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deadendsave · 1 year

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Delilah Hodges’ Journal (1)

1: Today is my 15th birthday. My mom gave me this journal, she said it’s important to document our lives. A few people at the camp gave me some books, and Quinn gave me a pet rock because I’ve been talking to her nonstop about how much I want a dog. Not the same, but at least rocks can’t get sick. I named him Pebbles and I’m gonna cherish him forever.

2: Ooo Lilahhh I’m snooping through your journal! It’s not like I’m sitting beside you and you gave me permission to write this or anything. I’m glad you love pebbles! I spent a long time sorting through rocks to find him, and he was the best one. We should start taking him on walks so everyone at camp thinks we’re even more annoying than they already do. Happy birthday! I love you so much. - Quinn

3: One of the books I got for my birthday was about aquatic life. The ocean is so cool I wish I was a marine biologist. People from the old times only explored about 10% of the ocean. You’d think they would’ve explored way more than that, but I guess this ocean is pretty big. P.S. whales are my new biggest fear. They’re HUGE.

4: Fact from my book: Tho giant pacific octopus has 3 hearts and 9 brains. It can also change color to blend in with its surroundings because of special pigment cells called chromatophores. Weird.

5: Dad said I’m almost old enough to go out on supply runs, but I need to learn how to hunt first so I can protect myself against the sick. Yeah, right. He’s tried to teach me how to shoot before, I SUCKED. Like that time he lined up cans for me to practice my aim, and I missed every shot. I don’t even like guns. The sound hurts my ears. He’s taking me out to the woods tomorrow to hunt, but I don’t think I have it in me to hurt an animal. The thought of it makes me queasy.

6: Dad took me hunting, we walked around the woods for a while before we found anything. But then we saw a deer in the distance. He handed me his rifle, and i aimed and shot. I missed, and it ran off. I felt so bad for failing, I tried my best and it still wasn’t good enough. I felt even worse for scaring the deer. My dad looked so disappointed. I hate hunting.

7: Nothing I do is EVER good enough for my dad. Sorry I’m not some killing machine survivalist expert like you and mom are. Our camp is secure, I’ve never been in that much real danger. They got to experience the world before the sick, I didn’t. They get to go far away from camp, I’m just stuck here.

8: I love my mom. She’s actually nice to me. I feel comfortable around her. When I’m around my dad I’m always on edge. But it’s upsetting that she never defends me or tells my dad to stop when he’s screaming at me for not being able to do something. She just acts like it’s nothing and tells me he just wants me to do better so I’ll be safe. Yeah, right. He just likes to use me as a way to let all of his anger out.

9: Quinn told me she had to show me something in the woods. She’s always sneaking off. I was kinda scared without an adult, but it wasn’t that far. She told me I need to not be such a wimp and be more adventurous. I’m glad I went because we got to see little baby robins, they had just hatched. Quinn’s been monitoring them for a few weeks waiting to surprise me. On our way back, she tripped over something and cut her knee up really bad. She’s very clumsy.

10: Here’s another fact from my book: Stingrays have a protective layer of mucus that shields them from diseases. If only humans had that. Maybe the world would still be in tact.

11: Took Pebbles on a walk like Quinn suggested. We do a lot of dumb things to keep ourselves entertained. Everyone else is worrying about supplies and food and killing the sick. My mom said she wants me to have a somewhat normal life before I have to start worrying about those things too. I guess considering how shitty the world is, I’ve got it pretty good.

12: The camp’s doctor said Quinn has an infection from the cuts on her knee, and there’s no antibiotics left. The doctor looked worried. Everyone’s been out on runs looking for some medicine for her, no luck so far.

13: Just realized one of the books I got for my birthday was a steamy romance novel. Ew. I don’t think Judy realized that when she gave it to me. Yikes. I have no interest in “finding love” romantically. It’s just not something I really care about. I don’t think I’ve even had a crush on anyone before. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

14: Quinn’s getting worse. She’s been resting a lot, which is super unusual for her. Usually she’s got so much energy she can’t stay still. It’s upsetting to see her like this. She said her whole body hurts and she keeps feeling like something bad is gonna happen. I’ve never heard her say she was scared of anything until now.

15: My parents took me swimming in the lake today. I guess they could tell I’ve been sad. It wasn’t the same without Quinn. I wish there was something I could do for her. I miss when we were little and we would pretend to be mermaids. She needs to get better soon.

16: Today Quinn was reading me one of my books, but when she talked it just sounded like gibberish. It freaked me out a little. I thought she was just trying to be funny at first. She’s also got a really foggy memory right now. She couldn’t even remember the birds for a minute. Guess it’s the fever. I read to her instead.

17: My mom went on a supply run with some other people from camp. Still, no antibiotics. But they did find some things from the old times. Mom gave me a puzzle. I’m gonna show it to Quinn tomorrow, hopefully she feels well enough to work on it with me. Mom said some some pieces might be missing but we could use our imagination to fill in the gaps.

18: Quinn didn’t feel good today. She’s still getting worse. She fell asleep beside me while we were working on the puzzle so I ended up doing it alone. She was breathing weird. When she woke up she didn’t even talk, just held my hand. It felt clammy. I waited until her parents came back to their tent to head back to mine. I told her I loved her and I’d see her tomorrow. She just slightly smiled. It broke my heart a little.

19: This morning I woke up to go see Quinn, but my mom stopped me before I could leave. She had been crying, I knew something was off. I had a pit in my stomach. She hugged me and told me to sit down. She said Quinn’s body had been ravaged by the infection, and without any medicine to fight it off, she went into septic shock. I didn’t fully understand what that meant, so I tried to leave and go see her. My mom stopped me once again. “Baby she’s gone. She’s not in pain anymore.”

20: I couldn’t process what she just told me. I felt frozen. It was like every bad feeling I could possibly experience hit me all at once. I broke down and my mom held me tight. My body wouldn’t stop shaking. All of these emotions were physically hurting me. I’ve never lost anybody this close to me. Quinn and I were best friends before we could even talk. I don’t know what life is like without her, I don’t wanna know. We were always supposed to be together.

21: Today is the day of her burial, but I don’t know if I have the strength to go. I don’t want my last memory of her to be her lifeless body being put in the dirt. Everything hurts right now. I’ve heard plenty of people talking about losing someone they loved. I knew what grief was, but I never fully understood just how fucking awful it felt. My chest burns. I’m sad and I’m confused and I’m angry. Quinn was a good person. She didn’t deserve this. She deserved to live. We’re only 15, why would something so bad happen to someone as good as her?

22: Everyone else gets to move on and I’m just stuck here, consumed by the grief. I finally worked up the courage to go to Quinn’s tent. I talked to her mom and she let me keep some of her things. I could see the pain in her eyes. I know her parents are hurting just as bad as I am. The guilt I’m feeling is unbearable. It was my fault that Quinn’s died. If she wouldn’t never taken me to see the baby birds she would still be alive. The only person that could make me feel better right now is gone.

23: It’s only been a few days since Quinn’s burial, but people are already asking me if I’m okay. Clearly, I’m not. How could they expect me to be? My best friend is dead and her death was preventable. I miss her so much. The thought of forgetting her face or the sound of her voice terrifies me. I don’t want to forget her, and I don’t want to move on.

24: She’s been gone for 11 days now. I decided to make a memorial for Quinn myself. I went into the woods and dug a shallow hole just deep enough to fit some of the things her mom had given me. I keep talking to her out loud like she can hear me. I don’t care if it makes me look crazy. I sat at her makeshift grave and told her she shouldn’t have been so clumsy. Jokes don’t feel the same anymore though.

25: As I sat on the ground staring at the grave, everything started to feel more real. She’s never coming back. She’s gone. Forever. I cried and i cried and I cried until my body couldn’t make tears anymore. My face felt hot and my head started to hurt. I eventually stood up and decided to go check on the baby birds. They were still there, chirping and flapping their tiny wings, preparing to leave the nest. I felt a bittersweet sense of comfort watching them. It kinda felt like she was there, watching them with me.

#delilah #millhaven journals

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missmentelle · 3 years

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Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem.

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial

COVID-19 denial

5G panic

QAnon

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch.

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns.

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food.

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined.

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage - the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there.

Our brains love proportionality.

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event.

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause.

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger.

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying.

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it.

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world.

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable.

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan.

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side.

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult).

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life.

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world.

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true.

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew.

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity.

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity.

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.

There is a strong community aspect to these theories.

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas.

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed.

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #conspiracy theories #cults #psychology #science #neuroscience

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maniacwatchestheworld · 3 years

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So responding to that one anon with those ridiculously long posts as I do got me to thinking about some things. And so now I want to express some niggles that I've been thinking about trying to find an excuse to talk about, but haven't really found one until now!

Now I MUST preface this with the disclaimer that I've never really played a Resident Evil game before. My brain just decided to fixate on Village because that's how my ADHD brain do sometimes, I guess! So I am entirely speaking out of my ass here. But from the sounds of things, especially with how that anon put things, Rose kinda sounds at odds with the normal status quo of the Resi games. RE games have big baddies that were infected with some kind of virus or whatnot at some point and made into bioweapons. They start killing things, so the good guys come in, put them down, the day is saved, maybe one of the good guys was infected, but they're cured now, so it's all good! Weep at the tragedy of the innocent lives lost and how things couldn't be better for those who were infected as they were too far gone and had to die for the sake of the safety of humanity. But Rose on the other hand is born as something of a bioweapon (albeit probably not on purpose, and if she was then Mia did something REAL fucked up there!) and is allowed to continue living on as she is. Sure, she seems to be under some kind of surveillance and 'testing', but otherwise she seems to be a pretty normal young woman. Just a kid who is given love and support by her family, is given enough freedom to be able to wander off on her own sometimes, and while she may have issues, is just trying to make the best of her life just like anyone else her age. She also just happens to be a seemingly immensely powerful mold baby. And if that ending was indeed setting Rose up as the protagonist of the next Resident Evil game, then that could lead to an interesting tension between her and the status quo, established themes, and narratives of the Resident Evil series as a whole. Specifically, it may be trying to question the morality of killing these bioweapons that have served as the main antagonists for most of the games. But again. I haven't actually played these games, so what do I know? Nothing, actually! :D

But in any case, let's talk about a small thing that kinda bugs me! So in Village, when Ethan puts the Rose Flasks into the Giant's Chalice, he and us as the player get to experience a few images of the Lords approaching Rose from her point of view. Now once I was able to tell what this was, the question occurred to me. Why are we seeing this? What purpose do these images serve? Why have the game devs decided to give us these images here? They don't seem to serve much purpose, right? At this point in the game, Ethan and us as the player have already met and seen the Lords and kinda know what they're all about. So this isn't exactly a brief preview or foreshadowing Ethan meeting them for the first time in the future. In fact, by this time in the game, Ethan has already at least killed Lady Dimitrescu, so it's not like he needs to be reminded of what his quest is or what he has to do to save Rose. In fact, the player can choose to only put all the flasks in after collecting all four of them and at that point, Ethan is WELL acquainted with the Lords (having already killed 3 and on his way to kill the 4th). So narratively this doesn't seemingly help Ethan or the player out at all. It just seems kinda random, and yet is being given this little bit of narritive focus as if it means something important when as far as I can tell, nothing comes of it. But here's a thought. The images are from Rose's point of view. So perhaps they weren't really supposed to tell Ethan anything. Rather they were trying to tell us, the players, that even though Rose may be a baby now, that she is going to be able to remember the Lords in the future. And why will she have to remember them in the future? Because they're going to return in the next game to some capacity.

A big plot point about the Megamycete is that it's able to store information about anyone who has interacted with it, and the Lords, having Megamycete infected nematodes implanted into their bodies, quite obviously qualify. It feels kinda weird to have this plot point in the game and to barely even use it, so it makes sense that this feature of the mold would make a return in the future. And so given that the mold may make a return to bring someone back from the dead, and Rose will need to remember the Lords, it makes sense that perhaps the Lords are going to be the ones to be resurrected at some point during the next game. So if the Lords are going to be resurrected in some capacity and Rose is going to be able to remember them, what role will they serve?

Well, when discussing Heisenberg's character with this anon it occurred to me... He would actually make for a very natural foil against Rose as a character! They are both made of the same stuff, both having been made into what they are now by the Megamycete. Both have somehow died and been resurrected. Both seem to have issues with anger and aggression. Both were raised/made to be strong. And if Capcom isn't full of a bunch of COWARDS! then even though they both barely knew him, they both loved Ethan in some capacity. (Let Heisenberg be a dumbass with a crush, dammit! You cannot convince me that this man is straight! Also Rose roasting Heisenberg over having a crush on her dad? Give me please!?) But where Rose is a young woman, Karl is an older man. Where Rose's abilities would likely lie in the organic through her utilization of the mold, Karl's abilities lie mainly in the mechanical and artificial. And if I am right about Karl having been taken by Miranda at a young age, that adds even more to the dynamic of them being foils to one another! Because where Rose was raised with a lot of support behind her, mostly by a mother that loves her, Karl was raised in an abusive household and made to mostly take care of himself as his mother didn't care very much for him. And where Rose was raised as a person who just so happened to be a bioweapon, Karl was raised as a bioweapon who just so happens to resemble a person. It could lead to a very interesting conflict and theme of nature vs. nurture between the two of them. Heisenberg is convinced that they are both slaves to their nature and when it comes down to it, they will only be able to act as the weapons that their natures dictate that they are. Meanwhile Rose believes that they can be more than just the weapons they were made into and can both be their own people. Also given how one of the last things that Ethan said before dying was asking Chris to raise Rose to be strong, it would be interesting to see what her idea of strength is and how it contrasts against Heisenberg's philosophy of, "The strong will destroy the weak."

Just... The two of them bouncing off of one another could lead to an interesting dynamic and discussion, and if they were to work together, I think that even their gameplay could contrast against one another in an interesting way! Where Rose would take the traditional Resident Evil protagonist role of shooting people from a distance, Heisenberg would get up close and personal, smashing enemies with his hammer. Rose could be very much a glass cannon, while Heisenberg would be a tank! (Appropriate!) The contrast between the two characters would just be... So good! And and if they go against the Resi games of the past by examining how the bioweapons could possibly be saved and redeemed... It could really be a neat direction for the game! But I know that this is entirely wishful speculation on my part with very little basis in in-game evidence. But if true, I do think that it would be neat! At the very least, now I want to see fanfic exploring the idea of these two being foils! Just... Please give it to me. I've been looking and haven't found any. I don't want to have to do this myself. >.>

#resident evil rose #rosemary winters #rose winters #resident evil heisenberg #karl heisenberg #lord heisenberg #resident evil viii #resident evil 8 #resident evil village #resident evil theory #re village #re8 #resident evil

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sylph-feather · 2 years

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Is there anything on your thoughts you wanna talk about? Like just something you want to say but has found no reason to do so so far. Or just something on your mind.

hmm in general things that have been rattling around in my brain..

1. hatred for the mcu and its effect on the movie industry and how everything is so fucking samey and average now

2. my alien ocs :) i have no coherent stories for these guys and more just a collection of speculative bio & race relations stuff. i will ramble about this

the bugs:

a group of highly specialized for camo prey species (can color change well, and also mimic sounds extremely well). Communication reliant on color and beautiful sounds, making them generally good at communicating with species outside their own. Essentially fill the niche of deer on their planet.

Speaking of, the planet is highly acidic— all water mixed with a strong acid from a meteor or smth, creating an extinction event and leading to many species either having exoskeletons or producing oils that break down this acid. Most things drink only from melons/fruits of plants that have purified the acid. The planet is largely rainforest. It’s geosynchronous with its star, and doesn’t have a night period— because of this, the bug’s color vision rocks but their night vision sucks HARD

The bugs are basically a bunch of hippies. All the other aliens (capitalists, imperialists) basically hate them, because the bugs discovered & tried to spread their discovery of perfectly renewable tech— using stars and quantum entanglement they make infinite batteries, and can power wormhole stabilizers for travel

here’s the main character, chroma

the birds:

A species of large avian type things. The Bugs basically found them at the beginning of the bug’s space age (no wormholes or anything yet— basically where our world is now) and in the bird’s pretty early society (farming was beginning to be a thing).

They are extremely close, sharing similar ideologies of respecting nature… and also they have MASSIVE CRUSHES ON EACH OTHER. The birds look at the bugs and drool over their magnificent colors and crests, the bugs look at the birds and drool over wing size

the slugs:

Giant nudibranch type creatures that live in their highly pressurized sea. Big warrior culture, heavy militarism. They have to stay in their ships all the time lest they deflate like a blobfish, but everything is terrified of them— hilariously so because disregarding the tank-ships they’re literally just slugs

They are essentially the opposite of the bugs— when the bugs discovered perfectly renewable tech they essentially achieved a utopian nirvana where they are free of capitalism/etc but keep learning and keep creating, whereas the bugs obtained that tech then got bored and quickly became destructive, relying on hunting for thrills

veiled & unveiled:

Least developed appearance— I’m not sure what they look like exactly. Basically, the “unveiled” are intelligent creatures with a society etc that coevolved with a cordyceps-esque fungus. This fungus is what makes the “veiled”

Essentially the fungus forms a giant net that acts as something of a hive mind / info storage as well as producing spores. Spores go to grass. Grass gets eaten by random herbivorous prey animals, and acts like toxoplasmosis in rats, making the animals less afraid of predators and more likely to behave erratically. Some animals evolved to look like they have late stage infection (fungal plates growing) when they don’t— to avoid being eaten

This is how it transfers to its carnivorous primary hosts— the “unveiled” aka the sapient creatures. IF infected meat is eaten by a pregnant one (which makes this naturally pretty rare actually), the baby is born “veiled” with fungal wisps coming out of its ears. Essentially, the fungus “hijacks” the brain of the creature— it is now its own person! Wowee! The “veiled” behave pretty normally, actually— before, in more wild times, it would be expected to care for the fungal net (with each net having 10-30 caretakers depending on size) but now in more modern times (at the time of the story, approximately “invention of radio” age) they live their own lives. still, when they die of age, they feed themselves to the fungal net again.

The fungus doesn’t spread fast; it doesn’t pose a species threat, or anything. This is no zombie apocalypse. Of course, the “normal” creatures still want to eradicate the fungus/veiled; war snd tension is ongoing and has been ongoing forever.

There is some fungus based info storage tech on this world— basic, large computers that you have to feed detritus to keep going.

Mostly, with these guys, i wanted to explore a neat morally grey situation. How much do the veiled babies even change compare to the unveiled? Not much, biologically, given the brain is still used— much of the changes in person are from societal perceptions. Also, can you really blame the fungus for the way it was born?

Robots:

AI gone rogue, but not in an evil way. No, all any of this sort of robot wants to do is collect information for the massive cyber hive mind. Because signal is not infinite, the robots often revisit the hivemind / at least the signal boundaries, to deliver info.

HOWEVER… and important note is that the longer a robot is out on its own, without signal & a direct connection with the database, the more individual it becomes because the more its actual learning and intelligence must be used. Often, robots become hermits, essentially avoiding connecting with the database in order to retain this individuality (and not lose the individuality when the info and persona and goals of the data base synced once again). In other words, they turn on airplane mode and throw a finger at the cell companies

THE END here’s my silly scifi beginning

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caffeine-and-melatonin · 3 years

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✨Bad Batch E13 Spoilers✨

FYI this one is probably gonna be on the shorter side in comparison to my other episode posts, so let's take a look at my brain during E13...

- @fictional-men-ruin-lives WHEN I SAW THE TITLE OF THIS EPISODE!!! Omg I instantly thought of your post about the hive mind episodes

- Ok seriously though I know their armor protects them and all that jazz but for a group chaotic clone bros who are hiding from the government, they really do stick out like a sore thumb (like those guards(?) clocked them immediately)

-"And who are they?" Tech back at it again with the funky vocal inflections that I absolutely adore

- Ok it might just be me but my brain instantly went "Is that young Vizago?"... it was not but still

- WHY DO YOU HAVE CID'S NECKLACE? Is she dead? bro what’s going on?

- Tech, love, you can't just casually tell a child that a person they have kinda become friends with was possibly murdered

-Aye abrasive great aunt space lizard isn’t dead!

- Cid's soft spot for Omega is something I didn't know I needed

- "I believe she's threatening us." "You're quick." 💀

- Cid really said "I endorse Girlboss Omega" huh?

- TECH'S FACE WHEN CID COMPLIMENTED HIM!!!! AND WRECKER GIVING HIM A SUPPORTIVE SMILE!!!! AHHHH HE LOOKED SO PROUD OF HIMSELF I LOVE THAT DORK SO MUCH 🥺❤️

-"This is a stealth mission. You boys are good at that, right?" bitch have you met them?

- Aww Wrecker finally got a nickname from Cid...actually he got like four all in one episode (someone please talk to Echo...give him a nickname or something just please talk to the sweet boy)

- Love how Cid totally picked favorites and had Tech and Omega go with her

- Ew hive??? Please no bugs. Please.

-Wrecker'panicked whispering gives me life

- Tech lifting that whole ass trap door by himself 👀

- What is spice exactly? Is it honestly just ✨space drugs✨?

- Ew giant fairy looking bat things...lol wait why does this lowkey remind me of the whole flying keys thing in Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone??? Is that just me?

- If flashlights = torches...then what do they call actual torches with fire?

- Ruby. Love her. She is the moment.

- AHHHH PROTECTIVE BIG BROTHERS!!!

- WHEN I TELL YOU I LITERALLY MADE A FINGER GUN AT MY TV JUST BEFORE THE BOYS DID WHEN THE PYKES SAID THAT OMEGA HAD TO STAY BEHIND.....sis I need to go to sleep

- Awww Cid cares so much about Omega

- Wrecker's face after she said that she got Omega into this and she was gonna get her out is so interesting, but I can't quite place it. Facial expressions are one thing that I really like to focus on because they can say a lot about the characters.

- Wrecker and Cid are a chaotic duo and it's so funny to me

- Durand is a trust fund baby. Makes sense.

- Love how Omega can literally become friends wieveryoneone

- TECH IS BUILDING A THING! LOOK AT HIM GO! I'M SO PROUD OF HIM!

- WRECKER'S VOICE CRACK WHILE SCREAMING

- Lol why does Tech slouch so much when he runs? Like it’s adorable but also sir why? (giving me major “spencer reid running with a gun” vibes if you know what I mean)

- "INCOMING!"...sir how did you fit a whole ass star into a two liter container thing

- Bruh I thought they were gonna straight up decapitate Durand

- Cid: "First round's on me." Boys: *aggressive sprinting*

FINAL THOUGHTS:

- "So no Crosshair or Howzer?" *throws phone. breaks skateboard* (pls someone understand my vine references)

- Bro I totally called the whole thing with the “this episode is gonna be dark” tweet. So glad 4 years of stage crew really helped me translate lighting nerd humor

- So no one actually got infected by mind control worms.....weird (go see @fictional-men-ruin-lives post about that whole thing on Disney+)

- Ok y'all know me, I don't really like to be overly negative all the time, but I feel like this was a bit of a step back especially after the past two episodes. Like the episode was fine and all, but sis there's THREE EPISODES LEFT! Like wtf can we please stick to the central conflict/plot???

- While we are on the subject of us only having three episodes left, it's already not super great that they aren't getting into any character development with Tech or Echo (don't even get me started about Cross), but is it just me or did Echo barely talk. Like he's just kinda there and the only times he does say anything it's like a singular sentence and it only serves the purpose of trying to enforce the idea of him being "the grumpy one" (which I feel like is a waste of existing AND potential characterization from a writing standpoint)

- We better be getting another season. I'm so attached to all of them and there is so much potential for each of them as characters as well as a story as a whole. Looking back at S1 of TCW and Rebels, yeah they were a bit slow at some points, but that was because they were trying to establish a world with a decent amount of new characters. With this, we already got the baseline characterization of each of the members of TBB in S7 of TCW, but aside from Hunter and (to a lesser degree) Wrecker, we haven't seen a whole bunch of growth. Omega, who obviously wasn’t in TCW, is a pretty well rounded character who I personally find interesting and I love her dearly, so it's not a matter of "oh it's just the first season we don't have a lot of time to GROW THE PERSONALITIES OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS". Idk I just feel like there is so much potential and another season has to happen or I will go to the studio or office or wherever and write it myself.

P.S.I'm sorry if my final thoughts section was a little more negative than the stuff I normally post, I just have a lot of things I wanna talk about and y'all just happen to be the ones who have to hear it 😐

Overall, the episode itself wasn't bad, I just think it's placement in the season doesn't really help in the whole cohesive storyline department.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb #tbb spoilers #bad batch #bad batch spoilers

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brokutosan · 4 years

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Title. Quarantine Tales Or alternatively; Bokuto Tries Baking and Nearly Poisons His Two Roommates/Best Friends

Pairing. Bokuto Koutarou x Platonic!Reader x Kuroo Tetsurou + Minor BokuAka and Kuroo Tetsurou x Fem!Reader

Summary. In which a pandemic hits the world and tests the ten year long friendship between three roommates. Or; Kuroo enters quarantine as a cheeky bastard, and walks out of it as a cheeky bastard with a really pretty girlfriend.

Warnings. Manga spoilers, very strong language, and lots of sexual innuendos. Also lots of platonic cuddling and skinship. It gets kind of steamy at the end but nothing too bad. This is basically just a collection of short stories that also kind of has a plot. Fair warning: excessive use of the words ‘bro,’ ‘dude,’ and ‘man.’

Once the news of the pandemic hit Japan, the three roommates were confident they’d come out as better individuals. Maybe pick up on a new hobby, drop a few pounds (or in Bokuto’s case, gain some muscles), and just have a good time, making the best out of the worst situation. They were good at that.

At first, however, the three friends each had a different response to the news. Bokuto decided to splurge and buy everything they need and then some they didn’t (he was making bank from being a pro athlete). He was convinced that the apocalypse was going to happen soon, and that they’ll need all the rations they could get before it’s too late. Kuroo decides to confiscate his Netflix account and told him to stop watching The Walking Dead.

During the first few days Y/N easily got swept up in Bokuto’s bullshit, also convinced that the apocalypse was coming. (“Kuroo, look! The cases doubled over the last few days! Tell me that doesn’t mean something!”) But she was easier to snap out of it, mostly because she’s not as childish as Bokuto. She did, however, buy all of her favorite snacks and put them in a secret stash. (Although Kuroo figured out where it was within three days).

Kuroo is the mediator between them. He’s a man of science, so “no, Bokuto, there’s no way the infected ones are turning into zombies, now stop crying!” He also took the liberty to create schedules and laid out some ground rules on when and how they should shop for groceries and things of that sort. He also made the rule that no one joins their Zoom meetings in the living room after Bokuto walked in on his screen ass naked.

All in all, they (Kuroo) were able to set up a system that ensured Bokuto doesn’t lose his mind out of boredom and Y/N doesn’t try to kill them in their sleep.

“If aliens take over the planet do you think I could become their overlord?”

“Doubt it. You need to have the brains for it.”

“Hey! I’m pretty smart!”

“Explain the process of osmosis.”

“Fuck you, Kuroo.”

Y/N listens in on the idiotic conversation between her two roommates, not daring to speak up in fear of losing her much needed brain cells.

“Y/N! Listen to this, Kuroo doesn’t think I’m smart enough to become an alien overlord!” Bokuto sits up from his spot on their living room floor, one elbow propped up to support his body. Y/N sighs, closing her book realizing there’s no way she’ll get the peace she needed.

“Kuroo doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Bo.” It’s only been one week since the mandated quarantine started. If Y/N gives in now, then she’ll only spiral into madness as the months go by.

“Hear that, you bastard?! Y/N-chan believes in me!” Kuroo looks unamused. There’s a shit eating grin on his face that Y/N wants to wipe off. Or punch off. Whichever happens first.

“Y’know what they say, owls of a feather stick together.” Kuroo’s probably referring to the fact that both Y/N and Bokuto attended Fukurodani. Either way, he’s insulting her. Y/N is seething.

“Shut up you cocky cat!” Y/N screeches, flinging her book to his relaxed figure on the floor. Kuroo lets out a groan as the hardcover book makes contact with his groin. “Shit, there goes my future generations.”

Bokuto emphasizes with his bro, placing a protective hand over his ‘lil man.’

During the third week of quarantine, Kuroo comes down with a cold. Or maybe he got the virus. That’s what Bokuto and Y/N are currently trying to figure out.

“Kuroo, man, I searched up your symptoms here and it says you have network connectivity problems. What does that mean?” Bokuto grumbles, aggressively tapping the laptop screen. Y/N scowls at the way he’s manhandling her laptop before snatching it away from his hold.

“That’s not what that means, dumbass.” Bokuto pouts. “It means someone fucking forgot to pay for the wifi for this month.”

Y/N is glaring at her bedridden roommate through her face mask, but the rooster head throws his hands up out of innocence. “Sorry, I was too busy trying not to die!”

“So what now?” Bokuto asks, trying to cut through the tension between his two roommates. Y/N sighs in response, shutting off her laptop. “Now we just have to wait for him to sleep it off. If he has the virus then we burn his room with him in it.”

“Hey!” Kuroo tries to object. Instead what comes out is a garbled noise followed by excessive coughing and Bokuto screeching something about the ‘zombie virus infecting his home,’ and then he bolted out of Kuroo’s room.

“Whatever,” Y/N sighs, knowing Bokuto would have been useless in this situation anyways, “just try to rest. I’ll come in to check on you every now and then to bring you food. You better eat it!”

“Aw, Y/N-chan, you really care about me, huh?” Kuroo fake gushes, pressing one hand on his chest and another on his forehead. “It’s sweet how you try to act all tough.”

“Bo! Go find the lighter!”

Six weeks into the quarantine, Kuroo is over his ‘virus scare’ and now it’s Bokuto who’s sick. Correction, lovesick. It’s starting to test Y/N’s thinning patience.

“Do you think ‘Kaashi would get annoyed if I call him again?”

“Bo, you’ve been facetiming him every single day since this quarantine started. What changed?”

“He hasn’t been messaging me back the last three days! Do you think he got tired of me? Do you think he realized I’ve been in love with him and now he hates me? Do you think he hates my owl memes? Damn, I should’ve just told him before this whole thing started.” Y/N snorts. Clearly. One less headache for her. Even the sight of Kuroo breathing is starting to irk her. One time she nearly slapped him across the head for sleeping on the couch. Quarantine is doing something to her.

“Y/N? Why aren’t you answering? Oh my god, you hate me too, don’t you?” Crap. She was too absorbed in her hatred towards Kuroo’s existence that she forgot this big baby was lying down on her lap crying about something. What was it again? Akaashi hates him? Impossible.

“Impossible.” Y/N doesn’t realize she is running her hand through his two-toned hair. Bokuto hums in content. Y/N is suddenly reminded of her dog from back home. She wonders how he’s doing.

“Keiji’s like, in love with you. If anything he’s probably just drowning in work. You know how busy he gets.” Even Y/N’s not buying it. Busy or not, three days of radio silence from Akaashi has to mean something. She just doesn’t want to deal with an emo Bokuto. She decides to pass the responsibility to Kuroo.

“Bo, I bet Kuroo has some pretty good advice for ya. Remember when he had that crush on Akari-chan for all of highschool?” Bokuto shoots up with a new look of determination. He yells out a ‘you’re the best, Y/N-chan!’ over his shoulders before dashing straight to Kuroo’s room.

Y/N smiles in triumph as she receives a plethora of messages from one very angry Kuroo Tetsurou, ranging from ‘Why would you do this to me?’ to ‘I fucking hate you.’ Serves him right for finishing the ice cream.

(Later they find out that Akaashi simply broke his phone and had to wait three days to get it fixed. Bokuto was over the moon).

Sometimes Y/N wears their highschool jerseys because she thinks they’re comfortable. Some days she wears Bokuto’s. Other days she wears Kuroo’s. Today she’s wearing Bokuto’s, and Kuroo doesn’t know why it’s pissing him off.

“Oh man! That thing looks like a dress on you!” Bokuto squeals like one of his fangirls. He dashes to where she is, minding her business making toast in the kitchen, and picks her up from under her arms a la Lion King style.

“Bo! Put me down, you dumbass!” She wiggles in his hold, legs thrashing around. It’s all meaningless though. Bokuto is a pro athlete and is 190cm. Any attempts to free herself remains futile against this giant man-baby.

“Kuroo, look! So cute!” Bokuto gushes, showing her off like a baby. He lightly loosens his hold on one arm and extends his hand to bring a finger up to her cheeks. Y/N is emitting a strange aura. Kuroo suspects she’ll start tearing his ass into pieces within ten seconds.

Correction, three seconds. Because somehow she figures out how to kick behind her and shove an ankle deep into Bokuto’s groin. Now Bokuto is wriggling around on the living room floor as Y/N returns to her toast.

Kuroo finds this amusing, yet there’s a foreign feeling deep inside his chest. Is he getting sick again? He’s gonna need to check on that later.

“Ou! What ‘ya watching?”

“Your Name.”

“Huh? Bokuto Koutarou. Did you forget?”

“Dude...” Y/N stares at him in disbelief. Bokuto doesn’t notice but that’s because he’s Bokuto, and just about everything flies over his head. Instead he plops down on the couch next to her and hogs all the blanket.

“Get the fuck out! Get your own blanket!” Bokuto doesn’t reply, but he hums and opens his arms as an invitation. Ah, another platonic cuddling, as Bokuto puts it. Y/N is touch starved and she can’t deny it, so she slides closer to his lean figure and lets her head fall on his chest.

Eventually they settle in, huddling impossibly close to each other as the movie reach its tear-jerking climax. They don’t notice Kuroo walk in with a scowl on his face.

“Oh hey, bro. Wanna watch?” Bokuto notices him first, lifting his head up from the crown of Y/N’s head. Y/N finally looks over Bokuto’s chest and spots Kuroo moving around in the kitchen.

“I’m good.” Is his short answer before he trudges to his room with a loud bang! from his door. Y/N flinches a little, but pays no mind to it. Instead she directs her focus back to the movie, where another sad scene is unfolding.

The movie reaches its ending, but not before Bokuto could ask, “So, what’s the actual title of the movie?”

One peaceful afternoon Bokuto decides to take in a stray cat. Except...

“Bokuto, you fucking idiot that’s a racoon!” Y/N screeches as she climbs Kuroo’s back. The rooster head screams as he backs away from Bokuto and ‘Mr. Fluffles.’ Bokuto stares at his frightened roommates and the ‘cat’ in his hand and then back at his roommates again.

Realization strikes, and now Bokuto is screeching with the other two, holding the raccoon as far away from his body as possible.

“If you fucking drop it, I’ll kill you!” Kuroo threatens, holding onto Y/N’s arm that’s starting to dig into his throat. “Take it outside!”

“But it’s raining!”

“Bokuto!”

“It’s you or him, man!”

The two continue their little back-and-forth, not noticing the raccoon had escaped Bokuto’s grasp. But Y/N notices. And it’s heading into her room. And now she’s seeing God.

“Bokuto, gah-!” Kuroo is rudely interrupted by Y/N’s tight hold on his throat getting tighter. Before he could give her hell for attempted murder, he notices the look of horror on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Your fucking raccoon went in my bedroom!”

“Ah shit!” Both Kuroo and Bokuto scramble, the former forgetting all about the human person hanging onto his back. Said person is too scared of letting her foot touch the floor, afraid that it might be met by the furry abomination Bokuto brought home. So she kinda just...lets Kuroo run off into her room with her dangling off his neck.

“Where’d he go?!” Bokuto panics, not seeing Mr. Fluffles anywhere in his immediate vicinity. He starts flinging stuff off the ground and her table and her bed, making a huge mess in the span of ten seconds. Y/N takes one foot off of Kuroo’s waist and kicks him square in the back.

“Quit trashing my room!” She scolds like a mom. Bokuto pouts but continues looking, until they hear the quiet pitter patter of claws hitting the wooden floor. “Wait shut up!”

Y/N huffs but still complies, wanting nothing more than Mr. Fluffles gone from her room. Kuroo takes the liberty to start questioning Bokuto’s stupidity.

“How could you have possibly thought that thing was a fucking cat?!”

“In my defense, it was pretty dark outside.” Bokuto grumbles in his low and whiny voice, before firing back, “And stop calling him a ‘thing!’ Mr. Fluffles has feelings too!”

“Bokuto we’re not keeping it!” This time it’s Y/N yelling at him with fire in her eyes. The poor guy looks like he’s about to cry, but Y/N is far too gone over the thought of a raccoon making its home in her bedroom.

Bokuto lets out an ‘aha!’ as he emerges from under her bed with Mr. Fluffles. Y/N visibly relaxes knowing that the raccoon is safely contained. Until she remembers what was stashed under her bed.

“Ah, there’s something in his mouth.” Bokuto announces, holding Mr. Fluffles disgustingly close to his face. Her secret stash of snacks. The bastard got into it.

“Bokuto!!!”

(They later find out that at least four neighbors filed a noise complaint against them).

It’s two months in to the quarantine when Bokuto discovers TikTok. Within one week he’s dropped his towel in front of Kuroo, sat on Kuroo’s lap during his work Zoom meeting, smacked his gym bag across Kuroo’s face, and then some. Y/N finds humor in this, of course at Kuroo’s expense, but that’s even better.

Speaking of Kuroo and Y/N. Lately there’s been undeniable tension between his two roommates, and Bokuto doesn’t know how to resolve it. Everytime he tries to get them to talk they end up arguing.

He’s asked Akaashi for advice, but Akaashi simply told him to let them resolve it amongst themselves. Bokuto does not have the patience for that. He’s scared their meaningless arguments might rip a tear into their ten year long friendship.

So Bokuto does what he thinks is best, bake them cookies! No one could possibly be in a bad mood while eating freshly baked cookies, even Bokuto is drooling at the thought. So with a new resolve, Bokuto scrolls through his new favorite app (TikTok) to find some good recipes. Because TikTok has all the answers.

Except when he bakes the cookies he later finds out he used two cups of salt instead of sugar. He doesn’t know how that happened, but it could be because he grabbed the first white substance he saw and dumped it in the bowl.

Kuroo and Y/N somehow found a way to blame each other. Bokuto is reaching his limits.

Bokuto calls for an emergency meeting. He needs help deciding whether or not he should drop 40,000¥ on the Animal Crossing Limited Edition Switch that comes with Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Y/N says go for it because she’s secretly plotting on stealing it the moment he gets tired of the game (which knowing Bokuto, would be fairly quick). Kuroo objects because Bokuto blew 50,000¥ last month buying shit he didn’t need for the quarantine.

And now there’s a fullblown argument between the two. Bokuto is reminded of his parents, except their fights never got this hostile and he’s pretty sure his mom never called his dad a “rooster-hair bastard!” He’s too scared to cut in. He thinks they might cut off his head. So he decides to sneakily crawl back into his room.

He ends up ordering the switch anyways, and when it arrives a week later Kuroo calls Y/N a bad influence. They argue again.

Bokuto has an epiphany.

Two days after Bokuto’s epiphany, they take a trip to the supermarket. Bokuto wants to drive but he can’t because his license got revoked after he ran through five consecutive red lights. Kuroo tells him this but he gets pouty so Kuroo had to buy him ice cream on the way there to get him to shut up.

So now Bokuto is slobbering up Kuroo’s car, much to the latter’s distaste. It isn’t until Kuroo brake checks him and Bokuto slams the ice cream on his face, does Kuroo show a look of content. Bokuto pays no mind, and decides to bring up his recent epiphany.

“So, bro, when are ya gonna tell Y/N you’re in love with her?” Kuroo slams his foot on the brakes again, this time out of shock. “I - uh - what - what did you just say?”

“Oh man,” Bokuto lets out a boisterous laugh while licking the ice cream that dripped down his shirt (gross), “you didn’t know?!”

“You two have had this sexual tension between you brewing for weeks! It’s like - I could actually cut through it with a knife, like a piece of pie or something!”

“I hate everything you just said.”

“Whatever man, just let me know if you want me gone for the night. I’ll even come up with a good excuse.” He winks, and Kuroo resists the urge to crash the car into a tree.

Bokuto’s words affect Kuroo a lot more than he would like to admit. Ever since that fateful trip to the supermarket with his owl-eyed friend, Kuroo’s been too wary of his other roommates existence. He wants to prove Bokuto wrong. He, Kuroo Tetsurou, is not in love with L/N Y/N, his best friend since his first year of highschool.

L/N Y/N is one of the guys! That’s like saying he likes Bokuto (Kuroo bites back his disgust). And Kuroo doesn’t like Bokuto, thank you very much.

Except L/N Y/N is not Bokuto.

L/N Y/N is his endless highschool memories that he always goes back to on a bad day. She is going to the beach during the summer and playing in the ocean until they tire themselves out. She’s like a warm hug that welcomes him after a long and tiring say. She’s like the rock that was flung at his ex’s window after she cheated on him with some other guy. She’s like the fun he’s had during the summer away games, where he got to play volleyball with his friends for one week straight. She’s like taking the long way home just so he could walk back with her. L/N Y/N is his best friend.

No, Y/N is not all those things. She is, however, the person he’s shared those memories with. The person Kuroo could say one hundred percent, without a doubt, knows him best (aside from Bokuto and maybe his mom). She’s the person that’s always been there through thick or thin, for ten years and counting.

Oh god. Kuroo Tetsurou is in love with L/N Y/N.

Bokuto has a plan in mind. A plan to help his two best friends hook up (and maybe date afterwards). Bokuto tells Akaashi his plans but Akaashi tells him all his plans are moronic, so he goes to his teammates Hinata and Atsumu, who says he’s a genius.

(The plan is simple: make Kuroo jealous. That bastard is as possessive as a dog over his food).

Which is how he finds himself seated at the kitchen table, phone in hand with a disgusted Y/N right across from him.

“No, you’re not giving my number to Miya Atsumu. That guy has shifty eyes!”

“Come on, you’ll learn how to love it! ‘Sides, Tsumu-tsumu is a nice guy! Did’ya really think I’d set my bestest friend in the world up with some sketchy guy?” If Bokuto’s normal talking voice is at a hundred, he’s talking at a hundred twenty now, just to make sure Kuroo can hear him from his room.

Y/N presses her palms to her ears, not really questioning why he’s talking so damn loud. Instead she blackmails him. “Bokuto if you don’t stop I’ll send Keiji all your embarrassing pictures from our first year.”

“You wouldn’t!”

But the look in her eyes says she would. And the ping! sound that came from her phone says that she just did. “Y/N!” Bokuto cries out, scrambling incredibly fast to his room where he left his phone plugged in, hoping he could stop Akaashi from witnessing the embarrassment that is Bokuto Koutarou as a fifteen year old.

Moments after Bokuto bolted to his room and is screaming out, “‘Kaashi! Block Y/N-chan right now! Don’t open her texts!” Kuroo steps out of his bedroom, having been shamelessly eavesdropping on their previous conversation.

“So,” He leans over the kitchen counter (he thinks he looks like hot shit but Y/N begs to differ), “Miya Atsumu, huh?” Her face contorts into something out of digust or discomfort, he can’t tell which one. Is it bad for him to say he likes that reaction? Probably.

“Don’t.” Is her short response, bringing up a hand in front of her body. “If Bokuto thinks I’m desperate enough to go for one of his teammates, then I’ve got a surprise for him. No offense to Shouyou.”

“So what I’m hearing is...it’s not the aspect of being in a relationship you’re totally against, but the guy himself?” Kuroo thinks out loud. Y/N throws him one of her infamous ‘what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about’ looks, but he feigns ignorance to it.

“I mean, yeah? I haven’t had a good fuck since-” Kuroo decides to cut her off there, not really eager to learn the name of the man she’s...well, you get it! (Bokuto was right, this man truly is possessive).

“Anyways, good choice. I heard the other twin is where it’s at.” Kuroo ends the conversation there, with new knowledge about his new found crush and confidence over the fact that he still has a chance.

A week goes by just like that. Bokuto makes it painfully obvious he’s trying to make Kuroo jealous. Except painfully obvious is not obvious enough for his slightly-frustrating friend, Y/N.

At one point, when obviously Atsumu didn’t serve much of a threat to Kuroo (curse that idiot for being too easy to mock), Bokuto took matters into his own hands and tried flirting with Y/N himself. And while Bokuto is a lot of things, being smooth isn’t one of them. There’s a reason why he hasn’t made whatever he has with Akaashi official yet, he’s terrible at relationships and anything related to it.

(Though Kuroo had a riot witnessing Bokuto’s failed attempts at heterosexual flirting:

“So, you come here often?”

“Bo, I fucking live here.”).

And as much as Bokuto wants to just go out with it and announce to Y/N (and the world) that his totally radical bro, Kuroo Tetsurou, is in love with her, he has just about enough self control and conscience to know that doing that could only result in his immediate death at the hands of a very angry rooster-head. So he’s just been beating around the bush. For a week he’s tried to drop subtle hints that were, sadly, left dropped by Y/N. She’s almost as helpess as Bokuto. Almost.

But when an opportunity like this falls on his lap, Bokuto just knows he has to take it.

It’s at one of their annual roommate-bonding, a tradition they’ve held since moving in together during college. This time Kuroo is unable to join due to some hold-up at work. He’s in his room furiously typing away at his computer.

“So...” He makes sure to drag out the last vowel to gain her interest. Though it’s pretty useless since Y/N is as easy to fool as Bokuto himself. They’re best friends for a reason. A very bad reason, one might say.

“So what?” She asks, shoving about ten pieces of popcorn in her mouth all at once. Bokuto realizes he is tired of beating around the bush. He decides to set the metaphorical bush on fire. “Admit it, Y/N. You like Kuroo, don’t ‘ya? You wanna screw him or something?”

“Shh!” Suddenly Y/N is more invested in whatever Bokuto has to say than the shitty movie he picked out. And now she’s launched herself off her side of the couch onto his, pressing a greasy, buttery palm to his lips.

Bokuto easily swipes her hand away with a shit eating grin on his face. “So I was right! Which one is it? ‘Ya like him? Or you wanna screw him?”

“Bokuto!” She warns. Her eyes dart to Kuroo’s closed bedroom door, suddenly too aware of just now thin these walls actually are. It also didn’t help that Bokuto’s normal speaking voice is about as loud as a race car engine.

She realizes there’s no point in hiding it, since he’s looking at her with those creepy owl eyes, just daring her not to spill everything. “How’d you even find out?” She sighs in defeat.

“Come on! You’ve been so irritated lately that there was only two possible explanations: ya either love the guy or hate his guts. I don’t think you’d be friends with him for ten years if you hated him so much.” Y/N blinks in surprise. That’s surprisingly perceptive, coming from Bokuto. She tells him this.

“Hey! I’m capable of using my head too!” He doesn’t like how she’s giving him that judgement look. Clearing his throat, Bokuto decides to skip past that.

“So? Since when did ‘ya like the lucky bastard?” Bokuto expects one month, maybe two at best. What he didn’t expect was this: “Probably since highschool.”

“Wha-?!” His outburst is contained by a smaller body flying on top of his, as well as two palms pressed tightly over his mouth. Eyes wide, he looks down to see a flustered Y/N, pink cheeks and all, looking menacingly at Kuroo’s door, trying to see if he heard any of that.

Once she confirms she’s in the clear, she lets out the breath she’s been holding and smacks Bokuto across his biceps.

“Idiot! Don’t just scream like that!” She huffs, arms crossed at her chest. “I told you ‘cus I trust you, Bo. Don’t do anything stupid with that trust.” The man simply nods, still too shocked to form coherent words.

Once he does however, Y/N is hit with an onslaught of whispered questions. “Since when? How come I didn’t notice? How come anyone didn’t notice? Why-” He pauses, realizing his questions aren’t being answered. So he waits as she brings her legs up to her chest with an unreadable expression.

“I mean it was pretty easy to hide it. We went to different schools, and whenever we hung out you were always there,” Y/N starts, but quickly adds, “I mean, not like I didn’t want you there! It’s just - it was easier to forget I even liked him whenever the three of us were together.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, probably still wary of the fact that Kuroo was only one room over. Bokuto notices this and turns up the volume of the TV, earning a small smile from his nervous wreck of a friend.

“At one point I was actually gonna tell him, but then he started dating Akari-chan.” Bokuto scowls at the name. Akari, the girl that Kuroo crushed on for a full year, but also the girl that ended up cheating on him with some guy in her painting club. “I wasn’t really the type to cry over a small crush, I had other things to do. Actually I was kind of relieved. Kuroo being taken meant I didn’t have to act on these weird feelings I started having.”

“And next thing I knew we were off to college. I started dating other people, and my feelings for him started shrinking. Even when we decided to move in together, we were all so busy with our separate lives, so I wasn’t really worried about it...until, y’know, we kinda got stuck here together. I guess seeing him 24/7 just caused my head to malfunction. I thought fighting with him would stop these weird...feelings, from coming back. But I guess that backfired on me since you ended up finding out. Wait - Bokuto are you crying?”

The said man tucks his head in his arms, mumbling out “No,” even though it was pretty obvious. Y/N softly smiles, finding his reaction kind of cute. It was nice to know he cares that much, no matter how infuriating he could get.

“I didn’t even know you went through that much, Y/N-chan. C’mere! Lemme give you a hug!”

“Bokuto, no! I don’t need-” The rest of her complaints are drowned out by a sturdy chest meeting her face. Great. Bokuto’s way too emotional now.

“I’m sorry, I promise I’ll help you tell him!”

“Wait what? I don’t want that!” Y/N tries to argue, but her voice is muffled due to being stuffed into his chest. Suddenly remembering that Bokuto has a tendency to be a loud mouth and could never keep a secret from Kuroo, Y/N shoots up, pressing her palms to his chest to release herself from his hold.

“Bo, you have to promise me you won’t tell him anything.”

“But -”

“Bokuto!” He slightly recoils from the sternness of her voice, before he bows his head and nods. Y/N relaxes a bit, settling back into her previous position and fixed her focus back to the movie playing on the TV as if their previous conversation never happened.

Unbeknownst to her, Bokuto is already putting the pieces together for his master plan.

Y/N comes to regret telling Bokuto her ‘dirty’ little secret exactly one week later, at their next roommate-bonding. This time Kuroo is there, with Bokuto right in between them on the couch. There’s another shitty movie playing in the background (curtesy of Bokuto’s horrible choice in films), but Y/N can’t bring herself to pay attention.

She does however, snap out of her little daydream when Bokuto shoots up, phone in hand and reaching for the door. Oh no. Both Kuroo and Y/N think to themselves.

“Ah! What’s this?! There’s an emergency at ‘Kaashi’s apartment?! Guys, I’ll be right back!” Bokuto is out the door before either of them could object. Y/N knows Akaashi. Akaashi is a safe guy. He’s not the type to call out of nowhere because of an emergency, and even if he did, Bokuto surely would not be the first contact in mind. Which means, Bokuto, that sneaky bastard, planned this with the single brain cell he had left.

Silence fills the air for the next five minutes, until Kuroo’s phone sounds off. It’s a text from Bokuto, reading: When I come back you two better be-

Kuroo decides to turn off his phone there, fearing the contents of the very explicit paragraph Bokuto sent following those words. Instead he turns his head to his friend next to him - or rather on the opposite side of the couch, avoiding him like he’s the plague.

He doesn’t like this awkwardness at all. Conversation between them used to always just flow, even if most of them end up becoming a heated debate over the most trivial things. Kuroo decides to man up. It’s now or never.

“Okay so -” “Hey -” The two pause, finally making eye contact for the first time in past week. All of Kuroo’s brain cells fly out his brain and out the window, leaving him to fend off for himself in this awkward situation. His head is like that one Spongebob meme. Oh god, he’s turning into Bokuto-

“So,” Y/N’s voice snaps him out of his train of thoughts, or rather his lack of it. This is pathetic. He’s a grown man and he’s acting like a highschooler over a pathetic crush. Except this isn’t a pathetic crush. This is Y/N - his best friend for the past ten years, who he’s just now realized is a lot prettier than he initially thought.

“I’m in love with you.” Yes, yes he is. Wait, that wasn’t his voice. And that definitely wasn’t his subconscious trying to patch up what’s left of his decimated ego, which means -

“Kuroo?” Jesus fuck, when did she even slide over this close? “You don’t have to answer or anything, I just thought I should tell you first before Bokuto breaks. I understand if you don’t feel the same way-”

“No!” She flinches at how loud his voice is. “I mean, fuck - wait. You gotta let me process this real quick.” Kuroo is suddenly aware he’s redder than his Nekoma jersey, and her face is super close to his, and her lips look totally kissable right now.

“I’m in love with you, too.” Kuroo finally speaks up. He notices how she goes stiff, and how quickly her face turns into a bright shade of red.

“You don’t have to say it just ‘cus you feel bad! This doesn’t have to change anything between us! I mean, I’ve kept it a secret for ten years, I can do ten more-”

“Y/N.” She finally stops her rambling, meeting his eyes. And she doesn’t know why, but suddenly she just knows he’s being sincere. She could probably die right now and she’d say she lived a happy life.

“I’m gonna kiss you now.” Kuroo waits for her confirmation, in this case a shy nod, before cupping her cheeks with his large and warm hands. He inches over slowly at first, but lets his lips eagerly meet hers with a smile. He feels her hands wrap around his waist, letting him deepen the kiss.

It starts of slow and steady, everything Y/N could have ever dreamed of, until needy hands start roaming her body. She has to crane her neck to meet his lips, and Kuroo probably sensed her discomfort because now he’s gripping her waist tightly, lifting her up gently and placing her down on his lap.

The new and more comfortable position allows Kuroo to deepen the kiss, and Y/N finds her hands grabbing the hair she’s been insulting so much for the past two months. Kuroo sighs into the kiss, with Y/N smiling a bit at the situation. As things escalate, a loud gasp breaks them out of their trance.

“Oh. My. God!” Bokuto is squealing like an idiot and Akaashi is behind him unamused. “Finally.” Is his short statement.

“What the fuck Bokuto!” Kuroo growls. Y/N, suddenly a bit too self conscious climbs off the spot she made for herself on Kuroo’s lap. Though her embarrassment doesn’t last long, before she joins Kuroo in glaring at Bokuto.

“I just came back ‘cus I forgot my wallet, but oh man! You guys are adorable!” Akaashi is still behind him, but this time he looks more apologetic. “Bokuto-san, maybe we should leave.”

“Nah, I kinda wanna stay.”

“Bokuto!”

“Get the fuck out!” Bokuto only laughs as he catches both the pillow and the remote control thrown at him. He drops both items back down on the living room floor and snatches his wallet from the counter before calling over his shoulders,

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure ya make me the best man and the maid of honor!”

A/N. Reupload! This fic was totally self-indulgent bc I am so bored of quarantine and am currently wishing I had a Bokuto and Kuroo to keep me entertained. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! And as always, thank you for reading! Leave a like if you...liked it? Is that how it goes? - chuu

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when-they-write-stuff · 4 years

Note

No. 25 - Wrapping arms around them when they make breakfast - but with a specific twist. In canon. Pre relationship. Stiles fell asleep at Derek's (exhausted after research, hurt after fight with big bad, it's up to you but nothing too dramatic ^^) or Derek stayed at Stiles'. When Stiles wakes up Derek's in the kitchen, making breakfast. Then the prompt happens. Then awkward silence xD cause, wtf are you doing Stiles? Set season 2ish? Or something? Idk.. But only if you want to! XD

“I told you to stop touching it.”

“I’m not touching it!”

“I can see you touching it, Stiles.”

“Whatever,” Stiles said, crossing his arms as he dropped back onto the bed. “I totally wasn’t touching it. You don’t have eyes in the back of your head.”

Derek huffed and turned back around, a first aid kit in hand. Stiles sat straight back up then, only to groan and wrap an arm around his side once more.

If anyone asked, Stiles would say that he totally got injured in some badass, heroic way. He totally wasn’t running from the current Monster of the Week only to trip over his own feet and nearly brain himself on a rock.

There was a gash sliced open across his chest. Stiles winced as Derek knelt down in front of him, frowning at it. Like the injury had somehow personally offended him or something. Stiles snorted at that, earning a strange look from Derek.

He just shrugged. “I’m just curious, but when was the last time you cared that I nearly died?”

“I’d care if you died.”

“Aw, Sourwolf. Would you say some nice things at my funereal?”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m just saying,” Stiles said. “There was this one time I showed up with a bruised face, bloodied lip, and cracked rib and I don’t think even Scott cared.”

Derek’s face hardened at that. He glared even harder at the gash before angrily dabbing at it. Stiles squeaked and tried to shy away.

“Dude, ouch! That hurts!”

“I should have checked in on you,” Derek said. Stiles blinked at him.

“Dude, it’s fine. I’m not bitter.”

Derek looked a little bitter. Stiles studied him for a moment longer before barking a laugh.

“Oh my god, you totally care about this token human.”

“Shut up.”

“Derek, I’m just gonna say it. I’ve totally gotten under your skin.”

“Like a parasite.”

“Rude!”

Stiles thought there was a hint of a smile playing along Derek’s lips when he rolled his eyes and set the cloth aside, studying the injury again. Stiles was pretty sure it wasn’t bad at all, but Derek had taken one look and told Stiles either he came back to the loft, or Derek was taking him to the hospital.

Looking at it now, Stiles laughed again. “Dude, that’s just a little baby cut.”

“It could’ve been worse.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. I could have gotten an infection and died.”

“You could have.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles said, pushing himself up. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

Derek rolled his eyes. Stiles pulled out his phone but then hesitated, glancing back. Slowly, he raised an eyebrow.

“Why the hell do you have a first aid kit lying around anyway?”

“Why do you think?”

Stiles grinned from ear-to-tear, turning around again. He scrolled to his dad’s name, just to let him know he was finally heading home, and waved a hand through the air as he wandered back out of Derek’s bedroom.

“Whatever, you totally care about me. Now if you’ll excuse this token human, I’m going home. My bed is calling and it’s like… oh my god,” Stiles blinked at his phone. “It’s three am, dude. I can’t go home now! My dad is the lightest sleeper you’ve ever met and he’ll totally ground me for life.”

Derek stood silently in the doorway. Stiles spun around, pointing a finger at him.

“I blame you. This is your fault.”

The man just blinked silently. Stiles thought for some reason, he looked a little pleased. Groaning, he typed out an ‘At Scott’s’ message, knowing there was no way his dad was going to fall for that. But Stiles still had yet to explain… things. Werewolf things. And currently, he’d take distrust over putting his dad in danger.

“I’m staying here,” Stiles said flatly. Derek raised an eyebrow and Stiles crossed his arms. “The pups are already asleep and you, sir, can spare the couch. The next time you nearly hospitalize me over a small cut, I hope you remember this.”

“I will,” Derek said. And Stiles didn’t think he was being sarcastic.

Huffing, he stuffed his phone into his pocket and wandered down the hallway to find some extra blankets or pillows. But, finding nothing, he popped his head back around the corner.

“Dude, I’m not sleeping on that lump of a couch without at least a pillow.”

“Okay,” Derek said, pushing his bedroom door open. Stiles blinked a few times and then narrowed his eyes.

“What?”

Derek raised an eyebrow, his meaning obvious. Stiles crossed his arms, sitting back on his heels.

“Dude, what are you playing at?”

“It’s a big bed, Stiles,” Derek said flatly. “If you don’t like it, you can sleep on the floor. I don’t care.”

“You totally care.”

In response, Derek turned back into his bedroom, vanishing from sight. Stiles stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, debating his options. Because yes, he could probably share a bed with— oh my god— Derek Hale. But Stiles was… okay, you know what? Stiles was a growing boy. The feelings he may or may not possibly have were completely not his fault.

But he was totally waking up early tomorrow morning and making a run for it. Stiles did not need to see Erica’s smug grin if she came across any of this.

Stupid werewolves and their super-sniffers. She always caught him thinking bad thoughts at the worst moments.

Usually when Derek was around.

After another long moment, Stiles plodded into the room after the werewolf. He could share a bed just fine! He and Scott used to all the time.

When they were literal children.

Derek was already under a giant pile of blankets, his back to the door. Stiles held his breath as he climbed in bed behind the man, carefully turning his back toward Derek was well. The last thing he wanted to do was have his throat ripped out because he accidentally ended up snuggling the man come morning or something.

It took him a long time to fall asleep. And by the time he did, he was nearly falling out of bed trying to make sure he stayed very far away.

Stiles woke up first.

That was exactly like he’d planned except for some reason, he was sweating. Like, drowning in his sweat, and he was pretty sure he couldn’t move. It took a few moments of tired blinking to realize there were a pair of giant arms wrapped around his chest, caging him against the mattress, and a stubbles face pressed into his neck.

Stiles froze.

If Derek woke up to this, Stiles was so dead. He’d never be able to show his face at the loft again. He could probably get his stomach sliced open and Derek wouldn’t bat an eye.

Stiles was an idiot. And he had to escape.

He tried to move slowly. A wiggle there, a bit of ducking underneath Derek’s unfairly muscular arms here. By the time he was halfway out, Stiles was pretty sure he was going to be caught in the most compromising position ever.

He ended up with one foot out of bed, one foot still tangled up in the sheets, and ended up just oozing to the floor.

Derek grunted and Stiles froze, staring in terror at the ceiling. But then the man rolled over, seemed to go right back to sleep, and Stiles let out a soft breath.

His phone read six o’clock in the morning as he crept out of Derek’s bedroom.

Erica was sitting on the couch.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said, resisting the urge to groan. “What is wrong with you betas? It’s six in the morning! Go back to bed.”

“Sleep well, Stilinski?”

“I am not engaging in this,” Stiles said, ignoring Erica as he pulled his shoes on and started toward the door. But the beta cut him off before he could make his escape, a smirk tugging at both sides of her mouth.

“I won’t say anything,” she said. “If you make us breakfast.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“I want pancakes and eggs.”

“I’m pretty sure Derek doesn’t have anything in that kitchen of his other than protein powder, raw meat, and bread,” Stiles said flatly. Erica just grinned.

“You’d be surprised at the things he has around this place to impress the annoying token human.”

Stiles blinked at her. Because… he was the annoying token human, wasn’t he? Allison was definitely very human, but Stiles was pretty sure she was just drop-dead gorgeous and exceedingly nice, not annoying.

Erica raised a brow and rested her shoulder against the loft door, waiting. After a moment, Stiles groaned, turning back around and starting toward the kitchen. Erica’s laugher followed him.

Stiles hated Derek’s betas sometimes.

He was pretty sure he heard the sound of Erica’s door shutting and of course she was going back to sleep. Stiles briefly considered making a run for it, but then he just sighed, resigning himself to his fate.

He made some mean pancakes. He better get all the praise in the world for this.

By the time Stiles had a neat stack of pancakes on one plate and a skillet of scrambled eggs on the stovetop, he realized Derek was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Just standing there, looking at Stiles with an odd expression on his face.

Stiles froze, feeling a blush creeping up his neck. A dozen excuses came to mind but none were better than, “Erica made me.”

Which Stiles realized also wasn’t great. But Derek just nodded quietly and plodded into the kitchen, coming to stand behind Stiles. The man studied the food over Stiles’s shoulders and Stiles shivered a little, painfully aware of how close he was standing.

For a moment, all he could feel was arms locked around his chest. A stubbled face tucked into his neck. Derek’s warm breaths on his skin.

Stiles was pretty sure his heart skipped a beat.

Then Derek was reaching around him, stubble brushing against his ear. Stiles went stock-still, not moving a muscle, only to realize Derek was reaching for one of the pancakes. He made a noise of protest, trying to smack the man’s hand away, and Derek’s arms wrapped around his waist instead.

Stiles froze. “Derek.”

The man didn’t say a word but he’d gone stock-still too. Stiles swallowed hard.

“Dude.”

“You’re making breakfast.”

“An astounding observation.”

“In my loft.”

“... Erica made me?”

Derek finally pulled back, fingers ghosting over Stiles’s sides. Stiles shivered despite himself and then Derek was reaching over again, grabbing a pancake and moving away before Stiles could protest. He glared as Derek took a giant bite.

“You animal.”

Derek raised an eyebrow. Stiles glared harder.

“Pancakes with no syrup is a crime.”

“I don’t like syrup.”

“Because you’re an animal. Next thing I know, you’ll be begging for ear scratches and whining when I pet you.”

“No dog jokes,” Derek grumbled, dropping onto the stool in front of the counter. His hair was sticking up in all directions and he was still wearing the same rumpled clothes from yesterday. It was kind of adorable. “It’s too early.”

“That’s the only objection you have about what I just said?”

“If you ever try to pet me, I’ll rip your throat out.”

“There the Sourwolf I know.”

Derek gave him a flat look, taking another pointed bite of his pancake, but Stiles thought he could read a hint of a smile. Before he could say anything though, the betas came plodding in. Erica last, looking from Stiles, to Derek, and then back with a small smirk. Stiles rolled his eyes and returned to finishing the eggs.

This was blackmail. The only reason he was still here.

Stiles could still feel phantom arms wrapped around him, though. The brush of stubble against his ear. Once more, he shivered and this time, it was Derek watching with an amused expression. Or maybe a pleased one. Stiles just rolled his eyes and looked away.

Whatever. He didn’t care.

There was another first aid kit in the drawer that Stiles opened, searching for the silverware. Despite himself, he smiled. Another one. Because apparently Derek didn’t trust him to not be an idiot.

Or maybe the man cared a little too.

Stiles closed it carefully and might have been smiling even brighter when he turned back to the eggs. Erica was downright beaming now and Stiles flat-out ignored her. Whatever. He could survive this level of blackmail.

And maybe he would accidentally stay over again some time.

- -

I accidentally misread the prompt a little and had Stiles make the breakfast instead. But it still works, I hope? I had fun with this one! I love some awkward accidental domesticity. Thank you for the prompt, my friend!

(if you enjoy my writing, consider supporting your struggling student writer? You can also request a prompt if you’d like!). https://ko-fi.com/rh27writer

#teen wolf #sterek #derek hale #stiles stilinski #all the fluff and humor #auriette #prompts

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writings-from-the-hart · 4 years

Text

Writebr Intro

Writeblr Intro Time!

Hiya! This is so overdue and I apologize for that lol. I’ve been meaning to write this but school seems to always be getting in the way of just that. Writing. But here I am finally writing this! And yes my username is a pun of my own last name but I just couldn’t resist.

So basically, I really want to surround myself with other writers and have stumbled across tons of writeblr’s (I think that’s what they’re called lol). Instantly I was in love and wanted more of what the community had to offer. I’ve been a self-proclaimed “author” or writer since my early years of grade school. I was that child in the back of the class with ADHD that couldn’t sit still (the cliche bouncing leg and always chewed down nails) and had what my mother called an “overactive imagination”. My notebooks in high school were often filled with wild stories about “galaxies far far away” or dystopias with cruel governments ruled by dictators. Now I’m in my second year of college swamped with classes about the Psychology of criminals (or I like to call the science of murder), and trying to find time to write a novel. So the struggle is real my dudes.

A little about Me:

Hana

She/Her

Pisces

Asexual

Forensic Psychology Major and English with a concentration in Writing Minor

Book hoarder

Dog Mom

Vintage AF

Low Key Emo Punk because I’m no average white girl!

History nerd (Love learning about the old wars and cultures)

Movie nerd (There’s an endless stack of DVDs in my house)

Fandoms:

The Mandolorian (or the ManDADolorian)

Star Trek

Star Wars

Hannibal

X-Files

King Falls Am

Welcome to Nightvale

Transformers (Obviously not the bad movies lol. Bumblebee is baby and must be protected always.)

Good Omens

Sherlock

Lord of the Rings

Marvel (There are so many shows and movies in this category we would be here all day if I tried to list them.)

Timeless (Not sure if the fandom is still alive after what the writers did to one of our ships lol)

DC (I’m a huge Batman geek and adore Wonderwoman, but I take the good with the bad when it comes to this fandom. Especially movie-wise anymore.)

And there’s probably more but my memory isn’t working currently.

Goals?. . . maybe:

Get my novel finished (This has literally been on my To-Do List for who knows how long.)

Meet more writers/new writers.

Improve my poetry (I suck at poetry so I bad I never let it see the light of day, so I need to work on it.)

Start my bullet journal.

Wips:

Okay by now you all know I have at least 1 Wip because I mentioned getting a freaking novel done, but just as a precaution as to what I mean by Wip or Wips. I get distracted quite easily, for some odd reason my brain absolutely loves to jump from one idea to another for no absolute reason. Like WTF dude we already have an idea we’re working on why do you keep bringing all these new ones to me like stray dogs. And like any good dog Mom or distracted writer, I want to keep all the ideas/stray dogs. So, when I say Wip I mean “Look at this cool idea I came up with” and I’ll make sure to specify which one is hogging most of my time.

Renegade: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

This is my baby. Most of my free time is dedicated to adjusting plotlines, character arc’s, fixing freaking plot holes, and other important stuff other than just plain writing. I’m hoping to finish this also monster of a story by 2020 and get it published. So big stuff!

“So tell me little wolf do you want to punish those who have wronged you?” An assassin known as the Crimson Ghost makes their way through the corrupt city-state of Ashton completing a job given to them by the Black Rose. What is a seemingly normal job though turns into something far more complicated when they stumble upon the fractions of an abandoned notebook from the past. A past the Republic is trying to desperately hide and bury no matter what. On the other side of the world in the Republic’s capital Eshar, plainly referred to as “The Prodigy” or “machine” by his superiors, Eric Coalwood has built a life upon the ashes of his family, striving to meet the high expectations set before him by his mentor General Wolfheart. However, his life falls out of its normal day to day routine when the unexpected is asked of him. Command a task force made up of the Republic’s most wanted or his life is over. Eric doesn’t need reasons for why he must do what he has to, all he needs are orders and the Republic is more than happy to give them. Either way the clock is ticking for both the Crimson Ghost and the Republic’s prodigy and with time running out they both have two options. Either get over their different beliefs concerning the Republic or allow the world to once again succumb to war but this time nobody is going to survive it. “Legends are slippery things. For the glory that coats them hides the pain, suffering and death that created them.”

The Trouville Files: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

Not my biggest priority but definitely one of them considering the plot of this story. I mainly use this wip as a reference for Renegade because it’s actually the prequel to it. Also, it’s great to use as writing practice when I’m plagued with writer’s block for Renegade or frustrated with a plot hole. So this is my double-edged sword that does a lot of good.

“Death in these black days is neither kind nor quick.” The year is 2153, the world we know is nothing more than a wasteland strewn with the dead and a sky being choked by their ashes, not glorious and thriving but desolate and starving. The Red Death, a pandemic with a steady progression and a gruesome countdown to the demise of those infected. No one outruns it or survives it. “United we stand, divided we fall.” The Allied Nations, a totalitarian superpower, promised a united people but all they gave this world was more death and destruction. The Red Death isn’t the only thing slowly killing humanity anymore, we are in the form of the War of Broken Pacts. The spark of revolution is lit, but if it will remain so is a question asked by everyone. Does it stand a chance against the iron-fisted government holding the people in shackles? “Rebel with a cause.” Genius Medical Officer for The People’s Republic, Cyprus Ramiro works day and night in search of a cure for the Red Death exterminating hundreds, at least before this war kills him first. But he is also a man on the run and the rebellion can only shelter him for so long. “Duty over pain.” Cunning Spy and Soldier, Orion Ultor is ordered by the Allied Nations to infiltrate and gather information on the ever-growing People’s Republic. In bold letters is Search and Destroy; make a ruin of the rebellion and ensure the Allied Nations remains as it should -- unquestionably in power. No matter the cost unless he wants to suffer the consequences again. “If we fall we shall rise from the ashes like a phoenix.” They should have never met, battlefields don't make good friends. It wasn't fate, it wasn't destiny, only war throwing people together. The Allied Nations is trying to stamp out something they fear, but can they before the Red Plague? Or will humanity find itself extinct.

Beyond his point is where I house my stray dogs/ideas

Hiraeth: Paranormal, Horror, Mystery, and Thriller.

Scooby-doo who?

Hiraeth means a homesickness for a home which you cannot return. That is how Arcane feels like she’ll never be home no matter how hard she tries to connect with her family. The closest she feels to being home is with her friends and in the worn leather seats of the van they all pitched in to buy. It all started out as a way to pass time and for all of them to escape their families because to be honest parents never understand, but it all turned sideways when a simple “ghost hunting trip” stirred something that was meant to remain buried. The truth never remains buried though, not really, somehow it will always creep back in ugly and twisted. Arcane has never felt “at home” but she’ll do whatever it takes to keep what she considers her family safe.

Sweet Dreams: Historical Fiction, Thriller, and Romance.

A literal dream turned into story plot and no I’m not kidding.

The Red String of Fate, The Lovers, and War. These are the three elements intertwined within the plot of Sweet Dreams but before anyone makes any assumptions this isn’t some chummy rom-com. There will be tears and heart strings may get yanked clean out because the angst is real. War and love never mix well, it leaves a sour taste in ones mouth and makes the mind question things it shouldn’t. Like is the woman in his dreams the same woman he sees in all his dreams? Constantly he somehow ends up spotting that same ruby red lipstick, honey golden eyes, and brunette hair laying in perfect curls. She’s everywhere except in his actual life. They say you and your soulmate share dreams, living proof of how intertwined souls are. She doesn’t believe in love or the idea of souls, not with the monsters roaming around the countryside and battlefield carrying assault rifles. Society tells her where her place is, but she disagrees and rather create her own destiny.

The Prophet: Paranormal, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

A short story I can’t seem to let go or it doesn’t want to let me go, but either way, this story has the makings for something great. It also at times seems strikingly similar to Good Omens, so don’t be surprised.

There’s no anti-christ in this story, he already has a book about himself so let’s not make another one besides there are other stories that need to be told. Such as, have you ever heard of modern day prophets and I’m not talking about those people with cardboard signs saying “the end is near!” or giant churches with people preaching about the end times. No, I’m talking about a kid with messy hair and dark circles under their eyes because sleep is no longer a choice due to migraines that plague them every night. Migraines that bring weird cryptic messages that make one question their own sanity. And what happens when strange people start asking about said migraines and messages?

Virago: Fantasy, Thriller, Historical Fiction, and Romance.

I’m not a huge fantasy reader, for some reason I can’t stay invested in them, but here I am with a fantasy story in my wips. It has mages, knights, assasination plots, and one super badass general who takes zero shit from her king. That’s right women empowerment, my dudes! I don’t really have much of a synopsis inline or a plot because this is only of those wips I let rattle around in my brain from time to time. But I will say it does give me that LOTR vibe but also Game of Thrones.

Don’t be surprised if you see my stray doggos from time to time because I will admit I love to play around with storyboards. Even if I don’t have a fully planned out plot put together for it.

And that concludes this what was supposed to be short Writeblr Intro. I hope I have peaked some of your guys’ interests because the community definitely got a hold of minee. Feel free to send me a message about anything I mentioned (even if it’s just fandom shit I don’t care) and don’t be shy. I’m a huge introvert but somehow love talking, so don’t worry it won’t be awkward and odds are I’m equally nervous about conversation lol. Also, feel free to add me to any taglist and reblog/like if you’re active and would like more Writeblr mutuals!

Happy Writing,

Writings-from-the-Hart

#writeblr #wips #writer intro #my ocs

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kriscme · 4 years

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One Life To Live

Hi Readers, this is a reposting of Chapter 24. I didn’t like parts of the ending so I rewrote it. I hope this makes Katniss’s thought process clearer. As always, thanks to Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take” and thanks to you for reading. “The Chance You Didn’t Take” is on Ao3 and FanFiction. Chapter 24

Ready to move on with my life. I repeat this mantra at least a dozen times the following day. I say it as I walk to work. I say it as I clean the blackboard. I say it as I walk past the bakery. I say it as I pass through the Village gates on my way home. I’m still saying it when I go to answer the knock at the door, and I say it again when I see who it is. It’s Peeta.

He hangs back as if he’s unsure what kind of welcome he’ll get. He looks tired, with circles under his eyes, and his clothes are a little disheveled, like they’ve been slept in. One hand clutches a large, bulging paper bag. A silver ring with a love knot gleams dully on one finger. He gives me a hesitant smile. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say in return.

There are a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. If Peeta has a reason for being here, he’s slow to get to it. “Um, do you want to come in?” I ask. Maybe that’s what he’s waiting for. I step back to give him room. He hesitates for a moment, as if considering it. “Thanks, but I can’t stay. I have to get into town. I just wanted to see you before I left. To give you this.” I take the bag he offers me. I unfold the top and see that it’s full of cookies. A least six different kinds. He has been busy. “And to apologize for the other night. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I know none of it is your fault. I don’t why I did – I think it just reminded me – “ “Of another time?” I interject. “I thought that’s what happened. Memories are returning, then?” He nods. “Yeah, and at unexpected times and places. I was wrong to blame you that other time too, wasn’t I?” I shrug. “It’s not nice to be the last to know, especially when it concerns you,” I concede. “We – that is, Haymitch and I – thought Lace would have told you, since you’re engaged and all. That’s why we didn’t.” I refrain from mentioning that I had also threatened her. “I understand. It was Lace’s place to tell me. No one else.” We lapse into silence again, but even though Peeta has said what he came to say, he makes no move to go. “I missed you this morning,” I blurt out, when the silence becomes untenable. I want to kick myself. The plan was to pretend I hadn’t noticed. But I waited nearly fifteen minutes for him to show when I shouldn’t have even given him one second. He was the one at fault, not me. As the day progressed, the anger built. I kept it leashed when I was with the children, but when Max started on me with his usual teasing, he got the full force of it, and he left me alone. And I know he was just dying to pester me for details of what happened at the pub. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” he says, all contrition. “I’ve had a couple of rough nights and I slept in. I ended up taking the day off work.”

“Oh,” I feel myself soften a little. That’s something I can relate to. He does look very tired, exhausted even. And there’s something about it that’s familiar, a sort of haunted look about the eyes. I guess it takes one to know one. “Nightmares?” “Yeah, I’ve been having them for a while now. They came with the memories, but the ones just lately . . .” He doesn’t finish, but looks away, as if he can’t meet my eye. “They’ve got worse?” I prompt. “No. Not worse, just . . . different.” I wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. Maybe he wants me to ask. He seems to be waiting for something. But I don’t want to know about his nightmares. If he wants to talk to someone about them, he has Lace. “I guess it’s the cost of finding yourself,” I say rather unhelpfully. “But I sympathise about the nightmares. They can be brutal.” Unbidden, a hint of animosity creeps into my voice. That guest room ban still rankles. “I’ve found that out,” he replies. “I’m sorry now that I wasn’t more understanding of yours. I suppose you can add that to the list of the many things I have to be sorry about.” There’s another pause. He wants me to ask what they are, I know he does. But I’m tired of this round-a-bout way of conversing. It’s confusing me. If he has something to tell me, why doesn’t he just say it straight out? I thought he was in a hurry to get into town, anyway. “Well, thanks for the cookies. There’s enough to keep me going for weeks, but I’m sure Marcus will help out.” I don’t know why I bring up Marcus, except to show Peeta that I can have someone too if I want. “I’d better not keep you any longer.” He does that looking away thing again. “You’re right, I should be going. I have a lot to do.” He turns back to me with a sad smile. “Bye Katniss. I guess I’ll see you around.” I watch him pass through the Village Gates and then disappear from sight. He seems so forlorn, almost defeated. The nightmares must have come back with a vengeance. And I suppose this business with Lace has knocked him around a bit too. I have an impulse to run after him and put my arms around him, to give comfort in any way I can. I don’t act on it, of course. Besides, what did he mean by “I’ll see you around?” Surely, he should have said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?” He’s decided not to walk with me into town anymore then. I suppose he’s realized that he can’t continue to cling to the friendship the way he has, not when he’s to marry in a few weeks. I don’t know whether to feel anger or relief. I decide on relief. It will be easier for us both.

Johanna comes over for a visit, conveniently right on dinnertime. We sneak in a few words about Peeta while Marcus isn’t listening, but she has little to add to what she told me last night, other than the locket is still by the phone where he left it.

After dinner, Johanna and I decide to visit Haymitch. Marcus is occupied pouring over maps so we won’t be missed. Unfortunately, our timing is off. Haymitch has settled into his favorite lounge chair with a bottle of white liquor and a big paper bag of cookies beside him. “One Life to Live” is about to start and this particular episode has been promoted as not to be missed. Apparently, Celia is to lose the chaste in Chastely. Johanna and I clear a space on the sofa and sit down. There’ll be no real conversation until “One Life to Live” is over. I sigh. You have to be brain dead to enjoy this show. But then I see Haymitch take a swig of his liquor. I guess he’d have lost a significant number of brain cells by now. The show opens with Ginger having the final fitting for her wedding gown. “She looks like a giant puff-ball,” comments Johanna. “It’s to hide her pregnancy. It must be quite advanced by now,” I say. “Quiet!” barks Haymitch. Chastised, Johanna and I turn our attention back to the TV. Blake and Ginger are consulting with the caterers over the menu for the reception. Ginger wants it all to be ginger-colored to go with her name. She decides on sweet potato souffle, lobster with thousand island dressing and blood orange jelly with carrot ice-cream for dessert. Blake is apathetic about it. He looks like a man who’s given up all hope. His roguish older brother, Ryder, who accompanies them, tries to cheer him up with a dirty joke, but it barely raises a smile. Meanwhile, it appears that Celia has got herself a boyfriend. Her parents enthusiastically approve. His name is Lance Bounder and his family owns the largest marijuana plantation in the district. Actually, it’s grown and sold as hemp, but everyone knows where the real source of the Bounders’ wealth comes from and it isn’t rope. On the surface, Lance is perfect for Celia. Amazingly good looking with abs to die for. Wealthy, charming, loves horses and small fluffy animals and, most importantly, shares the Chastely passion for organic farming. On this day, Celia is spending the day at the Bounder mansion. The rest of the family is out, leaving Celia and Lance all alone. Lance reaches into a dish for what looks like dried-up grass, and stuffs it into a small pipe. After it’s lit, he offers it to Celia. “I couldn’t possibly,” says Celia. “I don’t approve of mind-altering drugs.” “It’s 100 per cent organic,” says Lance. “Oh, alright then,” says Celia, and takes a puff. And another. And then another. Celia loses all inhibition. Clothes are strewn the length of the room and soon Celia and Lance are engaged in passionate sex. “Wow,” Johanna whispers to me. “Outside of the porn channel, I didn’t know they allowed this sort of thing on television. Is he licking her – “ “Yes,” I say quickly before she can say the word. “It looks as if he’s trying to reach her tonsils.” After they’ve tried multiple positions, they call out for the gardener. He’s been clipping the same hedge by the window since soon after they started.

“What are they doing?” I whisper to Johanna.

“Making a sandwich,” she replies. Eventually, all three of them collapse exhausted. The camera pans over Celia’s face. The corners of her mouth curve into a satisfied smile. “She’s going to regret it the next day,” murmurs Johanna in my ear. “Why do you think that?” Celia seems very content to me. “Urinary tract infection. Believe me, I know,” she answers. Next, we see Blake and Ryder on the porch of the Knightly home having a drink together. A glorious sunset delineates the oil rigs in the distance, but Blake is blind to its beauty. He’s sunk in despondency. Ryder watches him, deeply worried. The episode ends with Ginger meeting secretly with the real father of her baby – the lead guitarist in the punk rock band “The Sucking Mosquitos.” She tells him that soon after the baby is born, she intends to file for divorce and get half of Blake’s fortune. The lovers seal their dastardly plan with a passionate kiss.

The closing credits roll. Haymitch fumbles around for the remote control, eventually finds it down the side of the chair, and turns off the television. “So, what do you two want?” he asks crossly. I guess I should have remembered that Monday nights are special to Haymitch. He likes to sit and relax with his favorite soap while imbibing a bottle or two of some alcoholic beverage. “Can’t we just visit a neighbor without wanting anything?” I reply. “It would be a first. So, what is it? Information about the boy? What makes you think I have any?” “That bag of cookies for a start,” says Johanna. “We know he’s been here. Peeta made enough to feed an army. We’re concerned for him, that’s all.” Haymitch’s eyes travel to Johanna before landing on me. He looks skeptical. And then he shrugs. “Memories are coming thick and fast and he doesn’t know what to do with them. He says they’re all mixed up in his head. He had a lot of questions about what happened in 13.” He looks in my direction. “Your reaction to his capture. How you came to be the Mockingjay. Questions like that.” “What did you tell him?” I ask. “The truth. That you became the Mockingjay so he’d have immunity. How I got the scars on my face. Why he was rescued.” “What he did he say?” “He said you must have cared for him very much.” “And?” “That’s all. He didn’t have any other questions. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Only tell him what he asks?” “But how did he seem? Was he happy about it?” Haymitch pauses as if can’t decide to be truthful or tactful. He settles on his usual bluntness. “He seemed upset.” My heart sinks. For the briefest of moments, hope had flared. But it was simply another false alarm, like always. Haymitch opens his mouth to add something, but his attention is claimed by Johanna. “Did he tell you what happened with Lace?” she demands.

Through a fog, I hear them talk about what happened at the pub and Peeta’s reaction to it. Only one thought reverberates through my brain. He knows! He knows! And then: he wasn’t happy about it. The very opposite, in fact. “. . . making a mistake. But it’s up to him. Katniss, what do you think?” “Hmm? Ah, yes. Up to him,” I stammer out. Johanna gives me an odd look and then goes back to talking with Haymitch. “Are you alright?” she asks, shortly after we leave. “You’re acting weird, even for you.” I scowl at her. “I’m fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.” “Better have an early night then.” Johanna lets out a massive yawn. “Actually, I think I could do with one myself. ‘night.” “Goodnight.”

Johanna makes the short journey across the road to Peeta’s house, while I make the even shorter one to my house next door. But I don’t go in. Instead I sit down on the porch steps. I need to think. Was there anything I missed, in that strange conversation I had with Peeta? There might be some hope in all that gloom. I know Peeta had called in on Haymitch first. He must have, because he left to go into town after he called in on me. That means he knew then how I feel about him. I go over what was said. He told me he’s having nightmares. There’s nothing unusual in that, though. Most of us who have gone through the Games have nightmares. And then he said he has things to be sorry about. But that’s just a natural consequence of regaining one’s memories. Nearly everyone has something they wish they could take back, or do differently. So, nothing he said tells me anything. But the way he acted did. Haymitch said he was upset when he heard, and he wasn’t happy when he came to see me either. He’d be glad, wouldn’t he, if my being in love with him was a good thing? Of course, he would. It was unwelcomed then. That explains why he could hardly look me in the eye. It’s awkward when someone loves you and you don’t return it. I remember that feeling with Gale. You feel bad. Bad for them. And bad for yourself, because whatever easy relationship you had can never be the same again. That’s why he’s not walking with me into town anymore. He knows he has to separate himself from me for my sake, as well as his own. He can’t be with Lace, and knowingly continue a friendship with someone he knows is in love with him. I want to crawl into a hole and die. It’s what I’ve been dreading all along. I am so humiliated. For once heartbreak doesn’t come into it. I’ve been dealing with that for months. But I had my pride. And now I don’t even have that. How can I face him, knowing that he knows? He’s probably gone over in his head all the clues he’s missed. My moods, my insistence that he find his former self. What a fool I’ve been thinking that it would make any difference. If he loved me, he’d love me, memories or not. The hijacking wasn’t the cause. His love for me had simply burned out. Or he’s been right all this time. It was illusion. Never real in the first place. How stupid I’ve been. Peeta’s been telling me all along how he feels, but I’ve refused to accept it. I don’t know how long I stay on the porch. It’s like I can’t move, because to do so will require some kind of action, or emotion on my part. A great weariness seems to have pervaded my very bones. I haven’t felt this way since those early days when I returned to 12, when my entire world had shrunk to an old rocker in a corner of my kitchen. It seems such a comforting thing, to shut the world out entirely, and not have to deal with it. Across the road, I see the lights in Peeta’s house go out. Johanna has retired for the night then. Haymitch is still up. Even from here I can hear his television blaring. Whether I participate or not, life goes on.

I stretch out my stiffened legs and rise from the porch. Perhaps this is for the best, this end of hope. I can give up this game. That the question of whether I can regain Peeta’s love has been answered, even if that answer is a resounding no. I’m now entirely free to act as I wish because whatever I do won’t make a scrap of difference as far as Peeta is concerned. I can survive this just as I’ve survived everything else. I know I can. It might even mark the start of something new and exciting. I’ll try every food at the feast. Or I could be like Peeta. He found love again. What did he say to me once long ago, when I despaired that I will never again be loved as he had loved me? “I hope that you will, and it will the kind of love where you both feel the same way about each other." Marcus has started to pack away his maps when I enter the house. “How was Haymitch?” he asks. “He’s good. We had to sit through “One Life to Live” though. Celia lost her virginity and Blake is miserable. That’s all you really need to know.” “Good to see the tables turned for a change. And no, I don’t watch it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve just seen the advertising on TV for it.” I walk over to the table and peer down at one of the charts. It’s an aerial photograph of the lake area. A small square structure at the edge of the lake must be the concrete house. Marcus comes to stand close behind me. “I’ve been mapping out walks we can do from the lake. Nothing too arduous. I thought it would be nice if we have time to simply relax and enjoy the surroundings. Here, I’ll show you one of them.” He takes one of my hands and traces a loop that takes in a densely wooded area nearby. I know it well.

His body is warm against my back, and I press into it. The hand that covers mine comes to rest around my waist to pull me closer. Something stirs in me, something primitive and wholly physical that has been suppressed for far too long. And there’s something else too. The need for human contact? Affection? Reassurance that even if Peeta doesn’t want me I’m still desirable and worthy of being loved? I don’t know and I don’t stop to analyze it. I’m done with thinking. I want to be a creature purely of the senses, unconcerned with anything beyond this moment. His free hand pushes aside my braid and his head dips to nuzzle my neck. His beard, rough and soft at the same time, sends tiny shockwaves of pleasure down the entire length of my body. And when I turn within the circle of his arms, his lips are waiting for me.

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butterflyinthewell · 5 years

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Here is a giant post of the vocabulary I use when narrating from Godzilla’s perspective. (Pardon my autistic infodumping...)

[Human perspective shot of Godzilla looming next to a building. We’re looking upward, so all you see is his huge chest, his chin, his stomach, his hips and his hands. He is looking straight ahead, so he would have to look down to see the viewer.]

--- * A lot of what’s written in this is based on my personal headcanons / speculations for / about Godzilla and his godzillasaur species, gleaned from 20+ years of being a Godzilla fan and a few things I read on the Godzilla wiki. *

Godzilla 2014 and KOTM are bringing in brand new Godzilla fans who may want to write fanfiction, so I wrote this out to give other / newer fanfic authors ideas for how to make up vocabulary for narrating Godzilla’s POV. I personally apply this to Heisei era Godzilla, but you can pick and choose things to apply to other versions as well. This is not a how-to, it’s more of a guide map.

Godzilla can’t exactly narrate in words, so I use specific vocabulary for his narration to “paint” his perspective into a form readers can understand while still keeping it a little bit animalistic or alien. Terms that are capitalized are capitalized for 2 reasons: It’s something he “named” with a descriptor, or it’s knowledge about the world imparted on him by his Father when he was a baby. Things he doesn’t capitalize are casual terms, like we would say “my wife” or “that’s the sun up there in the sky.”

I treat Godzilla as sapient, self-aware and driven by thoughts and emotions as much as instinct. He has a distinct, individual personality. He harbors a deep connection to the Earth since he himself is a force of nature created in unnatural circumstances. At a glance he sees the world more primitively than we do because he has no understanding or need for modern human trappings like cell phones or cities, but dig deeper and his feelings about life are as complex as ours.

He gets a very interesting new perspective of the modern human world because of a nasty man named Goro Kurojima. Let’s just say “pieces of Mecha-King Ghidorah, SHRINK RAY, Godzilla becoming the size of an action figure” and leave it at that. The experience lets Godzilla realize humans put the same emphasis on family / connections that godzillasaurs do, but we kinda suck at showing it. ;)

A small note about the timeline goofiness thanks to Godzilla vs King Ghidorah: I spin it that trying to teleport the godzillasaur into the Bering Sea let him turn into a bigger, angrier Godzilla because of nuclear material that detonated when he ‘landed’ on it, so messing with time changed nothing in history other than his size. The 1984 attack and his battle with Biollante still happened. All Shindo’s submarine did was feed him and kill the anti-nuclear-energy-bacteria he got infected with in Godzilla vs Biollante.

Another note: I will use godzillasaur to refer to Godzilla’s species in general. In his mind and heart he is still a dinosaur who has lived for a very, very, very long time and his father lived even longer still. He is ancient.

---

--- Stuff related to himself, his family or Shezilla ---

The Old Days = the time of the dinosaurs, which he greatly misses. He knows he can’t return to those days because his appearance will make normal godzillasaurs run away in fear.

The New World = modern times, a place where he feels forever foreign.

The Flash = the bright detonation of the underwater nuclear energy that mutated him.

The Change = the painful process of mutating. It was an extremely traumatic experience, so he gets really pissed off if something flashes bright white light straight in his eyes. Any other color, he doesn’t care, but white is awful and reminds him of the painful Change that came after the Flash. ----Side note: Right after the Change, he swam around the ocean feeding off of natural uranium deposits until they no longer sustained him, which led to him going ashore in ‘84. The rest is history.

The Fireball = the asteroid that led to the extinction of most dinosaurs.

The Big Boom = the sound the asteroid made.

Long Sleep = hibernation

His Fire = the radioactivity that keeps him alive. When he is tiny and learns the ‘heat’ of his Fire can make humans sick, he tries to minimize his radioactive output when near people he likes. There is no way to make it safer when he is full size, but he will still try.

Feeding his Fire = when he’s absorbing radiation.

His Fire burning low / Fire Hunger = his body’s “low radiation warning” that signals he needs to go absorb more to maintain his internal fission. It feels like a mix of hunger and nausea and he feels his body getting weaker / stiffer when he needs to feed.

His Flame = his radioactive breath beam.

The Surge = his nuclear pulse. It’s a painful move for him, so he doesn’t like to do it very often.

The Scent = he has nerve fibers in the roof of his mouth that behave like a biological Geiger counter. To him it’s a scent that tingles, and the stronger the tingle the stronger the radioactivity. It’s directional, he will catch a whiff of Sustenance and track it by pointing his nose at the source. A studious observer will see him open his mouth slightly like cats do when he’s trying to pin down the exact location of a radioactive snack. It also helps him keep track of how Shezilla is doing. ----Side note: Godzilla has a very acute sense of smell, and when he’s tiny he uses smell along with sight and hearing to tell individual humans apart. He gets concerned when the lady humans he’s in contact with smell like blood because the concept of a period is beyond him, so he thinks they’re injured. It’s...kinda cute.

Sustenance = Radioactive anything he can absorb radiation from. Sometimes he swallows radioactive materials and sometimes he only needs to touch or be near them. He discovers he loves the taste of iodine-131 while he’s tiny and will slurp that up from a eye dropper like it’s candy.

Invisible light / Invisible colors = light from the ultraviolet spectrum, he’s a tetrachromat. He sees 'down’ into all the colors we can and ‘up’ into the ultraviolet spectrum. So he will see a rainbow the same way we do, but with more colors past violet. If you point a black light at him, the pits and grooves in his hide will fluoresce blue and purple. He sees these without the help of a black light. These colors are more concentrated on his hands, face, neck, chest, the edges of where his muscles bulge and the base of his dorsal spines to draw attention to these areas. Shezilla’s are in the same spots and glow pink and green. It’s these invisible colors that make them so attractive to each other, because it’s pretty.

Dark Light = x-rays and gamma rays, he perceives their effects on the environment (a blurry glow around the source) the way humans perceive certain colors as glowing under a black light.

Shining his Light = the act of lighting up his dorsal plates to impress Shezilla or alert her of his position in pitch darkness. If Shezilla does it, she’s showing him her Light.

His Thunder = the whoosh of his holosystolic heart murmur, which is due to a ventricular-septal defect. He can always hear this although it’s louder to him in quiet places or while he’s underwater.

His Lightning = the internal kick he feels from his biological nuclear reactor shocking his heart whenever its rhythm goes awry.

His Palsy / the Palsy = the spasms, limited range of motion and difficulty moving he experiences due to brain damage caused by his heart defect. His Palsy is being difficult when it hurts to move, when controlling a movement is hard or he uses a lot of effort to initiate movements, and it’s the reason he has a slow, lumbering gait. Its visible effects get more pronounced when he’s starving for radiation.

The Pangs = the chest pains he gets when his heart races towards fibrillation. This happens because the mutation caused his heart’s conduction system to form too many nerve branches around the hole between his ventricles. Sometimes they misfire, throwing chaos into his normally nice, rhythmic heartbeat. It tends to happen more when his heart beats fast. Fast for him is 50bpm or more. His resting heart rate is around 13 - 16bpm when he’s awake, drops to 10bpm when he’s in deep delta wave sleep and can go as low as 5bpm when he’s in deep hibernation. He gets up to 85bpm when the v-tach kicks in and that causes the Pangs. ----Side note: This is the sticking point of why the shrink ray is actually hurting Godzilla. When he’s tiny, his resting heart rate is close to 50bpm and jumps to 80 - 90bpm when he gets stressed, and can hit 120bpm when the v-tach kicks in and leads to fibrillation. It’s literally killing him because being smaller means his body isn’t at the critical mass it needs to be at to sustain his biological nuclear fission, which allows him to heal ridiculously fast and stay so unbelievably physically strong. His internal reactor isn’t a bottomless pit of energy, it can’t continue to zap him indefinitely.

Deep Sleep = the occasions when his heart fibrillates long enough that he loses consciousness. This was induced by the cadmium in 1984, which also stopped the internal shocks from happening, and he might have stayed down for good if that nuke didn’t go off in the sky and re-energize him.

Long Memory = his hyperthymestic memory, which is unusual even for his species; he is always journeying into his Long Memory and comparing today to The Old Days.

His mate / beloved mate / Gift from the Wishing Star = Shezilla, who appeared to him one day out of seemingly nowhere. She is the most beautiful godzillasaur he has ever seen.

Wasting Sickness = cancer / tumors, called such because the sick person gets very thin and weak. He can smell the disease.

Mother = his saurian mother. She was blind and died of the Wasting Sickness when he was still a hatchling. In human terms, she had a brain tumor that caused terrible pain, caused her to have seizures and was in the process of destroying her optic nerves when she succumbed. It was his first exposure to death, but he was too Young to be traumatized by it like Father was.

Father = the first Godzilla who appeared in 1954 and was killed by the Oxygen Destroyer. He was at sea when the nuke mutated him, which woke him up into a state of disorientation and panic. He wandered across Odo island and Japan because he was in pain, scared and desperately looking for his son. Sadly, the little humans didn’t understand him when he popped his head over a hill and asked them if they saw his son. Instead, they ran away. He got angry and smashed through their strange forest in attempt to make them listen, and in response they killed him. ----Side note: This Godzilla was the father of the ‘current’ Godzilla. His rampage across Japan is a direct result of the Futurians’ meddling because they caused him to search for his missing son instead of finding him where Shindo left him.

Metal One = MechaGodzilla

Little One = Baby Godzilla / Little Godzilla / Godzilla Jr. ----Side note: This godzillasaur is not Godzilla’s biological offspring, his real parents are long gone.

Pod = family

Marking = he has scent glands in the folds between his fingers that leave his scent behind when he scrapes his claws on something to mark an area as his. Part of why he destroys some of the same landmarks is they rebuild, which removes the scent, so he puts his scent back. ----Side note: A kaijuologist figured this out and notes that Godzilla is less likely to veer off his path and totally destroy a building that’s been sprayed with his scent after reconstruction, but it’s expensive to replicate the scent and most builders don’t apply it after rebuilding.

Patrolling = traveling old migration routes, which he uses the sun, stars and Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate through. Sometimes this takes him through cities, but most of the time he traverses rural areas or areas without any human population.

--- Beliefs ---

Spirit = soul / life force.

The Stars = the afterlife, eternity, Heaven, etc. He believes the stars in the sky are his ancestors’ Spirits, and the Milky Way is a giant forest everyone journeys to after they die.

The Wishing Star / Morning Star / Evening Star = Venus, whenever it’s up before dawn or after sunset. He reveres it the way people of faith revere their deity. He looked at it with longing any time he saw it in the sky, and believes doing so convinced it to give him Shezilla as a gift. Hence her being a Gift from the Wishing Star.

Evil Moon = a red, fully eclipsed moon. It is the antithesis of the Wishing Star. His Mother died during a lunar eclipse and the Fireball happened the day after one, so he associates lunar eclipses with bad things happening.

--- Nature stuff ---

Fire Mountain = volcano

Fire Mountain Smoke = ash or pyroclastic flow

Land Blood = magma and lava

Land Scab = lava that has cooled enough to stop glowing.

Land Heart = magma chambers deep under Earth’s crust

Land Song = the ultra low frequency vibrations of moving tectonic plates. He can hear ultra low and ultra high frequencies even beyond typical animals, so he hears distant earthquakes as music! (But they aren’t so nice when they happen underneath him, then it’s just shaking and noise.) He hears lava moving and knows a volcano is going to erupt long before it actually does. His hearing is magnified further underwater. He hears all the whale songs and dolphin clicks and any other noise that happens underwater, so when he dives he thinks the whole world sings to his heartbeat.

Land Scream = the ultra high and low frequency squeals that precede earthquakes under his current location. This hurts his ears, and instinct prompts him to try to leave the immediate area before the shaking starts.

Water Wind = tsunami, as experienced while underwater when it goes by. A big one can sweep him off course if he’s trying to swim through it.

Flood Surge = tsunami, as experienced while on land or in shallow water. He can wade through it without a problem if the water is shallow enough to walk in. This can also refer to storm surge in the event of a hurricane making landfall.

Ancient Caves = prehistoric caves that are miles under the Earth’s crust. They are the closest thing he has to the world he remembers. Human eyes have never and will never see these enormous caverns. Sometimes he goes there and scrapes up precious stones (diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, quartz, etc.) to give to Shezilla as gifts because she likes the pretty colors.

Rain Smell / Thunder Smell = the scent in the air when conditions are favorable for rainy / stormy weather. In other words, petrichor.

Big Rains = monsoons

Sea Storms = hurricanes

Mating of Sea and Sky / Mating of Land and Sky = waterspouts / tornadoes, described as such because their formation looks similar to the mating process between godzillasaurs.

Crackle = the tingly feeling from his body emitting a streamer during a thunderstorm. If it finds a step leader, he gets struck by lightning. Lightning strikes are hot and noisy, but don’t cause anything more than some burns. A strike to the face can give him flashbacks of the Flash and anger him into destroying whatever is in his path at that very moment.

Falling Cold = snow

Cold Land = polar ice caps and glaciers

Slippery Cold Land = ice

Warm Season / Hot Season / Cool Season / Cold Season = Spring, summer, fall, winter.

Long Cold Season = ice age

Draw = magnetic fields, which he is sensitive to and uses to navigate in conjunction with the position of the sun or stars. As you can imagine, anything that emits magnetic pulses or unnatural magnetic fields will disorient him and he’ll go find out what’s ‘wrong’. This, along with bird call recordings, was used to lure him up Mt. Mihara in ‘84.

Draw Up = north

Draw Down = south

Horizons = east if he’s not following the sun, west if he is following the sun.

--- Human stuff ---

Bugs, zappers and stingers = the aircraft, land vehicles and watercraft that shoot at him. Solid projectiles are stingers. The maser tanks are the zappers.

Silver forests / strange forests / glowing forests = cities, they’re called glowing at night because of the lights.

Shiny trees / strange trees / glowing trees = skyscrapers, they’re called glowing at night because of the lights.

Boxes = buildings that are squarer in shape or not tall like skyscrapers.

Tiny boxes = buildings that aren’t tall, like you see in suburban areas.

Caves / Caverns = the insides of human dwellings.

Weird rocks = furniture

Shiny rocks = tiles

Scented sand = cat litter, he doesn’t mind the strange smell. He “goes” in it when he’s tiny and buries the results like cats do because he still has the instinct to not alert predators. The cat litter is the clumping sort that blocks some of the radiation and makes it safer to clean up after him. ----------Side note: Anything from inside Godzilla’s body is dangerously radioactive when he’s full size, but less so when he’s small. You’ll get radiation sickness if you try to pet full size Godzilla while wearing anything less than a HAZMAT suit, but he can be picked up and handled safely in someone’s bare when he’s tiny. Still, people wear gloves to handle him as a precaution.

Not-dirty dirt = carpets / rugs

Mud that isn’t sticky / weird mud = bedspreads

Artificial suns = lights

Colorful Light Box / Image Box = TV sets and computer monitors.

Talking box / howling box = phones

Transparent box = the aquarium he’s kept in while tiny.

Colored vines = cords, wires, cables or ropes.

Metal vines = chains, both for jewelry and holding stuff.

Artificial claws = eating utensils, like silverware and chopsticks.

Their kill = the food humans eat. Most of it looks and smells totally unappetizing, but he expects at least a bite if they’re having meat or fish. He finds it confusing that humans can walk around a corner and reappear with food without any signs of a hunt.

Weird worms = noodles

Hot mud = coffee, it smells and tastes nasty to him. He will literally gag from the smell if it’s really strong.

Outer skins / outer shells = clothes / HAZMAT suits

Molting = changing clothes, he thinks humans molt way too often.

Eye covers = goggles

Eye frames = glasses, both Kenpachiro and Goro wear them although their choice of frames are different. (Goro’s are plastic fully rimmed black rectangular frames, Kenpachiro’s are thin titanium semi-rimmed wayfarer frames.)

Marking sticks = pens or pencils

Marking shapes = written words (in Japanese), he recognizes they have significance to the humans by how they create and react to them, but doesn’t understand the connection between writing and language.

--- Communication ---

Old Tongue = in essence, godzillasaur “language”. He uses purposeful vocalizations, facial expressions and body movements to “talk” to the humans when he’s tiny because he sees the Kenpachiro’s group as his Pod. A whole ‘sentence’ may be expressed simultaneously. If I were to translate Godzilla’s ‘language’ in a movie, it would be as subtitles. Much of his behavior is communication. ----Side note: Humans unknowingly speak Old Tongue a lot via their body language, facial expressions and tones of voice, but he gets lost with speech and the fact that humans react to each others’ vocalizations more than their gestures. That said, he uses pattern recognition to grasp the meaning of a few individual words, like responding to the specific syllables humans attribute to him and looking at who says his name, and the word stop. He picks up on the hand gestures used to train him in the lab, too. ----Extra note: A quick and dirty bit of Old Tongue-- if Godzilla tilts his snout down and looks upward at you, he’s signaling that he doesn’t trust you by getting his snout out of his visual field to watch you more closely. If he throws his head back when he roars, he’s angry!

Mind Song = telepathic communication. Godzilla communicates with Miki Saegusa through memories, emotions and sensory information because he knows when she’s touching his mind. He's able to decide whether to welcome her in or kick her out and block her off, but 99% of the time he welcomes her in.

Mouth sounds / jabbering noises / chattering = human speech... he knows it is a form of elaborate vocal communication. He finds it annoying, overly complex and confusing.

--- The naughty stuff ---

Kiss = the act of touching or nuzzling noses. A nose to nose touch is like a little peck, while rubbing their noses together is more intimate.

Impressing = the mating display behavior. He circles her, shows off his sharp teeth, shows off his dorsal spines and flexes a bit to show off his big, strong muscles. Then he brings her Sustenance or food. It’s very much the godzillasaur equivalent of a pick up line followed by a romantic dinner. If she rejects his offerings, she’s rejecting him. But if she flicks her tail to the side and rubs her head against his neck after he does all that? Ooh, baby, he’s gonna get lucky!

In Season = fertility, they both emit pheromones that stink like garbage to humans, but it’s perfume to them! Shezilla goes into season 4 times a year and it lasts a week. Godzilla goes into season once a year for a day without Shezilla present, but her going into season triggers his hormones to shift too and he’ll stay in season until she goes out of it. They get really freakin’ horny and twitchy when in each others’ presence. When apart, Godzilla tends to be a bit more aggressive because sexual frustration is a thing, and Shezilla hunts and eats more traditional fare (sharks / whales) to store extra nutrients in case she conceives and lays an egg. Also, you can’t tell by looking at Shezilla when she’s in season, but Godzilla’s dorsal spines get a little bit longer and his muscles bulk up. ----Side note: The reason Godzilla changes outwardly and Shezilla doesn’t is it’s the guy’s job to impress the girl. Their chances of actually conceiving are small because of the radiation in their cells and mutated DNA. Godzilla’s sperm cells are so hyperactive and fast-moving that kaijuologists can’t get an accurate count, and the state of Shezilla’s egg cells are unknown. The only reason kaijuologists got a sperm sample at all is because gravity is a thing and the excess dripped out as soon as Shezilla stood up again after Godzilla toppled her onto a building to do the deed for the first time. (They’re animals, they will do it anywhere if the mood strikes!)

Being One / Making Life = mating. They mate via cloacal kiss, but they do it in something similar to the human missionary position because that’s the best way to line their vents up. Shezilla’s dorsal spines are smaller because she is the one who lays on her back and helps her big, klutzy boyfriend get into position on top of her using her teeth and claws. It doesn’t hurt him at all, nature made the exact spots she bites and grips into erogenous zones that encourage him to keep going. His feet go under her thighs and flank her tail, which are erogenous zones for her. He lines his vent up with hers by feel, everts the muscular inner walls of his cloaca into her vent and her muscles grab on to achieve a proper seal. Mating for them isn’t a ’touch cloacas and done’ deal, they stay in position for several minutes. There’s no humping action either, it’s all driven by internal muscle contractions. ----Side note: In my headcanon Godzilla fucks without a dick, get over it.

Touching Spirits / Union = the sensation humans know as an orgasm. Their bodies relax instead of tense up when they feel it happen because the endorphin flood puts them into an altered state of consciousness, and it keeps them from popping apart prematurely. The most movement they’ll do is a lot of tail twitching. For Godzilla, the sensation triggers the muscle contractions for release, and for Shezilla it creates suction that moves the sperm where it’s supposed to go to fertilize an egg cell. They thrash around or groom each other afterward because they feel a tiny bit high as their endorphin rush comes to an end. -----Side note: She comes when he does because his triggers hers, so they always experience it together.

One = the godzillasaur equivalent to marriage, which is consummated the first time a pair mates.

Vent = the cloaca. It closes tight and can’t be seen when not in use for mating or expelling waste. It’s located right in front of where their tails join their body. Godzillasaurs stand upright, so that is why they mate facing each other.

Life Material = the goo inside unhatched eggs, though it can also refer to semen.

--- Specific people ---

(Canon characters)

The Deserter = Yasukai Shindo, who saluted him on Lagos Island and left him while he was wounded. He sees Shindo as the one who abandoned him to the pain of the mutation process and it’s why he looked into Shindo’s eyes through the window before he killed him with the same bright light that made him hurt. He wanted Shindo to know that he remembered and hated him. ----Side note: Shindo never realized what Godzilla was thinking when they looked at each other through the high rise window. He accepted his fate as divine retribution because he felt responsible for 'creating’ a bigger, meaner Godzilla.

The Mind Singer = Miki Saegusa, the psychic woman who confuses and intrigues him greatly. He remembers seeing her as an adult before he got mutated, but later he saw her as a child inside the train car he picked up and threw aside in ‘84. He knows humans grow bigger and their hair turns white or falls out when they get old, but from his perspective Miki is aging out of order. Time travel is a concept beyond him, so he will never understand that she traveled to the past with the Futurians. -------Side note: Miki doesn’t harbor ill will towards Godzilla even though her entire family was with her and died when he dropped the train car. She sensed no malice or cruelty in him, he was an animal doing what animals do, and holding a grudge would be like being angry with an earthquake or a tornado. As time goes on and she comes in contact with Godzilla more often, she comes to realize he is intelligent in his own way and experiences a broad range of emotions just like humans. This gives her a deep compassion towards him; he is lonely in his difference, same as her.

(OCs)

The Odd One = Kenpachiro Satsuma, an (adult diagnosed!) autistic kaijuologist who is lanky, geeky and tends to look a bit disheveled most of the time. He is a widow who deeply misses Momoko, his deceased wife. This is the guy who studies Godzilla very closely (special interest) because he truly wants to understand how he lives, communicates and experiences the world. He believes Godzilla is capable of more emotion than just anger and that humans can learn to coexist peacefully with him. Kenpachiro is the man who cloned Shezilla, so he understands the grief Godzilla is suffering through after her death and he regrets causing him that pain. ----Side note: Kenpachiro has a teenage son named Akira. He tries to be a good father to the kid, but doesn’t know how to connect with him. As a result, Akira is sometimes belligerent and misbehaves in attempt to get his father’s attention. Godzilla sees the rift between them and will try to bridge it because he misses his own father.

The Cruel One = Goro Kurojima. A buff, broad-shouldered, intimidating guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a bushy mustache. This guy is Kenpachiro’s rival. He is an abusive sadist who wants to make Godzilla suffer until he dies as payback for the loss of his family in 1954. He doesn’t differentiate the ‘current’ Godzilla from the 1954 monster even though they aren’t the same creature. He attributes only malice to Godzilla’s behavior and does not believe Godzilla is capable of anything but hatred. He has untreated PTSD. Godzilla can sense the hatred this man has for him and he doesn’t like it. -----Side note: Having PTSD is not what makes Goro an abusive, sadistic villain. His choices to hurt those around him for his own personal gain are what make him a villain. He was just a kid coming home from school when the first Godzilla reduced his house and mother to ash right in front of him and stepped on the fiery rubble. He saw his mother’s skin melt. It haunts him. The PTSD actually humanizes him and explains where his pain comes from without excusing his behavior.

The Gentle One / Mama = Reiko Fukamori, a veterinarian / kaijuologist who has feelings for Kenpachiro. She is a very plain, unassuming woman who doesn’t realize the full extent of Goro’s nastiness until he gets Godzilla into his clutches, so she is the one who sets things in motion by sneaking Godzilla away from the lab and into Kenpachiro’s hands. Her gentleness reminds Godzilla of his saurian mother. She talks to him a lot, and he is able to tell by her tone that she means him no harm. ------Side note: Reiko’s veterinary experience lets her figure out Godzilla’s high muscle tone is neurological and that his heart defect is a dangerous problem for him while he’s tiny. She knocks Kenpachiro’s socks off with her suggested solution to keep him alive until the shrink ray begins to wear off. She is the one who introduces Godzilla to iodine-131, which she gives via an eye dropper while training him to follow simple voice commands / gestures so he’s easier to work with. She is the only person Godzilla chirps at. Their relationship becomes very similar to Baby and Asuza from Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla II.

--- Example narration ---

--- Akira’s lava lamp causes tiny!Godzilla to have a flashback of his youth. Kenpachiro has a tooth from the original ‘54 Godzilla that he uses as a shelf. It’s mentioned, so I figured I should give context. ---

Reflections of the magical red globules flickered across Godzilla's eyes. It took him far back to The Old Days before the Fireball. A time when the sky was red and trees touched the clouds. Godzilla was very young and tiny with ribs that stood out on his flanks.

A Big Tooth with its short arms and bad breath lunged at him. He stared at its slavering teeth, unafraid. Suddenly, a nearly black shape streaked into view. Father caught him by the scruff of his neck and sprinted away from the danger. Young Godzilla relaxed against the reassuring touch. Father's hot breath tickled the back of his neck as he ran. Oblivious to the Big Tooth snapping at Father's heels, young Godzilla shrieked in delight. Father ran so fast! He watched the brown and green streaks of trees fly by.

Then Father ducked into the underbrush. It was muddy and cold, but Father swam through it like water. The Big Tooth would not walk out on this mud. Defeated, it crashed back into the jungle to find more suitable prey. Father slowly wriggled free on the other side of the mud. Young Godzilla thought the squishing sound it made was funny, but Father put him down and beckoned for him to follow. So young Godzilla stumbled behind his father, nipping at his ankles. He followed him up a grassy hill overlooking mountains. He was so tired when he got to the top that he collapsed, panting.

The smell in this area was horrible and glowing red rivers boiled in the valley below. Father told him the glowing red stuff was Land Blood that came from the Land Hearts inside Fire Mountains.

Father bent to lap the mud off his hands and arms. Young Godzilla purred and squirmed as the big sandpaper tongue scraped the mud off his hide. Then Father beckoned him away, for it was time to hunt.

Father took him back to the Fire Mountain at night. They stood together and watched the giant sprays of glowing Land Blood shoot towards the stars. It was nothing more than glowing red rain! He ran forward and tried to catch some on his tongue. Father roared at him to come back. Land Blood was dangerous and not a toy! It had the power to both create and destroy.

Many seasons later, when Godzilla met his Gift from the Wishing Star, he laid over her to Make Life, and at the moment of Union his body erupted like a Fire Mountain. Afterward, the fierceness in her eyes and the gentleness of her Kiss made him forget The New World he found so unfamiliar. They were One, now and forever.

Reality crystallized. He blinked and refocused his eyes. That was not Land Blood shooting up; that was red slime inside a human contraption. The tooth beside him was not the strong jaws of Father carrying him to safety. He took a step back and saw his own reflection staring at him instead of his mate’s beautiful face.

He was little again...but he would never be like he was before the Flash.

The humans who lived in this giant cave were the closest thing he had to a Pod. And by the look of it the Odd One did not pay close attention to his young. He was ignorant to the younger one’s needs for attention. This ignorance would soon drive them apart.

Godzilla howled past the bitterness in his throat. He turned away from his reflection. Brokenness happened everywhere he went, and it would never stop.

--- One last note ---

Godzilla makes eye contact and reads emotions through eyes much like neurotypical humans do. Eye contact won’t provoke him like it does most animals unless a hostile move follows. He can read the emotions in a human’s eyes if he gets close enough to see them, and humans who survive eye contact with him swear he stared into their soul. Because he does.

[Yasukai Shindo looks out the window of his high rise office at Godzilla, who is right outside looking in. They are looking into each others’ eyes, though Godzilla’s are in shadow. Godzilla looks into Shindo’s eyes as he kills him with his radioactive breath. Shindo opens his arms and accepts his fate.]

#Godzilla #Gojira #kaiju #headcanon #fanfiction #ideas #long post #VERY long post #food mention #tw vomit #tw menstruation #tw feces #tw unsanitary #swearing #violence #water

46 notes · View notes

dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt · 5 years

Note

Even numbers :}

THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU CRAZY KIDDO I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND YOU’RE A BLESSING ON THIS WORLD!!!!!!

2: is your room messy or clean?

It’s kind of a mix?? Like I leave my clothes folded on top of the drawers rather than putting them away bc the drawers stick and it’s just easier access. The messiest thing about my room is that I’m a human magpie who likes collecting shiny/interesting things so I have a lot of stones and bits of metal or ceramic and some nuts and bolts lying around pffft. XD But mostly I keep things kinda tidy.

4: do you like your name? why?

I DO NOW!!!! :DDDDD

6: describe your personality in 3 words or less

uUUUuuHHHHHh well-meaning, stubborn, energetic! :D

8: what kind of car do you drive? color?

I currently drive my parents’ car. It’s dark grey… not gonna say what model. XD

10: how would you describe your style?

Like, clothes wise? Either very simple n plain or outrageously colourful n quirky. Depends on the day. XD

12: what size bed do you have?

Double.

14: if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

Oof honestly just back home (in Victoria.) A part of me also wants to try out a big city?? I’ve always lived in the country and tbh I kind of hate big cities because they seem to be filled with rude busy people but I wanna live there just to have something different and so I’ll know for sure and to say I did, y’know? (lmao a friend and I joke that we’re gonna move to NYC together one day, so she can keep my li’l naive country boi ass from getting chewed up and spat out by New Yorkers. I appreciate it. X’D )

16: favorite makeup brand(s)

No idea. I’ve only worn makeup twice, and those times were when my Mum begged me for a solid year until I finally caved and let her do it… grumpily. X’D

18: favorite tv show?

S E N S E 8

20: how tall are you?

5′4. :)

22: do you go to the gym?

Nope, not enough money. I used to work out a lot at home and I got p ripped but because of my eating disorder I had to stop. Still haven’t started up again yet. :(

24: how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

21 bucks. :D

26: how many pillows do you sleep with?

2. One under my head and one to cuddle (shut up, I kNow. XD )

28: how many friends do you have?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ too lazy to count, however many people I interact with online. I don’t have any irl friends… god that sounds pathetic. XD

30: whats your favorite candle scent?

Absolutely no idea, we never have any. That’s actually something I wanna change when I get my own place. I like candles. They calm me.

32: 3 favorite girl names

God I am so shitty with names. My characters either name themselves or they don’t get names. X’D UUUUUUUUHHHHH, Amber, Ida, Carmen??? idk???

34: favorite actress?

Emma Thompson is an actual fucking legend and I would go to battle for her.

36: favorite movie?

How to Train Your Dragon or Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse! :D (If it has to be live action: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. :P )

38: money or brains?

Heart.

40: how many times have you been to the hospital?

For myself, personally? Lots when I was a baby bc I had chronic ear infections and would literally just scream 24/7 and never sleep, I was in so much pain (poor tiny Matt. :(((( ) Once because I had a really bad migraine around age 13 that literally would not go away and had me throwing up every other minute and in such bad pain I wanted to literally die. And once recently when I felt super sick for months and months and finally went only to find there was nothing wrong with me?? turned out it was my gluten intolerance but dear god I had never felt that sick.

42: do you take any medications daily?

Just my asthma preventer (and I forget to take that a lot and end up not being able to breathe as well as I should, bc I’m the World’s Biggest Dumbass :)) XD )

44: what is your biggest fear?

Physically: Not being able to breathe. Emotionally: The people I love ending up hating me just because I’m me. There’s a lot of irony to unpack there but I’m just gonna set the whole suitcase on fire. :)

46: whats your go to hair style?

Shaving the whole damn thing off.

48: who is your role model?

I don’t really have one?? I guess my parents?? But I don’t really wanna be exactly like them either? I think it’s unwise to put anyone on a pedestal bc nobody’s perfect.

50: what was the last text you sent?

Screaming to a friend about how cute her OC is. XD

52: what is your dream car?

Literally could not care less so long as it gets me where I’m going and it’s neon yellow. X’D

54: do you go to college?

Nope, dropped out of highschool early lmao.

56: would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

Rural I guess?? But that’s only because I’ve always lived rural and don’t know any different. it’s quiet, I like quiet.

58: do you have freckles?

Yep! I don’t have them in big patches tho? I just have like, some random single ones scattered all over my body?? XD

60: how many pictures do you have on your phone?

Don’t have a phone and dear GOD I don’t even wanna know how many pictures I have on my laptop. Answer: too many. XD

62: do you still watch cartoons?

OF COURSE!! :D

64: Favorite dipping sauce?

idk I don’t really dip things in sauce? Maybe just tomato sauce?

66: have you ever won a spelling bee?

Yes, actually!! Woooo go bb Matt!! :D

68: can you draw?

Stick figures? Yes. XD

70:what was the last concert you saw?

Never been to one.

72: Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

Only ever been to Starbucks so I can’t really compare.

74: what is your crush’s first and last initial?

76: what color looks best on you?

I think blue does. 💙

78: do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Open. Sleeping with it closed freaks me out, idk why. 😅

80: what is your biggest pet peeve?

Being condescended to. :///

82: favorite ice cream flavor?

Mint choc chip! Or rainbow! XD

84: chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

GIMME THE GAY SPRINKLES EVERY TIME.

86: what is your phone background?

Laptop background is currently THIS incredibly amazing beautiful accurate drawing Oli did of my OC Ben!!! :’D

88: do you like it when people play with your hair?

Y E S. I used to hate it when it was rlly long but now it’s heaven. ^-^ Unless I’m in one of my ‘being touched makes my skin crawl’ kind of moods.

90: do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

Just whenever I have my shower, occasionally during the day if I’m sweaty or whatever. Sometimes if my insomnia kicked me in the ass I splash my face n neck with cold water to wake up in the morning.

92: have you ever been drunk?

Nope, and I really don’t want to be. The idea of being out of control of myself, even just a little bit, is terrifying to me. No thanks. I also just generally do not like alcohol, idk why.

94: favorite lyrics right now

My all-time favourite lyrics come from Twenty One Pilots’ song ‘The Judge’ (even though I don’t actually like the song itself I love the lyrics):“When the leader of the bad guys sangSomething soft and soaked in painI heard the echo from his secret hideawayHe must’ve forgot to close his doorAs he cranked out those dismal chordsAnd his four walls declared him insane”

96: day or night?

*chanting* NIGHT NIGHT NIGHT NIGHT NIGHT N

98: favorite month?

Ironically, considering my character March is a giant dickwad, it’s March. XD The weather is just starting to turn cool after the grueling summer and it’s also my birth month! :D

100: who was the last person you cried in front of?

My Dad. Yikes.

AHHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKIN, ALEX!!!

#Matt speaks #if you wanna get to know me read this lmao #looong #another interview that I love!!!#:D #<3 #BUDDY :D #bestest bud #I English speak good #X'D #asks #get to know me

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grootiez · 6 years

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The Joys of Raising a Teenaged Groot- Chapter 16: Groot’s Fate

Rocket walked in the conference room. Inside were big brown leather chairs on wheels surrounding a giant circular oak table. The walls of the room were filled with an array of book cases filled to the brim with books about different medical conditions and research into those ailments.

The raccoon took a seat on one side of the table. The nurses, emergency room techs, and all of the other people that were assigned to Groot’s case sat on the other side. Rocket could tell just by the sheer amount of paperwork, files, and other important pieces of documentation that the news probably wasn’t good for Groot and he should be prepared for the worse.

The nurse that was assigned to Groot when Rocket came to visit with his son spoke first. “Rocket, I’m Kalika and I was Groot’s nurse when he came in last night. It was very touch-and-go with him and he was in a lot of pain when we took him to the procedure room, where we had no choice but to place him in a medically-induced coma until his condition stabilizes and improves. But he showed no immediate improvement as is typical of people who come in with these types of injuries. There were also a couple of times when he stopped breathing and was deprived of oxygen for at least fifteen minutes. And he was also clinically dead for a couple of minutes twice in the span of ten minutes before we were able to revive him.”

Rocket bowed his head down at hearing this. He sighed before mumbling to himself. “So there’s no hope for him, is there?” He looked up at the other people in the room. “You’re going to pull the plug, aren’t you?”

The nurses, specialists, and technicians looked at Rocket as they silently nodded, confirming Groot’s fate.

“All the signs point to brain death. He also contracted a very severe infection from the blades of the knives he was stabbed by and some of the stab wounds he suffered were very deep and close to some of his vital organs, further increasing the severity of the infections. Now, he suffered a very bad black eye that’s extremely swollen. We tried to get him to open it while he was still conscious so that we could look at the damage and determine if his eye could be saved, but he couldn’t. He also has a few lacerated muscles and a few fractures in his arm and both of his legs.” Kalika explained as Rocket’s expression changed. “His chances for survival, let alone a full recovery are less than a 0.01% chance. If somehow he did make it, he would be severely brain damaged and would be a bed-ridden vegetable for the rest of his life, and I know that neither you nor him would want that, so it would be best to remove him from life support and let Groot die peacefully.”

Rocket does his best to contain his emotions. He tries not to cry as he asks “Can I see him one last time before he-.” The raccoon couldn’t finish the sentence.

Kalika nodded as she and all the other specialists got up and escorted Rocket back to Groot’s room. On the way back, they pass the waiting room where a few familiar faces greeted them.

“Gammy? Drax? Nebula? Kraglin? Mantis? Star-Munch?” Rocket was surprised at seeing the other Guardians in the waiting room. “What- what are you guys doing here?”

“We figured that you needed some moral support while Groot recovers.” Drax answered for the others as he placed an arm around Rocket. “I would’ve wanted the same if my wife and daughter had a chance to be saved after Thanos slaughtered my people.”

“That’s very kind of you guys.” Rocket acknowledged their kind gesture towards him. “But...” He paused, the next words tough for him to say. “Groot’s going to be taken off of life support.” The other Guardians were saddened at the news as they joined Rocket in walking down the long lonely ICU corridor to Groot’s room.

When they arrived, the Guardians all stood around Groot’s bed in a semi-circle. There were two nurses already there to clean Groot’s wounds and treat them with a special ointment before covering them up with gauze wrappings. Groot also was recently given a sponge bath and had a fresh diaper and gown on him. He was still alive, but just barely and the machines that were hooked up to him were doing the breathing for him. His entire face and body were extremely swollen and Groot’s expression told the Guardians, especially Rocket that he was in extreme pain and wanted it all to just go away. Rocket didn’t have the heart to tell Groot that it would be over with soon.

The other nurses left the room. Kalika was still present to oversee the Guardians saying goodbye to one of their own and then she would turn off all the machines that were keeping Groot alive. Moments later, the coroner stood at the doorway with a cadaver cart that he would transport Groot on once he died and take him to the morgue that was in the basement of the facility so an autopsy could be performed on him to determine what injuries contributed to his eventual death. The coroner also had in his possession a fountain pen in his front pocket and laying on the cart was Groot’s death certificate. It was already filled out, the only things that were missing was Groot’s cause of death and the date and the time of his death.

The pastor entered the room and said a final prayer for Groot before the Guardians said their goodbyes to the teenager.

Up first was Mantis. She placed her hand upon Groot’s forehead to see if she could read his thoughts.

“I-I can’t tell what he’s thinking!” Mantis wailed as she trembled. “It’s unending darkness!” Drax then picked her up and carried her to a chair.

Nebula approached Groot’s bed. “Hey, Groot. I know that we didn’t actually get along all that well and you were scared to death of me when I first came to visit but, you eventually got used to seeing me everyday and became less scared. Even Gamora said over these past few weeks you were starting to look at me as your Aunt Nebby.” Nebula reminisced to Groot. “I’ll always be your Aunt Nebby, no matter what.” She added before she got up and walked over to where Drax and Mantis were sitting.

Kraglin walked up to Groot next. “Hey, Twig.” He greeted the teen, hoping Yondu’s nickname for Groot would miraculously wake him up. Nothing. Kraglin thought of something to say. “Remember the time that we went to Terra for a weekend vacation of rest and relaxation? And on our last night we were looking for some place fancy to eat? And every other place was either closed, out of business, or didn’t want to serve a mangy raccoon or a fat guy who refuses to wear a shirt.”

“Hey! I’m not a mangy raccoon!” Rocket snarled at Kraglin.

“And I’m not fat, I’m buff!” Drax corrected the Xandarian.

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket challenged. “Then why can’t ya wear a shirt? They make em big enough for fattys!” He roared as Drax charged towards the raccoon.

“I CAN’T HELP IF I HAVE SENSITIVE NIPPLES!” Drax exclaimed.

“OH, REAL CLASSIC! THE ‘SENSITIVE NIPPLE’ EXCUSE!” Rocket mocked. “LIKE WE HAVEN’T HEARD IT A MILLION TIMES BEFORE!”

Peter and Gamora separated the two before they got to each other and got into fisticuffs. Peter using all his strength to hold Drax back and Gamora holding Rocket in her arms after he leaped into the air.

“ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!” Gamora yelled at the two. “This is not the time for you two to be fighting. Now, calm down and apologize to each other.”

“Rocket, I’m sorry for my sudden outburst.” Drax said as he bowed his head in submission.

“And I’m sorry that I called you fat.” Rocket apologized. “Hey, do you and your sensitive nipples wanna get some Ben & Jerry’s later?”

“Small friend, it would be a pleasure to get some Terran Ice Cream with you.” The Destroyer accepted Rocket’s offer.

Kraglin waited for everything to settle back down before he continued to talk to Groot. “Anyways, as I was saying, Groot, that night, the only place that was open was Souplantation. Quill was tired of trying to find some place that would please everybody. Long story short, I guess that’s where my soup addiction came from. And I remember the time when I babysat you and there was no soup for us to eat. You showed me that cereal is the breakfast version of soup and all the different sugary types got me addicted to cereal now.That brings me to my next point, I’m sorry about sneaking out of the house to go to the soup kitchen the other night. I knew that it would embarrass you, but Drax dared me to or he would show Quill my secret soup stash...” Kraglin looked around at everybody. “...And now that that secret is out...” Kraglin regrets talking about his secret soup stash out in front of everybody. “Anyways, Twig, when ya meet back up with Yondu in Heaven, tell him that I’m holding down the fort and keeping Quill in line.”

Kraglin got up and traded places with Drax, who sat next to Groot.

“Hey, Groot.” Drax began. “I know that you and me weren’t the best of friends, but I’ll never forget the fun times that we’ve had together.” Drax wipes a tear from his face. “All the times I rocked you to sleep when you were on my shoulder, all the play fighting we would do just for fun and you teaching me how to turn invisible.” Drax chuckled to himself. “I’m sorry for calling you ‘dumber, smaller Groot’ and ‘dumb tree.’ I didn’t want it to sound mean to you. I’ll miss you Groot. Do me a favor and tell my wife and daughter that I’m doing good.”

With that, Drax sat back down where Mantis, Nebula, and Kraglin were. It was now Gamora’s turn to reflect on her time with Groot.

Gamora brushed some of Groot’s moss out of his closed eyes as she began to speak softly to him. “Hey, baby. Oh, sweetie, you’ve grown up so much since you were little. I remember all of us, especially Rocket getting excited when you started to move in your little pot. He was so happy and overfilled with joy when you stretched your little arms out and yawned. We all remember when you started to talk for the first time. Sure, all you could say was ‘I am Groot.’ But he was so happy and he took it upon himself to teach us how to understand you. When it was time for you to leave your pot for the first time, Rocket placed you on the kitchen counter to get you ready for your bath. But you wanted some cookies first, and Rocket kept telling you ‘No.’ You waited until his back was turned and you extended your little arms until you reached the shelf the cookies were on and you lifted yourself up to them. Well, your coordination wasn’t the best, so you fell over and luckily I caught you before you hit the ground.” Gamora smiled. “Rocket and I checked you out and saw that you had two very strong legs that were scrunched up in that pot and it was time for you to stretch them out. At first you were crawling, then we had to baby-proof the entire house so you wouldn’t get into stuff that you shouldn’t have been near. Rocket was against the idea of having to keep all his weapons under lock and key, but better safe than sorry. And then you started to grow up as soon as you started school and we were all proud of you.”

“We love you, baby.” Gamora finished before she kissed Groot on the forehead and got up from her seat and rejoined the others as Peter got up to talk to Groot.

“Hey there, Groot.” Peter began as he sat next to Groot. “I know that these last couple of years you weren’t the most well-behaved kid and that’s kinda my fault.” Peter looked at Rocket as the raccoon stared at the humie. “But, not once did I not think of you as my son. I know that Rocket is technically your adoptive father and he did most of the work needed with raising you. The truth is, Groot, is that each of us had a hand in helping to raise you, and in turn, you taught us new things and together, all of us became a family. A dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.”

Peter patted Groot on his shoulder as he stood up. It was now Rocket’s turn to say his farewells to the one person that his whole life revolved around. As the raccoon walked to Groot’s bedside, he couldn’t help be reflect on Groot’s life. Not just when this Groot was reborn, but from the very first time he met the Original Groot back when Original Groot and him were both experiments and prisoners on Halfworld.

“Groot, I know that you and me haven’t had the sort of traditional father-son relationship these past few years when you became a teenager, and especially since you’ve entered your rebellious stage and started to defy all the rules I set down for you.” Rocket struggles to say as he fights back the tears. “But- but, I wish that I had been more stern with you. If I’d put my foot down when you started to disobey us, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Rocket held Groot’s hand as he struggled to look at his son through tear-shot eyes. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t the father that you wanted. I’m sorry that I wasn’t the father that you deserved.” Rocket then looked at the other Guardians, specifically Kraglin and Peter. “I wish that I was more like Yondu. If I was, Groot wouldn’t have snuck out the house. Groot wouldn’t have met up with those hooligans and gotten stabbed. Groot wouldn’t be here right now on his deathbed fighting for his life.”

Rocket looked back at Groot. “I failed you, Groot. I tried my best to raise you right and keep you safe from everything and everyone that could hurt you. I should’ve tried harder.”

Rocket stroked Groot’s face in a caring and fatherly manner. “I love you, Groot. I’ll never forget the joy I’ve had in raising you and being your daddy.” He then tucked Groot’s old Bob Ross doll into Groot’s clutched hand.

Rocket then tilted his head towards Kalika. He was ready for her to take Groot off of life support. She pulled the plug on all of the machines and took the breathing tube out of Groot’s mouth.

“Go on, Groot. Go to Heaven. Be free of this pain.” Rocket sobbed to his son as Groot’s breathing became more sporadic and his heartrate started to slow down. “Go to Bob Ross.”

With that, Groot’s heart stopped beating, the heartrate monitor flatlining, letting out the lone, long beep that signaled Groot’s death.

The coroner came in and filled out Groot’s time of death on his death certificate while Kalika disconnected all of the IV lines and monitors from his body. The coroner and Kalika then picked up Groot’s lifeless body and placed him on the cadaver cart to be taken to the morgue. Rocket was overcome with emotion when Kalika draped a white blanket over Groot, offering him one final look at his son before she covered the teen’s face with the blanket, signifying his passing.

No amount of consoling could satisfy Rocket. With some convincing on Peter’s part, the raccoon obtained clearance to accompany his son down to the morgue before the autopsy began. The other Guardians went home to let Rocket mourn in private. For obvious reasons, Rocket couldn’t be in the room while Groot’s autopsy took place and he wouldn’t see him again until all the funeral arrangements were made.

As Rocket walked into the morgue, Kalika and the coroner placed Groot on a cold table so that the autopsy could take place. The teen was washed clean and incision lines were drawn all over his body in preparation. Groot was stripped of his gown and diaper, the only thing on him was a damp washcloth covering his loin area. Groot just looked like he was just sleeping, but Rocket knew that this wasn’t true. All of the instruments on the side table said otherwise, as he knew that they would dissect Groot piece by piece to determine how he died.

Rocket climbed on a nearby stool to see his son one last time. He looked at his son in silence for five minutes until the coroner was ready to begin the autopsy with his assistant.

“Well, Groot, I’ll see you later.” Rocket sobbed as he held Groot’s hand. It was now time for Rocket to leave.

As the coroner grabbed one of the scalpels and hovered it above Groot’s chest, Rocket began to let go of Groot’s hand. As the scalpel came down, Rocket thought he could feel Groot’s grip on his hand. Rocket couldn’t believe what he was seeing, Groot grasping his father’s hand on his own. Could Groot be alive?

The coroner and Kalika check Groot for a pulse and find that Groot has a weak pulse. They perform an emergency intubation on him to make him breathe again before taking Groot back up to the emergency department for immediate care and scans as to him coming back from the dead.

Rocket couldn’t believe it as he got out his cell phone to call the other Guardians. The impossible has happened: Groot was alive again.

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redantsunderneath · 7 years

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Twin Peaks the Return, part 8

Twin Peaks the Return has had a comprehensible main plot consistent with Lynch directed elements of the original series, but far more grounded than anything he has produced since. Elements of the first 3 parts of the Showtime show that set the metaphysical stage aside, part 8 houses the majority of the difficult to grasp material that the show has produced, concentrated in one big 40 minute gulp. This is an attempt to try to explain WTF is happening without the far more complicated task of integrating this with all the other dream-like, archetypical material.

Let's rundown what we see on the screen in this sequence, which begins after “the” Nine Inch Nails leave the stage. It begins with a pull-in to the Trinity explosion, 1945, in B&W followed by short loops of swarming particles, coalescing into nebula forms (the last of which is the “mauve” color) to cacophonous music. Sooty men (B&W, the woodsmen) then emanate from a convenience store as smoke envelopes it. In space (B&W), a deformed woman (experimental model, with horns, no eyes, and backwards hands) spews viscous fluid from her mouth containing spotted eggs and a dark sack with the face of Bob. An explosion of gold coalesces to form a pure golden globule. The screen goes red before focusing on the Mauve sea from the first episode which slowly pans up an impressive tower to enter a small window.

Inside (B&W) is a 30’s style lounge room where Señorita Dido sways to the music, as the giant (who we now known as the Fireman) comes around a large bell-like tank with dials which has started to emit an alarm klaxon. He looks at this, at Dido, and then plaintively into the camera. He ascends stairs, enters a theater (with another bell) and watches the preceding events unfold, then begins to levitate with a starry gold substance (in color) coming from his face and coalescing above. Dido comes and watches the this. The cloud produces a glowing gold ball, which floats down to her within which she sees Laura’s face, kisses it, and releases it into a saxophone-like, Dr. Seussian tube (also color), which rotates and sends the orb toward the screen which now contains a rotating earth. It winks to B&W and descends.

In New Mexico (all B&W from here) 1956, a frog/cicada/needle nose bug hatches from a spotted egg. A boy walks a girl home where they chat of high school love. In the road, a couple drive as Woodsman swarm around, one of whom asks “got a light?” They speed off from a mild stupor. Back to the boy and girl, the boy says he has broken up with Mary, and asks for a kiss. She gives it bashfully and goes into her house. The woodman approaches a radio station (KPJK) where the Platters’ “My Prayer’ begins playing.

We see three scenes - a man fixing a car, a waitress manning an abandoned diner, and the girl in her PJs, all listening to the song on the radio. The Woodsman enters, asks the receptionist “got a light” and crushes her head. He then goes to the DJ, grabs his head, removes the needle from the record with a scratch, flips the switch, and begins to speak over the airwaves, saying repeatedly “This is the water and this is the well, drink full and descend, the horse is the white of the eye and the dark within.” The three listeners drop to sleep one by one. The bug climbs into the girl’s window where she opens her mouth and ingests him, still asleep. The Woodsman walks away into the desert as we hear the sound of a distant horse whinny. Starring Kyle MacLachlan.

This material must be understood as a fable. This is a telling of a history in its “collective unconscious” manifestation. Primarily, it is a story about the origin of baby boomers as a generation, and it is easiest to view through that lens, although the patterns repeat at many different scales, so this is the origin of the universe, the origin of consciousness/society, and sex/parenting. The general form is applicable to just about every generation, but the cues are specific for the post war (WWII) kids. The following, in an effort not to go too long, will not apologise for its “this is how I boil it down” nature. Mileage may vary. I may skip around.

Dido and the Fireman are an idealized concept of the maternal and the paternal. She is love and nurturing energy, full of positive feeling. He is reserved, careful and responsible, and concerned that things turn out right, the compassionate protector and problem solver. They live in a 30s black and white world because that’s the vintage that the generation looks back to as the “pre fall” ideal. These entities code as masculine and feminine, but are part of all natures regardless of gender. There is an alarm, which worries the Fireman. So he is called to witness the problem.

The atomic bomb test is a heck of a metaphor. Like in Denis Johnson’s novel Tree of Smoke, the mushroom cloud is an act of creation which includes destructive violence, recapitulating the big bang and the Bible’s creation story as a map of the birth of consciousness and civilization, but also evolution and the reproductive act (it looks like a tree, but also like the evolution of the arm and a brain and spinal column forming). The cacophony is the post creation disorder on every level that must settle down to allow live to be lived (out of entropy coalesces order, from the void, form) - the violent universe cooling to form planets, the violent nature and character of mankind ordering to form society, the disorganized infant becoming a person. But this generation (all of them, sure, but we are looking at this one) is tainted by the history of its production. The technology boom is manifested as the unleashing of unprecedented destructive power, with many deaths and the threat of annihilation over everyone’s heads, but there is more than one dangerous technology.

So this act of generational birth manifests two “wrong” aspects. The tainted masculine (swarming like black sperm) Woodsmen who stand in for a general societal degredation and the experimental model (“mother”) who spews bad seeds. As the Fireman and Dido were the “good father and mother,” these are the “bad” versions this generation must contend with. The Woodmen, smoking, ash covered and breaking brains, code for lower class, burnt out, anti-intellectual, used up culture that will spew through media devices and dull the population making infection by the Mother’s eggs possible. You can say this is “rock and roll” but I think it’s really about mass media, advertising, and the coarsening/unawareness of American culture.

The mother is harder to parse, possibly because the end of the show will clarify. The collective “feminine” is deformed, unable to fulfil its role. Maybe she is mass media herself, spewing infective ideas from the boob tube. But I get a strong sense of alienated femininity, a self involvement and isolation that yields a violent rejection of the nurturing or associative role. I really think the infected “girl” has to be Sarah Palmer, or a general metaphor for people of the time like her, people who dull themselves through consumption and are oblivious people who need them. The model is inattentive (she has no eyes and just throws the eggs out there). There is a tendency to think of Bob, born of this “model,” as a man specifically (his actions code that way, and he is played by a man) but he is, most primally, a taker and consumer born of a more feminine (relational) framework. He is the breakdown of human relationships into pure “mine!”

Like the myth of Pandora, the box is opened and the evils spill out, but there is one more thing yet to come out of the box. The Fireman uses his male spark to create a gold seed (the opposite of the dark/silver of the “bad” parents) to bring hope, goodness and redemption into the world, in the form of Laura’s soul. Dido carries and loves the seed and lets it go into the world where the redemption can take place in a tragic trial of Job.

This boils down to “every generation has it’s own ills that attempts to erode an idealized mode of character and a transformative component that will redeem it but leave it changed.” This repeats and recurs but this is the story of Frost’s and Lynch’s cohort specifically. The traditional “dad’s a stoic rock and mom is warm hugs” are challenged by technological change and the horror of the 20th century. Culture gets more crass as multimedia starts to alienate us and we show signs of selfish consumption and obliviousness. This ties into what’s up with Coop (the masculine trying to find itself a new paradigm of goodness) and what happened to Laura (fighting for her own painful subjectivity, rejecting selfish hedonism, and taking responsibility for herself), but that’s a story for another time.

#twin peaks #david lynch #mark frost

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conversationsmystic · 4 years

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205 – Seeing through the eyes of another

The Mystic says, "It's all about perception."

She wasn't kidding, because it's true. How we look at life; what we do with lemons, and whether we choose to make lemonade (or limoncello) can be, well, a result of how we approach something.

I spent the weekend with a very dear and lifelong friend who goes so far back that we not only played Barbies together, we don't remember meeting. We've been told that we were introduced while still in our mothers' wombs. So we grew up together. This meant we cruised the neighborhood (on one bike); drove around the city (without a GPS); traveled to Daytona Beach (shouldn't have used baby oil for tanning) and "attended" Mardi Gras (should have paid attention to where we parked the car). The list of stories spans from her piercing my ears (only one became infected) to renting motorcycles in Daytona (not knowing how to operate a foot clutch).

We survived a lot of fun.

We eventually matured during the school, marriage, and childbearing phases of life. (All, of which, were trickier than a motorcycle clutch.)

During her visit, I asked, "Have you seen Pixar's Inside Out?"

"Ohhh, that was so good. I loved it."

"Yeah, but I cried when the young girl lost 'Fun Island.' It made me think, I have too."

We lamented some about life's disappointments, until my friend asked, "Do you know what Marilyn Monroe said?"

"No."

"She said, 'Sometimes good things must fall apart in order for better things to come together.'"

What would happen if we were not only given another point of view, but the chance to literally see through another's eyes in order to experience what they do?

The Mystic Hairdresser writes ...

People seem to be either fascinated with the idea of seeing and talking with dead people, or they're petrified of it.But, once you truly understand the statement, "Nothing ever dies," seeing and hearing "dead" people is not such a big thing. Well, let's just say there are bigger, more fascinating and intriguing things, to me.

For instance, someone very dear to me has perception capabilities that are beyond what even science fiction has thought up. Interestingly enough, this person cannot see "dead" people. Yet, they are the most extraordinarily gifted person I know.

Did you know there is no color? Everything is actually shades of light and dark. Color is a trick of your eye and brain processing light waves, which gives you the extra sensory perception of color.

My friend has the ability to choose to see reality as it truly is – in patterns with no color.

Before you start trying to envision your dining room or office in black and white, let me say, that's not what I mean at all. The sort of perception I'm talking about is far beyond simply seeing worldly objects without color.

This kind of perception is about seeing all the moving parts within a space interact with each other. Everything is a pattern and every pattern is moving separately as well as together. Add to that, all the parts within an individual pattern also individually move. All the patterns joined together make an even larger pattern, kind of like a quilt, except it's all also moving individually and collectively. These patterns are so intricately and minutely detailed, I personally find it a little nauseating to watch, even from inside my head.

Which leads me to another of my friend's truly extraordinary gifts. This person can let you "see" through their "eyes" – literally. (I'm not even going to tell you the most amazing part of this "transfer.") Please, just let what I said about seeing through the eyes of someone else, because they choose to let you, sink in for a minute, and I'll tell you a funny story.

One night, my friend was letting me see a landscape as they see it. It did not look like a landscape at all. Instead, it was all these very intricate patterns of light and dark vibrating within themselves and as a whole. It's absolutely fascinating, completely captivating, and not just a little incomprehensible ...

After a few minutes, I, being my normal ridiculous self, telepathically said, “You know I bore easily. This is fascinating, but what if I want to see it with the colors, too?”

Instantly, all the patterns began zooming around, saturated in psychedelic colors like a giant Peter Max painting:) Imagine being on a merry-go-round horse, undulating up and down, up and down, calliope blaring, while the merry-go-round is spinning at 100 miles per hour .... That's what it felt like. I wanted to throw up.

So, I hear my friend chuckle and ask, “How's that? Had enough?”

My reply was not one I should repeat.

The next time your little one says Jesus came to visit them in their room, or grandpa is floating on the ceiling, think back on this post. Your wierd-o-meter may need a small adjustment.