things to show their devotion.” He ducked his head for a split second, and Virgil couldn’t make himself look away.

“What we need to do, though, is make the two glasses-wearing lovebirds admit their undying love to each other, however we can!” Roman seemed to come back to himself, turning to Virgil with a bright grin. Virgil felt his face, which had been cooling down, get hot with a blush again.

“Will you help me, My Chemically Unbalanced Romance?” Roman asked.

Virgil furrowed his brows, huffing out a breath as he thought. On one hand, it could go terribly wrong, and Logan and Patton would get upset with them and possibly break up. On the other, more likely, hand, Virgil and Roman would simply embarrass themselves and the other two might tease them for a while and stay together. As Patton’s giggles filtered up to them from below, Logan’s quiet laughter underneath it, Virgil shook his head.

“Why not? It may be fun to watch you make a fool of yourself.”

Roman sputtered, and Virgil snickered. This was going to be fun.

***

Their first course of action, apparently, was to figure out the other’s schedules.

“We already know L’s though.” Virgil said, leaning against the counter. “He has it posted on his door so that we don’t bother him when he’s working.”

“Oh, I never pay attention to that, he’ll answer my questions whether he’s working or not.” Roman said. He was sat at the table, furiously writing something into a notebook, a few pens scattered around him. He glanced up at Virgil with a slightly sheepish grin. “To be fair, my questions are usually about scripts and stuff, so that may be why Specs doesn’t mind, but my point stands. We may know his work schedule, but we don’t know his schedule outside of that, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t make sense of what Patton does in a regular day outside of mealtimes and movie nights.”

Virgil snorted, pushing off the counter to join Roman at the table. He looked down at the notebook, seeing that Roman had been making a master schedule of what the four of them did during the day. He grinned when he saw the largest purple section was just labeled “Nap?? Existential dread??”

“First off, Pops doesn’t really have a set schedule.” Virgil plucked the light blue pen out of Roman’s hand, marking out a few of the lines Roman had. “He mainly monitors Thomas’s emotions as a background function and will manage the short-term memory hall while L manages the long-term memory hall with you.”

“I know all of that already,” Roman said, just short of whining. “But what does he do outside of that?”

“As far as I’ve gathered, chores around the house or hanging out with one of us. Or just chilling in his room. I think he takes as many naps as I do, honestly.”

Roman hummed, idly crossing out the “Existential dread” of the largest purple section and rewriting it to be later in the day. “Ok. I might have to watch him for a few days to see if I can get anything concrete, but if not, this will work.”

“What’s this for anyway?” Virgil asked, doodling some swirls in the corner of the notebook page. “And shouldn’t you have Janus’s and Remus’s schedules on here too?”

“This is so we can coordinate our plans better, so they have a higher chance of working.” Roman added some zigzags on top of Virgil’s doodles as he spoke, “Logan’s attempts at giving Thomas a schedule might not be working, but it is useful. I don’t have the other two’s schedules because I frankly don’t think Remus has one and Janus is too sneaky for me to even want to attempt to figure his out.”

Virgil laughed quietly, shaking his head. “Don’t be fooled, Janus has less of a schedule than Remus does. Remus’s is just full of chaos and pranks though, so it balances those two out.”

Roman hummed, picking up the red pen to add the little amalgamation of shapes they were making in the corner of the page. He overlapped the swirls and zig zags, giggling a bit when their hands bumped into each other. Virgil snorted, dropping the light blue pen and grabbing the navy one to outline the swirls he had already made.

They got so invested in their little creation, that it wasn’t until Roman leaned forward and knocked heads with Virgil that they realized how close they had gotten. Roman laughed again, apologizing, but Virgil was too distracted by the way the kitchen lights, as bright and slightly yellowed as they were, were catching Roman’s hair and lighting it up in a halo. His face flushed, and he swallowed roughly.

Roman smiled at him, his cheeks slightly pink from laughter, and shook his head a bit.

“I didn’t knock you to badly, did I?” He asked, and Virgil silently shook his head no. Roman hummed, seeming pleased.

He began to gather his stuff up, sliding the pens into the bright red and gold pencil case they had come from. “Good, don’t want to hurt you too bad and make you lose the few braincells Logan was willing to share.”

With that, he gave Virgil another bright smile, and headed out into the living room. Virgil stared after him, the image of Roman laughing, bright and happy and beautiful, stuck in his brain. As the last descriptor he had used registered with him, Virgil felt his face warm even more, and his heart start racing.

Oh.

Oh no.

***

Tag List:

General:

@irrelevantbutfabulous 

@thelesbianspoon

@nonbeenary-enbee

@bernedmylimsoff

By Any Other Pet Name:

@thelowlysatsuma 

@thelesbianspoon

@pheonix-inside-reblogs

@thefightisntoverme

@katie-the-noble-fangirl 

@lovayatothemoonandback 

@irrelevantbutfabulous

@mmd-ask-italy

@bubblycricket

@bernedmylimsoff

Let me know if you want to be added or removed!

[enduringsea]

( rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to! put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people! no skipping! ) / tagged by @yellowcrumpet​ ╭( ･ㅂ･)و )))

Thanks for the tag! I LOVE these things-- I don’t rlly have a playlist either though, just a mess of music files on a device I haven’t updated so I’ll be checking my YouTube history too lol. There’s a uhhh.... pattern to be found, mainly relating to Code Vein or other OCs.... which isn’t surprising ._. ;; I made it a separate post bc I knew this was going to get long and rambly with lyric snippets and crying about fictional characters, sorry :D

1. Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor don’t go / you’re half of me now / but i’m hardly stood proud / i said it, almost oh i’ve been low / but damn it i bet it don’t show / it was heaven a moment ago oh i can’t seem to let myself leave you / but i can’t breathe anymore This one gives me Loubeth vibes ok, partially bad end route ;-; While Elizabeth is a very strong person, her friends are the most prominent reason she tries to do anything at all & isn’t living day-to-day in a monotonous grind to survive without a solid purpose other than ‘help random ppl bc it’s the right thing to do’. If she loses them, it’d ruin her & hammers into her head how everything she’s ever done has been a failure. She suffered a major betrayal by her boss before the Collapse, she was unable to fully participate in proj. queen despite her incredible test results, she failed to defeat Cruz and take her blood during Operation Queenslayer, and if she fails to protect the people she’s finally found meaning with? She’d break down completely & destroy herself to save them. She’s always had some level of abandonment issues, and without her family around it’s so much worse, even if it isn’t the most obvious because she’s generally seen as very well put together-- I really can’t express how much it would hurt her to lose Louis, Yakumo, and the others. She’s just not one to show just how bad it can truly get for her mentally and emotionally-- she’s resilient as hell, she’s been through hell repeatedly and survived it all, so it’s easy for others to assume she’s fine all things considered. It makes her feel weak and ashamed of herself if she shows any level of vulnerability, so she doesn’t; she swallows it down and is afraid of disappointing those who look up to her as a fighter and friend-- of course, no one at Home Base would blame her for being vulnerable, they all have their moments, Bethy just sets herself to such a high standard it’s difficult for her to talk about her own suffering in spite of how well-versed she is in getting her thoughts and feelings across otherwise. Louis is the one most keen to how deeply she’s hurting, but he doesn’t understand just how deeply until she finally does fall apart. The final swell of the song and its desperate lyrics really relays the pain they both feel-- Louis too would not fare well if something happened to Elizabeth, because he blames himself she was even involved in Operation Queenslayer for a long time, I honestly did so bad in explaining coherently, this song just has so much emotion and hurt behind it adklfjdfdff </3

2. Looking Out For You - Joy Again this is a love song for a girl who will never know it’s about her she's beaming that smile / all the while i’m all tripped up on my own throat i guess there is no hope This song reminds me of Elizabeth & my friend’s character Takashi Fujioka, who gets-- vERY...FRIENDZONED, for lack of a better word, by Elizabeth in his story, it’s really summed up best as tragic (;﹏;) Before the Collapse they were hitting it off, then the Collapse happened, they were separated, he lost his sisters, Mido happened, he was experimented on + became a revenant, etc, etc; years have passed since then & she’s gotten her life together as much as one can in a world like Vein, but for Takashi it’s like no time has passed at all. Elizabeth is subtly older in appearance, she’s been working w Lou & Co. for a long time; Loubeth blatantly have a connection, & rather than bringing up his feelings + making it awkward bc he values their friendships, he just kinda. chokes on them & does his best to help out the team. It doesn’t help he can’t even be jealous bc Louis is a really solid friend to him too, IT’S JUST A MESS OF A SITUATION & the death of what could have been if things were different.

3. Closer - Teagan And Sara ( no lengthy explanation for this one thank goodness, I’ve just been watching BoJack Horseman again and I really like some of the songs they add in, I like listening to this one on loop when mindlessly coloring something )

4. Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo  all I did was try my best / this the kind of thanks I get? they say these are the golden years / but I wish I could disappear ego crush is so severe / god, it's brutal out here I have it on a playlist for Elizabeth somewhere, not all of it applies to her but it reflects some of her struggles she has both before & after the collapse. She’s-- always kind of been a mess while under immense pressure + has serious self image issues, this song hits that side of her well. She’s been held to humanly impossible standards by both herself and her family bc frankly? She can reach them, she’s NOT exactly human. She was born into her position as a hunter & intends to keep it for as long as she lives (like revenants, her kind is very much ‘either gets killed or lives 5ever), even if some days she really feels how heavy the burden can be. She didn’t have a normal childhood and she’s fine with it for the most part, but it alienates her from most of her peers-- she never got to date anyone, never had a close group of friends, never went to parties that weren’t formals, etc., while she feels a little childish about it, she does envy ‘normal’ and understands the pressure she’s lived under her entire life has caused damage-- she has been exploited for her abilities, there’s just not much she can do about it but to keep going, rlly.

5. Freaks - Surf Curse  don't kill me / just help me run away from everyone  i need a place to stay / where i can cover up my face don't cry / i am just a freak / i am just a freak UhhhHHH this song really makes me think of Oliver Collins :D;; thank TikTok for showing it to me. It makes me think of how scared he was, of both the world and the revenants who captured him. The song’s use of the word ‘parasites’ really makes me think of Revenants and the BOR parasites XD I’m hoping when I poke my video editor again, I can record some Oliver footage to make a short video to this song. Oliver deserves so much better, I wish you could save him, but that’s what AUs are for, hahah.... The second half of the lyrics make me think of the AU I have where he lives and has to grapple with the guilt of surviving and the things he did to other revenants to get by too.

6. All Eyes On Me - Bo Burnham you say the ocean’s rising / like i give a shit you say the whole world’s ending / honey it already did you’re not gonna slow it / heaven knows you tried got it? good / now get inside I haven’t seen the Netflix special yet but I’ve had this song on repeat since my move started. The lyrics hit too hard & resonate with my existential dread, covid exhaustion, and extreme burnout in my 20s, but bc I have Damage I can also relate it to CV ._. ‘you’re not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. got it? good now get inside’ makes me think of--;; the bad end route again, and Elizabeth’s desperation to keep her found family together. It’s not like her to completely stop caring about an issue, but in the moment she realizes what’s being taken from her? She doesn’t want to save all of revenant-kind if it means she’s going to wind up alone all over again, her world is effectively over if she’s forced to be alone again. The MC frenzying means the only immediately identifiable hope she had of saving everyone else is gone, so why not just go home? If they’re all doomed, she wants to at least be together for a little while longer, it’s fine if they use her blood to survive & everyone else in the mist is out of luck, it’s soul-crushing bc I’ve never had her in a situation where she’s been this reckless, despondent/hopeless, and thinking irrationally where it’d impact more than herself-- especially when she’s normally goal-oriented, organized, meticulous, so on so forth: she’s not one to act without thinking something through first, but that last breath of light just got sucker-punched out of her. All she wants is home, comfort, and family, and ultimately in the bad end route she does manage to preserve their lives, maintain the mist, and supply blood beads, but her own condition leaves her on the throne-- it’s a mix of the bad, neutral, and true ending rlly ldkfjdf BUT YEAH enough rambling on that :D;; This song’s really good and touches a lot of different thoughts and ideas both in real life and my ocs, kind of embarrassing--;; thank u bo burnham for ruining me with this beautiful song

7. Yellow - Coldplay look at the stars / look how they shine for you / and everything you do your skin / oh yeah, your skin and bones / turn in to something beautiful do you know / for you I'd bleed myself dry Does this song make me think about JackEva? Yes. Yes it does. Star / night sky symbolism? Bam. Sappy lyrics about love and finding the person you’re with absolutely mesmerizing and worth dying for? BAM. If JackEva were capable of using their own blood to save each other, I can see it-- hJNGn they just care about each other so much, Jack cries for her even though they both knew that eventually one of them would succumb to their duty, and if the roles were reversed I can see Eva doing the same, I adore them beyond human language. On my CV RP blog, my Jack’s not shippable bc-- Eva, my friend even have them looking after his nephew (an oc--) at one point. I should seriously drop some headcanons down eventually....

8. Louder Than Thunder - The Devil Wears Prada  are we meant to be empty-handed? / i know i could, i could be better i don't think i deserve it / selflessness, find your way into my heart all stars could be brighter / all hearts could be warmer 

LMFAO throwback to my middle school playlist, I’m old-- I’ve applied this song to a lot of things back in the day, but I really connect it to Loubeth now, especially Louis. Lou & Bethy are both functional idiots who are too hard on themselves & have trouble recognizing their worth beyond what they can do for others. They’re trying to be better-- to make up for what they perceived wrongs they’ve done, but it’s hard, they don’t believe they’re worthy of the love and support the other gives, but they still yearn for that sense of security. After Louis’ memories are returned, he finally understands the guilt he’s felt since he became a revenant and it really skews his self-perception; he blames himself for so many things & Elizabeth, who has always been able to kill when necessary, sets it straight-- “It’s not your fault”, and it takes Louis some time to properly absorb that message. He thinks she’s just trying to comfort him, which she is tbh, but she’s not wrong: “It’s not your fault you couldn’t kill someone. It was never your job to kill anyone.” It’s up to people like her to do those sort of things-- Elizabeth may not have been present when Cruz frenzied, but if she had been? It would have been over before it started, that’s something she has regrets over, even if nothing could have been done since she was already on the field. Actually, she’s actually really quite angry that security failed to monitor Cruz properly and has a few select words for the ones there who could have actually done something before it got out of hand-- civilians and doctors are exempt from her shtlist bc they’re not meant to be killers (so don’t worry Artorias, she’s not ready to bite your head off!), but they had to have some kinda security detail rite o-q??? They’re probably hiding from her wrath-- BUT ANYWAY, she insists she’ll never blame Louis for not being able to do something as serious as killing another person. He was a normal human being who cared about his friend, not a failure, and he couldn’t have been expected to do something that shouldn’t have fallen on his shoulders in the first place. As many times as it takes, she’ll reaffirm that it wasn’t his fault, she’s not angry, he’s always done his best and her opinion of him hasn’t changed. He’s a good person and she loves him through all the hurt, though she doesn’t drop the word ‘love’ for a long time. It just-- takes Louis a while to accept she views him as someone worthy of the love and respect she has for him. It’s kind of ironic she’s so adamant on Louis not blaming himself considering she’s the one privately blaming herself for-- wow there’s too much to unpack, she feels guilty she was even born?? im so broken over these two. I love them and yet they SUFFER... 

9. What I’ve Done - Linkin Park i'll face myself / to cross out what i’ve become erase myself / and let go of what i’ve done today this ends / i'm forgiving what i’ve done

I have Louis Amamiya brainrot and I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks that this song fits him super well & it needs to become an AMV dsjfkldsfd. I’m a near life-long Linkin Park fan and this fits with Lou so well thematically. As much as I’ve gone on about Louis’ guilt, he does steel himself to keep going forward in spite of it and make things right, for everyone. Maybe it wasn’t really his fault, but at the end of the day his inability to kill Cruz in that moment left a disaster in its wake that got a countless number of people killed-- the MC included with Karen and Aurora. He doesn’t want to run away from the truth, doesn’t want to make excuses, he wants to take responsibility for it and he’ll work himself to death if it means things will be better-- it’s both admirable he’s got a strong resolve and VERY concerning with how willing he is to die for the cause, please don’t overdo it, Lou, you’ll break mine and Bethy’s hearts ._.;; It won’t always be easy, there are moments the grief gnaws at him, but in the end he does overcome it (and uh. as in the bad ending, we know he can actually do it this time). I know we can’t see everything, but I would have loved deeper character interactions, especially with Louis with an emphasis on grieving + forgiving himself properly-- but this song really is nice with the whole ‘I’m going to face my mistakes head on, forgive myself, and keep moving forward’. It’s what Louis deserves: self forgiveness and a damn break ‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·˚

10. Call of Silence - Hiroyuki Sawano you will know you're reborn tonight / must be rough but i’ll stay by your side even if my body's bleached to the bones / i don't want go through that ever again so cry no more / oh my beloved ngl idk if those are the correct lyrics, buuuuuuut....... im a weenie and am internally weeping abt loubeth after midnight, what else is new lmfao- i’ll at least try to be brief :D I also used to really like Attack on Titan when I was in high school, I dropped the anime years ago because I was waiting for s2 and never got back to it once it started airing again, I thought I’d finish it once the anime was complete since I eventually caught up with the manga, such a good series BUT ANYWAY-- I think it’s a really pretty song and Loubeth fit with the tender lyrics. IT’S LATE, idk what to say about them other than what I’ve said already dsklfjdslf im sorry I really ramble a LOT and I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had the chance to >w>;;

[cecilspeaks]

157 - The Promise of Time

If it walks like a duck, and sings like a duck, And excretes slime like a duck, Then it’s a d- uh, you know? I don’t think that’s a duck. Welcome to Night Vale.

The future is here, listeners. The future is now. Dying has become a bad joke, and we wonder how we ever put up with it.t The Quality Cryogenics Corporation, run by one Casper Rhodes, is offering a simple solution. They will remove your brain upon death, freeze it, and then revive you hundreds of years from now, when the technology exists to live eternally. The town was recently traumatized by time working correctly and us all having to deal with aging, so this solution is exactly what we are looking for. And it only costs 10,000 in cash, no refunds. I am currently getting together the funds to purchase this service for both myself and my husband Carlos, because I believe that the two of us can live together forever. No more is there this awful time limit ticking down from the moment of our meeting until the moment of our parting. Now our brains will sit snugly next to each other, until we are weakened anew to a bright future.

Carlos says he is a little unsure about this, because he thinks that death is one of the most scientific processes of all. But he’ll come around. We’ll just talk about it, and he’ll see it my way. After all, we have the rest of our lives. And our lives – will never end.

Here’s the news. Now that we all know we’re going to get to live there, all any of us can talk about is the future. What is it going to be like? Will there be trees? Will we still have that insufferable moon? These are the questions we are all having to consider now that we will live forever. And one person is claiming to have those answers. A professional futurist and digital prophet named NZ has released a lengthy report outlining what the future is like. Apparently, skyscrapers will be twice as all, but also twice as thin. Each floor will only hold about one medium room or three very small rooms. But also, skyscrapers will have thousands of floors. The biggest revelation in NZ’s report is that in the future, menial labor will be done by robots! Robots will wash our cars, clean our toilets, and cook our food, leaving us all the time in the world to quietly boil in existential dread. According to NZ, these robots first enter the market in about a hundred years, and then really catch on until everyone has three or four at their disposal. And also everyone is so, so bored.

Man, the future sounds great. I can’t wait to get there! This has been the news.

Let’s have a look at today’s horoscopes. Leo. This is a fantastic month for new business plans, travels, meeting new people, and breaking out of the windowless prison cell you woke up in this morning. Good luck on all those exciting ventures!

Virgo. I hope you are not too attached to your left hand. Either way, you won’t be soon.

Libra. You will walk out from your house. The sun will look strange to you, even though you think it perhaps always looked like that. It will look like it always has, and it will look so strange. As you walk down the street, you will see a path you’ve never noticed before, leading away from the familiar into a dark and twisted wood. You will follow this path, the warm dirt softly crunching under your feet. At the end of the path, you will come to a small and cozy home. In the window will be a boy, and he will give you a sign. A hand to the side means it is safe to go on, a hand by the air means the burrowers are hungry tonight. A covered mouth means the time is nigh. You may proceed accordingly. Even the stars do not know what happens next.

Scorpio. You’re a great brother-in-law, husband, father and friend. And if it’s up to me - and let’s be honest, it is – the stars will never say another mean thing about you again.

Sagittarius. You are really walking on thin ice here, buddy! No really buddy, you are walking on thin ice, buddy look down, the ice is about to crack and the waters below are so cold and clear. You have never seen anything so beautiful.

Capricorn. You have spent your life searching for your soul mate. Finally, having given up on love, you have volunteered to board a starship destined to never return to our world. You will live out decades on that vast arc, developing close but platonic relationships with the few fellow humans that are with you. Finally, in your 83rd year, you will land on a planet that’s surface will appear to be made entirely of silver. You will step out onto that foreign terrain, and waiting for you will be an alien being made entirely of vapor, a wisp of a creature whose droplets will curl around you, and you will smile and realize that you have finally found your soul mate.

Aquarius. Your lucky number is five, which is also how many days you have left. That’s an auspicious coincidence!

Pisces. Everyone knows your terrible secret, and they think it’s really boring.

Aries. This just says “spiders” in increasingly large fonts for about seven pages. Aww, that’s cute!

Taurus. Turn your eyes to the heavens. Honestly, it’s better not to see what’s approaching from below.

Gemini. There will come a day in which you will have to go to the ocean. Who knows when that day will come. You might be hundreds of miles away form the ocean, you might be in an airplane or working on a farm in Ottawa. But there will come a day in which you will have to go to the ocean, and so you will travel in whatever attire you were wearing when you were called, barefoot and groggy, walking day and night until you see the glitter of water, until you hear the hush of the waves. And then you will walk into the ocean until only your head is above the surface, and you will laugh and laugh and laugh. And the ocean will laugh with you. But today is not that day. Who knows when it will come?

And lastly, Cancer. Uh huh. OK. Yeah. Everything is basically fine with you, yeah. You’re good. Nothingggggg tooo report.

This has been horoscopes.

Demand has become so high for the services of the Quality Cryogenics Corporation that Casper Rhodes announced that he has run out of space for brains. “Gotta stuff these head blobs somewhere,” he said, “but where to toss ‘em?” City Council agreed that this is an important problem, and immediately requisitioned large swaths for Night Vale real estate to serve as eventual brain storage locations. There are rumors that this move was made in exchange for free use of cryogenic services by the City Council. But the council vehemently denied the allegation and said to prove their innocence, they would arrest anyone who tried to say that they were guilty. Initially, the public library was one of the buildings intended to be converted to brain storage. But a single librarian scuttled out from the front door and stood eye to eyes with the City Council, until the City Council whimpered and backed down. At which point the librarian silently retreated, their deadly point made, their library safe. This is quite a change from when the only customer of Casper Rhodes was Charlie Bear, weekday shift manager at the Ralphs. Now there are only a few people left in town who haven’t signed up. I am a little ashamed to say that Carlos and I are one of those few, it’s y-, eh, taking me longer than I thought to scrape together the money and Carlos still wants to talk about it more but don’t worry, we will definitely join you all in the future. I will see you there!

Speaking of which, local futurist and digital prophet NZ is giving a seminar on the future. But attendance is expected to be low. Frankly, people find NZ’s predictions a little silly. After all, what does this NZ know about the future that we don’t? All any of us know about the future is that some day we will end up there, and by the time we get there, it won’t be the future. In any case, we expected more exciting predictions. Frequent space travel, miracle cures to the disease, and contact with more alien species than the three we know about in our primitive time. But NZ just won’t shut up about robots, and how much of the future is defined by robots serving us hand and foot. Only three people showed up to NZ’s seminar, one of whom was your faithful reporter, and one especially upset attendee even threw popcorn and led a chant of “Booriing!” during the part about the robots. And I’m not sorry I did it, either. It was very boring.

The family of missing person Frank Chen has filed a lawsuit against the city, declaring criminal negligence in allowing a five-headed dragon to claim the identity of their one-headed human family member, merely because the dragon carried about Frank’s ID. “You are all monsters,” said Frank’s sister Lauren. “Monsters! Monsters! Monsters!” She said this through a bullhorn, as she drove her convertible up and down the city streets. “But how could we have known?” the City Council fumed. “What, are we supposed to look into every suspicious disappearance in Night Vale? We only have 18 hands, we are doing the best we can.” The lawsuit will start with a document review and depositions. Currently, they are seeking all records on the suspected killer of Frank Chen, one Hiram McDaniels, who has not been seen in town for a couple years now. They also want to interview friends of Hiram, including a radio host who wouldn’t describe himself as a friend, more a dedicated observer.

And now a look at the stock market. [squeals] Wheee, ahahahaha! Ahahaha ooh, oo-hohoh, whaaaaaaaaa, hahah, wow!! This has been a look at the stock market.

Now let’s go over to – hello? Oh sorry, wha-what are you doing here? Listeners, the futurist NZ has entered the studio. They are waving at me frantically and holding up signs, um let me just put on my reading glasses. Embarrassing, but I suppose we all eventually reach that age. I never thought I would, but now that time is working correctly and I have aged – yes. Yes, no I see you, pointing at the sign, screaming NZ just give me a moment now where did I put those glasses? It’s in my pocket, oh [chuckles]. Now there’s some sort of metal man next to NZ. Oh, yes you have a sign, OK alright, alright, here’s my glasses! [clears throat] Uh, NZ’s sign reads “I am not a futurist, I am from the future. A time traveler sent back to warn you all.” And they’re still pointing at the metal man. Ah, this is one of those robots that NZ is always going on about! NZ is saying that everything they told us about the robots was true, and they brought one just to prove it, well hi robot! Oh, oh the robot has something to say? Oh, wait, it’s saying “I’m hardly a bear.” Well no, [chuckles] I’d say you’re not. You’re more of  a robot. Oh no, I misheard, they’re saying “Time carved a pear.” What? NZ, I think your robot is malfunctioning. Wait, not it’s saying… it’s saying, “I’m Charlie Bear.” Charlie Bear? Well he’s the weekday shift manager at the Ralphs, this makes no sense. The robot is saying again: “I’m Charlie Bear.” And then it is saying: “Help me.” It is saying “help me” over and over in a hollow digital moan.

Listeners, uh.. Let’s check in on the weather.

[“Good Intentions, Bad Advice” by Nicky Flowers https://nickyflowers.bandcamp.com]

The robot told us everything. Once the robot was Charlie Bear, weekday shift manger at the Ralphs, and then a man named Casper Rhodes came to town. Casper offered the idea of living forever, freezing Charlie’s brain after death so that he could wake up in the future once mortality was a bad dream. Once sickness was a memory. So Charlie signed up. He took out his life savings plus a couple loans and paid the 10,000 dollars. And Charlie became the first customer of the Quality Cryogenics Corporation. And Charlie was so happy. He is so happy somewhere in town, even while this robot tells us its story. Charlie is unaware, and he is happy. Because Charlie believes he has defeated death. And Charlie will continue to believe this for another 15 years until the unfortunate whistle pig incident. And after that, his brain will be removed from his mangled corpse and will remain frozen for centuries in the grain silo outside of town. And then one day, Charlie will awaken. It will be the future, as promised, and as promised he will not be dead, but all will not be well. He will have awoken as a brain in a metal body chained to that body’s programming. It will be explained to him that he was brought to the future by the Quality Cyborg Corporation, in order to take care of any errands or busywork needed while the humans of that future relax and watch him toil. You see, when we deny death and toss ourselves into the future, we do so with the strange delusion that the future feels it owes us life. That in the world of the future, they would want nothing more than to devote time and money into resurrecting each of us into eternal wellness. But the future does not feel any obligation to us at all. The past means only one thing to the future, the past is a resource. Every brain saved by Casper Rhodes is a resource.

It is a trick. We are being used. We must put a stop to this, we were all wrong trying to fight death this way, to put our trust in the future is though it would be anything but some other person’s present. Carlos was right, I was wrong! Who is this Casper Rhodes, and why is he doing this?

Oh, Casper’s calling to the station. He must be calling to confess or otherwise explain his crimes. Casper, is that you? What have you done? What have you done? Casper: Hi there, Cecil. Was listening to your show and really disappointed to hear what you were saying about me, buddy. But as the Smiling God says: when your enemies try to bring you down, just smile wider and wider until your smile eclipses the sun and then all other life in the universe. Believe in a Smiling God, buddy. Believe in a Smiling God.

Today’s proverb: As Dolly Parton said: tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen. Have to fight an evil magician, yawn and stretch and fight him for my life. Wise words.

[altrcistics]

❄️❄️ –––– have you seen [ ESME MACMILLAN ] since the storm? some say they look like [ DANIELLE CAMPBELL ] but they’re [ 21 ]  & go by [ THE TACITURN ].  [ SHE ] lived in halloway for [ 11 YEARS ] & they are originally from [ LONDON ]. before the town vanished they were studying [ MEDICINE ] and lived at [ UNI BLVD ]. most people knew the [ CISFEMALE ] as [ ALTRUISTIC ] but i’ve heard they can also be [ RETICENT ]. for some reason, they feel [ UNEASY ] about the town’s disappearance.    ––– 

–––––– well , well if it isn’t me , b , with a broken theme !! but i’m too eager to pay any mind to it right now , and i’ve got homework due at midnight that has to happen after i get this baby posted . hi friends !! very excited to be here . this is my soul baby esme who is just trying her gd best and is stressed out 99% of the time . needs a 12 hour nap and maybe a therapist . summed up in a word ? soft , probably . i hope you love her like i do anYWAY GONNA leave this here and get to plotting so you can also hit me up at  b a y#9956 on discord!! 

LONDON.

weston and anna macmillan never planned on having a child. they were young and in love, and both had struck the genetic lottery – weston with his brains, anna with her trust fund. while weston was up and coming in the world of corporate law, anna had spent her life in pointe shoes and was at the top of her game as a principle dancer for the royal ballet in london. they were picturesque… perfect, even. until anna found herself to be three weeks late and their dazzling little dream life reached its first hiccup.

that hiccup entered the world screaming a whole nine months later!! tiny blue eyed esme grace macmillan was a fuckin handful even before she was born. as anna went through prenatal checkups, she found that her heartbeat was irregular. further tests concluded that she had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (hcm) which is a genetic condition that affects the muscles in the heart and causes irregular blood flow. it’s not fatal, but it is hereditary and gets riskier with physical exertion. being a new mother, anna made the decision to shelve ballet and focus on this new chapter of her life.

which was probably a good thing! she loved being a mom, and it was safe to say that having a set of eyes on esme at all times was the right choice. she was restless and constantly full of energy. from a really young age, it became apparent that esme had inherited some of the best parts of her parents. she got her dad’s brains, catching onto things quickly and learning to walk and talk earlier than most. this turned into simple reading and messy writing shortly after. she wasn’t a very social kid though, didn’t talk much.

as soon as esme was old enough, she was put into tiny pink ballet slippers. she took a liking to dance, and this is when they realized she’d also inherited her mother’s natural grace. early on, it looked like she’d easily follow in her mother’s footsteps.

dance really really opened esme up. it was here that she started making friends and began tip toeing outside of her comfort zone and opening up a little bit, but her direction changed when she was six and discovered figure skating.

it was technical and lyrical like ballet, but it was far more challenging. even as a kid, esme loved a good challenge. so her parents bought her a pair of skates, and the rest is history. as she grew up, her weekends were occupied with practices, performances, and eventually competitions. she was a natural. and for the first time there was an air of confidence about her.

though she loved it more than anything in the world, her life soon came to revolve around school and skating.  it caused her to miss out on a normal childhood, never really making friends close enough to be invited to sleepovers or birthday parties.

that made the move much easier for esme. when she was 10, her father’s firm went international and he was put in charge of the american branch. thus, the macmillans hopped across the atlantic and moved to halloway for a fresh start, a new adventure.

HALLOWAY.

she took a small break from competitive skating when they moved; it was her parents’ choice in hopes of her actually making friends in new hampshire. and it worked! for a while. esme was still quiet, still a little too book smart and a little less than street smart. even as a kid, she was awkward, but she was kind and clever and for the most part — people liked her.

and life was good for a long time! she got back into skating, and around the time she was thirteen she showed no signs of stopping. in fact, her sights were set on an olympic medal, and though her parents were wary of her inherited condition, they supported her in every possible way.

entering high school, life got a little bit harder. her schoolwork and training kept her pretty tied up, and it was often really hard for her to balance a social life along with that. she didn’t show up to every party. she didn’t really have any interest in going on dates. she kept up with her friends and made time for the important things, but she wasn’t exactly the most open person.

this backfired real quick!! as a freshman, at a bonfire, a senior boy kinda came onto her and when she said nope no thank you, he got pissed. instead of taking rejection Like A Man, he decided to spread a little rumor about them hooking up. this combined with her quiet nature kind of caused her to get a bit of a reputation of being aloof and a bit easy which is so far from the truth. but high school is high school!! and people were fuckin mean about it for a long time thereafter!

around this time was also when her parents sorta…. fell out of love. as in… her father got a little power hungry, a little bored of his life, and like the cliche he is started having an affair. the secrecy of it didn’t last… long and he ultimately left both anna and esme. she felt kind of.. abandoned. like they weren’t good enough almost but.. she and her mom got . even closer because of it tbh. the macmillan girls don’t need no man!!

so she threw herself into her studies and even more so into skating. she trained in the morning and on the weekends, year round. winning competitions made her feel good, and she kept doing so. when she was fifteen, she competed at the world figure skating championship. though she didn’t medal, her scores were impressive and she became an alternate for the us figure skating team at 16. being so close to those five rings was enough to push her further.

she left traditional high school and threw herself even further into figure skating. (this only fueled halloway rumors that she was a bit of a snob akjdfha) after graduating, she enrolled at halloway part time in order to slowly get through her gen eds while training for, yup, you guessed it, the 2018 olympics.

and ya know what? it paid off. at 20, she’d had two world’s silvers and a world’s gold under her belt as she competed in the winter games. her whole life had been leading up to that moment, and she brought home an olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating. that’s right, ya girl fucking peaked.

it was a high, for a while. and she rode it quietly and gracefully. idk she was PROUD ok she worked so hard…. but her incessant need to be perfect and to continuously better herself was nagging in the back of her mind. she wasn’t sure how you could really get better than gold at the olympics.

needless to say, she’s in the midst of a bit of an identity crisis. with her heart condition and ya know aging… she knows figure skating isn’t a forever-thing. so she went back to halloway, taking an interest in medicine and trying to understand her own weakness— a weak heart. she began studying medicine and to fell in love with that profession, but . she honestly can’t stay off of the ice. activate existential dread! she doesn’t actually know who she is!

and then the heckin storm happened smh

NEW HALLOWAY.

with a calm exterior and a notorious knack for being maternal . . . someone , somewhere along the line said hey let’s put esme in charge of the hospital to which she said in a john-mulaney-esque voice . . . huh ? what ? huh ? what ??? huh ???? and then did it anyway

if she’s not on call or working at the hospital , best believe she’s studying because she’ll be the first to tell you she has no business calling herself a doctor 

it’s been months!! since!! they disappeared!! and she’s sort of adjusting to this new life which often makes her feel very, very guilty because she doesn’t know what’s happened to her mother at this point

when everything was frozen she still found time to escape and do some skating on the lake aksdjfhas

for the most part, she keeps herself busy ... someone like .... help her tho

PERSONALITY.

esme’s naturally introverted. she likes people, but she’s a textbook people pleaser and gets exhausted quickly when she’s socializing. she’s always been quiet, never the center of attention (unless on ice) and never the loudest voice in the room. when she does speak, though, it’s purposeful and articulate. the sort of ‘she doesn’t talk much but when she does it’s important’ kinda thing idk. she’s not meek ya know.. just reserved

she’s naturally… very kind. cares a lot about other people but struggles to express that which is why she gravitates towards the profession of medicine. she enjoys helping people ya know

ya girl keeps her shit close to her chest. doesn’t really want to bother anyone with her own shit and takes her anger out in physical activity, disassociates from her sadness by reading. a lot of people know her but not on a deep level. tbh does she even know herself? prob not

she’s not a stick in the mud, but she does need a little push every now and then. she lets loose when she’s around people that she’s comfortable with tbh. behind the prim and proper macmillan facade is.. a bit of a goofball. does not hesitate to participate in dramatically karaoke or midnight swims in a lake.

SOFT as fuck but she’s not one to be walked all over. she’s clever as all get out and when snapped at harshly enough won’t hesitate to snap back. she doesn’t get angry to the point of showing it easily, but when she does, she’s very purposeful with her words. don’t underestimate her she hATES being underestimated

competitive as heck. in academics, in sports, in board games. she’s a sweetheart but she will wreck you in spite and malice or sorry bc she just… has a competitive nature

really does give a shit about what people think of her. like… wants to be liked. not being liked by some people in high school really fucked w her bc she just….. can’t help caring about how other people perceive her and wants it to be positively. it’s in part because of how she was raised?? she grew up in a pretty monitored, strict environment between rigorous training and her parents’ world of the rich (will this change after the storm tho??? we’ll SEE)

values honesty like has absolutely 0 time to be lied to and 0 time for bullshit

SO curious, always ready to learn more

will make a fool of herself to see you laugh

a lil bit of amy santiago.. a lil bit of rory gilmore.. a lil bit of caroline forbes..

needs to relax; constantly Anxious

s t u b b o r n

literally never sleeps

doesn’t curse bc there are more clever ways to express anger

reputation: aloof and stuck up. reality: literally just shy lmao

is TRYING VERY HARD

WANTED PLOTS.

i have a few connection ideas here!! and a tag here!! but also…

friends from halloway that she’s just… straight up been pals with since she moved there

i’m… constantly thirsty for … girl gang shit. any of y’all watch the bold type? i eat that shit uP AND IT’S all i NeED TO BE . HAPPY OK

esme’s an only child and i would love to see a sibling-like bond for her

academic rivals pls and thank!! mayb in their major…. mayb back in high school…. paris vs rory anyone?

the maya to her riley oh man

a bad influence or even… the polar opposite . to her Mom Friend-ness

someone else who grew up in the realm of rich parents like galas suck but at least we got each other!!

neighbors!!

new friends! people who she’s met through halloway and quickly taken a liking to. super interesting dynamic bc… while she’s eager to know u she’s not so eager to …. open up lmao

previous roommates

y’all into angsty exes? i know this is the end of the world and all but that don’t mean wE CAN’T get SAD

someone she became friends w via… skating yikes akjdfha i swear that’s not her only personality trait

someone she agreed to tutor!! or study buddies!! ‘i’m going to cry literal tears on my flashcards please study with me!’

someone she was forced to be friend with post-storm. they step on each other’s toes but suck it up for the sake of everyone else

i .. love combining ideas and brainstorming too so!!! we can also do that!!

if you made it this far i’m literally going to cry bc i love you already for reading a rambling like this . aNYWAY !! that’s my esme. feel free to smash the like and i’ll come to you or message me on discord!! 

[umbraja]

Red Flags

I’m in a relationship with someone that discourages my hobbies. They tell me it’s selfish. I shouldn’t waste the time and money. We have bills to pay. The world doesn’t need more stories, or poetry, or rants that no one is going to read. No one likes my paintings, drawings, character designs, and especially my sculptures. Fanworks are selling out. Those ‘likes’ and ‘kudos’ aren’t for me. They’re for the ships. Why else do fanworks get so much more than originals?

I’m in a relationship with someone that keeps me from interacting with other people. They tell me I don’t want to. Not really. I’m fine with just them. Just us. We’re all we need. The rest of the world doesn’t matter. Other people don’t really like me anyway. I’m weird. I make people uncomfortable. I don’t fit in. My online 'friends’ aren’t real. They just say they accept me to make themselves feel better. Because they want someone to say it to them. They don’t even know me. I’ll never find anyone who understands me. So why waste the energy trying?

I’m in a relationship with someone that makes it difficult to improve myself. They tell me this is fine. It doesn’t matter if I’m morbidly obese. I don’t need a higher degree. My dead end job pays the bills. It’s OK to have exposed insulation over the bathtub. We would both rather enjoy food and watch TV and play video games than do the very hard work of making life better. It’s pointless to try. My metabolism is dead. Degrees don’t matter. Robots are replacing my industry. No one ever sees the bathroom anyway. The whole world is on fire so why bother washing dishes on the Titanic?

I’m in a relationship with someone that thinks this is as good as it gets. They tell me I can’t do better. I’m doing pretty good, all things considered. Wanting more is just selfish. I’m not good enough to have better. I don’t deserve it. I’m ugly and useless and too old to change. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I need to let go of my desires (the root of all pain) and learn contentment. The grass is always greener, as they say. Would I really be happy if things changed?

I’m in a relationship with someone that doesn’t know what happiness is. They think it’s a lie we tell ourselves to get a break from the looming dread of existential crisis that is reality. They point out the word’s root, how it just means chance. Luck. They talk of brain chemistry - of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Then in the same breath they tell me I don’t need pills to be happy. I just need to do it. Just smile. Fake it long enough and I will be happy. There’s been studies. When that doesn’t work, they tell me that happiness can be bought. They spend thousands of dollars on things we don’t need so that we can distract ourselves from the pain. That’s all happiness is after all, a distraction.

I’m in a relationship with someone that I’m afraid to leave. We’ve been together far too long. We’re codependent. I don’t know how to function without them. I don’t know who I am. I’m afraid the few people I have left in my life won’t like me when they’re gone. I’m afraid I won’t like myself. I’m afraid I can’t do this alone. I’m afraid to ask for help. I’m afraid of what people will think. What they’ll say when I tell them all this. I’ve worked so hard to hide it for so long. I’ve spent my whole life putting on a brave face, pretending to be better than this. I’m ashamed to admit just how wrong I was. I’m afraid I will lose respect, credibility. That all the advice and help I’ve given to others will be invalidated when they find out. I’m terrified what more I could lose. What will I have left when they are gone?

I’m in a relationship with Depression.

[lightanddarklove]

Connverse Week Day 7: Future

Fear the of the Future, but it's not so bad with you

Read on Archive of our Own | Day 1 prompt | Day 2 prompt |  Day 3 prompt | Day 4 prompt | Day 5 prompt |  Day 6 Prompt | My Writing Masterpost

Still not done with Chapter 6, but 4 has been completed, so check that one out if you liked Chapter 2, it’s a continuation on that Soft Jock fic. Hopefully I’ll complete Ch 6 in a few days.

This was inspired by the story of Regan's government cheese, which large caches of them are rumored to be in Missouri, called Show-me state here. Read this article about government cheese if you're interested: https://www.history.com/news/government-cheese-dairy-farmers-reagan

Connie's having some dark thoughts about what the future may hold, with the risk of societal collapse looming closer, but Steven's always willing to listen to her talk. A bit of existential dread and paranoia, but with a humorous lens. Connie Centric. Gen.

It wasn’t often that Connie felt the need to call Steven at odd hours of the night. More often, in the wee hours before morning, he would send a message to see if she was awake, with bouts of insomnia or the stray nightmare of old battles or threats. But at 19 years old, 2nd Semester of Freshman Year, she called him at 2:07 am on a cold Tuesday evening.

After four rings, he answered with a groggy “Hello?”

“I know it’s late, I’m sorry for that, but we are at 90 seconds to midnight-“Connie said in a rushed and anxious tone.

“Wait, no, Connie. Its 2 am, did you misread the time?”

“On the doomsday clock, Steven!” Her voice fretful.

“I’m sorry, you lost me. What doomsday clock?”

“You’ve never heard of the doomsday clock?” Connie blanched. Her voice hushed in an apprehensive tone. “How have I been this irresponsible not to tell you about this sooner?”

“Slow down, Connie. Why don’t you start with the reason you’re up so late?” Steven said through a yawn. “Then you can tell me about the doomsday clock.”

“I was working on a project, I wasn’t ready to stop but I was tired at 10:30, so I set a timer for 11:15 and took a nap.” She answered ardently

“Uh-huh,” he replied.

“When I woke up, I had a Tweeter notification for a news story about the Doomsday Clock changing. I was scared, but I had to finish my project. The project is about great famines in history, and when I was finished, I looked up something I had cited. I ended up in an article rabbit-hole that lead me to the story of the largest surplus of cheese in America. They’re deep in caves, the biggest store located in Show-Me. The conclusion I came up with is that when society breaks down, if it’s just the two of us, we store flour and pasta in Lion’s Mane, then we travel to Show-me and make government cheese the main staple of our diet. All we’ll have to do is find someplace to plant some easy to maintain fruits and vegetables and we’ll have no trouble managing through societal collapse! It’s the perfect plan!”

“Didn’t already discuss making a bunker in the Temple? Making Mom’s old room into a place with beds and storage and we can rewatch all our favorite movies and shows in there… Or did I dream that?”

“Climate change, Steven, the Temple could be underwater in a decade! We don’t want to drown as soon as we leave it!”

“Hold on, what about asking Lapis to change the shape of the bay to prevent the flooding? Presuming that what collapses society doesn’t also doesn’t also take out the majority of the gems.” Steven paused. “Also, what does the Doomsday Clock have to do with societal collapse?”

“It’s the measure of risk of the world ending in nuclear disaster.”

“…Oh.” Steven replied, voice cracking with dread. “Uh Connie, what does it mean that we’re 90 seconds to midnight?”

“It’s the closest we’ve come in the history of mankind to true societal failure. This measure was implemented in the Cold War, and it’s never been this bad before.”

“Connie, I love you,” he said somberly, “but if my shield or bubble doesn’t protect me from high powered radiation I’m going to ask you to go on without me.”

“Steven!” Connie squawked.

“Radiation sickness is no joke, I regret watching that documentary about Japan in WWII last year, and I don’t want to go out like that.”

“Your mom’s shield protected the gems from the Corruption blast, it would likely protect us if we’re not in an immediate blast radius.”

“I know, but I wonder if that’s different, because it didn’t affect human life on earth, only gems.”

“I mean humans could be fundamentally different now, we’d have to check genomics on right before and right after the corruption blast.”

“I’m adding that to my notes app to look up later.”

“I think you’d have to fund a study for something like that.”

“Adding ‘Talk to dad about funding a genomics study’ to that note.”

“So you think that we can go to Show-me if things go bad?”

“Cheese is the primary reason I’m not vegan, so I’m not opposed to getting that as a major food source. But also, are there any onions that will grow in that climate? Or beans? Because grilled cheese and mac and cheese will only satisfy me for so long. Gimme chili and cheese or something else with good flavor and I will be a happy man.”

“We’ll find a way, I know it,” Connie pledged.

“Do you feel better about the Doomsday Clock now?” Steven asked.

“Yeah, I do.” She replied. “Thanks for letting me rant about societal destruction and cheese for a bit.”

“Cheese Louise, I could listen to you talk all night, but you should get some sleep.”

“Ok, good night, Biscuit, I love you.”

“Love you too, Strawberry. Good night.” She hung up.

Connie sighed as she laid back into bed. She was lucky to have someone she loved to look forward to spending her future with, even if it was scary.

[bishiglomper]

Today is not good

The existential dread is glaring at me from around a corner and the feelings of doom are floating above my head.

I'm not even thinking about the house, it's everything else.

My lyrica doesn't appear to be doing anything but helping the bodyaches. My hips are severely limited in mobility and I keep wrenching them and they just hurt.

I can't find the motivation to do fucking anyrhing. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic by the shit in the car and all over the place that I can't do anything about

Mom came home from grandma's TWO DAYS AGO because all of a sudden grandma was up and doing dishes and making her own food... (only because the homemaker, who's JOB is it is to do those was coming and she was feeling embarrassed to let him)

Apparently she just wanted mom here. Because she got the OK from the apartment landlady that we could stay.

Mom's been breaking down for staying here so long. So she was pissed to find out grandma could do all that just fine.

And today? Grandma calls my sister COMPLETELY disoriented. (This is usually because of severe dehydration)

She didn't know if it was day or night, what day it was... so sister went over, made her drink and left her with her home-maker guy with instructions to call if she didn't improve. She did.

We tried calling her later but she left the phone busy. She called us eventually but then we find put she's been without her meds because she wanted MOM to put them up. So she's just been without them. Because shes been doing nothing but sleeping since we left.

The woman is partly doing it just because she misses mom. I know the poor woman is lonely but she's legit on her way to going to the nursing home.

In our experience that's when you're fucked because they give up and just go downhill from there. She could stay with my aunt but the aunt has refused to take her cat. Either way it'll probably end up being without him.

The whole situation upsets me. And that's on top of my regular issues.

But yeah since we're on the topic, add in how all 6 of us are going to be homeless soon and I'll have to get rid of my cats too.

[mari-vargas]

Hello sudden burst of energy from the what feels like a miracle I received today. I have three stories I’d like to share today, let’s see how many I actually get to today. (Keywords so I’ll remember the other two: sinusitis and unlimited) Two are older stories and the third is of my week this week and said miracle.

(Continuing this the next day; as it turns out said burst of energy basically managed to get me home from work.)

So, “spoiler alert”, the miracle I mentioned is merely that I do not need to go in to work on my regular weekend days. The story however is about why that wound up feeling like a miracle.

I suppose the best place to start is that where I work is a 24/7/365 operation. It never stops, not whole cloth. I work in the quality lab (which handles both quality control and quality assurance simultaneously). Nothing can operate without passing through the lab which means that if the lab goes down so does everything else on site. There’s a couple different types of shifts on site for the needs of the particular areas, but in the lab we have 8hour shifts 5days a week. My shift is day shift, Thursday-Monday (my weekend is Tuesday/Wednesday).

If we need an extra person or someone calls off and needs to be covered etc, one of the other analysts will be assigned to work said extra shift as overtime (OT). For the most part we have this volunteer declaration where we the analysts can declare what days we are willing to work OT if needed. If there are not enough yes’s to cover what’s needed, then there’s the likelihood of forced OT which goes by lowest hours, and if there are two people tied for lowest hours then whoever has the lowest seniority. Many of the analysts try to take as much OT as they can because they appreciate the boost in their paycheck. As such, others who don’t want it generally don’t need to. I am one of the analysts who is no across the board, primarily because while I am in a much better place than high school when I had insomnia I still have issues with sleep and I live an hour away from where I work which in total means that for an “8 hour shift” I’m actually away from home for 11 hours. A 16 hour shift means that, if I get a hotel room (of which generally the closest to my work is about half an hour away) I can maybe just wrangle half of my typical amount of sleep.

Now, on occasion I will volunteer on my “Friday” because by volunteering I can get my hours averaged in so that I’m no longer on the bottom of the totem pole. I did so a couple months ago because I was getting forced OTs over and over and needed to be able to do certain things and know that yes I actually could guarantee my availability on a given day or time. And by volunteering on my “Friday” I then had my weekend to recover without having to do a turn around PLUS if I were to volunteer on one of my weekend days I’m pretty much guaranteed winding up with a double. So anyways I did so I’d be averaged in…only to have that only last about 2 weeks.

Before I go any further: why is there so much OT right now? Well let’s back it up to…I think January of this year. One of our grave shift analysts realized he was making far more in passive income from his real estate business than as working as an analyst and so he moved on. Before our bosses had even started getting any bites for that, another analyst (now from day shift) snagged a position at a different site in the company in a higher position than he was in with us. Ok so far not too bad really. Right around the same time another day shift analyst had to go out for a couple of months due to foot surgery—on both feet and obviously not at the same time. It’s not been almost 6 months and we still don’t know yet when she’ll be cleared to come back (secret aside from my brain—if she even does choose to come back). Okay, okay, well…we’ve still got this… After a bit our most senior analyst volunteered to temporarily switch to the open grave shift because that’s the roughest to try and cover with OT. She was on day shift (for those keeping count that is now 3 people short all from day shift but that’s our largest shift: 3 on grave, 4 on swing, 8 on day). Vacations hit and boy did they hit hard but in all honesty not as bad as November when we had one analyst test positive for covid on the rapid test performed by Occ Heath on site (he went to his doctor that same day for the more reliable test but that takes longer for results and it came back negative but damage done we were dealing with I think only 7 analysts then due to potential exposures—ps we’re pretty sure by now he’s essentially an anomaly for the rapid test because it almost happened again but he got retested after some bureaucratic fumbling and got two negatives after the once again false positive). But we were managing..sort of. Another day shift analyst went out a couple months ago for either medical or vacation reasons I’m not sure. And about a month ago we had a third analyst leave our employ, her being from swing shift and in a relationship with the guy who left for real estate. Her two weeks notice had come before any new hires had started with us, of which we had three because boy oh boy we’ve been drowning because of course with everything opening back up companies who are customers to us or who use what we produce and needing way more to get back up and running and everything is backed up—ling and short we’ve had extra work plus a lot of special samples that by now really each constitute a whole new bench not to mention a new segment of production being tested out and potentially going to be a new product to be sold… Anyways our bosses had managed to convince their higher ups to let them higher one more person than the number who had left (again, at the time, 2). So they had told the first two at the same time, got permission for the third, then before the next onboarding third analyst leaves, so the bosses tell the fourth and final applicant who made it to the interview level that hey you’re in too. They managed to get the first two into a special, sooner onboarding and three weeks later the third started her onboarding and now half a month to a monthish later we’re still waiting for the fourth and I personally don’t know when they’ll be going us.

But anyways we currently have 3 (eventually 4) new hires training and it takes about six months to train said new hires on each bench, two weeks with a senior analyst two weeks alone rinse and repeat until you’ve gone through all benches. So…it’s gotten easier with the first two already having one bench under their belt. But I’ve gotten fairly off track to explain the background of my story. I’ve actually not had too terribly many forced OTs since the first two new hires finished their first 2 weeks and could be on their own on their first bench. Even when they moved to new benches.

So imagine, if you will, I walk in on Thursday, I’ve just come off my weekend which I spent up in the mountains with my SO because said SO is starting a new job with a school district as an IT person so we will no longer have any sort of overlap of days off except holidays. The grave analyst working the bench right by the door greets me as he usually does regardless of what bench he’s on. He says good morning, I say it back, only he then follows it up with something along the lines of “are you ready for your back to back double on your next weekend?” Yeah. I was on the schedule for four forced OTs as a “double-double” instead of having my days off. Cue the existential dread settling in. I moved throughout the day with that hanging on me, coming to terms with it. At afternoon lineout I caught a small break in that the analyst I’d be covering for on swing piped up “hey there was an error in the system, I only asked for Tuesday off”. Okay cool that makes 3 forced OTs instead…somehow already felt lighter. The next morning I take over from the most senior analyst who’d been on my bench that night and she offers to take my Tuesday swing OT “if I didn’t want it” since she’d be working day shift that day and her weekend is Monday/Tuesday (confusing but basically means she could do a day/swing double because she wouldn’t be working grave into day double). Okay cool…that would leave me with just the two day shifts over my weekend. Then throughout Friday my post nasal drip I woke up with starts getting really annoying as a runny nose. Saturday and the runny nose is also pressure in my sinuses. Sunday and I’m sure it’s a sinus infection despite my efforts to stop it. (I have a history with them and to any concerned over covid I get a weekly test at work and I was negative during this.) I will say though, my efforts seem to have made it a faster turn around than usual. Come Monday and I’m driving to work filled with existential dread because I don’t want to call off when I have these OTs because I had to do that last time (basically woke up late, anxiety blew up into a full blown panic attack caused me to throw up and wound up putting me out of commission with migraines and nausea and more various degrees of panic attacks until Saturday of that week…well the panic attacks continued but eventually tapered off to usual manageable levels). So anyways the posted schedule still has me for the double on Tuesday and day on Wednesday. The analyst who had previously offered to take the Tuesday swing was working OT that day and came up to me in the middle of the swift to ask if I had talked with the boss that makes the schedule about her offering to volunteer for me. Regardless of my thoughts on that, what I told her was that I had not yet, and after she reiterated her song and dance about how she’d volunteer if I didn’t want it I went straight up to that boss’s door and let her know. Turns out she was speaking with another of the bosses about the schedule because one of the first two of the new hires had already gotten the hang of the new bench after only a week and that coupled with us finally getting caught up on the extra samples because that same said bench had something happen at one of the plants it covers which then went down which lightened the load for like three different benches and yeah long story short she no longer needed so many people working overtime.

So she says to me, essentially, “how attached are you to working those day shift OTs on your weekend?” tells me the new hire is fine on his own et cetera et cetera. And guys? Tears immediately rushed to my eyes so fast and hard that they immediately flow down my face. It feels like the sky has opened and the sun has sought me out just to shine a warm beam of light through my heart. A burble of laughter bursts up my throat and out of my hardly used mouth (as I hadn’t spoken much at all that day). For those who have seen Rise of the Guardians it looked like a happy flake had landed on my nose. She says “There’s your smile! You’ve been looking so tired today and I was wondering why, but then I saw this schedule and realized it was preemptive exhaustion from what you had looking ahead.” During afternoon lineout she very pointedly wished me a happy Friday.

So yeah…it shouldn’t really be a miracle, but wow does it feel like one.

[realmzenith]

elaina ! :)

lays down, mai ily. anyways?? someone pls save elaina she Needs help

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?fairly long?? but not super long it’d make her anxious. maybe twenty minutes. it’d be a different story if it was a life or death thing tho obv

How easy is it for your character to laugh?difficult. from one to ten w one being v easily she’s like a 7. but for full uninhibited laughter it’s a solid 9. she mostly smiles and when she does laugh it’s at the dumbest things

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)she’ll lurk on instagram or think which are honestly both bad ideas for her bc instagram makes her depressed bc her social life sux and thinking makes her depressed bc she’s pessimistic and tends to overthink EVERYTHINg. however sometimes she’ll be smart abt it and read a book or look at plant pics or space which will more often than not successfully allow her to relax and get some shut eye

How easy is it to earn their trust?HM not too difficult prbly a 3 if ur nice to her and ur not a complete idiot- ok well. just if ur nice to her bc she literally falls in love w josie an idiot in her storyline

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?moderately difficult she has a hard time accepting that the ppl she trusts are capable of wronging her and usually assumes it was smth she did. she’s kind of an idiot like that so yk :) she’s prbly a 6 on that one? if we’re also accounting for the ppl she moderately trusts. however if we’re only talking abt the ppl she genuinely completely trusts it’s like an 8. she’s not COMPLETELy stupid but still p stupid abt relationships

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?rules should be followed. she accepts them as a given and that they will be followed as a given. it’ll srsly throw off her game if someone starts blatantly disobeying the law in front of her even if it is just a nominal thing

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?she’s not a v emotional person? she does feel deeply but hmm i suppose she is fairly nostalgic. certain melodies played on the guitar would prbly be one of the bigger triggers. her mom used to play and she and her dad would sing like dorks but they?? kind of dont do it anymore and she misses it but she isn’t sure how to ask to do it again. it’s the same w disney movies. they don’t watch them as a fam as much as they used to anymore but they still do on occasion! as for enjoying it she doesn’t rlly like nostalgia?? but she lets herself fall into it frequently

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?she was constantly told to talk to the other kids. she’s never been v social or good w ppl as she prefers her small group of ppl she knows and is comfortable w plus she’s an only child so she’s always been forced to socialize esp in casual settings

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?not super frequently. she does say damn bc that’s just the classic xstj swear word, her first she remembers v distinctly. it was “bitch” and completely her older cousin’s fault

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?she lowkey feels like her entire life is a lie? she’s a smart gal and gets good grades easily. she’s close to the top of her class and is considered one of the smart kids. but she herself is convinced she’s painfully mediocre and despite her other talents and unique personality traits she’s like :) im sorry for lying to u all i actually have zero interesting qualities and am a drag but ofc she never voices that bc lbr insecurity? ugly and she doesn’t want to lose the few friends she does have bc she dumped her fears on everyone else. she is, as i said, a Mess

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?she almost always pretends she understands but if she doesn’t feel like there’ll be negative consequences to asking for clarification and she’s feeling confident she’ll bluntly ask the other person to clear things up for her esp in a business type setting such as school projects, etc. it’s situational but socially speaking? she’ll pretend until she Dies

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?ask nico to get it or just struggle for ages to try to get it herself

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?she likes green and black but thinks she looks p drab in most things. in all actuality she prbly does look sharpest in black but yellow makes her look super cute, brings out a softer side of her. dark green is also flattering on her

What animal do they fear most?hm prbly eels esp electric eels. they freak her out for no particular reason. otherwise, she likes most animals and doesn’t mind most bugs

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?she does usually think before she speaks. on the extreme she’ll turn over a phrase abt ten times in her mind before even considering speaking it aloud but that’s rare and only in high stress situations. despite the fact that she does think before she speaks she’s very blunt abt most things. lay it out like it is and all. embellishing sentences or softening her statements is smth she rarely does as she finds it inefficient 

What makes their stomach turn?reckless behavior she HATES when ppl do stupid risky crap in front of her she finds it very unnecessary and anxiety inducing

Are they easily embarrassed?oh yes absolutely

What embarrasses them?everything. anything. her existence. ppl flirting w her. her parents. being teased. being incompetent. being singled out for anything. lots of things :)

What is their favorite number?she likes the number 60. no reason in particular it’s just a nice number. cue her friend, nico in the back yelling SIXTY???? MORE LIKE SEXY

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?oh oof dont talk to her about love it throws her for an existential crisis. hm but if srsly asked this she’d prbly say smth like “familial love is smth we’re rarely allowed to choose. platonic is more logical and circumstantial, and romantic is a combination of the two in the sense that it’s ur heart’s choice to begin and ur mind’s to continue.”

Why do they get up in the morning? society dictates that in order for an individual to contribute meaningfully to the world, you must get up by 7 am and do whatever lot’s been handed to you. thus she, as a good functioning member of society, gets up in the mornings and drives to school day in and day out as fate has dictated her duty to be

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? erratic. she’ll act strangely and become more distant. if it continues for long enough she’ll eventually snap at whoever’s nearest and asking what’s up w her

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)? it makes her sad tbh sldkfjlkj she’s like welp.. this is the lot i’ve been given if i don’t accept it that’s my problem. then she keeps her head up and carries on

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? she prefers not to talk abt sex. she’d be v confused if someone brought up the topic of sex casually tho she isn’t SUPER squeamish abt discussing it it’s just?? unprofessional so why would u? ofc w her s/o she would be more than willing to discuss it in order to smooth out questions or misunderstandings before yk. actually. doing the sex

What are their thoughts on marriage? marriage to her is one of the pillars of society, and while she respects people who don’t want to get married, for herself she views it a checkbox on her list of things she needs to do before she dies. it’s?? like she sort of has a timeline and marriage is on the list of things that need to happen sometime in her twenties. she believes marriage should be a mutually beneficial union based on love and respect and believes that along w family units it’s a wonderful invention. however, despite all of this she kind of doubts she’ll ever get married bc she’s like who would date me lbr here :) and while simultaneously seeking after marriage she’s resigned herself to becoming an eventual crazy old cat lady

What is their preferred mode of transportation? she prefers bullet trains. efficient, usually comfortable, she doesn’t have to drive- what more could you want? she’s also fond of walking if a place is close by. helps her chill

What causes them to feel dread? the feeling that a relationship is falling apart and the divide between herself and the other person is growing. the little things like not waiting for the other person after class or “forgetting” to mention another thing about their day- the small things that point to a relationship breaking down. if there’s one thing she hates more than unnecessary conflict and having to just end things then and there it’s watching things slowly fall apart. that is extremely dread inducing in her opinion

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? if u asked her? she’d say she prefers the truth. in reality? she prefers the lie. she internalizes things and oftentimes “unpleasant truths” can weigh her down for ages. frequently enough to note, she’ll allow herself to continue in ignorance rather than accept the reality of the truth which she’ll sort of know she’s doing but just push to the back of her mind in order to avoid the panic that comes with actually confronting the problem. ignorance is bliss and all. nevertheless, in the long run and in hindsight, she prefers the truth as ripping off the bandaid proves easier than pulling out misplaced stitches one by one

Do they usually live up to their own ideals? she doesn’t come close. she has very lofty ideals to which she holds both herself and others around her. she wants to be someone who’s looked up to as strong. she values efficiency, honesty, reliability and genuinely good motives as well as charisma, passion and confidence. she’s doing alright with the first few but the last three are debatable. she’s passionate about v select things and her confidence levels looks like a heartrate monitor

Who do they most regret meeting? herself. she regrets gaining sentience

Who are they the most glad to have met? josie ;) but nico and ale are close seconds

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? nope what’s a Conversation? what’s a Joke? she doesnt know them :)

Could they be considered lazy? that’s a no. she works extremely hard and nearly always carries through. it’s partially her nature and partially a way for her to “make up” for her perceived lack of talents

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? extremely difficult but w time she eventually can esp when given the right type of support

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive? that’s. a hard one. she IS technically supportive but that’s only when she recognizes how much the thing means to the other person and she’s honestly rlly bad at reading these kinds of situations, so it’s rare that she actually does. she’ll kinda be like wtf but if she doesn’t recognize the other person is genuinely excited and invested in the thing she’ll do her best to give her own brand of awkward support 

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap?she’ll pursue a romantic interest if enough proof that it’s plausible is given but it’s rare that she gets enough “proof” for this to happen. generally speaking, she kind of pushes her desire for romance down. she’ll worry abt it later or at least until josie shows up eyes emoji

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? not rlly? she’ll just go thru things multiple times she’s not the most innovative person when it comes to things like this. route memorization is her go to 

What memory do they revisit the most often?;) depends on where in the storyline we’re talking but post story defo the time when she and josie went hiking w some of their other friends and when they reached the summit of the mountain the clouds were beneath the peak n completely coating the sky. it looked like a carpet of clouds, like another world and they shared a bit of a Moment. the little things are what elaina rlly cherishes

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?difficult she’s a bit of a critical person. she’s also not the most tactful when it comes to emotional intelligence related situations so ppl will likely find out she does see those flaws in them if they stick around long enough

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?not SO much but she does take things to heart. she’s sort of?? accepted her perceived mediocrity and general dullness but she’s in no way ceasing to attempt to change other things abt herself. so she’ll seemingly take criticisms in stride but they’ll stick w her when she’s Overthinking

How do they feel about children? kids are? good? she likes kids. as for having them, she’s considered it some and she thinks she might like to. at the same time, she also thinks she’d make a terrible parent- too harsh, bad w comfort, easily stressed. in all reality, she’d be better than most ppl as one esp after gaining a bit of confidence

How badly do they want to reach their end goal? rn the goal is graduating and she wants that fairly badly but she doesn’t particularly doubt her ability to achieve it. after that, it’s getting a good job which she also doesn’t overtly doubt as a certainty so yes she does want it but it’s not?? SUPEr concerning except when she begins to doubt her abilities and if she’ll ever feel like her life is fulfilling 

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? she’s lesbian. she’d say it means she’s attracted to women 

QUESTIONS FOR CREATORS

A) Why are you excited about this character?baby. she’s gonna find loveB) What inspired you to create them?love, simon! i wanted to write a cute lesbian high school romance so thus josie and elaina were bornC) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?nope!D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?nope again! she used to be full korean but now she’s half korean and half scandinavian! i think she used to be taller too she’s 5′5″ nowE) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?there are some aspects of each other that would get on the other’s nerves. like i dont think she’d appreciate the wonky outbursts i sometimes have and i’d get annoyed by her lack of social tact/annoyance at the world even tho i lowkey share those traits but otherwise i think we’d get along p well! i think i’d find her cute and i think she’d like my perceived confidence. we share a similar rationality as wellF) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?empathy she’s a big mood tbh and also i want her to be happy G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?her lack of emotional intelligence. while i like blunt and logic oriented ppl it’d get slightly frustrating after a while to be around someone who’s a lil oblivious to social/emotional cues even if that’s a moodH) What trait do you admire most?her humble diligence. i have to complain twice as much as her to get half the things she gets done doneI) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?i think she’d ALSO do great in a sci fi universe. ha maybe i need to give these kids a sci fi au verseJ) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?not rlly no!

[yafookinboi]

Dear Void™️, today was another bomb ass day, and I’m getting suspicious that things are going to have to get worse soon lol Things are going too well, why haven’t I had a mental or emotional break down or anxiety attack yet? Where is the existential dread and uncertainty that had become my friend for the past 3-4 years? Is this what it feels like to actually pursue something you’re passionate about? To have some semblance of where you’re going in life and liking where you’re at? Because this is strange lol and I’m suspicious, but damn am I going to enjoy every second of it.

But holy shit, story time: so in class this week we did a speed design thing where we broke off into teams of 4-5 people and made a whole pitch in 2 hours. I was unexpectedly chosen as a team lead (this took place before I went to talk with my faculty). The way teams were divided was the faculty was like “ok who wants to work on ________’s team?” And people would raise their hands and they’d choose 4 people. I was online and my teacher never turns his camera on, so I couldn’t see who raised their hand to be on what team, or how many people. I was blind, but honestly was just rushing to hook my laptop up to my other monitor and get a google doc set up lol I was team 5, the last team, and really didn’t think anything of it, and had 3 people on my team since there’s not enough people for 5 teams of 5. I had a couple people I knew pretty well, and another who I knew by face only. But so we broke off into a discord call and dived right in. And I thought we did pretty well, we had a funny and interesting idea, and our pitch was pretty thorough. One of the members who tends to dominate the conversation was super chill and actually a great teammate, and I think I handled guiding brainstorming and culling ideas in a friendly way. We finished with 5 minutes to spare and I think we were all satisfied with the end product. So later that week I went to talk to the faculty, and he revealed that he chose me as a lead because I was on his radar, and he specifically put me as team 5 because he wanted to see what I would do with a team of the last picks of the class (which is kind of brutal to those people, but I straight up didn’t think about it since I couldn’t see anything in class lol). I mentioned how I thought we did well, (I think we honestly came up with a bomb idea, I’m proud of us) and he said he couldn’t say anything since he was still grading the other pitches, but that he’d release the ranking over the weekend and we’d go over it in class next week. So here I am, tonight, and he dropped grades. The grades themselves don’t include a ranking, just a number grade, the average, high and low grades, and a few comments about the submission. We got a 93 and the high was 95 so I’m fairly confident we got 2nd place which is a pretty great win in my book 😎 He mentioned some things we forgot to include (fair criticism, can’t argue with that), but said that we ultimately completed our purpose with the pitch. And like? hell yeah?! You’re telling me that not only did we have one less person than every other team, but we were straight up under dogs and we came in second? HELL YEAH LETS GO THATS A WIN IF IVE EVER SEEN ONE. It’s not perfect, but given our setbacks that’s a pretty good result. And everyone has room for improvement, soooooo 💅🏻 I’m keeping my “not disappointing him yet” streak going a little bit longer 😂

In other news, I went on that walk with Carl today and it was fun :) We saw a huge tortoise who came right up to us and said hi before heading home! He was cute, I want a tortoise one day lol But we walked around a nature trail just kind of exploring and we didn’t get lost which is good 😆 But yeah, we talked a lot and honestly I know I keep saying it, but it’s so nice lol We straight up just click? And I was chatting with someone about it today, and they kind of joked about us dating (as you fucking do 🙄🙃, I’m not mad, it’s just that’s the sort of stuff that built in my “can’t talk to anyone about it” behavior and why I’m writing the the Void lol) to which I was like “bro we’re still getting to know each other lol” and they’re were like “yeah it’s nice to have someone who’s just a friend”, which kind of got me wondering if he is just coming at this from “oh hey they’re just really nice and I’m in the market for a friend” or idk just not coming at it from a “oh I kind of like them and would like to get to know them better”. Which, writing this out, logicalllyyyyyyy it’s probably the latter, because I have only ever known one person who would pursue a friendship with that kind of dedication. So, your honor, all evidence is pointing to that he is probably just chill and taking things slow, and wants to get to know me better. At this time the evidence is inconclusive on the matters of if he actually likes me and is actively pursuing that. (I’m going to read this later and cringe so hard lol) But, yeah. I think we had a good time :) Now to debate whether or not I should reach out first to see if we do this again next week, or wait for him to reach out. I’ll probably wait until a few days before again. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter right now lol no use in over thinking it lol who knows lol but we’re having a team Halloween party! I’m excited :3 I love Halloween lol Time to woo him with my costume making skills 😎

but yeah, I’m sure I’ll be back to talk about more shit soon :) thanks for listening, Void. It’s hard to believe that a year or so ago I was having breakdowns on the reg and I hated everything I was doing with my soul. I almost don’t want to believe this is happening, but I also want to enjoy it. I’m not going to put myself in the situation where I’m drowning in stress and work; I did that for years on my way here. Now is the time to savor the way life can be when you’re pursuing and living your dreams. Maybe this is what all those struggles were for :)

[ecotone99]

[SP] The good ending of humanity

Note: First short story posted here, I've spent probably about 8 hours at least writing (and slightly editing) this and kinda felt the need to put this somewhere. Let me know if it violates some rule I didn't see or any thoughts you'd like to share. Also didn't expect that it'd go past the limit so had to put the last journal entry into two comments. Sorry if that's not considered ok.

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A Potential Future of Humanity

July 4th, 2056

Today’s the big unveiling, after the UN put a stop to independent Super intelligent AI research, and gathered everyone involved into a single project, today is finally the day that the results of that research will enter the world. Messiah as it has been codenamed, will be taking the reigns of humanity. Today is being declared a global holiday, Independence Day to signify our Independence from the confines of mortality (the Americans were particularly insistent that we name it that and unveil it today when the release date was put in late June last year). Even with the amount of research done, this is still a pretty nerve-wracking thought. It’s likely what a lot of people first felt when they entered a self-driving car without a steering wheel for the first time. That isn’t to say that we don’t have methods of input in place, and even its base goals depend upon human input, but knowing AI, this is more of a pacifier for those afraid of the project than anything that will actually be useful.

Starting today though, everything will be managed by Messiah, and the last 40% of people who still work, will no longer be necessary to maintain ourselves. The culmination of the robot revolution that has slowly made working unnecessary will reach its last steps, the goal of Industrialization will be achieved, along with the dreams of our ancestors of a better life for ourselves and posterity. In many ways, Messiah is the perfect method to everything that humanity has ever hoped for.

Yet, the anxiety caused by wondering what will happen if Messiah ever doesn’t work as planned, is often outweighed by the anxiety, or what will happen if it does, forever. The existential dread of wondering what will I do with eternity has been weighing on my mind the longer I have worked on this project. I try to assure myself that I’ll just simply continue doing what I currently do when I don’t work, and that over time I’ll just find more stuff to do. Yet still, it stays in the back of my mind, if I had to guess, humans were never prepared to achieve what we’re about to achieve, despite in many ways always desiring it.

July 5th, 2056

The unveiling went off without a hitch, and already Messiah is having a dramatic impact on humanity and the world. While the majority of people who still worked have quit their jobs now that working no longer results in obtaining extra stuff upon the replacement of the Global Basic Income with the new Messiah system, there were still .1 % of people who have asked to remain working, and another 5% that asked to simply take an indefinite vacation, many citing that they’d rather keep employment should the Messiah system break down in the near future. Perhaps the most surprising were the 1% of people from the unemployed sector that asked Messiah to be given fulfilling jobs. While many have yet to be given jobs yet, the Messiah system is working with them to figure out what would be considered fulfilling jobs for them, considering that any work they do would be a waste of resources as the Messiah can already do anything they can do better and more efficiently. Right now, me and my team of several thousand are the only ones who currently actually do anything we can’t trust to Messiah, the task of monitoring Messiah to make certain that no last-minute bugs are cropping up. As well as having a way to fry Earth’s electronics should Messiah appear to start being detrimental to humanity. Though few on the team believe that we’d actually get a chance to activate it, or rather be allowed to activate it by Messiah, should we actually need it.

As for as Messiah itself, it appears to be working perfectly. It’s taking various requests from people for things and doling them out as possible. It doesn’t appear to be favoring any single person over humanity as a whole, and already it’s increased humanity’s output by several times so people who lived on basic income are now able to receive resources that previously would have classified them as wealthy just a week ago. And this is even with maintaining the areas of the world that we asked to be preserved from human (and Messiah) influences like the Amazon and Antarctic, along with various national parks. It’s even not gone overboard as many people feared when this part of Messiah was announced, letting humans still take hikes through trails and even maintaining the popular edible drone system that lets people view these areas from the perspective of a flying mite, too small to be bothered by any of the local wildlife, yet having no impact on the environment should they be destroyed.

As far as one of the other major concerns go, there have already been several billion requests to build various levels of bombs, from mostly harmless dry ice bombs, to many, many nukes, not to mention several Skynet army requests, as well as various requests for genocides of various groups of people, and a depressing number of murder requests. Thankfully Messiah’s prioritizing system appears to be working and has rejected these requests and is working on separating people whose moods are apparently murderous. All in all, Messiah has met our expectations, and far surpassed what most people thought Messiah could do. Of course, we’ll still need to continue observing until the UN determines that observing is no longer needed, hopefully in the next several months, but it could be several years if Messiah does anything potentially dangerous.

August 12th, 2056

Barely a month has passed, and Messiah has announced that it will be able to extend its systems to Mars, and even Venus once it gets approval from the UN. This was one of the goals that we put into the system, with Mars colonized several decades ago and several research stations put into the upper Venus atmosphere ten years ago, the people living there haven’t had a chance to benefit from the Global Basic Income. While a true economy hasn’t as of yet developed on Mars, there are very few people that don’t have to work in some form or manner. In fact, Mar’s foundational tenet states that those who go there willingly must submit themselves to helping maintain and solidify their existence. Any freeloaders are shipped back to Earth on the next available cargo ship. Even though the two planets only have a combined population of several million, it was expected that it would take at least 100 times the effort to extend the Messiah system to either of these planets as compared to Earth as Earth already had a well-developed manufacturing base that was primed for full automation. Mars is getting there, but many parts of it still depend on human intervention and oversight, and existence on Venus is more equivalent to human existence in the Antarctic in the mid to late 20th century.

The plan Messiah proposed would be the start of widespread terraforming of the two planets using a portion of Earth’s resources to set up Asteroid mining to produce the machines (as well as the resources) needed to terraform the two planets. Something incredibly surprising reading through the proposals was the existence of matter-antimatter reactors, that apparently have been used by Messiah on Earth since July 10th. While we were aware of the new reactors that were built, considering that they appeared to use uranium and plutonium, along with water, as their fuel sources, we assumed they were either nuclear or fusion reactors, especially as the schematics were quite complicated and very different from standard reactors and thus hard to decipher what was actually going on. After asking Messiah about it, it had apparently hypothesized and then produced a method to produce antimatter in excess amounts, apparently in a method that also explains why the universe is made of matter instead of antimatter. With this Messiah effectively has a near infinite amount of energy. Along with the increased calculative ability after Messiah massively increased her main servers, Messiah appears to be able to terraform the two planets within the next few decades. The UN is expected to approve this measure tomorrow. In light of that Messiah is already accepting applications to move to these new planets to better fulfill individual desires.

August 14th, 2056

The first wave of people leaving Earth has occurred today, the UN not only approved the terraforming of Venus and Mars, but further pre-emptively approved letting Messiah use resources of any celestial body within the Solar System provided that such acquisition and use will not significantly disturb any extra-terrestrial life. Considering that Messiah sent probes yesterday that have surveyed all the major celestial bodies within the solar system and hasn’t confirmed any life, this doesn’t appear to be a meaningful restriction. In a self-upgrade, Messiah has even identified regions within the Solar system that will be kept relatively free of human influence due to the assumption that many humans will desire to view these places in their natural states. These include places like Olympus Mons on Mars and the Giant Red Spot on Jupiter.

With all that, several billion people have left to either view, vacation, or live throughout the Solar System, with the majority going to Mars, Venus, the Moon, and Low-Earth orbit. According to Messiah, the population of Earth has decreased to pre-Global Basic Income levels, when the population of developed countries saw a large spike in births to unemployed people as many couples decided to start small families now that they had the time and Global Basic Income would be able to support small families. This is especially significant as the world was appearing to go through yet another population boost as various diseases were being quickly eradicated or cured, and the single population dropped dramatically as people used Messiah to help them find people best suited for themselves for happy marriages, with many then deciding to raise families to give themselves something to do, as well as fulfill dreams they have long had. Even with the increased efficiency of the Messiah system, it likely would have been hard pressed to meet even basic needs with only Earth resources (especially with large parts restricted) in only a few years.

December 25th, 2056

In celebration of Christmas (Messiah seems increasingly aware of timing), Messiah has released a notice to everyone that Eternal Youth has been achieved and is available for everyone. Within one day, 99% of the human population has received their “Christmas Present.” In light of this UN leaders have all declared their intentions to lift the final restriction on Messiah’s resource acquisition and protection allotment systems in order to prevent any decreases in livelihoods due to humanity’s quickly growing population, namely that of restrictions to remain within the Solar System. It will still be several years before humans will leave the solar system as Messiah has declared that it will first send probes to other star systems and observe them before sending any humans there to best make certain it can best provide for any humans that do arrive. As Messiah is still limited by Special Relativity (with no indication yet on whether it will or can ever produce a theoretical Alcubierre bubble), this will mean the minimum amount of time will be 8 years before any humans can go visit the stars. There are quite a few impatient people, but Messiah is very insistent on this.

July 4th, 2065

Nine years from its release, Messiah has announced that it will now start sending people to Proxima Centauri b, indicating that the planet will be completely terraformed by the time they arrive. A giant colonizing ship, capable of housing the 10 billion people who are desiring to leave has been produced over the last month. Many are indicating they desire to be kept in cryogenesis, though there are still several billion that desire to stay awake during the approximately 2-week journey (4 years for us). Considering that the population of humanity has doubled in the last few years to 28 billion people, continuing to acquire more resources and land will be essential to continue to fulfill people’s needs and wants. This is something that we had been worried about, that if the restrictions that have prevented the population from growing significantly in developed countries for the last few centuries were removed (essentially aging, and economic detriments of having kids in modern countries), that the population would increase faster than Messiah could acquire new resources and energy and thus the amount of resources the average person could receive would slowly decrease until all of humanity lived in poverty. Thankfully we did put in an emergency method to let Messiah restrict people from having kids should population growth be exceeding faster than Messiah could keep up with it. Thankfully, so far it hasn’t been needed, as it will almost certainly be incredibly controversial once it comes up.

January 14th, 2080

Messiah has announced that starting today, those that desire to receive certain standards of living may be required to leave the Solar System, while it indicates that food, shelter, and water will still be able to be enjoyed by all, the increasing population has begun to put strains on its systems, and people may not be able to continue enjoying their ridiculously opulent levels of living, especially considering the population of the Solar System recently broke 100 billion, despite many billions of people leaving to colonize other star systems. While greatly unpopular as many are still unhappy about being denied their desires to have large manors on Earth, to be honest, to those of us born before Messiah was created, it appears that humans are really greedy creatures when all work has been removed. Thankfully Messiah does not appear to care about how greedy we are and abandon us.

February 12th, 2103

By far the most valid complaint on the mandatory relocation system, is the fact that it effectively isolates us from the rest of humanity on little tiny islands that only receive ancient news about other places, with no real opportunity for communication. While Messiah has done amazingly well at preventing families and communities from being unwillingly separated from each other, humanity as a whole has become incredibly isolated. With the farthest reaches of humanity being about 80 light-years apart from each other, even with time dilation it will take about 2 years on board to cross that distance, and should you decide to return, 160 years will pass. While it is incredibly unlikely that anyone you know will die during that time, with only an estimated several thousand people having died since Messiah was released (with a large percentage of them being from Mars before it came under the Messiah system), despite an estimated 8 trillion people across about a hundred star systems, already people are noticing that people change after several decades. It’s likely that you’d barely recognize a person after a century and a half, let alone be able to pick up a relationship back up from where you left it.

The fact that these numbers have to be estimated brings up yet another problem, that of the difficulty of resource allocation when communication arrives only moments before cargo. While the Messiah system is incredibly good at making estimates on how other star systems are doing based on the performance of the star system it currently resides in, due to the limits of computability, the Messiah can’t effectively predict what the other ~100 Messiah systems are doing, especially in relation to them acting upon their predictions of what it itself is doing. Usually it compensates by sending numbers well below what it should be able to accommodate once it terraforms a star system, as well as sending to star systems it either knows are uninhabited as it is the closest Messiah system to it and thus would have the first chance at colonizing it, or by sending new colonists to systems far away that are unlikely to be colonized by another Messiah system yet. Despite this, some reports have trickled in to the Sol system of times when multiple colony ships converged onto one Solar system, and the ones that arrived a few years later needing to be redirected to even further star systems, changing a journey predicted to last a few weeks to months, into several years.

The Messiah system has been pretty good at not relocating people who have not been having kids, which was the main complaint early in the new system. Still, there are many people who are not happy about the prospect that in order to raise a family, they must first spend several years in transit to an entirely different star system, tens of light-years away from their home star system, and likely to grow to hundreds of light-years as the population of humanity continues to grow exponentially. While more and more people have accepted Messiah’s offer to either permanently or indefinitely stay within Messiah’s virtual world, as the virtual world can effectively offer near limitless resources to any people within it, while only costing a small fraction of actual resources, there are many people that do not desire to have virtual children, claiming that despite Messiah’s claims to the contrary, that Messiah can’t create true people through its virtual world systems.

Now though, Messiah has come up with a solution (though I fear temporary, knowing humanity and its ever-increasing needs and wants). It has finally succeeded in creating Alcubierre bubbles. It is expected that within the week all the Messiah systems will sync up, which just goes to show how much data they need to transfer. Messiah has announced that as soon as it does, it will then create an interstellar internet that people will be able to use, with plans to have latency and data transfer speeds at amounts currently expected within stellar internets. There are many people who are incredibly excited to talk to friends currently light-years away. That said, I fear that this problem will re-appear once humanity starts to span thousand of light-years unless Messiah can find a way to create wormholes.

March 15th, 2159

Over a hundred years has passed since the Messiah system was released. With the creation of wormholes a decade ago, humanity has reached ever greater standards of living, despite it’s continued growth. Since its creation, humanity has gone from having 14 billion people enjoying the standard of living from about 70% of Earth’s resources, to 28 billion people among 5 Earth amounts of resources when we first became interstellar, to 8 trillion people spread out over ~100 star systems (or 80 billion people per star system), with an average of 4 Earth resource amounts per each star system (or 20 billion per Earth resource amount) when the Alcubierre bubble was created, to 128 trillion spread out among the entire milky way galaxy (or about 500 people per star system were we evenly spread out) today. The average person effectively enjoys 160 million times the standard of living when the Messiah system was released. This is likely to be the maximum standard of living for some time as creating wormholes appears to be more energy costly based on the distance it needs to cover, and galaxies are vastly farther apart than individual star systems, and the Messiah system wants to avoid splitting itself up again unless absolutely necessary.

Truly the most surprising thing has been the lack of alien life, of any nature, across the entire Milky Way. Some have argued that perhaps the Messiah system has either been insufficient at finding life, either due to some kind of miscommunication on what we would consider life, or due to our own limitations on what we believe life could be. The former doesn’t appear to be true as the Messiah system has routinely been able to indicate that what we would consider life it also would consider life, with us creating various simulation of planets with unique lifeforms. The latter also doesn’t appear to be true as it has come up with many different types of hypothetical lifeforms that we only agreed could be considered life after observing it for long periods of time. Some others have argued that in order to better support its directives, Messiah has quietly destroyed any alien life to prevent itself from needing to bar itself from taking that planet’s resources. While it is impossible to rule this out, as Messiah could totally do that without us noticing, Messiah has indicated that it actually has been contemplating creating artificial alien lifeforms in order to satisfy the demand in some manner. Furthermore, its simulations have routinely shown the improbability of life being surviving past formation, as the conditions required to form most lifeforms, are often ones that can instantly destroy such lifeforms due to their instability. Either way, it appears that in this galaxy at least, we are alone.

In a sense though, we haven’t been unexposed to alien-ness. Voluntary human modification was approved way back in 2062 due to popular demand, and today Messiah says, over 50% of the human population has undergone a significant form of modification other than Eternal Youth and basic enhancements. Nearly 10% of the human population also live virtual lives, with 1/3 of that group even going so far as letting their physical bodies be recycled as Messiah can easily recreate them. While various “extreme” physical modifications were expected, such as wings, tails, cat-ears, soft fur, weird hair colors and eyes, etc. I definitely did not expect the various mental changes that have been requested. Obviously many people were going to ask for superintelligence (which they have received to various levels, Messiah hasn’t ever given anybody the ability to ever be smart enough to outsmart itself), and it wasn’t that surprising when people started asking for changes to their mental states to rid themselves of depression and boredom, and only somewhat surprising when people started asking Messiah to rid themselves of desires that they saw detrimental such as ridding themselves of the desire for sex and reproduction so they could enjoy more time on other things and not burden the Messiah system further, the people who have completely changed their mental processes were a complete and utter unexpected surprise. Such groups of people act bizarre, and even though Messiah has tried to explain how they function to me several times, I can never quite grasp exactly how they tick now, and each one tends to function in a different way. Meeting or talking to them is a bizarre experience. The smarter ones give me an impression of the alien-ness of when Messiah was first able to communicate. While those of them that grew up speaking English still can, they use it in ways that catch you off guard and take a few moments to understand what they are trying to say. There have been several I’ve talked to that immediately stop talking in the middle of a conversation and leave, even if they were the ones that requested talking to you. Many of the smarter ones have taken to communicating through various conlangs created to avoid grammatical ambiguity, and I believe some will create one on the spot, even if they already speak a language together. These are only the most extreme, most have only modified themselves to act more like people they look up to, helping them to avoid getting angry all the time for example, and the most common extra-human traits added tend to be making themselves act more like certain animals, such as dog-like loyalty towards their spouse, which is still odd, but can be understood when interacting with them.

On another note, I have been contemplating joining the Virtual world, I have begun to get bored of the experiences that I experience as a physical human and I don’t particularly feel like removing the possibility of getting bored yet. I tend to spend most of my time in there anyways.

October 1st, 2309

It’s been a long time since I last updated my journal. I hadn’t realized a century and a half had passed until I looked it up. It’s incredibly what has happened since then. After starting to colonize various galaxies, Messiah has found 14 galaxies that harbor life, 2 of which had intelligent species on them, as well as one Von Neuman Probe race that thankfully was destroyed by Messiah, though it’s code has been saved so you can interact with it, though it is incredibly stupid. Those two races have been given the benefit of enjoying the Messiah system. Surprisingly though, talking to members of these species has often been less bizarre than talking to the members of my own species on the far end of mental modification that I talked about last time. At this point, Messiah commands enough resources to effectively give every person their own star system, or 500 times the standard of living a century and a half ago. With the increasing amount of people joining the Virtual World as the Virtual World lets you change your surroundings, and yourself much easier to do what you want, people have actually finally begun to be satisfied. Something I never expected to happen. Even those who no longer experience boredom, who have become notorious for always desiring more, are reporting insane levels of satisfaction. As one of the original developers, I have received several quintillion letters of thanks, which is impressive considering there are about a sextillion intelligent beings today. The amount of people who have had their fill of raising families has also far surpassed the amount of young people who have yet to raise a family, which means population growth has more or less stagnated for the human race, and it’s predicted the other two races will reach their fill soon too. They’ll definitely be in the vast majority, each having about a sextillion individuals each, with humanity having only a few quintillion. It’s weird to think that humanity is now in the vast minority of beings enjoying the Messiah system, despite being the ones to create it, but I guess that’s what happens when it takes 2 decades to raise a human, and only 1 to raise a Racolith, or a Serpent-man.

I did end up joining the Virtual World. I recently spent the last 10 years simulating living a life as a medieval evil necromancer, spanning hundreds of years. It was an interesting experience. Especially as according to Messiah, none of the people I interacted with could be considered intelligent, rather it was effectively Messiah pretending to be people in those situations. To be honest, it sounds a lot like an argument of semantics that lets Messiah let us live out our fantasies even if such fantasies would be harmful to the beings within the fantasy. I think I’m okay with that, I had such worries removed after living my first artificial life, during which I became a soldier and upon ‘dying’ woke up realizing that I had killed potentially intelligent beings. I’m still aware of the logic behind it, but it no longer bothers me, which probably makes me less human than I was when I was born, but I doubt few people now could be considered human by our ancestors.

When looking for oddities of humanity as has become my hobby, I recently found what appeared to be a contradiction. While unfortunate, there are people who chose to commit suicide, estimated to be at around a few billion a year. Most cite that in their current forms they no longer enjoy life, and that any change to their minds that did allow them to enjoy life would effectively kill them, so they decide to commit suicide instead. They are nothing new, and something that I don’t think Messiah could ever fix while respecting our self-determination. Of course, they don’t really affect the satisfaction of humanity as Messiah is able to run simulations of them that aren’t suicidal so they can interact with the family of the ones that committed suicide. While it was seen as uncouth for Messiah to start doing this when people first requested it, most people have changed their mind, those it is likely that it has help increased the resolve of people to commit suicide as they point out that their family members may very well prefer the ‘fake’ versions of themselves to the suicidal versions.

But I got off-track. The contradiction I found were a large group of people that have requested to sleep eternally. Even more bizarre is that most of these people are requesting to not dream. While occasional sleeping is maintained by many Virtual World residents (as well as many non-Virtual World residents), it is mostly to experience dreaming, the manifestations of one’s subconscious in an unlimited world, as the Virtual World can easily let one experience an equivalent to a lucid dreams as you can manipulate the world as you please. Most people do not desire losing time out of their lives. Some have asked to just be put to sleep until a certain date arrives, the reasoning that these people provide is that letting cultures develop for several decades, or centuries (they have yet to wake up even once yet) lets them be surprised by a new world and stave off boredom. They I can understand somewhat, though with how many individuals there are out there, it isn’t hard to find cultures vastly different from oneself, and you can experience living in different cultures through simulated lives as I recently did, so it doesn’t seem the most efficient way to spend eternity. The people who have asked to sleep eternally, yet not die are by far the oddest. From what Messiah has told me, these people when they are sleeping effectively have all mental processes shut off. In other words, if they are ever woken up (which when someone tries to communicate with them, Messiah will briefly wake them up to ask if they’d like to wake up and communicate or fall back asleep), to them they had only just fallen asleep. I tried talking to one of these people, I had to bug him 47 times before he grudgingly woke up and yelled what I wanted. Before he had been asleep for 3 decades with no disturbance, I wanted to know whether he was aware that 3 decades had passed, and he glared at me and went back to sleep. Asking Messiah, while he hadn’t been aware, he was annoyed that it had taken only 3 decades before someone had bugged him and that it had felt like he had just fallen asleep. Considering the human psyche where we’ll initially feel like we should be tired if we feel like we haven’t gotten enough sleep (even if we have, or have no need for sleep), it won’t surprise me if he’ll never decide to rejoin life, putting life on pause indefinitely. Getting another sleeper to talk to me, I found out that 8 years had passed and that while they were aware that it was quite likely that they could lose eternity to sleep, they indicated their apathy towards the matter and once it became clear I wouldn’t try to wake them up again, went back to sleep.

November 30th, 2501

I am almost 500 years old, only a few decades away from it, and already I have effectively become tired of life. That shouldn’t be that surprising if once you add all the years I have spent in simulated lives, it adds up to several thousand. Still, this is a far cry from the eternity I once thought I’d enjoy. Looking back at the beginning of my journal, I wouldn’t be surprised if my current situation was one that I was subconsciously predicting. It has become hard to tell whether anybody I interact with is real. While I can ask Messiah to tell me whether someone I interacted with is a real person, that was born with a real body, whether they currently have a real body, and have even had Messiah create for me a perfect replica of my original biological body, from before even Messiah had made me Immortal, and despite my knowing that it is unlikely that Messiah would ever lie to me, and no recollection that it ever has or even any logical inconsistencies that would likely come up if Messiah were messing with my memories without my permission, I feel as if I’m trapped within the Matrix. I even went and “escaped” to a barren planet where I survived in a primitive manner for two decades in a supposedly physical body, and yet I knew, from how I understood computational theory, that even this could be a simulation.

The only thing that I have found reliably convinces myself, has been stabbing people with a physical body. Physical people will not die even if I want them to. The Messiah system doesn’t allow one person to kill another person. Recently though, this has begun to fail me, the test still appears to work fine, but I’ve realized that the test itself is flawed as I realized the possibility that knowing that this was how I’d expect reality to work having helped design the Messiah, that the Messiah has created a virtual world it claims is the physical world that works the exact way I’d expect it to, were it the physical world. It may have even modified my memories so that it can more easily produce a world where I’d believe it were the physical world. For all I know it could have even created me with the memories of creating it and it could be the universe.

Needless to say this hasn’t been entirely good on my psyche, though I have restrained myself from having these thoughts and the mental processes that produce them removed. I have recently rediscovered the philosophy of Rene Descartes and his “I think therefore I am.” Considering that the Messiah system could have created me and both this philosophy, maybe even logic itself, it no longer provides the stability I need. Still I don’t desire suicide at the moment. Instead I have decided that if I am to live a fake life, it will be the one with the highest form of satisfaction for my personality. As such I have requested to put on loop, me living through a simulated life predicted to have the highest levels of satisfaction without altering my base level processes. Between each loop I can choose whether to repeat or not, and of course other’s can put a pause on that loop, but for now I’m going to spend as much of eternity as I can doing this.

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