#which means inevitably i'm going to have to make some for the fall and winter at some point lol

[humming-fly]

To celebrate the unofficial start of summer a new sticker sheet has been added to my etsy store!

Enjoy the seasonal festivities of BBQ, beach volleyball, and arguing with relatives with these, the second most self-indulgent seasonal stickers I've ever made~

[jiniret-writings]

With You

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Bangchan x Reader

Warnings: Reader calls Chan Chris (is that a warning?)

The metal felt cool and heavy on your wrist, but not obnoxiously so. It was a welcome weight, like someone held it. Chris finished the clasp and moved it around your wrist, making sure it wasn't too tight.

"Good?"

"Good," you said, lifting your arm above your head before letting it drop dramatically as though you had weights attached to them. Chris took your hand and kissed it before kissing your forehead.

"Be safe, yeah? And call me if you need company."

"I will. Bye, love," you said, giving him one last kiss on the lips before heading out.

This had become a little routine between the two of you. With comeback approaching and Stray Kids being busier than ever, time with your boyfriend was precious and rare. You had taken to staying at his studio with him to keep him company and spend time with him. The only drawback being that he worked long hours and hunger was inevitable to strike, so you made it a habit to go out to get the two of you food while he worked so you didn't break him out of his "zone".

Chris loved you, but he couldn't fight the bouts of worry that overtook him when you left alone late at night. Especially in the winter when the sun set so early, by the time it was time for dinner, it was pitch black outside. He had tried to get you to order delivery for meals and snacks, but you had insisted on going out yourself, saying it was good to stretch your legs. He couldn't argue with that, but it didn't help the pit in his stomach when he saw you walk out into the dark.

It was during one of these moments of eerie quiet and loneliness that the idea hit him. He was tapping away at his desk, unable to get any work done. His friends had told him about how random guys seemed to be getting bolder in the streets with girls who were alone. They told him in good faith so he could warn you--which he did--but it also made him worry more. As he was drumming his fingers, resisting the urge to text you for the fifth time in as many minutes, he looked down at the bracelet on his wrist.

It was one of his first purchases on his idol paycheck when he started making a substantial amount of money. It was a welcome weight, always serving to ground him when he felt stressed.

It was a almost useless gesture. Realistically, if someone really wanted to be a prick, they wouldn't care about a heavy bracalet on your wrist, but it brought him some peace of mind. The next day, before you could go out, he grabbed your waist and pulled you to him. Placing a small kiss on the inside of your wrist, he removed his bracelet and put it on you.

"What's this for?" you asked, confused on the gesture.

"So that I'm with you," he said, still holding your waist. "Whenever you go out, just take it off my wrist."

You looked down at it, eyes shining with love and appreciation. You understood what he had left unsaid. It looks out of place enough with the rest of your jewelry that it could only mean you got it from your boyfriend. From him.

"And," he continued, moving you so you were sitting in his lap. "If someone tried anything, it's heavy enough to be a weapon."

The smirk on his lips was mischievous, but you knew he was dead serious.

"Got it," you said softly, kissing his cheek.

And so your routine was established. Even when going out with friends, he would give you a piece of his jewelry to wear with your own. More often than not, it was a ring he wore whenever he was in the mood for one. He rationed that it was just a placeholder until he got you something more permanent and more yours.

This semester kicked my ass like no other oml. MY mistake for thinking I could keep writing in between assignments, but my professors seemed hell bent on making sure we were drowning busy. That means I have like 30 unfinished works and a need to write something fun until my fingers fall off ♡

This is an idea that's been spinning around my head for a while. It's finals week so starting next week I have all the time in the world to write! Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! And as always, have a great morning, afternoon, evening, and night!

-Jini

[code31-onthedancefloor]

totally agree with your tags on that post about jean. i try to stay out of jean discourse because i have mutuals who say that he’s their fav character, but…i just don’t get it tbh. also yes kimjean makes absolutely no sense to me. i feel like it’s more like playing with dolls than anything else. like if your headcanons deviate from the source material that much, what’s the point? why is it fun?

thank you for your ask! and i agree!

part of it is falling into the trap of 'colouring in the blanks' vis-a-vis harry's memory loss, i think. but as you said - at some nebulous point, you're just making an OC.

my mutuals range from indifferent-to-utter hatred when it comes to jean, so i have no problem writing a few more of my thoughts. this is mainly about the failures of capitalist institutions in general to keep people alive. bit of a sprawling rant under cut:

personally, jean (and the rest of the Precinct 41 cops) struck me as a mouthpiece for one of the clusters of problems that institutions like the police fall into: using 'personal' bias under the guise of 'for the good of the institution/society' to cut off a member/member of the public in need. looking out from the institution's windows, one might liken it to pruning dead flowerheads off a tree. from the outside in, it is tantamount to manslaughter.

that might sound like a large step to make - however, if you think about how it is, in many cases, legal for a landlord to suddenly evict one of their tenants and make them homeless in the middle of winter (for them to go on and die of cold on the street) - what is that, if not manslaughter with extra, authorised steps?

with that, i think what jean is capable of doing in the bad ending... harry, possibly going through withdrawal, disabled, healing from recent GUNSHOT WOUNDS, destitute, mentally ill, suicidal, amnesia-ridden and isolated, is left in the fishing village by jean to fend for himself. not even 'here are your house keys and a few rèal for a train fare. go home, you're fired'. he is just Left There. and there is nothing there for harry. unless he joins the fucking hardie boys or some shit, there's no way he's getting a job again. that's it - harry's dead to us now; which means he is dead, or will be very soon. the only thing that would keep him alive at that point would by the kindness of isobel and lilienne and the other residents of martinaise, which proves my point that the RCM itself is a failed, bigoted institution. when even the hotshot lieutenant double-yefreitor is ejected for being 'more trouble than he's worth' without the disability/pension pay that he honestly rightfully deserves, the place is fucked. jean knows that nothing harry can do or say can prevent this. harry can't afford a fucking lawyer to fight for his case.

as soon as harry purposefully drove him away while imploding in a suicidal mania, that was apparently reason enough for him to 'fuck off'... for him to just sit there doing fuck all while harry wakes up not knowing who he is, gets shot, and actually solves the fucking murder for him. and then jean sees the detritus of harry's many, many attempts at ending his own life, and all he can see is wasted assets; wasted budget; wasted time. and to rub salt in the wound: the only reason he brings Trant along is to 'see if harry's lying'. WHICH. jean KNOWS that harry's had amnesia blackouts before. judit knows that harry's had amnesia blackouts before. jean just wants to see if he can leverage enough over harry to get rid of him for good.

when it comes to jean in particular, i think people can project their own ideas about what he is 'meant to be' onto him. hell, i'm doing it now. but to some people, jean is meant to represent the 'long-suffering addict handler' who has been at the Mercy of the Big Bad Addict, just trying to do his job but inevitably dragged down by him. i don't want to disregard anyone who has tried for years to do damage control with friends and relatives who are addicts - however, i just don't think that the writers intended for this reading of his character. harry, historically, used drugs and alcohol as a method to solve cases more efficiently and probably self-medicate for mental illness and post-polio syndrome. he has a massive caseload which he shouldered for years, grinding his spirit against the murders of revachol. it sounds like he only became a 'non-functional addict' relatively recently (don't quote me on that). and as soon as he starts inevitably imploding, jean - the guy who was basically only playing second fiddle in that caseload - is already right there to kick him onto the street.

because that's what cops view mentally ill addicts as, right? it doesn't matter if they're prestigious in their own goddamn precinct. as soon as they've outlived their usefulness; their cost-effectiveness, they're gone. and That is what jean was there to carry out - in the bad ending. it doesn't matter that jean is clinically depressed. they both can't afford therapy, but only jean can continue working because his mental illness apparently isn't severe enough to the point that he's driving his car into the ocean in a desperate attempt to end his own life. because he is 'functional'.

and the worst part is - they're both miserable! they're both suffering! jean wants to kick harry out because he's sick of dealing with him. what makes jean sitting around the whirling-in-rags in a wig being useless Funny is that HARRY IS DOING HIS JOB FOR HIM! while not even knowing what money is or who he is or where he lives! and then jean can kick him out the RCM and leave him to die for not being 'functional' enough.

now there's more to say about the different endings. how the 'kim *truly* trusts you' check and make or break an ending and the variety of ways in which you can play harry and how your actions 'mid-game' can impact how the world interprets 'pre-amnesia harry'. different shit. you can play harry as a racist, fascist asshole. and as much as i would like for every racist, fascist asshole TO die in a ditch - safety nets such as universal healthcare/basic income & unconditional housing should be there to benefit Everyone. even racist, fascist assholes. otherwise, the point is defeated: like jean the RCM denying harry his past and a stable future because of illness and poverty. jean raging about 'the liberals' and the horrific ableist shit he said in regards to harry's disabilities should have sent alarm bells ringing in the minds of people who want to woobify him. (plus judit's 'well-meaning' infantilisation, and trant's poverty-tourism schtick. ew.)

failure of institutions and different rules for different groups of society based on bigotry aside, jean is ultimately only there for like 5 minutes. if you want an asshole with a mushy core, why not titus? if you want a guy with a lot of 'fill in the blanks' potential, why not goraçy kubrek?

why not tiago? why not mañana? why not ruby? why not lilienne? why not cunoesse? why not the dicemaker? why not the ravers? why not the student communists? why not lizzie? why not cindy? hell, the guy who gives you a slice of salami showed more humanity than jean did in the entire game and the only reason he's there is to give you a slice of salami! why jean?

it's a little detached from what i've said here, but social institutions & contracts and ignoring/bending the law for the purposes of third parties are talked a lot about in this great video by philosphytube!

[paganquestions]

Hey there :) I was wondering if you could help me understand something, since I'm kinda new to being a pagan. I'm trying to make myself this resource book (kinda a book of Shadows?) and I'm unsure on what Lithe/Litha is as a Sabbat past the whole 'its the Summer Solstice' part, as the internet's contradicting itself. Sorry if it's not your thing, but what is Litha about and how is it celebrated (for you at least). Thank you so so so much xx

Well, firstly, the holiday I celebrate does not go by that name. In my community, we simply call it Summer Solstice. This doesn't make it any less sacred. I believe the contradiction you are seeing is probably the life versus death and the "What is the world do they mean by harvest?!" of it all. Feel free to resubmit your question, clarifying what you wish to know.

As it is coming up, let me explain what (oh goodness, it's really been that long now!) 23 years as a pagan has taught me. At each solstice and equinox, we celebrate the changing of the seasons. We celebrate them by honoring the things we observe in nature in the coming season. This makes a lot more sense once you actually try to grow even the most humble of gardens and if you've heard anything of homesteading, this would make everything fall into place much more understandably: We as humans are bound by the laws and patterns of nature. Let's start with Winter: most plants can't make it through winter, so we end up eating dried, canned, preserved "dead" foods throughout Winter. When we finally get to Spring: The first flowers blooming is a sign of fresh invigorating fruit to come. The world literally gets brighter and warmer. We have more time to play outside and therefore more time to meet new people and therefore, we are more likely to meet the ones we love over the next 6 months while we're out running around, enjoying the weather. SUMMER (your Lithe): The height of the season and the longest day of the year! The flowers have turned into fruits ripe for the picking and we sew our second round of seeds (traditionally--modern growers try to manipulate the seasons with shelter and technology to get more crops, but the rules stay mostly the same). Summer for farmers is a time full of work, because you're not just sewing and tending to seeds or just picking fruit off the vine, it's both. At the same time, we harvest the fruit because those plants that are fruiting are beginning the end of their life just as they start producing their first fruit (don't get me started on the metaphor, people can also be cruel). During, or just after fruiting, plants do what we call "bolting." They send the last of their nutrients into their seeds to spread the next generation of plants to succeed them, and many of them die. After that? No more of that plant until next year. Summer Solstice is a celebration of the height of life and living as humans, but also the beginning of the end for some of our juiciest fruits. We mourn the loss of flavor. It gets too hot for those plants to retain enough water to support growing fruit that moist. Thus begins the growing of the following season's crops which are much heartier and retain most of their water in their roots producing fall squashes and corn which distribute the water much more efficiently. Fall coming along, and then is the mark of the last harvest (and it should be noted that when I say "harvest" I'm referring to several weeks and months of time, not a singular one-day event). Now, everything's dying. We're indoors more often, we spread disease more easily, the elderly and immuno-compromised are at higher risk for dying, and we are plucking the last fruit and celebrating like crazy to gain the last great memories, because maybe we won't all see each other again the next spring. With this in mind, and knowing that all the food won't last, we hold cooking parties and we honor those who have already passed away. We cling to life while staring death and the inevitable cold of winter dead in the face.

Paganism is a belief system which relies heavily on the seasons because the faiths we revive by retelling their tales and holding on to traditions so old that the society we live in has either forgotten or largely ignores them that we ourselves forget that, because they are so old, these traditions did not have computers, central heating, and glass pained windows. These traditions came from the earth, and they are harder to understand now, because we have lost our connection to the Earth. If you want to understand the celebration of Lithe, go to your nearest garden center and pick out a plant on the "Annual" stand. Plant it outside and water it as much as the instructions tell you to, but do not be surprised as you slowly watch it die. Learn your lesson from this wonderful life you got to watch pass away so quickly and next year, celebrate your Lithe. Lithe means light and we celebrate, honor it and regard it, because the light of the sun and of fire are both very powerful and very prevalent during this time of year. It is the height of living and also the beginning of the end. Days get shorter from here.

Blessed be.

[aio-rya]

Red Panda Headcanons

GN!Reader x Character

「Requested by: @kih-lux」

A/N: Kih~ you gave me the option and this was more focused to be a Male Reader but... It ended being more a Gender Neutral, I guess... I'll keep practicing.

・Floyd, Jade and Azul are ocean creatures, they know about hybrids and people like Ruggie, Leona and Jack, though they are aware there are other species, some of them are so rare and so unique it's far too difficult to have a chance of running into one of them. And, guess what? Yes, you were part of that category.

・"I've never seen one of your kind, why? Are you so rare? Are you from a far land? Wait, maybe you are... An endangered specie?". Be patient with the tweel, he has too many questions since his research hasn't been so long; you'll be pleased of helping him with that.

・Well, this couldn't result as you originally planned since Jade himself determined you were in nice shape, your body was as expected from a being half beast, half human. So, he decided you will be helping him on the Lounge too! So you could spend more time together, talking about you while working. Plus, he thought the contrast between your brune ears and tail made a nice contrast with the grey suit of Octavinelle.

・The curiosity soon transformed into interest, he started hanging out with you and even asked you to join his club! In fact, he thought you could enjoy it since your specie's homeland is a forest; you could help him learn from places he has never been before, though he would love to know if you remembered any sort of fungi of your homeland.

・Jade will be always respectful, asking before acting, having a special attraction for your tail and ears. He has seen things like those before, with Savanaclaw's dorm members, but you were specially cute for him. Since you had a special moment when you purred —because, yes, pandas actually purr.

・He loves the comparison you do about him being a bambu stick. His height is a bit far than yours so, when you hug him and tangle your tail on his legs it looks as if you were a red panda holding a bambu stick even though red pandas don't do that often.

・The Tweels are not used to cold, they prefer to stay on earth at winter, but that will not stop him from being warm with you. He loves your fur because of that, specially when you have sleepovers and you roll your tail against him to keep him warm.

・"What do we have here? A teddy bear?"; he will ask, mocking of you, looking at the cute red fur of your ears, caught by the white line on the side of them. You'd smile mischievously, sighing, not letting his height or his deep voice intimidate you, slowly approaching a couple of steps —instead of answering his provocation, you'll lift a hand, almost at the height of his face. "Ho... This herbivore has guts."

・"I'm no herbivore... Not at all", you'll answer, defending yourself as you show your retractile long, pointy claws to him. You'd swear everything you saw in his eyes at the moment was fear on its pure form, specially since you made this actually at his eyes' height. You'd dare to say you broke him but it'd be more accurate to tell you actually gained his respect.

・Well, your peculiar first meeting was just the beginning of what somehow became a love-hate friendship. Since he was the captain of your club and you shared more unexpected encounters than you'd have thought, you grew fond of each other; soon, going from one place to another together.

・Leona would question you a lot about your specie; he's used to carnivorous wild animals like Ruggie, like him or some cheetah or tiger hybrids, but you were a bit different. And even after you already explained him your situation, he would still mess around, giving you bambú sticks for snack between classes, just because he loves your upset expression and the way you wave your tail furiously and move your ears to the sides.

・You got to trust each other so far Leona sometimes dishevelled the fur of your cylindrical, thick tail; he was lot curious about it since it was far shorter than his very own. That meant, of course, you delighted yourself with payback; sometimes braiding the tip of his tail, or tangling his tie on a ribbon on it.

・Since you were both half animal, you knew exactly which points he'd like to be touched on. That was, somehow, cheating; specially when you found him angry and tried to make him relax, words wouldn't work so you'd stand behind him and caress his ears —of course you made him purr, you always do. That, suddenly, became an intimate thing only of you both.

・There's something Leona loves doing and not necessarily to bother you: paw your ears. For him, those are like marshmallows, the red fluff, more rigid and smaller than his own. He just melt for touching them, specially when you fall asleep because, yeah, pandas sleep as much as the Prince of Afterglow Savannah.

・He could not hide his surprise when he realised you were not completely human, you immediately caught his attention; furthermore, you were not a common specie, he deduced so by your smell. "Well, well... What do we have here? You look like Kingscholar but quite... Hm. Completely different."

・Malleus would come back to you often, some nights when he was trying to scape from his guards. But he will not arrive just like it; he will try to find some facts about you, ask you the less possible and make research by his own to know what you were, how to treat you? Until you became of more interest for him than your specie.

・Soon he discovered by your stories that you were alone too, still you had a family but your own specie was not very common, you made friends with another kind of hal-beasts and another species of pandas. That only made him to get attached to you, someone who could understand him!

・He got to hang out with you almost every night, reaching the point where he would go and look for you to your classrooms. Malleus thought at first you started fearing him too by the twitching of your ears, soon realising you just... Softened. The way you flattened your ears was signal of trust, you actually felt comfortable around him —you made the Heir of the Valley happy.

・As time passed by, you earned an inconditionnel friend, he would talk to you about almost anything you wanted to know while, in exchange, you taught him about your world, the "human" world. Soon, that became more physical, and now he pawed your ears when you leaned on his shoulder to listen at him and his tales.

・There were nights when he would take you to the castle's roof to talk more privately, or just to see the moon and the forest along the village in the distance. And many of those nights, you'd fall asleep, curled up against his legs with your tail swinging peacefully or just laying over your legs or hips; he would try to caress it, obviously not waking you up and, if you ever did, he will just blush and look away.

・You had your own tricks, sometimes when you went for a walk on the little forest around the castle, you climbed threes and hanged upside down trying to surprise him. Well... You even touched his horns. At first you were worried about him being mad but his laughter broke the tension on your shoulders. But of course, you had a tail and ears, so his payback was inevitable.

・"I have never seen someone liketh thee...", you heard the intrigue on his voice. He floated around you, upside down, analysing the visible characteristics that made you half an animal. When Lilia is curious, he's not very measured with his actions... Yeah, that means he will touch your fur.

・He'd love to study your reactions to many stimulus, so he will tease you in ways you can and cannot expect. Though you started being prepared, or at least a bit, you'd never anticipate when was he going to appear. You were basically on guard every time you were on the library or in the hallways until the final day came and he told you how interesting you were to him.

・You tried to do the same on him but the movement of your tail or even sometimes your little furry ears twitching will alert him of your presence. Since then, you both became almost inseparable; people could se him flying around you, upside down or just playfully, other times you just got to sit aside him but there were always laughter and smiles.

・Oh, true! He basically transformed you into a nocturnal creature. Once he introduced you into video-game's world, you started spending more time together, another fact reassuring him you were a panda: sleeping a lot on the evening, when classes or clubs were not taking place, and enjoying the night along him.

・That of course meant he must protect your ears from Sebek. His very own audition was sensible enough to be disturbed by the demi-fae loudness, but he was worried about you: since he knew you were a red panda and discovered pandas had developed very, very, very sensible ears due to not wanting to be hunted by predators, he would avoid having you and Sebek on the same room for too long.

・His protective instincts made their appearance. You seemed like a tender and lovely being for him, that was the reason why Lilia was concerned about you: even though you were half a human, most of your habits were of your animal part. He knew when you were sleepy and you tried to pretend you were not just to stay with him for a while, playing. He will, surprisingly, sing you a lullaby to make you sleep while he played one last round; keeping an eye on you, the way you curled up, the way your ears twitched.

・The way you met was... Amusing. Well, you see, one of your favourite spots for napping was the forest, the place where he usually made his patrols. Since his narcolepsy is always present, he tends to fall asleep in situations like this, what happened that day: he fell under your three and once you woke up together, you both got scared as hell.

・He started questioning you; why were you there? What were you doing? Who where you? You answered calmly, trying to calm him down since he was actually pointing at you with the sword. When he finished and put the blade down, you asked for him to answer the same question. And once you were aware of his condition, you understand everything and both bursted in laughter.

・There were to many incidental encounters with each other you ended up being friends. Sometimes you even went and looked for him deep in the forest, when you found him asleep you'll just sit by his side and read a book or play a bit with the animals surrounding him, usually birds. You cannot understand them, but when he woke up, he will always act as a translator for you.

・He had the opportunity of finding you asleep on the branch of a three or behind a rock, one of those times, curiosity took over him and he couldn't help but start petting you. Starting for your ears and your hair, getting startled when he heard you purring under his hand.

・Most of the time you surprised him at his night patrol, it was cold outside often, so you made a scarf for him. It matched with your tail and it was thick and furry too; your heart almost fell from your chest when you saw the happiness in his eyes. Now, when you were nap buddies, he will take it with him.

・He wanted to teach you something about him too so he used your free time to teach you fencing. Yes, he would usually bring another sword to the forest so you could kill time whenever you were not sleeping, reading or he was not on guard.

・Even Lilia cooked sometimes for Silver, he was aware of your existence. He was happy though about his little boy having a new friend... Well, deep inside himself, he was happy, just awaiting for Silver to know how love felt —in fact, he just wanted his child to go asking for advice.

[luna-rainbow]

meta: implantation for prosthesis

Okay I wrote an entire essay on this and decided no one was going to be interested because it was so technical so I spent hours rewriting it but it turned out to be an essay anyway….

I hope this is helpful for anyone writing fics about Bucky’s time in Hydra cos you really don’t need to think up new torture methods when you consider the medical procedures he had to go through…

The TL;DR version: Bucky's implant doesn't obey the laws of biophysics but neither does Steve's shield; all that matters is they both look cool.

As you can see from this picture, compared to what I referred to in the amputation meta, the amputation level has moved from forearm (transhumeral) to above shoulder (probably forequarter) level.

How was Bucky's arm implanted?

The thing about Bucky's prosthesis and the way it's implanted is we don't have anything close to it in the real world, and there are some practical issues with it.

I dislike anatomy too but we gotta see it to understand, so bear with me.

What's important about this picture? Look at the ball and socket joint. The glenoid cavity i.e. "the socket" is basically a tea plate to the golf “ball” of the humerus - you rock it hard enough and the ball will fall out (e.g. shoulder dislocations). It's held in place by tendons and muscles that are built for mobility rather than durability, which is why rotator cuff tears are so common (and annoyingly debilitating when they do happen). To add to that mobility, the socket is formed by the shoulder blade/scapula, which itself is just a dinner plate sliding across the back of the rib cage, held in place only by a few flaps of muscles. Now look at that flimsy clavicle, then at that tiny point of contact between the clavicle and the sternum - that is the only attachment the shoulder has with the main (axial) skeleton.

What I'm getting at is that the entire human shoulder stays in place by the sheer miracle of opposing tendons and muscles and ligaments. This means at Bucky's level of amputation, all the things that hold the arm onto the body are gone, and just fusing metal components onto what remains is not going to cut it.

But he's still got his pecs, you say. Maybe he's still got his scapula, which means he'll also have his rotator cuffs. Yes, that brings me to the other unrealistic issue about his implant. In real life, we simply don't have the technology to do this - the components we have bond to bone but do not bond to soft tissue, i.e. muscles, fat and skin. Even if you have muscles left you can't attach them in a way that holds the joint on.

Directly attaching metal next to skin, as it appears for Bucky, has its own problems. One of the newest techniques these days is interosseus implants (Source), which inserts a metal shaft into a long bone and attaches the prosthesis at the end. A major drawback is fluid leak and infection because the soft tissue simply does not bond to the metal and form a good seal over/around it, so you essentially have a chronic open wound going all the way through to bone.

In Bucky's case, he doesn't even have any long bones left to even consider this technique. Where are you going to attach an entire arm? The clavicle? The ribs? The flappy scapula? Have you seen how easily these bones snap like legit grannies just have to trip over and they'll crack 8 ribs on the way down.

Of all the ways Bucky was attacked and injured in CACW, this is the one scene that makes me wince every time. That’s what, a 10 meter drop? I know what you’re thinking Bucky - it's gonna look impressive in front of Steve. Well, GOOD F**KING JOB BUCK YOU'VE JUST RIPPED YOUR IMPLANT OUT OF YOUR BONES. On a scale of "freezing yourself in cryo" to "breaking Zemo out of jail" can you STOP being such a self-destructive drama queen for FIVE minutes and—

Okay, but Bucky's arm is canon. Can it theoretically work if we take into account futuristic technology and super soldier serum?

So let's talk about what it needs to achieve: - Very strong attachment to axial skeleton WITHOUT use of muscles/tendons - Full range of motion as a normal human arm - Ability to connect to neural supply (won't go into detail in this post)

Let's pretend the metal-skin interface won't be a major issue because of better skin healing/better materials.

Even with the serum's healing/durability, the implant still needs a stronger attachment than a single clavicle. One (imaginary) possibility is having most of his left ribs and clavicle filled by (not replaced by) implants with attachment sites, to which the metal arm actually attaches. This distributes the loading forces more evenly throughout his thorax. Remember though the weak point is always at connection points, and at high enough impacts something will give, and if it's not his bones it'll be the metal work, and that will still hurt.

That leaves the issue of scapular movements. I just want you to take a moment to appreciate the many directions this bone flap spins in. It’s vital in positioning the shoulder relative to the rib cage, and it’s every anatomy student’s nightmare (or dream, I guess, depending on which end of the spectrum you fall).

Two (imaginary) possibilities: this is built into the prosthesis - ie the scapula is removed and jointed components pull the shoulder across the rib cage - this method means more bone/muscle have to be removed. The second is if they develop technology to attach muscle to metal implant, and I almost don’t want to think about that possibility because the amount of experimentation that would take, the amount of muscle tears and tendon rupture and repeat surgical procedures and pain is just horrific to consider.

CBB reading all that, can you just tell me what it practically means for Bucky?

He would have to: - Undergo multiple revisions to reach his current level of amputation: this could be from unsalvageable implant failures or injuries forcing them to go up higher (amputate more) for attachment points. - Undergo multiple rounds of experimental implant techniques: failures in those early decades are common due to the materials used and the immature techniques. Metal shattering within bone or snapping outside of bone can happen especially at the huge forces he puts the arm through. For perspective, people are advised against running after a hip replacement because that counts as "high impact" ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS BUCKY. - Complications? Pain, infection (painful), bleeding (painful), nerve damage (painful), fractures (painful), implants breaking (painful), rejection of implant material (painful), reaction to sediments produced by crappy implant material (painful). I don't know if you see a common theme or... - After each surgery there will be a necessary healing time (even for a super soldier) where he will be vulnerable while the bone heals.

All of this suggests - and not to minimise what Isaiah was able to do single-handedly - that the early Winter Soldier was not the sleek machine that Steve fought, and was likely far more prone to injury and damage.

And finally, as a heartfelt thank you for getting this far, someone pointed out that Bucky cradles his metal hand for comfort. That itself suggests that despite the amount of pain that he inevitably endured to get a functioning prosthesis - his life was infinitely worse without it.

[mysticmousecat]

I'M BACK!!! kinda

You guys have been so patient, thank you so much! Now I'm not back 100% because I still have a lot I have to do, but I'm going to be trying to be on here more as much as possible! Anyway, since I'm here, I thought I'd release a little sneak peak at what I'm working on right now, it's going to be a super long spooky fun ARG type thing and it's gonna be super fun!! I'm hoping to have some art for it in the future too, but I haven't gotten that far yet, lol. Anyway, let me know what you guys think and hopefully I'll have the first part up and going soon!

Good morning Silent Falls! It’s me, your morning reporter, Julianne Winters, to get you all caught up on this lovely morning! First things first, I would like to extend a hardy congratulations to all of you who survived the night! I know in the recent political climate, staying alive has been rather difficult, what with all of the unauthorized demonic summoning, destabilizations of the void and not to mention the seemingly ravenous appetites of those infamous University Night Class, all to be blamed on that quack— ahem— I mean, mayoral candidate, Sylas Peterson!

Now look at me, getting all worked up, I haven’t even gotten to the news yet. Now, I hope this letter has found you all well, usually my messenger owls are quite astute at making deliveries on time, but a few of them have certainly been getting up there in age, and I’ve started to notice some of these letters getting delivered to the Silent Falls Cavern instead of to our lovely residents. Why the owls would be going to the cavern at all, as opposed to their normal route, is beyond me, but hopefully HR will be getting me some new owls soon, so that problem should be fixed in no time. Anyway! On to the news!

As always, we start with the obituaries, remember, death is inevitable and trying to avoid it is illegal. If you’ve found that you’ve somehow avoided death, please report to City Hall during regular office hours between 12am and 3am. First, we have Gertrude Hanson (76), you all knew Gertrude, right? She lived just outside of town, in that tiny run-down cabin with her 6 cats, that Gertrude. Well, this morning, one of her cats, Hamlet I think it was, stopped by my home this morning, he was ADORABLE! With his black fur, glowing green eyes, demon horns and spiked tail, ugh I just love cats so much! Anyway, after throwing a dead crow at my window to get my attention, the cute little feline jumped right in and proceeded to howl in its native demonic tongue. Now I haven’t studied Demonic Languages since I was in college, but from what I could make out, he said something along the lines of “Gertrude the Witch of the Vale has taken her throne beside the hooded giant” which I can only presume to mean that the lovely Ms. Gertrude is no longer with us, poor dear, she was so friendly, and she made the best apple pie in all of Silent Falls. I paid a visit to her cabin on my way to work this morning and noticed all 6 of her cats were sat in a single file line on the roof, all staring up at the moon and seemingly chanting some sort of mantra in their native tongue as it sank over the horizon, I should drop some tuna off for them this evening on my way home.

[roseverdict]

More Than He Seems

so i stumbled across Shifting Bodies, Shifting Souls by captainbrooklyn aka @skywalkersinflight and was inspired

and by "inspired" i mean "my brain latched onto the idea of slightly-to-the-left-of-human stan getting into hijinks and such and then the inevitable angstfest that happens when he gets ford's postcard" and i immediately started writing fic set in this 'verse because i have no impulse control

warnings: local shapeshifter mullet stan has issues of the "why am i here? who am i? am i really myself?" variety which i'm pretty sure there's an Actual Term™ for but it escapes me at the moment. it mostly manifests in him referring to himself by his full name and only his full name for a while. also a bit of swearing from stan because he's had A Long Series Of Mostly-Canon-Compliant Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Days and isn't retelling it and censoring it for a couple of preteens and a soos.

anyway here's wonderwall the stan twins' reunion

now on ao3

〜〜〜〜〜〜

It had been four years since the person once known as Stanley Pines had come across the probably-not-really-an-old-lady who'd somehow given him the power to become anyone and everyone else.

Or, well, it would be four years in a few months, but he wasn't going to nitpick.

He held his breath as he heard the sound of footsteps receding from his motel room, and as soon as he was sure they were gone, he slipped out of the shape of a child (small, innocent, harder to notice) and back into himself.

There was a postcard below the door.

He frowned, cautiously stepping closer to pick it up. On the back, or maybe the front (he never was quite sure which side was which), there was a photo of some picturesque forest with the stylized words "Gravity Falls" overlaid atop it.

His breath hitched.

He flipped the postcard over-

It was addressed to Stanley Pines.

It was from Ford.

The person who'd received the postcard stared at the hastily-scrawled "PLEASE COME" that took up the entire left side of it.

There wasn't anything else to go off of. Did Ford need him for something? Did Ford get into trouble of his own? Did Ford want to see him? To talk?

Maybe…

…maybe he could afford to be Stanley Pines again, just for his brother.

Just for a few days.

〜〜〜〜〜〜

For those familiar with the events that took place in 1983 in Dimension 46'\, the following days mirrored them almost religiously.

Stanley Pines drove like a bat out of Hell to reach Gravity Falls.

Stanley Pines found himself walking the last leg of his journey in the freezing Oregon winter.

Stanley Pines found his brother a paranoid, twitchy shell of who he'd once been.

Stanley Pines followed his brother into the basement.

When they were in the basement, however, their timeline once again veered away from that of 46'\ with one simple sentence, one which carried a harsher consequence than its 46'\ counterpart.

"Stanley, you don't understand what I'm up against! What I've been through!"

Stanley Pines's blood boiled.

"No, no, you don't understand what I've been through!" He snapped. "I've been to prison in three different countries! I once had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car! You think you've got problems?"

In 46'\, Stanley Pines followed this with the declaration, "I've got a mullet, Stanford!"

In this dimension, he followed it with an angry "I'm not even sure I'm human anymore, Stanford!"

For emphasis, so there could be no mistake that he meant it literally, he let his form flicker, startling Ford and making him go white as a sheet.

He kept going, back to his solid, original self. "Meanwhile, where have you been? Living it up in your fancy house in the woods-!"

"Not human?" Ford's voice came out a venomous hiss.

"Hell if I know!" Stanley Pines held his arms out wide in a mockery of a shrug, viciously wishing he could have real flames come from his eyes, but knowing his ability could only go so far. "Then again, you've been out here living your dream! It's been ten damn years, Stanford, and-!"

Something in Ford's face hardened.

(Stanley Pines hadn't even realized that was possible at this point.)

"I should have known!" Ford snapped. "The real Stanley would never have come, would he?"

That…was not where Stanley Pines had expected this fight to go.

(He clung to his old identity with a new fervor. He hated it more than anyone else ever could, but if there was another creature out there that could take it for their own, if there was another creature that could hurt someone under his name-!)

His thoughts whirled around his skull, but all that managed to come out of his mouth was an eloquent "Whuh?"

Ford grit his teeth and clenched his fists. "Don't play dumb with me, Shifty! You escaped the bunker, intercepted my postcard, and took on my brother's form so you could get me to hand over my journal and the forms therein, but I won't let you escape again!"

Stanley Pines swallowed and held the beat-up journal a little closer. "Okay, um, I feel like we're running on completely different-!"

"GIVE ME BACK MY RESEARCH!"

Ford leapt at him, eyes wild.

Stanley Pines fell to the ground, the journal knocked from his hands. Ford scrambled to grab it, but Stanley Pines tripped him and snatched it up, glancing back at his brother. "Clearly, being cooped up out here has driven you nuts-!"

"GIVE IT BACK!" Ford roared, shoving Stanley Pines into the control room and up against a wall of switches and levers, grappling with him for the journal.

Stanley Pines snarled, "Oh, you want it back, you'll have to try a little harder than that!"

The two fell to the floor, tumbling one over the other until Ford lay on his back and Stanley Pines stood over him, washed out by the flashing red of the control room and unearthly blue of the portal. (When had it turned on?)

"You left me behind, you asshole! It was supposed to be us forever! You ruined my life!" Stanley Pines ground out, stubbornly forcing his tear ducts to vanish so they couldn't betray him.

"You're not even Stanley, and I'll prove it!" Ford shouted, lifting a foot to Stanley Pines's chest and kicking him back into a-!

For one, agonizing second, he only knew pain.

Fire coursed through his veins and lightning lanced through his brain, and his form flickered through countless variations before returning to what it had been. He became dimly aware of a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere nearby. He kind of wished that whoever was screaming would stop, actually. If he wanted to scream, he could do it himself, thank you.

It wasn't until he fell to the ground and the agony centered itself on the back of his shoulder that Stanley Pines came back to himself.

He realized he was the one who'd been screaming.

(If he hadn't been in so much pain, he'd be embarrassed.)

Ford seemed horrified. "W-wait, Stanley?! It really is y-?"

Stanley Pines punched him in the nose.

Ford stumbled back into the portal room and fell against a lever, and as machinery began to clank and whirr, Stanley Pines stormed after him, picking the fallen journal up almost as an afterthought.

"Some brother you turned out to be."

Smoke rose from his shoulder and the acrid smell of burnt flesh and polyester assaulted his nose.

"You care so much about your dumb mysteries that you can't even recognize your family when it's right in front of your face?"

Ford's eyes were impossible to make out with the blinding light of the portal behind him, but if Stanley Pines had to guess, he'd imagine Ford was glaring at him.

"WELL THEN, YOU CAN HAVE 'EM!"

Stanley Pines's hands shoved the journal into Ford's chest-

-and then Ford began to float.

His rage twisted into something different, something he didn't dare identify. "Whoa, whoa, hey, what's going on? Hey, hey, Stanford!"

Ford was floating towards the portal.

He flailed in the air, terror evident in his every movement. "Stanley! Stanley, help me!"

In Dimension 46'\, Stanley Pines would be helpless to do anything but watch.

In this dimension, he glanced around fearfully until catching sight of the nearby lever.

"Stanley, do something!"

An idea sprang to mind.

Stanley Pines had never before needed to make himself look like anything other than another face in the crowd, but if there was any time to change that, it was then.

He gulped and launched his right arm at the lever, stretching and stretching and stretching some more until his hand reached it, six feet away.

Good. He knew it was possible now.

Stanley Pines gripped the lever with everything he had-

-and flung his left hand at Ford's leg!

His arm grew and grew, and he saw Ford's eyes widen in shock, but then his fingers closed around Ford's ankle and he couldn't spare any thought for Ford's mental state.

All that mattered now was fighting the pull.

All that mattered now was getting Ford out of danger.

Stanley Pines screamed from the effort (and his shoulder screamed back at him in protest), but he managed to take one step back, and then another, and another, and then he was stumbling away from the hungry portal, Ford falling on top of him in a tangle of limbs.

The portal roared as it lost power, as though it was a ravenous predator and Stanley Pines had just stolen its prey.

Stanley Pines just heaved for air and painstakingly pulled his arms back to the proper lengths, shakily keeping his burnt shoulder off the ground as best he could.

"Stanley, I…"

"Zip it, Stanford." Stanley Pines snapped, sitting up and trying to get his legs under him. "You've made your point quite clear."

His legs gave out, and he groaned. "Oh, of all the shitty luck-!"

Ford pushed himself upright in the corner of Stanley Pines's vision, and Stanley Pines had to hide a wince at the horror in his brother's face. "Stanley, what happened to you?"

Accepting that his legs were going to make him pay for the stunt he'd just pulled with his arms, Stanley Pines huffed. "Do you want the short version or the long version? Because the short version is that I'm pretty sure I ran into a witch and she took pity on me."

Ford blinked.

No impassioned excitement over the existence of a witch with the ability to turn someone into a shapeshifter. No wide-eyed terror of the thing that had once been his brother. No anger over Stanley Pines meeting a real, honest-to-goodness magic user when Ford was the one who studied the weird and the anomalous. No pity directed at Stanley Pines's casual mention of the person who had apparently changed him into something just to the left of human.

Somehow, the exhausted blink was worse.

"If you want the long version, I'm getting myself some ice first." Stanley Pines grimaced, forcing himself to his feet. "I'm not dealing with this and a third-degree burn."

At that, Ford scrambled to his feet. "The sigil! Oh my gosh, Stanley, I'm so sorry, if I'd realized it was really you, I would've never-!"

"Yeah, well, you did." Stanley Pines snapped, clutching at the shoulder in question. (Was there a sigil burnt into his back now?) "Ice now, words later."

This was how the two found themselves sitting in what was probably Ford's kitchen a few minutes later.

Stanley Pines slumped against the table and let a bag of frozen peas sit against his burn, and for a moment the freezing cold let him breathe properly for the first time since being injured.

Then he shifted in place and rested his chin on his arms, levelling a hard glare at Ford and the notebook in his hands. "So. The long version started on our twenty-fifth birthday…"

〜〜〜〜〜〜

More Than He Seems?

I sent word for the man I intended to take the final journal, but to my surprise, it seems he, too, has come into contact with the supernatural! Or, more accurately, he has BECOME supernatural! (Shukdsv L vkrxogq'w eh vxusulvhg, wr eh iudqn. Zh vhhp wr kdyh edg vkl rgg oxfn lq wkdw uhjdug.)

When he first arrived, I had assumed he was the same selfish man I remembered, but he seems almost broken as he recounts his tale to me: on the night of our his 25th birthday, he was approached by a woman who I've identified as a magickal crone of some kind. Much like in the fairytales of old, she approached him for aid, and when he gave what he could to her, she offered him a boon in return.

(A sketch of a man in a zip-up hoodie, his eyes obscured by shadows. He holds a duffel bag over one shoulder.)

(Kh vdbv vkh dvnhg zkdw kh zdqwhg iru klv eluwkgdb. Kh doohjhgob dqvzhuhg, "Wr eh dqbrqh rwkhu wkdq klpvhoi.")

(9-19-25 26-1-18-8 12-3-7 20-9 3-9-7-2 5-19 5-19-25-2-6-22-16-8-6-19-26? 13'14 17-11-7-5-13-15-11 22-3-1 17-2-18-1 25-17-3 17-13-7-17-17-23 16-10 22-22-21-23 17-25-2-14-24-9.)

His boon revealed itself during an altercation with some of the shady characters he's encountered over the past decade: the ability to shapeshift! Unlike Shifty, he was not born with this ability, nor do his character or genome seem to be changing for the worse as he uses it. He prefers human faces, but for the most part, has stayed in the form that I assume is what he would look like if he hadn't gained this ability.

(A sketch of the man's face, caught in an anguished scream of pain. Three exclamation points float above his head.)

This leads me to my other point. When he came, I was aware of none of this. When I showed him the depths of my folly, he had the audaci countered with folly of his own, revealing his paranormal nature to me.

(A sigil. Specifically, the sigil on the control panel of the portal.)

I took it badly.

(R yizmwvw nb ldm yilgsvi drgs z hrtro nvzmg gl ezklirav fmuirvmwob vmgrgrvh, ufoob yvorvermt srn gl yv zm vhxzkvw Hsrugb! Lm gsv lmv szmw, R zn rnnvzhfizyob tozw gszg sv hfierevw zmw gszg R xzm mld szev hlnvgsrmt hlorw gl zmxsli nbhvou gl ivzorgb, yfg lm gsv lgsvi, sv xlfow hgroo hfxxfny gl rmuvx gsrh rh qfhg zmlgsvi rm nb olmt hgirmt lu nrh R YIZMWVW NB LDM UF dliwh xzmmlg vckivhh sld sliiryov R uvvo.)

In the fight that followed, he was injured, the portal was reactivated, and I was nearly pushed through. It was only the quick thinking of this man that saved me, using one arm to anchor himself and stretching the other to reach my leg and pull me back.

As he tells me his story now, immediately after the fact, (drgs uilavm kvzh lm srh yizmw rm zm vuulig gl ovhhvm gsv kzrm,) I believe I will not record it. Some things are not meant to be saved to the history books, and if the way he keeps skipping over large chunks is any indication, it is as uncomfortable for him to retell as it is for me to hear.

(A sketch of a bag of peas, held closed by a rubber band wrapped around the open end.)

I am going to offer him my spare room. It is the least I can do after harming him so.

(Dqg shukdsv L'p ehlqj d elw vhoilvk lq zdqwlqj wr nhhs vrphrqh forvh iru zkrp L kdyh vrolg hylghqfh L fdq wuxvw…hyhq li L lqiolfwhg wkdw hylghqfh xsrq klp pbvhoi zkhq qrw lq pb uljkw plqg.)

I can only hope he accepts.

〜〜〜〜〜〜

"…and for the past four years, I've been pretty much anybody and everybody that wasn't Stanley Pines." He finished, though he did manage a sardonic laugh. "Fat lot of good it did me. I couldn't bring myself to cut off all contact with Ma, and that's probably how you managed to find me, and now here we are."

"Here we are…" Ford murmured, unable to meet Stanley Pines's eyes as he set the notebook aside.

"So, what's this 'sigil' supposed to do?" Stanley Pines asked, tilting his head against his arms like a tired student falling asleep at his desk. "Considering I'm pretty sure it's gonna be on my back for the rest of time, and all."

Ford cringed, but answered, "It's meant to be a ward against evil supernatural beings. I've…had some run-ins with malevolent tricksters before. One was an alien with a remarkable affinity for shapeshifting similarly to how you can. The other is a triangular demon that can enter one's dreams and make deals. He desires to have a physical form of his own, but is not above possessing others to enact his schemes."

"Okay, but what's it gonna do to me, Science Guy?" Stanley Pines almost rolled his eyes.

"Well, that's the rub." Ford admitted. "We were fighting, so the sigil must have recognized you as an attacker and acted accordingly, incapacitating you while you were in contact with it. At the same time, you…"

Stanley Pines gestured with one hand for Ford to keep going. "I…what?"

"…you saved me from being lost to the portal, so you couldn't have been intending to do lasting harm." Ford breathed, as though the mere idea froze him in place. "The sigil recognized you as not malicious at heart, so while it caused you to halt your attacks, it didn't disintegrate you like it would have if you were truly malevolent!"

"Wait, it woulda what-?!"

"And then it used the less lethal deterrent as a method to imbue itself into you as well!" Ford concluded, walking around to swap out Stanley Pines's wet bag of peas for another, fresh from the freezer. "You ought to be warded against such entities now, yourself!"

Stanley Pines groaned and let his forehead drop to the table with a 'clunk.' "Whoopee. A magic whatsit decided I'm not as big an asshole as I coulda been, so instead of just killing me instantly, it fucking branded me. Is this gonna heal up anytime soon?"

"Unfortunately, it will likely take as long to heal as any mundane burn this bad would." Ford admitted.

Stanley Pines buried his face in the crook of his elbow. "Dammit."

Ford muttered to himself, turning to leave the room. "I'll have to clear out one of the extra rooms, maybe see if the spare mattress is still in relatively okay shape…"

"Wait, what?" Stanley Pines stiffened. "Stanford, you really don't have to-!"

"Perhaps not, but Stanley, I want to." Ford cut him off and sat down across from him. "Were you anyone else, were you free of the sigil now on your back, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be able to afford to trust you. As it stands, you're really you, you really came, you're safe from whatever the demon might use me to do, and you've clearly been through a different sort of Hell than mine over the past ten years."

Stanley Pines lifted his incredulous gaze to his brother's. "I'm sorry, what was that about the demon using you? Can we go back to that?"

"I told you before, I've made mistakes." Ford sighed and intently studied a dark stain on the table. "One of those was extending my trust to a being that didn't deserve it."

Stanley Pines glanced around the house with a new understanding, seeing places where a human body the size of Ford's must have been slammed into stairs and walls where before he'd just seen a mess.

"He possesses you, doesn't he."

It wasn't a question.

"…yes."

Stanley Pines…no, Stan dropped his forehead back into his arms. "Alright. Alright. Guess I'll hang around a bit longer."

It wasn't like he had anything to go back to.

"So, how do you plan on getting this asshole out of your brain?"

[your-ace-cousin-clover]

okay soooo... sorry for the delayed reply, i've been kinda busy!

i gotta start this off by saying how much i loved the way you wrote "[...] that feeling of wanting to reach divinity and holiness with your writing. The raw, exposed nerve of that writing." - it's hard for me to refer to writing as a hobby because it's such a substantial part of me, if that makes sense? or maybe that's just my codependent relationship to writing... whenever i don't write for a while i start feeling like a non-person! (ok, in hindsight this doesn't sound 100% related to the holiness bit, but that's what sparked the train of thought)

on for colored girls who have considered suicide - when the rainbow is enuf: i actually listened to a monologue from this a while ago on youtube, but I'll be sure to check out the full text!

also, on the topic of spoken-word & slam poetry: i'm going to a poetry reading at a friend's place later this month and it's nerve-racking. i mean, hey, of course i bleed into my poetry, and in theory i'm cool with that. but reading it aloud to a room half full of strangers? that's like lying on an operating table, flesh sliced open with surgeons over you. (i'm sure it'll be fun, though)

i've read primer for small weird loves and wishbone (because they're both included in richard siken's book crush - which is definitely worth the money (& btw, he has a new book coming out this year in fall/winter; thought i'd tell you in case you didn't know))! out of the two i like wishbone a lot more - although that's probably just because i relate to it a little bit more. i like making lists so i've compiled some of my favorite parts from the poem:

• "I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons [...]"

• "Let's not talk about it, let's just not talk."

• "[...] we keep doing it Henry, we keep saying until we get it right... [...]"

• "If you love me, Henry, you don't love me in a way I understand."

• "This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish."

it's crazy (well, not really, but you know) that you mentioned jericho brown, because we read something by him in english class a few years back and he's completely slipped my mind since then! so, thanks for reminding me :)

first of all, i love how duplex starts and ends with the same line - and this may be a reach, but it feels sort of like coming home? he introduces us to the line, we go away for a while, then we're back at the beginning. and maybe i just feel this way because for me going home is synonymous with going back home. (not always, but a lot of the time.) also, the contrast of "none of the beaten end up how we began" & the poem ending exactly how it began? i don't have the right words to explain what, but there's something that grabs me in that.

now, let's take a short detour because i feel like dropping some recs. here's two poets whose work i really enjoy: chen chen and jasmine ledesma (who i think is on tumblr, too? @/candiedspit if i'm not wrong). i'd specifically like to recommend (and hopefully hear you opinion on) chen chen's i'm not a religious person but & jasmine ledesma's short stories no candy, sorry and FIEND.

links (just in case the previous ones don't work):

i'm not a religious person but: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58152/im-not-a-religious-person-but

no candy, sorry: https://tinyletter.com/jasmineledesma/letters/no-candy-sorry

FIEND: https://marchharemag.com/fiend

lastly, thanks for the prompt! i'll be sending you the poem in a separate ask (although i'm convinced it only makes sense if you're me) as to not make this one too long haha

-cat

Cat!

Sorry on the delayed reply on my side too. I've been sorta busy with a lot of stuff, but I had to drop in a message.

First of all, the poem? Iconic. It is so well written!!! Ahh! The way you use the numbers to count down all the things in a list sort of a format . And the splendid use of a clock ticking to signify the time coming closer and closer. It reminds of the Doomsday Clock which always reminds us that we are two minutes to complete destruction and in a way it is an inevitable destruction. "I'm one drink away from holiness and I'm not stopping" is such a vivid Ginsberg line that ahhh, it hits with the concept of the Beat Generation being these drunk, high poets who ultimately want to experience divinity through their intoxication and writing. And the ending with, "it's almost Valentine's- please tell your wretched heart I'm sorry." AGHH, the way the narrator tries to stop the inevitability of the sadness of romance?? Or being stuck in a relationship and trying to do better? The interpretations are left wide open and I love that.

[Let me know if you'd be okay with me sharing your poem? And oh, if you like to send me another prompt, I would love that.]

And I wanted to give you some advice on slam poetry performances, I have a bit of an experience with them. The surgical metaphor is indeed apt, there is some vulnerable to stand in front of a group of people to carve out yourself into words and see it take on a meaning for everyone differently. But, revel in that vulnerable state and see how that conveys meaning. Focus on a spot in the room and speak to it and let meaning take its own hold. And remember, even if you don't get the reception you are hoping for, hold onto the meaning that you initially wrote it with. How your poetry affects you in the end is what matters. And good luck! Let me know how it goes.

[I didn't know about the new Siken book. Do you know if it has a name? I'll have to look it up whenever it releases.]

Ahh, and I love the idea of listening favourite lines of poems, I might start doing that with my favourite poems too.

[Also, I know it's in the name, but there's something about the way Wishbone is written that it makes you keep as if you are splintering into bits and dissolving. Especially in the bit where he goes I wish you'd stop reminding about the debt because you can do nothing about it and even if you love me, it is not the way I want.; Please let me go, I cannot let you be in my debt anymore.]

Jericho Brown? Iconic. The cyclical nature of the form as well as it is sort of the same line all the while not being the same line is such a beautiful way to express the repetition, but all how each cycle in a way is different than the last one.

I loved Chen Chen's poem. The way God chooses to escape from his own reality through someone who does not believe enough in him to question him at first it beautiful. And what hits me is how God stops and creates a barrier again by sending the angel as soon as he is questioned in adjacent to his role in the universe. What interests me is how the atheist (I know it does not mention atheism directly, but close enough) is sent an angel and later meet with God, and therefore, the relation that they form is a meaningful bond between two individuals rather than being a power dynamic with the worshipped and the devotee.

There's something about Ledesma's stories about hopelessness in her both protagonists. In the same way, both are extremely tired of their circumstances and want to be somewhere else in perhaps a better versions of their selves. The scattered prose certainly draws it very strongly together.

And finally, to drop a rec of my own, let me know what you think of Ada Limon's "The Problem With Travel" and "Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds." They both are very beautiful poems.

Hope to hear from you soon! :)

[outthefryingpan]

Your writing is amazing ! I'm a sucker for fluff personally,, so if I have to suggest something,, it'd be cuddles. Just cuddling after a long,, busy day. Maybe in Winter,, a specially cold day,, those are the best days for cuddling,, and more so if it's with such a hot (pfft) monster like Grillby ! Just giving ideas,, I'll be happily reading anything you update here next. Have a nice day. :)

Cold Nights

Pairing: Grillby/Reader

Rating: Everyone

Notes: I’m a sucker for that too! I very much enjoy this suggestion, thank you! Send more any time u like :^> This is set on the surface! Most of the pieces I write will be set this way unless stated otherwise.

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You can’t believe how late it is when you finally begin walking home. Pulling your phone out and pressing the home button tells you it’s only a few minutes away from midnight. Your feet ache, and you want nothing more than to just crawl into bed.

Luckily for you, it isn’t a long walk to Grillby’s from where you are, maybe a little over 5 minutes, but you really hadn’t anticipated it being this cold and blustery out. Then again, you didn’t anticipate your boss holding you back as late as she did either, so you use that as your excuse for being jacket-less. In reality, it probably wouldn’t have been much warmer out even if you did leave on time, but you’re just going to ignore that. You unceremoniously shove your phone back into your pocket and quicken your pace, holding your hands together in an attempt to conserve some of your already waning warmth. 

In hopes of distraction, you let your mind begin to wander. Initially your prerogative is “think warm thoughts”, but of course that only leads you to thinking of Grillby. It’s inevitable. He’s the warmest thing you can think of.

You think back to when he first opened up his bar on the surface, and how he would stay open all night, every night. The new influx of customers quickly overwhelmed him, and so he changed his hours to accommodate a new goal of his, one he’d adopted upon reaching the surface. He called it the, “not work myself to death” rule. You, nothing more than a new friend at the time, had laughed at that. It was one of the first jokes he’d made around you. You laugh again now, thinking about how horrible a job he’s done in sticking to his goal. Maybe it’s just unrealistic for him, you muse.

No, that isn’t fair. He drastically changed his hours when he first got here. Underground, he’d been open every day from noon to 3AM. How he’d managed a 15 hour work day every single day all by himself was absolutely beyond you, but he told you that down there, he really didn’t have much else to do. 

In a more private setting, after the two of you had grown closer, he confessed that when he lived underground, he felt a sense of obligation to be open as often as possible, to act as a sort of home base for those monsters who were struggling, or just needed someone to help stave off their loneliness. 

Here on the surface, things are better! But they’re a lot different too, a lot busier. And so, with some kind pushing from his friends, he had ultimately decided not only to tighten his hours, but to hire some help as well.

You consider that to be the start of a deeper relationship blossoming between the two of you. You had offered to wash dishes and help with cleanup, and he gratefully accepted. You started talking more, spending more time together, and... The rest is history, you suppose. 

Now, he takes Sundays off, and closes at 10PM on Mondays. His daily hours are still pretty packed, but he has more servers and kitchen staff to help out with them. 

Suddenly, you blink in surprise at yourself as that reminds you of something.

Today’s Monday! That means he should have closed a while ago! 

You sent him a text earlier when you found out you would be late home and told him not to worry, but you totally forgot that it was possible for you to end up working later than him. That is a rare occurrence. 

Well then! 

You become excited at your findings, but quickly realize they mean that he may be sleeping. Rats... You need to be quiet coming in, then.

A chatter sounds in your skull just as the bar comes into view. It isn’t quite snowing out, but the biting, billowing wind is strong enough to drain most of the heat from you. Your fingers feel numb as they blindly wiggle around in your pocket, looking for your keys even though you’re still a little ways away from the front door. By the time you reach it, you’re putting in a pretty significant amount of effort to minimize your shivering and get it unlocked. It’s situations like these that make you thankful to only have a few separate keys to keep track of on your key ring.

The door itself is pretty new, but still creaks lightly as you push it open. Then, you almost lose your grip on the knob when a particularly strong gust of wind shoves you in through the front door. You stumble forward. 

Startled as you are, it doesn’t take you long to recover, close the door firmly behind you, and lock it with a huff. You’re just glad no one is around to have seen your little blunder. Hand still on the door, you sigh out your relief. Grillby would definitely be alerted by the door swinging open and slamming into the wall. He’d be alerted if you face-planted into the hardwood flooring, too. 

After taking a moment to smooth yourself out and appreciate the internal temperature of the bar, you glance around the dark room. As you expected, tables and chairs are neat, lights are off, and not a speck of dust can be seen. Sometimes you wonder if Grillby gets off on extreme cleaning. You snicker quietly to yourself.

The rise in temperature is great compared to the freezing nightmare you’d endured outside, but it isn’t anywhere near enough to stop your shivering. So you beeline for the staircase that leads to Grillby’s apartment- or more accurately, your ticket to comfort. It’s a little hard to see, and you nearly trip once on the way up, but the reward you’re met with upon entering is well worth it.

Instantly, you’re flushed with a wave of warmth.

Grillby sits on the couch in the living room that faces the door, knuckle pressed to the side of his mouth and book in hand. Your entrance alerts him, and his head turns up so his eyes can meet yours. They look tired. Yours do too.

He can see you shivering still, and it makes him frown. However, the beginning of a small smile finds its way onto his face when he lifts a hand and waves you over. Both of you know what comes next. You step toward him eagerly. 

Without a word spoken between the two of you, he places the thick, old looking novel down on the table in front of him, and opens himself up to you. Rather than sitting next to him like he had expected, you opt for plopping down directly in his lap, arms around his shoulders and legs on either side of him. He lets out a surprised grunt, but it quickly dissolves into a chuckle as his arms find their way around your midsection. You relish in the warmth they offer.

“You’re cold.” He starts.

“You’re warm.” You reply, though it’s muffled by the fabric of his thin shirt. He hears you despite this, and a fiery brow quirks up. 

“Aren’t I always?” Grillby asks. You can hear the teasing smile in his voice, but nod against him regardless. Thanks to him, you can feel your shivers mostly subside.

“Yea, but I especially appreciate it when it’s freezing out.” Comes your voice once more. Sighing, you feel his arm begin to rub slowly up and down your back, a soothing, sweeping motion that transfers his heat to you even faster. Suddenly comfortable, you’re reminded of how totally exhausted you are.

“I always tell you to bring a coat.” He tries for a chastising tone, but can’t help that it comes out as soft as it does. His voice is just a mumble now, reaching your ears easily despite its low volume. This is in part because he’s taken the liberty of placing his cheek against your head.

“Heh..Yeah...” You concede, burrowing your face further into him. It’s a long moment before you speak again. “I didn’t think you’d be up. Aren’t you tired?” At this question you look up at him as much as your current position will allow, cheek still smooshed into his shoulder.

His response is low, and doesn’t come immediately, which kind of gives you an answer in itself: Yes.

“Mm... I am..” He confirms your suspicion. A little more quietly, he continues. “But you were still out, and...” The elemental’s head lazily tilts, and the flames constantly spiraling off of it follow the movement. You catch him glance out the window. As if wanting to help illustrate his point, another forceful gust of wind rattles it just slightly.

A little guilt twists your stomach. He always worries, and you should have known he would be waiting. You should’ve fought harder to leave on time. You expect he’s going to finish the thought, but you already know where he’s headed, so you preempt him.

“You didn’t need to wait up for me...” You say softly. 

The response you get is hushed, but still quite matter-of-fact.

“I did. I wanted to. ...I like going to bed with you.” His tone is so simple, so casual, so... sweet. He’s just speaking honestly, yet it affects you so much. The guilt you feel morphs into adoration, and the feeling makes you grin. You’re sure he can feel it against him, but duck your head back down anyway.

“OK.” Your voice is muffled once more. But the smile in it is audible. A short, breathy hum escapes him, the sound like a sleepy little laugh.

The two of you stay like that for a few minutes, wrapped up in each other. The calm rise and fall of his chest slows further, and the surrounding blanket of his warmth cradles you softly. 

You don’t want to, but you eventually have to turn your face to the side. As comfy as he is, it’s a little hard to breathe that way. This movement seems to take him a bit off guard, and rouses him from a drowsiness he’d almost let get the better of him. You feel and hear the deep breath he sucks in as he shifts, bringing himself back off the brink of sleep. He props himself back up against the couch, holding you still as he does. You let out a large yawn, and gently pat his back.

“OK...Time for bed?” You ask quietly. In his sleep-addled state, he can only nod. Without another word, arms around your middle become hands on your waist, and he lifts you off of him and gently places you on the cushion next to him. Slowly he stands, stretching. His flames crackle and pop with the action, and once he’s satisfied he lets out the breath he’d been holding and turns to you with a bright orange hand extended.

For a moment, you consider asking him to carry you. You’re exhausted! But another look at his slightly lopsided posture and barely open eyes reminds you he’s right there with you. So you make do with just grabbing his hand and using it to help pull yourself up. Once you’re on your feet, you two begin a slow stroll to your shared bedroom, and step inside. 

The blinds are drawn, so the only light permeating the darkness you stumble around in to change is Grillby himself. You end up in just your underwear and a big T shirt. Following your lead, he removes his own top and bottoms, leaving himself only in his briefs. 

It’s only about 45 seconds after you enter the room that both of you are crashing into bed. You simply let yourself fall face first. He as usual is a little more graceful about things, gently lifting the covers for himself, and helping you work your way under them too. Your tired body sings in relief as you sink into the mattress, your back to the flaming monster beside you.

Unsatisfied with this, you fight the sleep off for a little longer to wiggle a bit. A questioning hum leaves him, and by the sound of it, he’s working pretty hard to stay awake too. You turn under the covers, trying not to muss them too much and he seems to get the idea. Warm hands land on your sides again as he helps you turn toward him, eager to pull you closer. 

It’s a little brighter when you face him, but that’s never bothered you. Especially not when you’re this worn out. He sighs happily at this change, and his arms circle tightly around you, a hand finding the back of your head and threading itself through your hair. 

His digits comb against your scalp ever so gently, drawing a pleased hum from your closed lips. Not many people know (because how could they? He certainly isn’t going around talking about it), but Grillby is quite a physical being. He had some old hang ups that made it hard for him to embrace that about himself at first, and is polite and accommodating to a fault sometimes, but once you’d made him comfortable enough he gave in to his desire to hold you more often, and hold you closely. 

Once again, you thank the fucking stars for that. Especially on nights like these. Gone is any trace of the icy chill that consumed you earlier. 

Without missing a beat, you place your own hands on his broad back, now giving him the same treatment you had received earlier. He’s larger than you, as most monsters tend to be, but it doesn’t hinder your efforts to gently rub your arm up and down along his spine, fingers only deftly making contact. The hand not doing this splays out across his shoulder blade, then creeps up to rest on the point where his shoulder meets his neck. It wouldn’t be long now for either of you. Your eyelids close, but he looks down at your calm form for a little longer. 

A murmured utterance of your name grips the last inklings of your attention. Your eyes slowly drag themselves open again, and a drowsy, “Hmn..?” escapes you. His voice is almost a whisper when he speaks, leaning down so his mouth is closer to your head.

“I love you...” Grillby breathes out. You smile, and lightly kiss whatever of his skin is closest to your lips. That turns out to be a spot on his chest, right under his collar. There’s a small smooching sound as you pull back.

“...Love you too.” You exhale against him. With the last of his effort, he throws a leg over yours, crooking it to bring you closer still, and fully embrace you.

Those are the last words spoken that night. All that follows is the dull crackling of flames and the soft sound of breathing as you both allow your bodies the rest they’ve been aching for.

[animebaby00]

I Don't Deserve It: Chapter 3 (FINAL)

When Shoto gets a nasty stomach bug, Izuku stops at nothing to take care of him.

But Shoto can't help but wonder why ?

(Link to Chapter 1): ⬇️

(Link to Chapter 2): ⬇️

The few times Shoto had forgotten to brush his teeth before bed had left him with an absolutely disgusting taste in his mouth the next morning.

However, that taste was NOTHING in comparison to the absolutely sickening, bitter, revolting, acidic flavor that coated his tongue once he woke up.

He pursed his lips sourly, positive that even the flavor of actual vomit coming up wasn't as bad as this. It was almost at the point of making him feel nauseous all over again, but with nothing in his stomach, it was just a mild queasiness.

He harshly blinked his eyes, taking note of the yellowish gleam in the room. It still must have been day time,but later afternoon due to the position of the shadows casted along the wall.

How long had he been asleep?

He sat up slightly, decently warm due to the blankets covering his form, but he wasn't overly hot, nor suffering from chills. He actually felt...better. Well, better than this morning at least.

But he still ached to rid his mouth of the bitter after tastes from earlier.

Shoto heaved himself up more, relieved that his body didn't act against him like it did several times before, and he was actually able to sit up without much protest. However, right when he did, the click of a door sounded in his ear and he caught sight of Midoriya reentering his room, a large, brown tray balanced on his arm.

This whole entire situation was turning into one of deja vu.

Midoriya made it about halfway into his room before he noticed Shoto's wakened presence, his eyes immediately perking up with a gleam of happiness once he did.

"Ah, Todoroki. You're awake." He said, a soft smile gracing his lips.

Shoto nodded, "Y-yeah." He looked back at the curtained window, " How uh...how long was I out?"

"About 4 hours. I was going to wake you up when I came back in here but I guess I won't need to," sock covered feet padded over to the bed and he leaned down to set the tray on the bed's edge, keeping his gaze upward as he did so, "How are you feeling ?"

Shoto's eyes widened a bit.

Such a simple question to answer, but to him, it felt highly difficult.

He knew it was just a simple inquiry about his wellbeing...but it was rare that he had ever been asked "how he was feeling".

He could say that he felt 100% better, say that he could leave Midoriya be and apologize for the unnecessary trouble. However, as proven from earlier, Midoriya was highly analytical (about the most odd things he may add) so he knew that if he tried to lie, the boy would no doubt be able to deduct it. It wasn't a complete lie though. He did feel better but-

"Not...too bad" he answered, noticing that even his voice sounded better, and he was deeply relieved by that "Not as bad as before."

Midoriya grinned "I'm happy to hear that !"

Shoto was a bit puzzled by the boy's eagerness, but that feeling completely diminished once he noticed Midoriya moving closer to him. His hand was slowly raising up, and in no time, it found a place against the skin of his forehead.

He froze in his place

"Well, you definitely look better." Midoriya concluded, "And your fever came down. I think you just caught that 24 hour stomach bug that's been going around."

Shoto blinked, "Stomach bug ?"

The freckled boy nodded, "Mmhm. I guess we've been so busy with our hero work and school that we didn't really notice it. But it doesn't last long." He pulled his hand away, "You should feel better by tomorrow, but make sure you take it easy."

Shoto watched as Midoriya reached over to grab a water bottle from the tray at the end of the bed, "Here, you should probably drink something after getting so sick. Don't need you getting dehydrated, but make sure you drink it slow. Are you still feeling nauseous at all ? Or dizzy? I brought some medicine if you are."

Shoto put a hand to his stomach, feeling slightly uneasy in answering.

He stayed silent, and a frown immediately crossed over onto Midoriya's face.

"Todoroki ? Are you okay ?" He asked frantically, tossing the water bottle to the side,"Are you feeling sick again ? Do you need the-"

"Why are you doing this?"

The question seemed to linger in the air. It was quiet for several seconds as Midoriya's face fell completely blank.

He slowly sat back down.

"What do you mean?"

Shoto looked down at his lap, "You know," he mumbled, gesturing to himself, the bed, and the tray at his feet, "All of this. Bringing me to your room, cleaning up the mess I made,the cold rag, bringing me water and medicine…"

"Helping me." He thought, but didn't say. Damn it, he really was pathetic. Just picturing what his father would say to him right now sent a flood of pitiful thoughts through his brain.

He was no better than a starving mutt scrapping up food from a trash can outside of a restaurant. A rotting, shriveled up tree in the cold depths of winter.

A piece of work. A nuisance. A waste of time.

A pathetic excuse of a human being, let alone a hero.

"Well that's obvious," Midoriya's chipper voice sounded, no ounce of remorse in sight, "Because you're my friend."

Shoto inwardly grimaced.

Friend.

The oh so Midoriya-like response that he knew deep down was coming.

But even so…it just wasn't right.

He slowly shook his head, fingers rising up to rub at his sore temples "God I can't believe this…"

"Huh?"

A sigh left his lips and he directed his bi-colored gaze to rest on Midoriya's deep, confused, green irises, his next words heavy on his tongue.

"I'm...I'm sorry Midoriya."

The freckled boy blinked, eyebrows furrowing at his sick friend, noticing how his presence seemed to suddenly freeze over them in a bitter chill.

What?

"Sorry?" he asked, his tone light and wavering in disbelief "Why are you sorry?"

Shoto pressed his lips into a thin line, his head tilting downwards, bangs covering his eyes. Slowly, he turned his head to the side, seemingly in an attempt to avoid Midoriya's perplexed stare…and the topic of explanation.

He looked so...dismal. Or maybe, upset? Disappointed? Honestly, Midoriya wasn't sure.

He actually wasn't sure about a lot of things in concern of Shoto today.

Everyone gets sick. That's inevitable. But Shoto seemed so completely and utterly...bludgeoned by it, that it had made Midoriya very concerned.

Shoto had to have not felt 100% that morning, considering how badly he had thrown up. He had hidden it well even though Midoriya could have sworn that his complexion did look a little green. But then, things continued to take their turns.

He hadn't mentioned feeling sick at all during their time in the bathroom, kept brushing off that he was fine. He had tried to avoid Midoriya's help and care, tried getting up and leaving when he very well wasn't capable of doing so.

And now, here he was, looking down at the bed, fiddling with his fingers like some child who had just stolen some cookies out of a cookie jar, apologizing for something that no other person ever would.

But why?

Why did he seem so regretful, so beaten down, so depressed?

Midoriya began to gain a bit of realization

He had seen that face before, at least ones similar to it. At their battle during the sports festival, in the hospital after beating Stain, those tiny increments he would encounter his father or talk about his mother.

Others wouldn't be able to see it, but Midoriya could. That look…

...was a look of guilt.

It was then that he understood. Maybe not Shoto's exact position, as no one could possibly understand what he'd been through completely. Midoriya knew he probably never would, but he was going to try his hardest to make Shoto understand HIS position, even if it was just a little.

"Hey, Todoroki." He tried, scooting closer to the male's side whilst looking down at the bed as well, , "You know...I actually used to not like asking for help either."

Midoriya ghosted his gaze upward for just a moment , and caught a twinge of movement from Shoto out of the corner of his eye. At least he got a reaction and confirmation that he was listening.

He picked at the blanket below him with his fingers, "I'm sure you already know this," he said softly, "But it was pretty much just me and my mom growing up. With my dad not in the picture, she was the one who always took care of me. She worked quite a few jobs a week at cafes and stores to keep up with expenses while also looking out for my well being at the same time. "

The soft smile on his lips faded some as he continued.

"I would usually stay at Kacchan's house after school when she couldn't pick me up, sometimes I would even spend the night or fall asleep on the sofa because she would get back so late. And when that wasn't an option, I would go to the office and do homework until she was able to come get me, but I never truly realized just how hard she pushed herself until I got older."

Izuku stood up and walked over his dresser, hand reaching out to pick up a framed photo of him and his mother, finger smoothing over the glassened face.

"She always had weekends off with me which made me happy. We would watch movies, play hero, go to All Might's autograph signings, and we'd always have so much fun...but I would begin to notice how she would doze off halfway through a movie, how sometimes she wouldn't lift me up as high, or how sometimes she would walk slower than normal. I never noticed...how tired she was. How worn out working so many different shifts made her, and on top of it she had to take care of me. It made me feel...guilty."

He set the photo down and turned back around, now finding Shoto's bi-colored gaze completely on him, focused and set, like he was mentally relating to what Midoriya was saying.

"Once middle school started, I decided to try doing more things for myself. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, doing my homework by myself, and other things. At first, it was easy, but then I found my time was slipping away because of my studies and my hero research. Sometimes I would go a day without eating, other times I wouldn't have time to study for a test and my scores weren't the best. I had to keep reminding myself that sometimes my mom had it way worse than me, and so I kept doing what I was doing. But I always found it strange how she would ask me if I was okay or if I needed help when she was the one working 3 jobs while also taking care of a kid."

Shoto parted his lips to speak, his inquisitive words just barely above a whisper.

"W-what did you do?"

Midoriya sighed before his lips curled up into a sympathetic, knowing smile "Denied it. Told her I was fine and that nothing was wrong."

Shoto looked down at the bed, "Oh…"

"But of course, schemes, whether good or bad, have to come to an end somehow. And that happened to me in one of the worst ways possible."

"How?"

Midoriya chuckled sheepishly,"I brought home my first test...with an F."

Now that was something. Midoriya had the 5th highest grade level in their class so he was no doubt a good student. To say Shoto was shocked was an understatement.

"Naturally, this caught my Mom's attention, and soon as I got home she set me down to talk. I knew then and there that I had to tell her what was going on and that I would only make it worse if I tried to hide anything so I told her everything from start to finish. I told her I felt bad for her and that I always worried that she was working too hard. I explained absolutely everything, but in the end, instead of her being mad, she did something that I'd always remember for the rest of my life. She took my hand and said 'Izuku, I want you to understand that no matter what, you can always come to me if you need something. No matter how tired I am, no matter what time it is, I'll always be here. It's my job to look after you. We can't do everything by ourselves, we can't be who we want to be without others. Help is a life necessity and everyone needs it sooner or later, even if they don't think they need it or deserve it. Asking for it and accepting it isn't a weakness…'"

Midoriya trailed off for a moment to walk back over to his bed to sit, and gently placed a hand over Shoto's folded ones, tone warm and reassuring.

"In fact...it's one of the greatest strengths a person can have.'"

Something clicked then. Midoriya's words...he wasn't sure why but they ignited something. A feeling that he couldn't pinpoint.

It took so much in the past for him to be convinced that help or assistance was a sign of weakness. All of the stern lectures, orders and put downs that he could be better. The never ending struggles that he conquered by himself and only by himself because that's what he was taught to do.

It was all changed by a simple story from a person he hadn't even known for a year.

"And you know," Midoriya added, "If a hero is sick, then they can't perform at their best for other people, so the best thing for you, whether you like it or not, is rest."

"Yeah." he sighed, "Your right. I...can actually see that now. I guess my old ways got to me. I'm just not used to this," he shifted in place, "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Midoriya said with a smile, "I'm your friend. I'm happy to help."

He grabbed the water bottle for the second time, "Here, I imagine the taste you have in your mouth right now isn't too pleasant."

Shoto breathed a light chuckle and put the rim of the bottle up to his lips, "You have no idea." He took a few sips, relishing in how nice the coolness of the water felt in his parched mouth and dry throat.

"I've been sick plenty of times before so I have an idea. Now," Midoriya stood, "Do you maybe want to try eating something? Some crackers or some toast maybe ? You should probably try and keep your strength up."

"Yeah...crackers are okay. I'm not as nauseous as I was earlier so I think I can stomach it."

"Great ! I'll be right back then. Call if you need anything else, okay?"

"...Sure."

Midoriya turned to head out of the bedroom, hand reaching out to grab the handle of the door.

"Midoriya ?"

He paused his movements and turned his head.

"Yes, Todoroki?"

And then he saw it. That oh so, rare, genuine little smile that seemed to brighten up the whole room.

"Thank you."

Two simple words, but to Midoriya, they meant a million.

[segafan37]

Shadamy Snippet: Emergency Meeting Pt. 1

Author's Note:

This Shadamy snippet used to be a Teaser Snippet for Chapter 6. I wasn't planning for it to be part of the story at all. It was just a old deleted scene that I wanted to share to give you, the audience, a broad idea about the upcoming chapter. However, after my sister read the teaser, she insisted that it be apart of the story. So, after some tweaks, the former Teaser Snippet is now apart of Chapter 6!

I hope you enjoy it! 😁 Art by @drawloverlala

Inside Dodon Pa's Mansion

[Normal p.o.v.]

After Metal and Rouge parted ways to look for Devious, Rouge started wandering through the different crowded rooms and corridors of the mansion. There were four levels to the mansion and Rouge was currently on the main floor. Metal ventured to levels 3 and 4, leaving Rouge to explore the others.

King Donda Pa was never one who lacked in abundance and his mansions were likewise. Each one was styled to attribute the environment that surrounded them, and the one Rouge was in was no different.

The mansion was large and fanciful, displaying the breath of winter. The hallways were long and wide and painted a calm blue. Tall windows filled the rooms and corridors showcasing the fierce blizzards outside. 

The halls were decorated with broad tapestries of cream and royal blue, and the floor was polished marble. The rooms were equally vast with crystal chandilers, honed marble floors and many assortment of decor to accent the rooms.

Rouge scanned the multitude of faces as she made her way throughout the main floor. Everywhere Rouge went she was surrounded by Mobians, both good and bad. Everyone seemed cordial enough, but the bat knew better. She could just feel the tension in the air. 

Rogue would have been lying to herself if she said this whole affair wasn't the least bit unsettling. It was just a matter of time before something or someone causes the inevitable. 

 It took a whole hour, but she had finally explored all of the main floor. Rouge still hadn't found her man though. It was time for her to switch tactics.

Just then her communicator picked up a male voice.

"We can't celebrate yet. We still need Rouge to do her part." 

It was the voice of Slinger the Ocelot.

"Don't you worry your pretty head about me, Ocelot." Rouge cooed, "I'm already in the mansion, and I've got to say, this mysterious dealer knows how to put on a party! I'm surprised that Dodon Pa even allowed this event! But seeing that he never takes sides...I guess it's not too surprising."

"Hey Rouge!" a female voice squealed through her eyepiece. 

Rouge immediately smiled. It was Salkia, her sweet little student. Well, she wasn't little anymore, but Rouge couldn't get the cute little 10 year old out of her head, who wanted to learn how to kick but. 

"If any of the food looks good, save me some! Okay!?" Salkia asked.

"Will do, honey!"

Slinger gave out a groan.

"Just stay focused, alright!"

Rouge rolled her eyes. She could tell he was in one of his moods again.

"Relax, Slinger. No need to get snippy!" she said.

"Yeah! We all know you're jealous!" Salkia added. 

"Mm hmm!" Rouge smiled.

Slinger released another groan, which made Salkia giggle. She knew she shouldn't be teasing Slinger when he's like this, but he's been acting like a big grump the whole day. And she was tired of it! 

Salkia and Rouge continued to pester Slinger with their giggles, until he finally spoke.

"That's not the reason why!" Slinger argued.

This made Rouge and Salkia both fall silent. They knew what he was talking about. [Author: Chapter 4 reference] No one spoke for sometime.

Rouge sighed and decided to change the subject and break the awkward silence.

"By the way, what do you mean by 'Rouge needs to do her part'? You two are the ones assigned to get the package! I'm just here in case there's a slip-up."

"And to secure our escape route!" Slinger emphasized.

"Which I already have covered!" Rouge insisted, "Now you stay focused on your job, while I stay on mine."

Slinger sighed. "Fine. We'll contact you when the package is secured."

Rouge's communicator went silent and she continued to make her way through the crowd, as different fragments of conversations caught her ears. 

"I wonder what makes this relic so powerful?" asked a female.

"Whatever it is I bet it's worth a fortune!" another spoke.

"Everyone's assuming that this relic has power, but for all we know, it could be a hunk of junk!"

"Well, if that were true, then Dodon Pa wouldn't have allowed this event to take place in his mansion in the first place."

Well, would you look at that!, Rouge laughed to herself. It seems everyone's here to get their hands on the relic. Huh! Too bad none of them will have a chance to see it!  

"What I really want to know" a male's voice began, grabbing her attention, "is who this mysterious dealer is? He clearly doesn't care who gets the relic as long as he's getting paid. And I for one, don't trust those kinds of people. If I'm going to get that relic, I need to first know who I'm dealing with." 

"Smart guy." Rouge whispered, as she approached the stairs to the second floor. 

"Okay Rouge, enough eavesdropping. You got a Mobian to find." 

Once atop the second floor, she looked about and immediately identified this level as the party floor. The music was louder here and gambling tables, slot vendors, pool tables and the like were scattered throughout the joining rooms. Rouge felt like she had walked into a casino.

Rouge peered over the corridor's open railing, and took one last look at the faces below, trying to find the one Mobian who would know how to pinpoint Devious. But she had no such luck. Rouge sighed. She knew it was a long shot. This guy was wanted after all, but Rouge couldn't ignore her strong hunch that he'd be here. 

Rouge gritted her teeth in frustration.

Where is he!?

Time was of the essence. She and Metal only had a limited amount of time to locate Devious, before Salkia and Slinger collected the relic. If her sources were correct, the best and only person who could find Devious quickly would be his favorite broker.

Rouge looked over the crowd again, but she still couldn't spot her man.

That cat could be hiding anywhere! I better check in with Metal to see how he's doing.

"Metal, honey? This is Rouge. Do you copy?"

There was no answer. 

"Metal, come in! This is Rouge. Did you find anything?"

Still silence. Rouge was about to try again, when a deep sinister voice startled her from behind. 

"Looking for someone in particular, my dear?"

Rouge spun around to come face to face with the infamous psychic magician Mammoth Mongul. 

His large tan trunk was almost touching her nose. Rouge could smell thick expensive cologne and winsted.

It was never easy to frazzle this bat; she has faced many dangers before, all without hesitation. Some, even close to death, but Rouge also knows when she's met her match. 

The hairy elephant towered over the bat, making her appear small and insignificant. Mongul's dark green orbs pierced through Rouge's teal eyes, paralyzed her. She remained in his gaze for ten full seconds.

A small smile slowly crept on the mammoth's face. Was Rouge terrified? Yes. Did she want to scream and fly away to safety? Yes. Was she going to show it? Not on her life!

The Bat released herself from Mongul's spell; eyes sparkling with defiance, as she matched the beast's smile with her own.

"I'm surprised at you, Mongul!" Rouge scolded, "You of all people should know not to be here! It could be dangerous for you." 

Mongul smiled at the bat's attempted threat, and decided to give one of his own.

"My dear, Rouge. I appreciate your concern but I can assure you that I am not the one who is in the least bit of danger."

"Is that so?" Rouge questioned, trying to sound unaffected by his words, "Well, even still! I would think you would send one of your mindless followers to get the relic for you to save you the trouble."

"Don't be so quick to judge, bat. I have sent one of my men to take care of the relic. I'm here for a different reason, and being here is no trouble at all."

Rouge raised a painted brow, "Oh?" 

"Yes. Just like you, I'm looking for someone, a colleague of mine." Mongul leaned down to bring his face closer to Rouge's ear. "And perhaps", he whispered "my colleague is the same pink cat dealer you're looking for." 

Rouge took a step back. 

How does he know about Locky!? 

Rouge swallowed, as her heart raced.

"I'm sorry, who?"

"No need to hide it, Rouge! Someone of your acquaintance told me all about it."

Rouge gasped.

Oh no, Metal! 

"No need to worry about your robot friend, my dear; he's perfectly safe. But I know he'll appreciate your concern." 

As he said this, Mongul's eyes met Rouge's and his distinct facial features began to pixelate before her. It was just for a brief moment, but Rouge could clearly see the face of her comrade. 

"..."

"..."

"Metal, …" Rouge whispered, "I'm gonna knock your bolts right out of you! And turn you into scrap!"

Metal Sonic quickly returned to his cloned form and moved out the way, before a slap could be delivered to his face. Some guests saw the scene and were shocked at Rouge's bravery.

"Why so anger?..." Metal Sonic questioned. His voice was just above a whisper. "Did I scare you?"

"Shut. Up." Rouge growled.

"Okay, okay! I just came down to tell you some news." Metal rose to his full cloned height and peered down at Rouge.

"Then start talking!"

"Not here." Metal instructed, still holding Mongul's deep voice. "Follow me."

Metal brought Rouge to a quiet room somewhere on the second floor. It wasn't like the ballroom, like the other rooms Rouge been in. This was a study. It was large in comparison to most studies, but it was still a study, none the less. 

Once both were safely inside with the door locked, Rouge turned to Metal.

"Now, talk!"

"Why are you still angry?" Metal still was using Mongul's voice. 

"Metal, stop with the cloning for one second and talk to me!"

Metal sighed, and returned back to his normal self. Rouge let out a small breath she didn't realize she was holding. Rouge folded her arms, waiting to hear her comrade's message.

"I was surprised at how many Mobians came to Dodon Pa's Mansion." Metal said simply." 

"That's what you wanted to tell me!?" Rouge screamed.

"Rouge, if you do not wish for us to be discovered in a restricted area, I suggest you lower the volume of your voice." 

"I'll start lowering my voice, when you stop messing around! Now, tell me why you brought me here!?"

There was a silence in the air, as each stared at the other.

"I found him." Metal calmly spoke.

"What?"

"I found him." Metal repeated, "I found Locky."

.

.

.

Exsert from Shadamy fanfic "12 Years Later: A New Dawn". You can read the rest of this chapter and more on Wattpad, DeviantArt, Quotev, or Webnovel.

[script-a-world]

Clearly there are some settings which make no sense scientifically. But how do I decide when to intentionally ignore reality, can't bother to do research, don't understand research, and thus create scientifically impossible places? When are such things considered be offensive or overused cliche or have a reader point out the impossibility and can't get into the story? I'm guessing some of this might be structural issues instead of world building?

Tex: One of the perils of attempting to write about highly technical subjects is that you run into the issue of not understanding your writing. I do raise a nominal objection as your first sentence, because sensibility is a sliding scale based on one’s familiarity with a given subject. I don’t know crap about, say, textile art (however much I might have bluffed readers in the past - no, no, this is just good googling skills on my end), but that doesn’t mean the textile arts are an inherently incomprehensible subject.

Scientifically, automobiles were once thought to be insensible. Scientifically, phones were thought to be a flight of fancy. Scientifically, 3D printing was improbable. Scientifically, quantum computing was the stuff of sci-fi nerds who just wanted to slap the “quantum” label on everything.

And yet we are now on the verge of robotic vehicles, mostly functional smartwatches, laser printing cells (PDF), and quantum computers (VentureBeat, IBM).

So I would argue that the insensibility of a setting would be due mostly to, yes, a structural issue - on the part of the author. No matter what you put into your world, internal consistency is key; nothing, no matter how ostensibly outlandish, will make sense if you contradict yourself.

I’ll volley a few questions back to you:

“[...] when to intentionally ignore reality” - Are you ignoring reality entirely, or just parts of it? Why? How does that decision benefit your world? How does it detract from your world?

“Can’t bother to do research” - Is it because you are discouraged by the breadth of your comprehension of a subject, compared to the subject’s depth? Or is it because of something else?

“Don’t understand research” - Is this because you don’t understand the academic papers that turn up in your search results, or because you have a fundamental lack of or misunderstanding of the given subject? Or is it because of something else?

“When are such things considered to be offensive or overused cliche” - As someone who intentionally arranges their studying around the plausibilities of the future, I would quite frankly be delighted to see more conceptual stretches of the imagination in this regard, as do many others on this blog, and beyond it. Why have you already passed judgement on the offensiveness or clichéd-ness of incorporating scientific things? Is this related to your other comments?

“[...] or have a reader point out the impossibility and can’t get into the story?” - If you are writing to please a specific individual or demographic, you are inevitably always going to fall short, because it’s genuinely impossible to meet every single item on a group’s wishlist without devoting your life to it (not an entirely worthy pursuit, in my opinion, but alas). What made you decide to be so concerned over the potential reaction to your stories that you worry about it before the story is even written?

I think I will put the majority of my curiosity’s weight on the last bullet point, as I’m seeing similar themes with the other portions of your question. It’s a fruitless endeavour to tie yourself into knots over a possible (not necessarily probable!) reaction - and quite likely from a stranger, to boot. Education is a relatively easy situation to fix, so long as you’re patient with yourself; dealing with anxieties over readers is… not so easy.

I can really only recommend that you take a close look at the goals of your worldbuilding, and see where you contradict yourself - once you have that in hand, it’s a relatively simple yes/no process of what concepts you want to keep. If the issue of decision comes from a lack of understanding, then make a note to yourself to seek out either the million wikis we Pylons utilize ourselves like any other worldbuilder, or to chalk it up as a genuine lack of context.

Please understand that even someone who’s dedicated their life to a certain aspect of science won’t know everything about it - that’s the point of research! We’re constantly asking ourselves questions, and pushing the envelope of known boundaries. Star Wars has lightsabers, but we don’t need to know how they work; likewise with holodecks in Star Trek. So long as an audience is reasonably entertained with the least amount of head-scratching, you can get away with handwaving quite a lot.

Lockea: On a scale between Star Trek and Star Wars, how “hard” is your science fiction?

I mention that mostly to illustrate that science fiction exists on a continuum, wherein science fiction with more “science” than “fiction” drives a story towards the harder end rather than the softer end. Also, a story’s place on the continuum will change based on what we know and understand about science.

I feel like everyone always beats me to saying all the important stuff about questions, so I’ll just give a few thoughts from my personal experience as a science fiction fan with two engineering degrees and a thesis about robots on the moon (yes really, I wrote my thesis on AI for moon robots). I really, really, love the creativity of science fiction writers. I think so often in defending the genre, we can get caught up in saying things like “science fiction predicted XYZ!” Well, sure, I may have studied Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics in my introduction to engineering ethics course, but I was also greedily reading my way through “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins at the same time. The fact that I sincerely doubt Panem will ever happen didn’t dampen my enjoyment of Katniss’s story. It was a fun read and it gave my friends and I something to talk about that wasn’t “feasibility of Battlestar Galactica” during our daily lunches.

The thing about writing science fiction is that, without a doubt, there will be someone who knows more than you about a topic who reads your story. Most of the time, I end up being that someone since everyone likes to talk about Skynet and robots taking over the world to a roboticist who sincerely refers to artificial intelligence as artificial stupidity. Y'all are seriously overestimating the field, my friends. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” even as I thought how impossible Project Insight would be. Honestly, something every READER of science fiction needs to make peace with is the fact that writers will get something wrong. Writers, despite their best efforts, are not always going to understand that a facial recognition algorithm will fail if you introduce tiny amounts of random noise and are thus going to treat The Algorithm™ as infallible in your crime drama novel.

It’s not the writer’s fault, though.

That deserves to be on its own line. It is not YOUR fault if you get something wrong. Would it be nice if science literacy was just better all around? Of course! But it’s not your fault if your science literacy isn’t up to snuff enough to parse the article I cited above. It’s also not your job. Your job as the writer is to tell the most interesting story you can and to maintain your own internal rules and logic such that the reader never breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

I watch Star Wars and get really into the light saber fight scenes and forget that light sabers are basically impossible to make. Star Wars has the Force, which is basically magic, and that’s okay. Really. I KNOW it’s not possible, but I still have a lot of fun watching it!

So yeah, write that story about how the robots are going to take over the world. I’ll probably enjoy reading it even as I laugh off my friends telling me that I will be the first to die in the robot apocalypse (of course I will -- I have five robots in my living room alone).

Constablewrites: Tone and consistency are the biggest pieces of this for me. If it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is usually a detailed and plausible explanation, then getting an answer later that is implausible or slapdash will stand out more. But if it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is “You push that button and it goes whoosh” from the start, my expectations adjust accordingly. (It’s possible to have the latter version in a story that is mostly the former, frequently when it’s played for last. Again, tone is key.)

So yeah, a lot of this is execution and the way the story sticks to the rules it sets for itself, and also how central the implausibility is to the story. A realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic for a background bit might be a little jarring, but not nearly as much as a realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic to set up its main showdown. The more central it is to the story, the more consistency and accuracy matters. Learning how to balance this can take some practice and some insight from beta readers.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Sending love and support in this trying time. [This ask is GoT related but contains no spoilers.] If you've seen the newest GoT, how do you feel about D&D's decision to make an unexpected character accomplish the main task? At this point I'm just hoping that, when I die, GRRM will be waiting in the afterlife to tell me how the books end. .___.

What I truly love about this, anon, is that your vision for the future UNQUESTIONABLY INVOLVES GRRM DYING BEFORE HE FINISHES THE BOOKS and then you just living out your lifespan burdened with narrative blue balls until you can finally shake him by the collar and demand your answers to his face. It’s not an unlikely way for things to go! Rest of the answer after the cut, since I STILL DON’T BELIEVE THAT SPOILERS ARE A THING BUT I SUPPOSE I MUST RESPECT THE CULTURAL OBSESSION WITH THEM

As usual, I am answering this ask very late and I am sorry! But you sent this in after 5x03, in reference to Arya killing the Night King. Truth be told, in the moment when I first watched that happen, I was too busy seething over Theon’s death to really have any coherent opinions about what Arya was doing. I MEAN! I KNOW I SAID I WOULD BE PRETTY OKAY WITH THEON DYING, BUT THAT WAS BEFORE D&D MADE THEON’S DEATH ALL ABOUT REDEMPTION and by god the rhetoric of redemption is such a wrongheaded way to think about Theon’s character that every measured talk I gave myself about not being upset at Theon’s inevitable death... all flew out of the window in a maelstrom of indignation. What was I even expecting, they always thought Theon’s ~arc~ was about redemption! (And why does every character need to have an “arc,” anyway! That’s a qualitative statement on what someone thinks character should be, not something that’s inherent to character as a building block of the text!!!)

ANYWAY... YOUR ASK WAS NOT ABOUT THEON, SORRY ANON. I’m honestly of a lot of different minds about Arya being the one to kill the Night King. Here are some of my self-contradictory reactions, in no particular order:

1. I have no reason to dislike this, and I am okay with it. Arya seems perfectly capable of having done this thing.

2. D&D feel that it is their responsibility to overturn narrative tropes, which is why they decided not to have Jon kill the Night King; but D&D also have never given any deeper thought as to why certain narrative tropes should be overturned, or what exactly they are saying with the ways they overturn them. D&D have considered audience shock to be an end in and of itself, and their storytelling decisions are made in bad faith. If Arya kills the Night King just so that the audience is surprised that it’s her, is that a meaningful decision?

3. THEON NEVER NEEDED YOUR REDEMPTION!!!!!

4. What is Arya, to me? I see her as primarily concerned with the southern plot of vengeance, political machinations, and human actors. Sure, she can absolutely also be a character who is entwined with the northern plot of winter, cataclysm, and supernatural actors. She isn’t confined to one set of preoccupations. But did we see her make that move within the show? Wouldn’t I have enjoyed this moment more if I knew more about Arya’s own stance towards everything that’s going on in the northern plot?

5. Would I have found it boring if Jon had been the one? Maybe. What wouldn’t have I found boring? Can there be a satisfactory conclusion to this confrontation? Is it that there can’t be one, or that this medium is not equipped to provide us with one, or that D&D are using this medium poorly?

6. The Witch-king of Angmar cannot be killed by a man because of the race- and gender-inflected way that we are socialized to think of linguistic categories; it’s precisely because everyone is grouped under “man” that it’s a delightful surprise to remember that women and hobbits exist as autonomous categories. So I guess that makes me ask myself, is Arya Stark a member of the subaltern? Does her killing the Night King subvert tropes, or is she so physically capable, so unencumbered by social expectations, so respected as a combat participant that she is no less expected a killer of the Night King than Jon?

7. Well, of course she still has to put up with social expectations! Gendry wanted to make her a lady! But that’s what was so bewildering to me about that scene-- that it would even be possible to look a woman in the eye who just STABBED THE NIGHT KING TO DEATH and ask her if she wants to stay at home. Well, of course it’s bewildering! Ideology has a bewilderingly capacious reach!

8. On the other hand, Arya can say no, and does. What is Arya, to me? Is it that she is an unexpected choice to kill the Night King because she is a woman? In what other ways are her experiences circumscribed by her womanhood? That’s the point, you might say, she has never let womanhood circumscribe her experiences. But then why would her womanhood ever make her any less likely as the killer of the Night King?

9. Is it that she’s a woman? Is that what this is about? What, exactly, makes Arya the unexpected choice? Is it just that she isn’t Jon? Is it that she’s a slightly less major character than he is? On the tier list of people ranked by how likely they are to be the killer of the Night King, where does Arya fall? I don’t know. Who did I think was going to do it? I don’t know.

10. I do know that the showrunners have long been fascinated by Arya, and that hers is a particular kind of reaction to womanhood that these men respect because they think they understand it. Is that harsh? I think these men love that she’s renounced gender. No, wait, I think they love that they’ve written her as having renounced gender. I think what they enjoy is not that Arya has exposed gender as a performative construct, but that Arya is a woman who doesn’t make a big deal out of being a woman, and thus provides a little respite from having to think about gender.

11. Is that harsh? Probably! But D&D have been harsh in the telling of this story, so I think me complaining a little to myself behind a jump cut on my own meandering blog is not likely to upset that balance in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately I’m much less irritated by Arya killing the Night King than at some of the possible reasons I surmise they chose her to kill the Night King.

12. But you know, though, Theon never needed anyone’s redemption. I just want to reiterate that.