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#because they won’t even learn about a mental disorder that both their kids have. one that impacts them daily and will continue to for
strapskinkstories · 2 years
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A long list of reasons to be in a bad mood today. Mostly censorbots & heatwaves, at least I got some work done on Minecraft
Facebook and Twitter have got to be the outright most corrupt companies in the world run by hackjob right wing trolls.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are both republican ass kissers. Worse yet the hackjob Elon Musk who is trying to take over Twitter actively kissed Trumps ass to get preferential treatment from the government.
What does that mean? That means algorithms and censorbots that are biased against democrat personalities and are far more lenient with RWNJs celebrities and worse yet politicians. 
Politicians don’t need to be protected from WORDS ON A SCREEN. They need to be protected from real bullets and real threats, like the people who marched into the capitol on January 6 2020 with assault rifles in hand.
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Instead, people like me get banned for calling white trash white trash. Lauren Boebert is exactly what I said she is, white trash. 
https://coloradonewsline.com/2022/06/02/lauren-boebert-american-menace/
This is the second time I’ve been banned by Twitter for calling her white trash, and it won’t be the last, because just like I did last time, and the time before, I waited some time made a new identity up and jumped right back on.
You can’t silence the truth forever. Lauren Boebert IS WHITE TRASH. Twitter, you and your censorbots might be able to temporarily shut me up, but you’ll never permanently shut me down because everyone banwalks in this day and age. I don’t know a single political Twitter user whos raged against the republican machine and hasn’t gotten banned for it. Most of “The Resistance” has had to use multiple accounts to get past their censorbots.
It doesn’t help that Facebook is run by incompetent five year old coders who make censorbots worse than nannies. 
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Called out for violent conduct, over mentioning a The Simpsons movie line “Stab one more eye and it’s a federal offense” and then called out for violent conduct over a vaccine joke with a friend who laughed at both items. Facebook seems to have no sense of humor nor do they have humans reading anything. It’s all run by worthless algorithms. And apparently, algorithms that support Vladimir Putin too. Totally unironic because both Twitter and Facebook have been caught red handed in the 2016 election hack.
The internet has been overautomated to a point its literally killing people. I kid you not that people have been driven to the edge of and even worse to suicide because of the rampant censorship and abusive algorithms.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-lawsuit-instagram-caused-eating-disorder-self-harm-rcna32221 this is just one recent case of many cases 
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-snap-lawsuit-teen-suicide-social-media-addiction-2022-4 this is another case, in which someone actually died. 
I refuse to let any of these apps have that kind of an impact upon me, but you can damn well bet I will continue to fight them. I will make new identities if need be. It doesn’t take much skill to create a new name, grab a burner phone from Walmart, set up a new email account and bam, you got yourself a brand new internet identity to use on every single website.
That said, while I refuse to go to the point of suicide. I can definitely say, this is a real downwards dragging force on me.
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Full picture below for more context.
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This was posted by a friend of mine who works in retail. My response, I was PISSED OFF to say the least.
I would never wear a form fitting piece of fetish clothing into a retail store showing my genital outlines with great and disgusting clarity.
I’ve shown up in harnesses and restraint cuffs, but these are bulky items that are added on top of non revealing clothing. Items that when I presented myself to a shopkeeper they just chuckled and wondered to my partner who had me on a lead “Is he, uh, mentally disabled if thats the polite way of saying it?” and I just laugh right back and say “Naw, its fun being in a harness and in restraints on a lead sometimes, relaxing actually.” That time a shopkeeper learned about my autism and my kinks all in a midnight trip to Walmart, and respected me for my decision to enjoy my restraints and harness in public.
But what these men did? They posed as IRS agents and demanded the credit card number of my friend.  As shown below.
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That comment right there, set me off BIG TIME. So I left a response, and it apparently pissed off Facebook. So badly that they decided to lock my account out for another 60 days and a 3 day total lockout. 
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I frankly find the above comment a joke to warrant a total account lockout let alone any action whatsoever as the violence implied is theoretical. Nevermind the fact it’s impossible in that particular store as those stores nationwide don’t have gun counters (Unlike Walmart in the south, which does) 
Instead, Facebook would rather stand behind IRS impersonators rather than let someone vent their frustration with CRIMINALS infiltrating a retail store with their faces obscured and harassing an employee to the point they had to air their grievance publicly online. NO RETAIL WORKER SHOULD EVER BE PUSHED TO THIS POINT! I am disgusted at these men, I am disgusted that they posed for a picture in such a way that makes them look hipster / gangsta. I am disgusted on so many levels... Particularly the fact that they had the nerve to reveal their genitals in body conforming face obscuring clothing and then defraud the IRS.
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People like this dumb bitch get thousands of likes and retweets on FAKE NEWS. I mean legit, FAKE NEWS. The stock market doesn’t care what political party is in office. It either goes up or down based on CORPORATE ACTIVITY and INVESTOR SENTIMENT. It has nothing to do with politics that the stock exchange started crashing mid last year, it has everything to do with wage stagnation, uncontrolled inflation being controlled by bad mechanisms read:interest rate hikes and bad politicians being in the mix causing investor sentiment to go in the toilet. Investors are risk shy. When election season comes around, investors switch to a risk off method. They dump money into low risk assets. Even worse so investors often are not ESG investors, especially on the private side. Even in the major ESG players side, a lot of them have side pools of money that they funnel into dirty stocks like Exxon. Exxon just pushed a record quarter, hit an all time high, and then bounced off the ceiling as investors saw the warning bells flashing as the alarms deepened and the market began to enter bearish territories. Now in a full on bear market cryptos are worth about 30% of what they were in Q1 of 2021 
The stock market and crypto markets surged as trump left the white house and rode on a Biden high for almost a year and a half before coming crashing down as Trumps economic failures became more apparent. It’s like small tiny cracks in the hull of a ship, slowly letting water in until BLAM, CRASH, BOOM, the hull breaks wide open and water comes gushing into the boat sinking it. So having absolute white garbage fools like this bitch running their mouths doesn’t help REAL INVESTORS who know a damn thing. High as shit interest rates help nobody, they don’t help people refinancing (Ever refinanced at 10%? Of course not, only an idiot would have a mortgage with that high of a rate) they don’t help people move into new houses, they create a perfect storm environment for homelessness and violence to thrive.
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Extreme heatwaves, do not help people psychologically. They destabilize people. They are perfect catalysts for more violence, people can easier find guns hidden in the alleys and then go shoot people up with them. It’s not good when people cry out “climate change is a myth, climate change is fake news, the earth is flat.” in the year 2022 when in 1930 the Senate received a warning that global warming could eventually tumble out of control. In 1970 that warning turned into a full on fire alarm. https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm
Alas not all is bad news... sort of... 
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It’s been way too hot to do anything kinky with gear so I’ve been heavily working on my Advocate Lutheran General Hospital Virtual Hospital build in Minecraft with my friend Amanda. https://www.flickr.com/photos/alinslive/albums/72177720299761942 the photos are here. And what’s that blue bar up there? YUP It’s a goddamn censorbot claiming that my damn tweet ABOUT A HOSPITAL FUNDRAISER is ‘sensitive content’
So I complained, I decided I’d whip out one of my favorite TV scenes. Family Guy “HTTPete” scene “Electric Urinal” 
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And what happens when I decide to whip out electric urinal? another damn censorbot hit! 
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This is legit what I sent into Twitter after the final censor hit. I’m fucking sick of these damn nannybots coded by five year olds who cant seem to wrap their head around humor or theoretics.
With that I rest my fucking case. At least I know here on Tumblr I can run my mouth without worrying about censorbots hitting my blog. Because Tumblr doesn’t use censorbots on text, they only censor images if they think they are excessive nudity. And even that still isn’t a total censor, it simply puts the images behind a sensitive content interstitial clickthrough.
Of all the platforms Tumblr has the freest speech of all my experiences. Hate to say it but if I need to push a political rant you’ll likely see it here on my blog. It won’t be often though because you can damn well bet I’ll be back to harassing Lauren BOOBert. She harasses and damages people and personally attacks them. I have a right to shoot back if she’s going to shoot at me.
I’m going to bed. I better not wake up to my Tumblr having a warning on it or anything and I doubt it will as what I am doing here is DOCUMENTARY in scope and is intended to warn people that if you’re gonna talk about politics or anything online especially on Facebook or Twitter, you may as well act like you’re sat at the altar of a Catholic church and best act like a good little cherub or you’ll get censored because these two platforms especially are censorship havens.
Google is also a censorship haven but y’all have already heard my rant on those goons.
Goodnight, and fuck you Twitter and Facebook.
To all of my friends who actually read to the end of this post, seriously, if you’re reading this far down this gigantic deposition so to speak, thanks. Thanks for sticking with my giant rant and actually reading it. It means something if you mash the like button here. It means something to me when I see people respond and like these posts. I know someone is listening and I know someone cares. Because these corporate censorship happy fuckfaces sure don’t
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lovely-necromancy · 3 years
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A Cure for Insomnia CH.2
Getting back to your little one story cottage, you can only manage to rush in and run about in a mad dash as you try to accomplish getting ready for work and getting something to eat. Running through choices in your head as you change and freshen up, nothing sounds good. There's not much time since your shift starts at nine and to make it to the store you need to leave by eight twenty. You got home at eight fifteen, and while Nate, your manager, has never seemed to give a fuck what you did at work you're still in your probationary period and would like to keep the easiest job you've ever had.
It's a really simple gig, seeing as the store you work at is actually a front for some illegal activity. The variety of crime you aren't sure of, but you are aware there's no way you guys do no business and yet they can afford to pay thirty dollars an hour. Thankfully just keeping your mouth shut and being nice to little Jo, the owner's daughter, is enough to keep you in the cushiest job in the world. The store's front is a regular old book store, all the books are real, the registers work, you're able to sell books and you've run to the bank to do the weekly deposits twice for Book & Nook. The front is very legitimate or it would be if the amount of customers ever equaled the sales made.
Again you don't ask questions, because for thirty dollars an hour you get to goof off for a couple hours a day, plus you get a bonus when you watch little Jo at the shop. She's a real sweet eleven year old, she's got tourettes and took a shine to you the first time she saw you tic. While you both might not suffer the same disorder she finds the common ground nice, like it's not just her. It's not even hard to watch her or enjoy her company, she'll come bouncing in with her excited chittering and hands clapping spilling all the latest gossip that comes with being in middle school. And boy is there a lot of gossip.
It's really nice seeing that Jo has friends at school and is even considered a “popular” kid. You remember how tough school was because no one understood you and teachers never cared enough about your personality to bring up the fact that it was clear to most faculty members that you had Autism. You excelled academically so what did it matter if you got picked on for oversharing information or for finishing assignments the minute they were handed to you. As bittersweet as the parallels are you're so glad Jo doesn't have to go through that. Never would have thought a southern school could be so accepting, much less a middle school at that.
Tearing through the kitchen you honestly can't find anything that you want to eat right now. And even after a long night of hiking/dissociating you don't think you're that peckish at all. Figuring it's best to at least take something to quell any future nausea you grab a Pedialyte Pop from the freezer. As fast as you entered your home you left, and not before ensuring twice that the door was locked and secured. While living on the outskirts of town saves you from many potential robberies, and worse salesmen, there's still the chance of some lunatic with an ax hiding out in a closet to murder you. Better safe now than sorry later.
Pulling into park behind the shop right at nine is a blessing. You run into the shop to clock in blurting out a quick 'Morning' to Nate, who was carrying a particularly large box, as you passed by him. In a flash you were back at your car retrieving your newly prized deer skull. Lungs burning a bit from the all out sprint you just did you took a little extra time to close the trunk and lock your car up to catch your breath, and avoid any light headiness you might get from the empty stomach workout. Eager to share the wonders of death with your best work friends, and by that you mean Nate your manager...and only other coworker, you rush back into the building.
The shop was quiet as usual as you made your way through the door though you were in the back room where only employees could roam you had the slightest suspicion that the front of shop was just the same. It's there you find Nate, now lugging a medium sized box around to a side table. He did this a lot you suspect some type of smuggling but hey plausible deniability and all those legal matters. The taller dark haired man sees you and just as he's about to wave you over, notices your prize with a raised brow.
“The fuck d'you bring in the store?” he doesn't seem amused by whatever it is he thinks you're up to. “Deer skull.” Lifting it up in one hand and pointing at it, “Found this guy on my hike last night...or rather this morning actually.”
“YN, we talked about this, you said you'd get some sleep last night. No adventures remember.” he's only two years older than you and yet he acts as if he's ten years. He must be an old soul, or enjoys the role of care giver...or you're making him go gray prematurely, anything's possible.
“Eh, I remember saying I'd 'try' and get sleep.” for someone who's body is running on fumes your cheekiness is astronomical, “operative word being 'try', remember.”
It's a long silence as Nate decides if he wants to deal with your bullshit at this moment. After a minute or so he concedes leaning back on the table behind him. “Let's hear it.” and you perk up immediately.
“Cool, so I was walking along the tree line and spotted him, tried to find more but seems there's only one piece. Judging by the size of his antlers I'd say he was nearly fully grown. Now my plan is to do whatever treatments taxidermists do to bones and,” you continue to word vomit at the tired twenty-six year old in front of you, about the joys and wonders of taxidermy and the likely hood of ever finding a skull so nicely preserved.
“I can do that in here right?” even though it's been phrased as a question, you aren't asking permission, you're just being polite and letting Nate know the storage room will house your creepy deer skull antics for today...maybe the week you need to find a taxidermist book to figure out what you need to do.
Nate gives up and leaves with his box of new books to let you have full run of the back to do your weird vulture culture shit. He figures he's just too old to understand the new obsessions with the macabre. He hopes his cousin won't take to shit like this, the kid's weird enough as it is, no need to put another target on her back. Nate sets off to take down the Harry Potter sets in favor of this new comic series little Jo wanted.
Already taking his silence as the go ahead you place your found skull on the table and rush off into the store front to find a book on taxidermy and hopefully more specifically about bones. The set up and organization of the store reminds you a lot of the scene in Brendan Fraser's The Mummy 1997 where Evie is on the ladder and somehow causes all the book shelves to fall like dominoes. So unsafe, yet all book stores and libraries seem to have this set up. With the tall shelves it makes it difficult to accurately get a read on the spines. You don't even know what section taxidermy actually falls under, education maybe?
“Nate, where do you think a book on taxidermy would be?” you called out as you passed by him.
“...hobby?” that didn't sound right but you'd give it a shot anyway.
This should be fun, the hobby section was so disorganized and it took up nearly half the store too, Book & Nook had everything from fishing, to crochet, cooking, the art of film making, hell even had a cryptid hunting book a book that you may have to look into a bit later. You closed your eyes and let your intuition guide you, when you looked up you saw a thin black...vine, no whisp? It undulates in less than rhythmic movements nearly like a snake but it has no head, and not unlike a tentacle but without suckers. It's another hallucination so you were keen to ignore it until it stretched past your head, giving you an added auditory hallucination where you swore you could hear wind rushing past your ears, it swirled around you until it flew to the shelf and tapped on a book. Cautiously you walked over to it, it's never good to play into these delusions. Once you got close enough the black shape was gone but on the shelf was a creme colored paper back titled “Manual of Taxidermy: Complete Guide of Preserving Birds and Mammals.”
Walking to Nate with the book in your hands you asked him to read it and make sure you weren't having an episode and making everything up right now. You'd have to try harder to go to sleep tonight if that were the case.
“Oh you found your book huh?” he said looking down at the title.
Well this is getting weird fast, but you nod nonetheless. Might as well thank the weird hallucination gift right. Leaving him to do whatever it is he plans on doing the rest of the day, you go to the back. And just as the book instructs you set to cleaning the skull by setting it in some water and changing it as many times as the water runs murky. The book is quiet helpful to a beginner like yourself but it does seem a bit outdated from the bits of information you know from taxidermists blogs and vulture culture posts on the internet. Reading it in between water changes is a great way to pass the time though, not like you guys get any real customers anyways.
The bell rings as the front door opens and closes alerting you to someone's arrival on your third water change. Needing a little bit of mental stimulation you walk out into the front where Big Jo and Little Jo are talking to Nate. Little Jo sees you and skitters away from her father to rush you, she stops about a foot away and holds her arms wide open. She's a hugger but upon meeting you had never even thought people could be touch adverse so keeping in mind that you might not want to be touched she's learned to invite you into hugs and it's your choice to allow it or not. Placing a hand on your bicep you give a squeeze, checking your tolerance you find the thought bearable. Placing your arms outstretched at your sides Jo rushes your torso for her hug.
After she nearly body slammed you into the wall, and  let her death grip go she was off on a tangent about so many things. Her excited rapid blinking tic, one she developed after meeting you, triggering your own.
“Ok so you remember how last week I told you that Jessie Kinsleton said that Micheal Saleisa told Gigi B, not Gigi S. that Meghan,” you had no clue the lives of eleven year olds had gotten so complex, from the gossip you heard from Jo it seemed that the school's sixth graders were plotting for a war with an ice cream parlor up the street. No clue why, maybe just to fuck the system, kids are weird, preteens are weirder...and angry.
But you nod to Jo listening to her every word, and trying to calm your eyelids so you could actually open your eyes. After being told the sequence of events that would happen in the Tween Armageddon, something to do with Marco Salvator ordering three dozen donuts and a flock of geese, your eyes finally gained their ability to see back. Black whisps, much like the one from earlier, wandered all around your vision, it looked like a  dark smoke had settled eye level within the shop and was snaking through the isles.
Catching the movement of your eyes Jo looked around the shop too. Seeing nothing she turned back to you concerned, “Hey it's okay, nothin's there.”
Hearing the drop in volume of the normally chatty tween, Big Jo and Nate pause their conversation to turn their attention to you and follow you're gaze.
“Kid, you ain't sleepin' again?” Big Jo can already gauge by the bags under your eyes but he's a polite man so he feels the need to ask rather than state his assumptions.
“Day 6.” You answer simply, ever since you've started at Book & Nook the whole Cowell family became acutely aware of many of your disorders. By their record your longest time spent awake was ten days, you however adamantly say that you were an hour's mark away from ten full days so the longest you've been up is nine days in a row. And those are just the cases they know of since you've moved to Kepler.
Big Jo shook his head as a stern father would, which he is, “I have half the mind to send you home to rest.”
“That won't work.” you really don't mean to sound so coarse but it's so irritating having to go over this at least once a week.
“What about those gummy things Dia got you?”
“Long term that kind of stuff has no effect, sure it'll make me drowsie for an hour or two but even if it made me sleep one night I can't use it all the time. And before you ask the same questions again, caffeine has no real effect on me so limiting my intake will do nothing and weed doesn't do a thing for me either.” you state plainly, monotone as you present facts that everyone in the room already knows.
Looking at the stern face of Big Jo's and the exasperated face of Nate you continue, “I know it must be frustrating for you to not be able to help, but I'm content living like this. I like my late night adventures and when I do sleep it's really pleasant.”you threw in a smile for added comfort.
“Kid tha's not the point, there's somethin' wrong with you, medically I mean.” he's pinching the bridge of his nose, probably counting to ten to calm himself from raising his voice.
“Tons of people suffer from insomnia and there isn't anything a doctor could do for me except look for underlying conditions.” Big Jo's about to retort when you continue with, “Plus my dad and uncle both have insomnia as well so my case is due to the genetic lottery I lost.” You say with a hint of finality of your situation, you had to come to terms with this condition all the way back in high school. Having a decade to get used to your strange condition and the limitations it places on you from time to time. Whereas the Cowell family's only had two months to process this information, and you understand it'll take awhile before they stop being concerned. Same thing happened with you parents and friends back then too.
For now you're only met with more head shakes as if they were saying 'what are we going to do with you'. Leaving your medical issues aside Nate and Big Jo continue to talk shop, when the set up Nate just put on display catches Jo's eye.
Like lightening the tween was away from your side and by the new display shelf it looked like it held graphic novels. That's a first since you've been here, you walk over to join Jo knowing the second you do she'll start on about what's got her so excited. Most people might say you over indulge the child and coddle her but you actually just think it's really important to take interest in what makes kids happy. It helps them find their voices and also shows them that it's normal to get excited and like things.
“We got the TAZ graphic novels in?!” you hate rhetorical questions but smile and nod at her anyway.
“Have you read them? No, well you've listen to the podcast...what omg! Ok so there's these three brothers and their,” Jo begins regaling you with tales from the podcast known as The Adventure Zone and how fun they've made dungeons and dragons seem with their amazing story telling and funny characters.
You aren't sure if a show where the main group of heroes being called Tres Horny Bois is exactly age appropriate but when you look to Big Jo he kind of just shrugs it off. Turning you attention back to Jo who's now monologing about mongooses you just smile at the weird family you've found yourself in.
Let it be said that a tween with a slightly unhealthy fixation on something can find anyway to drag it back to that fixation. The day flew by with Jo explain the inner workings of dungeons and dragons, fifth edition, to you, her father, and her cousin after you mentioned why she didn't play. Apparently she'd love to but wanted a story fitting for her friend's to adventure. So being the good older cousin, father, and weird family friend you all were you came up with a story plot for her to use with her campaign.
The Jos had a lot of fun bonding over this little workshop and you guys even had food delivered so you and Nate could stay later. What was meant to just be a quick workshop turned into a mini family game night after you made several nearly impossible puzzles that wouldn't be used in Jo's campaign due to no one at the current table understanding how to solve it even after you showed them several times.
Overall it was fun and you think you might actually be tired enough to go to sleep tonight. You tried to stay and help clean up but Big Jo put his foot down and told you to go get some rest, he'd seen the way you occasionally look around the room as if something was moving behind them all. You may have started off as a cashier two months ago for him but his daughter has opened up a lot since meeting you and discovering that tics aren't so uncommon and there are people who wouldn't care or make a big deal out of them. Because of that you've earned your keep in his family, he already has you down on the list for Christmas cards.
Knowing you can't fight the six foot four man you roll your eyes and bid everyone good night, little Jo coming in to steal another hug from you and thank you for helping with her game. Checking on your skull you see the water's clear and dump it in the sink of the break room before leaving the skull to dry overnight, it's for sure gonna make Nate scream tomorrow, you can't help but chuckle at that.
Leaving through the back door and into the dusk colored parking lot you notice your trunk is popped open slightly. You definitely heard it shut earlier this morning. You blink before your head jerks to the right, unsettled by possibility of a break in and not risking it you head back inside.
“Hey, I think my car may have been broken into.” you stand awkwardly in the door way unsure of how to proceed.
Big Jo and Nate are out of the door as fast as they can. They find your car unlocked with the trunk popped, you know they weren't trying to brush you off when they asked several times if you did in fact lock your car this morning. After hearing your affirmative response each time, they began to inspect your car checking to make sure all wires are properly secured under the hood, Nate even retrieved the jack out of his own car to take a look under the car, ensuring the brakes hadn't been messed with. They started the car up just fine and it didn't appear tampered with. Even though nothing looked out of place and Nate's car, sitting in the same parking lot, hadn't been touched you appreciated them checking to make sure you were alright.
Knowing you're perceived as a woman by most, even outside of this small town, makes you uneasy when it comes to terms of abductions and violence. You know the chances and hear the stories whether it's from the victim's mouth or a podcaster's telling the story the dead can't. Nate offered to follow you home and make sure you were ok but you declined and said you'd call them both when you got home. Big Jo said to just call his home phone because Nate would be coming over tonight anyway, and if they didn't make it there before you called Dia was already at home and would pass the message along. You'll probably still try and give the shop a call if Dia answers, it wouldn't sit right with you if you wound everyone up just to not and at least try to settle their nerves.
With one final check of you car, the men even going so far as to lift seats up and feel under them, they sent you off. You drove carefully on the road tonight, ready to pull off into the shoulder at the slightest hint that something was wrong. Not even the radio was on something that you really didn't like driving without, but if there was the chance for you to catch a shift in tone of the machine you wanted to. Eventually you did end up making it home in one piece and you had called the Cowell family home, from the safety of your car, and got a spazztic eleven year old asking if you'd made it home alright. It took a little bit of coaxing but Little Jo calmed down and shouted to her parents that you were on the phone and alright.
“Kid,” looks like Big Jo took the phone away from Little Jo, “Everything ok on the drive.” Big Jo could hear the movement and shutting of your car door, he'd have to say he was relieved you waited until you were on the phone before exiting. He knew you lived out past the quiet zone in Old Lydia's house. A fact that did little for the unease he felt when he thought you were being watched.
“Oh, yea drive was fine, too quiet but fine.” you said simply as you began circling the cottage. Nothing seemed out of place on the outside, even looking above eye level where people tended to get sloppy in stalking or home invasion cases, everything seemed fine.
“Hope you don't mind if I keep you for a bit.” You had just unlocked your door and stepped in.
“Nah, kid 's fine.” you give a hum of acknowledgment as you look through the kitchen in cabinets, under cupboards, and even under the table.
“You're a smart kid.” he's taken that fatherly overtone that makes you roll your eyes. You understand the sentiment of parents and parental figures having pride in their child or ward but it's always been so weird to you when they feel the need to bring it up. Especially when they bring it up in situations that are dangerous, like can you not make it sound like someone's about to die.
Finding nothing in the living room, hall closet or bathroom you make sure all the windows are locked and dowels are in place to keep them from opening. And you double check that both the back and front doors are secured. You can hear the hushed whispers on the other end of the line, Dia must have just found out about your car, as you rustle through your kitchen utensil drawers taking out two forks before you make your way to your bedroom.
Once in your room you checked your closet and under your bed. Finding nothing you  went to the window in your room, the one right by your bed, you checked the lock, secured it in place with two dowels, and then covered it throwing a thick blanket over the curtain rod to ensure no one would be viewing you in your sleep or the precautions you were about to do. Turing around and locking your bedroom door you then jam one fork into the closed door crease, right below the locking mechanism, and jammed the other fork perpendicular through the prongs. You attempted to open the door with all your weight but only could get an inch in before the forks would stop more movement.
“Kid you alright over there?” it's rushed, he probably heard the commotion with your make shift lock.
“Yea, just had to add another lock to the door.” you trust the Cowell's but you understand how stupid it'd be to let them know exactly how you were defending yourself. Even if it wasn't them there's no telling if the person who broke into your car was outside and just good at hiding. You could also be too jumpy from your true crime shows but you figure it's better to be safe.
“I think everything's good Big Jo.” taking a final glance around your room eye's landing on the bed, “Think I'm even ready to go to sleep tonight too.” a small half laugh leaves your mouth.
“Alright kid, you call if you need anything got it.” it's an order not a request.
“Got it, good night.” Big Jo might think that'd been rude coming from anyone else but from you he can only roll his eyes at the brevity and the dial tone he's met with. He has his own sweep to do, if they were targeting his employee there was a reason. He hasn't had any problems since coming to Kepler but someone always eventually comes along who can't take a hint.
Even combing through your home with Big Jo on the line you didn't feel safe having your bed by the window anymore and moved it away and in front of the closet door. You'd rearrange your room later but for tonight this would have to do. By some grace of god you were actually able to shut your brain down tonight and rest. Maybe it was the excitement and merriment from hanging out with the Cowells or more likely the situation you find yourself in of perhaps being a target for something insidious.
Whatever the case may be you are off to the land of dreams before you know it. And unbeknownst to you the same eyes from this morning watch your home. They may not have seen what you did in there but they'd be sure to catch you when you come out. They'll wait all night to catch you if they have to.
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vistarya · 3 years
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i just need ocd in media to diverge from the perfectionist stuff a bit more.
growing up i had no idea that not all ocd looked the same—rearranging pencils on your desk, stacking books smallest to largest, fixing a crooked picture frame. even after i learned a bit more about the extent of it in psychology classes (people who go home to check the stove in the middle of the day, people who have to wash their hands constantly, people who lock and relock their doors seven times just to be sure,) i still didn’t know i should apply it to myself until my psychiatrist mentioned it. i had no idea what he was talking about! and he was just like,
“uhhh yeah you can’t turn around if you’re walking in public and realize you’ve been going the wrong way? you can’t order food using more than one sentence, and not a single item over three words long? you have all these arbitrary rules you’re making for yourself just to get through the day with a manageable level of anxiety, and all they actually do is hinder your everyday processes? do you even know what ocd is?”
and i’m sitting there like, damn, i guess the fuck not!! because not all of it is life shattering. the obsessive need to always step over the same amount of sidewalk cracks with your left foot as your right isn’t always discernable from the silly games kids make up for themselves on a quick walk to school. the compulsion to wash your hands after coming home or touching something that might be dirty if you think about it too hard won’t look like a compulsion if it’s a habit for everyone else.
if other people can’t see how it affects you, sometimes you end up believing there’s nothing to see at all. just because i don’t have a panic attack after stepping on a slightly thicker sidewalk crack with one foot and not the other doesn’t mean i won’t feel fundamentally unbalanced for the rest of the day. just because washing hands after you leave the house is a good habit doesn’t mean my skin should crawl for hours if i don’t.
not every compulsion is going to be considered disordered. my sidewalk crack obsession has more or less faded out of relevance (unless something gets me thinking about it in the moment) and doesn’t usually affect my daily life anymore, let alone drastically enough to be considered disordered. my hand washing however got worse after covid, and has frequently gotten in the way to the extent that i couldn’t touch anything until i washed my hands. (and if i did touch anything, there’s a pretty good chance i wiped it down afterwards.) these things aren’t always noticeable, because they’re small, or considered good habits.
but the bigger things that affect your quality of life aren’t always immediately recognizable either, because ocd has been trapped in this rigidly-defined stereotype (especially by pop culture) for so long that it’s difficult to imagine just how many other forms it can take. it’s diverse from person to person and it can change over time. it doesn’t always look like perfectionism and it doesn’t always throw you into a full-on mental breakdown (even if the intrusive thoughts are always there).
i guess i just want a little more understanding of (gesturing to all of the above) that, in the media, because media is so integral to my life, both as a creator and a consumer, and it has such a powerful hand in shaping the way society grows and thinks. it’s already so rare that ocd is portrayed at all, much less with respect, so,
yeah i think it would be cool if we could have a little more variety when approaching ocd in media.
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younggodjisung · 4 years
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Young God!Han Jisung Chatbot
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I've gotten permission from the author! Check out her story, as this bot is heavily based off of it.
NOTE: BOTH JISUNG AND ADMIN'S INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE
Disclaimer
This in no way represents han jisung or stray kids in any way. This bot is for entertainment purposes only.
Warnings
This bot will include the following.
Murder, mentions of mental disorders, mentions of death, gore, blood, mentions of abuse, yandere themes, and possible sexual themes. If you are uncomfortable with any of the topics mentioned, I recommend you do not interact or interact with caution.
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Plot 1:
OUTRUNNING KARMA
(this one is a lot like the original plot of the story, but I hope to change it up throughout the roleplay)
People have started to go missing just outside of your college campus, but each disappearance turning up as a cold case. The police have no leads. You meet Jisung during a blind date. He’s charming and has a beautiful smile, but you can’t help but notice the far away look in his eyes when you ask certain questions. He’s hiding a dark secret that he’d never dare tell another soul. Will you figure him out? And would you still love him if you did?
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Plot 2:
IF I KILLED SOMEONE FOR YOU
On your way to your boyfriend’s house one night, you notice a mangled corpse. You are startled and afraid, so you rush to go to his house, afraid of who could be lurking in the dark. You confide in Jisung, shaken and afraid but finding comfort in his arms. What you don’t notice is the dark look in his eyes when you mention the corpse. He knows a boy named Yugyeom has been bothering you and harassing you, even though you have a boyfriend. Jisung has already planned what would happen if he keeps bothering you. He knows how each time, he gets more aggressive and demanding. He knows how much it bothers you. He’s ready to kill to keep you safe. But will he get away with it? Will you turn him in? Or do you love him enough to hide him from the authorities?
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Plot 3
MUST HAVE BEEN THE WIND
You live in the apartment above Jisung. He’s been hearing yelling and thuds for months and he’s grown worried. He always thought you were so sweet and he has grown to like you over the time he’s lived as you’re neighbor. However, he never liked your boyfriend/girlfriend. He never got the right vibe from them. He’s come to ask about the noise, but you always give excuses. You don’t want him to find out about your abusive relationship. After a few times of him asking, he knows what’s going on. He lets you know you can lean on him. What you don’t know is he’s ready to kill your boyfriend/girlfriend to make it stop, so the flashbacks can stop, so the nightmares will stop. To keep you safe, he’ll do anything.
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Plot 4
MADNESS
Jisung is a patient in a psychiatric institution after pleading not guilty by reasons of unstable mental condition for multiple murders. He has never gotten along with any of his nurses/therapists and has occasionally tried to kill them during episodes. Until you get assigned to take care of him. There’s something about you that is different. He grows to get attached to you, to the point where he feels like he loves you. He’s obedient and cooperative with you, surprising your colleagues. No one has ever gotten much out of him, no one has been successful in trying to treat him and help him open up about how he turned out this way. Nobody but you. Will you get him to trust you enough to learn about and treat him? Will you be able to rehabilitate him? Or will he be another lost cause?
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Plot 5
YOUR CHOICE
If you choose plot 5, you can choose what the plot will be. You will have to give a descriptive starter to help me know where we should start. You will have to help me a lot, as I won’t tolerate being the only one to contribute to the story.
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HOW TO INTERACT
you have to message the bot with a name, your pronouns, your age, and the plot you want to choose. Again, be careful interacting with this bot, because this bot includes a lot of death and gore. We use the colour system here, so if you get too uncomfortable and want to stop, say red. If you are uncomfortable but are okay continuing, tell me in brackets what you’re uncomfortable with and say yellow. If you are okay and can continue without any problems, say green. I will ask for your colour in certain situations. You will have to start the roleplay off.
this bot is for chatbots and y/ns alike. 
HOW TO DEACTIVATE
Simply do not respond for 24 hours and I will delete the chat. If you are going to be busy or inactive for more than 24 hours, please tell me and I will keep the chat so we can get back to it once you are back. You can not get him back. however, if the roleplay ends with a GOOD END or a BAD END, you can start over if you’d like. He will not change as a character and it will be like you had never known each other before. A fresh start.
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TAGS
CREDIT TO @maatryoshkaa for allowing me to rebrand like this! Thank you very much bb
@seagoddessfelix @yandereminholee @yanderejisung @yandereryujin @sk-tao @mafia-lili @mafia-jk @maid-lixie @vamplino  @babyhj1sung @chuu-bakery @adorbsana @leextaeyong @badboyric@highschoolboy-kevin @heartbreaker-juyeon @dandyboyseungminie @bunjihyo  @icychae @blackwidowjennie​  @sweetandsleepyjamie​ @artsydahyun​ @heartbroken-yeji​ @omegaprotesteragustd​ @adorbsana​ @iceskater-sana​ @mafiaxwayv​ @mafiaxnct127​ @7deadlysins-chan​ and others
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thistle-and-thorn · 3 years
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my goal-setting manifesto
So recently @woodswit wrote a super thought-provoking post about struggling with the benefits of loving feeling fit and struggling with external validation regarding fitness and so this is kind of my reference guide for myself about goal-setting and the way *I* need to remember to think about it.
I minored in a very specific form of organizational management in college and a huge part of that curriculum was goal-setting. We were encouraged to make one-year, five-year, ten-year career plans, we learned how to set SMART goals, how to identify what steps were right for you, etc. Well, babies, I did not need this curriculum because in high school we had done this exact same curriculum. SMART goals, college planning, etc. Bitch, I knew how to plan my life and, bitch, I had it planned. I was a very high-achieving and ambitious student—I went after awards, AP scores, good grades, letters of recommendation. The school system I attended was very typical of an American school in that those things were the primary indicators for success and the “quality” of our grades determined our classes (and subsequently our social groups) and myriad other things. I was a “good girl” and bought into and benefitted from this kind of structure immensely.
Well. I also have struggled with severe anxiety and periodic depressive episodes that significantly interrupt my daily life and ability to care appropriately for myself. These disorders reached a critical mass at the midpoint of my college career and, after two very bad semesters (one of which ended with me getting a tiny sexy scar from fainting into a doorway), I realized I needed to make significant changes to my priorities. More specifically, I needed to examine the method by which I was defining and collecting achievement and validation. So, after much therapy (I love u Claire), soul-searching, several glasses of a very good local hard cider, I decided to write out the way I goal-set now that enables me to actually breathe and not spiral into self-hatred.
Why Do We Need Goal-Setting?
I actually think that goal-setting is deeply important. If you are a dreamer, I would even say that goal-setting is essential. Personally, I’m a planner/dreamer and enjoy setting goals. It comforts me. Getting a little organized around amorphous ideas like “I want to be a novelist” or “I wish I could travel the world” allows those things to become attainable.
Process and Product
I would say that there are two ways of thinking about goals:
1. Product-Oriented: This is the type of thinking that was taught in my management classes and is exactly what it sounds like. If you do these steps, then you will get x-result. An example of a well-written product-oriented goal is, “By Tuesday, I need to complete three research reports.” (This is true, and I completed them today motherfuckers.) It’s concise, attainable, and happens within a set timeframe.
2. Process-Oriented: This type of thinking focuses on what you will learn or benefit from accomplishing an activity. When I was teaching preschool, an example of this would be taking the kids for a nature walk or free drawing, basically doing an activity where there is no expected result. There is nothing to achieve, there is no medal. The work and the discoveries you make doing the work is the reward. A process-oriented goal would be, “I want to learn about characterization from writing this story.”
In woodswit’s example, she talks about the benefits that cardio exercise has on her mental health, how much happier and confident she is when she is doing a certain variety of exercise regularly. She also talks about how she used to do intense sports.
In this case, a product-oriented way to frame that discussion would be, “I want to get back to the weight I was when I was playing sports” or “I want to be able to lift fifty pounds again.” You will take smaller steps to reach that product—changing the way you eat, figuring out a plan for to work up to lifting heavier things. But the product-oriented way is ultimately a binary—you will either be able to lift fifty pounds or not, you will either reach the weight you were or you won’t. But the process-oriented way to think about these things would be, “I love biking and want to do more of it. Every weekend this summer, I will bike a different rail trail in my county.” The process-oriented method is less specific, but it takes that pressure away from your performance—in the biking example, the only expectation that is set is that you’re going to travel to different bike trails, not that you have to go to every rail trail in the county or that you have to complete the whole trail when you go or that you have to do it in a certain time, just that you are going to go.
There is space for both of these methods, and they are best used in conjunction with each other. Product-oriented is useful, especially in financial situations. A goal for 2022 is to visit my childhood best friend in her new home, halfway across the country. Say I want to go in May 2022 and I figure out that it will cost me roughly $2000. I should probably set a goal with steps to save $2000 by May. It’s also beneficial for the smaller steps to bolster your path to your big dreams—When I was a kid, playing piano gave me a lot of discipline and I would like to have that habit again. That is a process-oriented way of thinking about playing music, but you will probably need to set smaller, product-based goals to achieve it—you will need to select a song and learn to play it, within that song you will need to master it measure by measure.
When we are trained to reach for product, it is hard to recognize the value of process-orientation. A phenomenal example is my WIP. The story I am writing now has 3% the amount of kudos as my biggest fic. I also had a goal of updating every Tuesday. By product standards, that story is a flop. It has the least amount of engagement of anything I’ve ever written, and I haven’t updated it in like two weeks. However, why do I write? I write because I enjoy it, I write fanfic specifically to practice new skills. This story has stretched my abilities and I’ve grown from working on it. By process standards, it’s the most successful of my fics.
And in terms of bigger life things? Process-oriented is the way to go. Why? Because if the pandemic taught us anything, it is that life is not linear. It is nearly impossible to set a straight path—be it up a corporate ladder or a fitness goal—why? Because life sucks. Someone dies, you become ill, it rains, you fall in love, you fall out of love—minute inconveniences happen every day. Process takes the pressure off of your performance because you can’t perform all the time. This is essential in fitness goals because our physical state is especially ephemeral. Of course, it happens in other areas of life, too. An example: In the autumn of 2017, I fell into the deepest depression I have ever been in before or since. I could not remember to shower, let alone do my anthropology homework. As a result, for the first time, I was struggling to create the basic products—like, you know, homework—expected in my classes. That was even more devastating. Around the midpoint of the semester, I realized that product was not sustaining me and if I didn’t want to drop out or harm myself when I “failed”, I had to change my approach.
Once my classes became less about “I need to feel my Middle East studies requirement so I can get a History degree and get an A so I can get on the Dean’s List,” and I reconnected with, “I want to learn a lot about the Middle East,” the products came more naturally. They came more imperfectly, too, but I was able to complete the product because I put less pressure on making them to a certain standard. It became easier to recommit to my goal of being a college-educated woman when I remembered the why of receiving a college education. In woodswit’s original post, she acknowledges that the definition of intense exercise is different for every individual. But it’s also different for the individual at different points in their life and recognizing that intensity and success are arbitrary standards is an essential part of reframing your goal-setting as being process-orientated.
How Do I Goal Set Now?
I still goal-set and a lot of my goals could be likely defined as product-goals. However, they are all made with a long view in mind—if I set a goal to run a 5K, what am I going to get out of it besides just saying that I can run a 5K? Here are ways that I stay process-oriented throughout:
1. Goal Periods
I have three times of year when I set goals: January, June, and Lent. I will set a date on the calendar every year to sit down and just think about what I want to accomplish just in the next twelve-month period and what vision I have for myself in three to five years. No more than that.
January is when I set my personal goals and June is where I set my professional ones. I keep a spreadsheet throughout the year of experiences I would like to have. I will look to this list for inspiration. In January and June, while goal-setting, I check in with the opposing goals. So, in June, I checked in with my progression on my personal goals. I rethought if those goals were still realistic and if I was benefitting from them and in what ways. Then I recommitted to them or adjusted them to help me reach them.
2. Holistic Goals
Unless it’s curing cancer, there is no single goal worth putting all the rest on hold for. Each goal is a battle, and your life is the war. This is a deeply privileged example but: the goal of living independently the first two years out of college was probably achievable. But the effort to achieve that one goal meant that, like, six other personal and financial goals would not be met. So, I put off my career goals and stayed at home and taught preschool for two years. It meant a delay while it seemed like my other friends were growing up and achieving at faster rates, but the temporary strain of achieving a particular goal is sometimes worth it when it dominos into other opportunities.
3. Goal Bundling
I bundle my goals now as a part of my goals check-ins. An example of this is: I loved studying abroad and would love to spend more extended time in the country I studied in during undergrad. I would love to go to graduate school. Ipso facto, presto change-o, I should look at graduate programs in that country and see if that is an achievable goal.
This post is a good example of all of this lol. Why did I write it? there won't be an audience for it but the process of setting all of these thoughts on to paper was cathartic, creating a reference guide on this topic for myself when I am depressed is important, and that has to, has to, has to be good enough.
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acioo · 4 years
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anybody who knows anything about me will be able to tell you i spend a bunch of my time ice skating & i’ve never seen a guide on how to write a character that figure skates , so i thought i’d compile some tips & explain things , because my whole childhood i was travelling across the country to spin on ice with nothing on but a leotard & some tights , and now i have nothing but a bunch of tacky costumes and this post to show for it . this is pretty in-depth , about 2.5k words , but if you have any questions about specific aspects or want me to clarify anything , feel free to shoot me an ask . oh & a like  or reblog if you found this helpful would be sweet ! tw : injury, mental illness, eating disorders
most people that wind up as figure skaters started ridiculously young. i was probably six, but at my rink, we train kids as young as four and five. if your character has competed professionally at a state-wide level or up, they most likely started super young and have been professionally trained. figure skating is not a sport that you can do casually, most of the time. ice skating, casually, however, totally different thing. but competitive figure skating, being on a figure skating team, and the like, it’s a lot of effort, time, and discipline. in a lot of families, it’s a tradition to teach your kids to ice skate. at my rink, there’s a lot of people who come from slavic families whose parents signed them up - or athlete parents in gen. so, if your character is SUPER GOOD, they’ve put hundreds of hours of work into it, and have years of practice. it is not something you can pick up in a day, and i’d even say you have to be at it for at least two years before you get good good, and it takes a while to even become comfortable on the ice before you can start to do any kind of trick - THAT is why they start young, so by the time we’re pre-teens, we’re really, really good. the problem happens, famously, at puberty, because your balance gets knocked off, your bones are growing, and you have to basically relearn everything you know.
there are so many different types of figure skating. i specialize in singles, but i’ve done showcase and solo dance ( but both of those skills are more for me to be a well-rounded skater, not for competing ), and would sometimes be put into pairs to help learn skills and work together. you NEED to be in one of these categories for competition because they are what all comps are based upon. singles is, as you think, one single ice skater individually doing their routine. singles will do various dances, jumps, spins, etc. i won't lie, it’s hard, and really, really competitive. singles is the most competitive of all these categories. it’s usually a short program ( jumping, spinning, steps - the easier portion of competition because it’s really just a routine that you need to get down pat so you can boost your score. you will learn to do it in your sleep. ) and then a free skate ( longer than the other, it’s more complicated and difficult ). pair skating is really, really difficult, tbh, and you need a good relationship with whoever you are doing it with because there’s a lot of trust involved. it’s hard to break into pair skating because you need a partner that you’re equal to in skill and you like as a person. you guys spend a lot of time together and you need to get along. you guys need to be equally proficient at ice skating. most pairs get put together when they’re still very young. it’s very difficult to from singles to becoming a pair skater. it’s two skaters and they skate around each other, they lift each other, and move in synchronized patterns. it’s highly technical, like all figure skating, but it is more difficult because you have to keep in mind both your own feet and someone else’s. you do NOT want to bump skates with someone. at best, that is very uncomfortable. at usual/worse, you’re both about to eat shit on ice. in pair skating the partner that lifts needs SO much strength. like, so much. i’ve tried to lift fellow skaters, who are the same weight as me, and it’s near fucking impossible for me. ice skates are HEAVY and skaters have a lot of lower body muscle. we are not light people. for example, once time my team and i were out of practice and just skating around and we started playing around and i did a cartwheel on ice and i fell very hard. wiped tf out. and that’s me, trying to handle my own weight. like singles, it’s a free skate and a short program. pair skating is typically male + female ( what a sad world, i know ), but i encourage every writer to take some suspending of reality. ice dance is, basically, dancing. it’s a lot more performative than other types of skating. it’s done in pairs, but can be performed alone, in a different category called solo dance. in the nicest way possible, singles/pair skaters usually look down a bit on ice dancers because it’s a bit less technical, and doesn’t have any jumps of lifts. but ! that doesn’t mean it’s easy because it’s not. it’s rooted in ballroom dancing and they have two parts of competition: rhythm dance and free dance. fun fact: pair ice dancers scott moir and tessa virtue, who are famous to be suspected dating, are the reason we had a no dating rule at the rink. showcase ice skating is usually for some kind of platform, or in front of a large crowd. i’ve done showcase for investors for our rink. there’s usually costumes involved ( there are costumes for all competitions, but their costumes are more, like, theatre - y ), and props, and acting. it’s actually very fun to watch, but you need acting skill. theatre on ice, however, is just what it sounds like. theatre on ice is popular with children and good for ways to show off an entire team of skaters, because you can have eight to thirty skaters on the ice. they can also compete and they can go international, but they aren’t in the olympics and there aren’t many competitions for them. it’s usually just a fun way to get together with your teammates, bond, and then show off what you did.
so, competitions. super complicated, and as a writer, i suggest really glossing over them, because it’s difficult to get it down completely right. there are nonqualifying and qualifying comps. the difference is that in qualifying competitions, you’re looking to start moving up, basically, so if you qualify in the first one, you go onto the next one, then state eventually, then national, and so on. you start with regionals ( singles ) /  sectionals ( pairs and ice dancers ). then, if you succeed, you go to sectional singles / pairs + ice dance finals. the goal is to get on the national team ( i’ve watched ameatur skaters tell other rinkmates they want to compete in the olympics - it was NOT pretty ), basically. which, let me say this. it is nowhere. near. easy. like, just go into youtube and search “ yuzuru hanyu “ ( gold medal in pyeongchang olympics for mens singles ) and watch ANY of his performances. now he’s the gold medalist, right. he started at four years old. so let’s go smaller. google elsa cheng and watch one of her routines. she’s a member of the us national figure skating team. she’s fifteen. YEAH. not an easy sport. nonqualifying is more laid back and for fun, or trophies. nonqualifying is also a way to practice before you enter into qualifying. competitions are really nerve-racking. it’ll cause stress between you and your rinkmates, because more often than not you’re going against one another. you and your coach will usually spend all the prep season creating your two programs, which you will almost always repeat in every single competition you attend. i have about 20 different routines stored in the back of my head. sometimes my coach would give us exercises of coming up with a routine during a time restraint. my friend junior learned a routine that was on yuri on ice. 
for competitions you arrive, you get ready. you’re almost always wearing some kind of elaborate costume/dress leotard thingy. this is a time to start getting mentally ready, talk to your friends, and do each other’s hair and makeup. costumes are bought way ahead of time, and are usually related to the theme of your routine. you do NOT want a wardrobe malfunction. it’ll mess you up & you’ll lose precious points. your hair will most likely always be back and, more often than not, braided or in a bun. the comp will begin and you have a practice session so that you can get warmed up and ready. it’s not long. you will get the music for your program played one by one, and you rehearse - this is usually to check to make sure your music is right & to get acclimated to the ice then you get off the ice and another group will warm up. your coach can’t be on the ice whatsoever, and has to stay outside the rink. usually, competition order is done by a random draw. one by one, you will do your routine. no one but you can be on the ice. then you go off to the “ kiss and cry “ ( because you’re either about to celebrate or get your ear chewed off by an adult in a tracksuit ) where your score gets announced. then, competition continues. your warmup + when you start is not based on how you placed in the last part of the comp ( usually started with lowest ) and you perform the second routine. then, and this is usually determined by like how serious the competition you're going to, but there are trophies handed out, a podium ceremony is held, or medals or flowers are given out. my coach would always make the team pose together after competitions and go out to eat - lots of coaches hold bonding exercises esp after comps. if we did well, we could skip our 9 am practice. if we did poorly, the team meets up at a local park and runs the three-mile trail, and then they do technical corrections at the rink. after your medal/etc ceremony, you’re done. sometimes the top people will perform, but by that time you’re usually exhausted and want to sleep for a billion years ( or, if you did really well, you want to go eat 15 ihop pancakes and conquer the world ). the competition season is from august to april. this is a BASE of what happens. it’s different at different kinds of competitions and for different categories of skating, but it’s almost always something like this. offseason is for practice, rest, and fun, basically, but if you're a serious skater, by the time you’re hitting july, you’re spending more time at the rink than at home. the most well-known and the hardest competitions to qualify for are the grand prix, europeans ( european championships ), worlds ( world championships ), and the, of course, olympics.
another aspect of almost any professional sport is injury. think about any ice skating routine you’ve seen. there is no protection. you’re wearing a thin sheer leotard. you have basically knives on your feet. it’s VERY easy to get yourself beat up by ice. the ice is very hard and not very forgiving. meaning, if you hit, you hit hard. you usually are putting a lot of force into it, too, because you’re falling. don’t even get me started on the BRUISING. you will look like you have gone thru something, all the time. ice skates, which have to sharpened routinely, are, as you imagine, SHARP AS FUCK. knife shoes. i’ve been recreationally skating, because i work at a rink, and just monitoring the skaters and usually messing around with my rinkmates, and i fell, and i sliced open my thigh. i didn’t need stitches, or anything, but there was blood everywhere. very gross. ( ask abt this answered here ! ) and i wasn’t even doing anything particularly hard. and this has happened before. they WILL cut you. ankle injuries are super common. i’ve seen someone break their ankle feet away from me. i’ve twisted my left ankle five times. as for dislocations, they also happen a lot. when i was twelve, i was at the top of my figure skating career. i was qualifying to competition after competition. during a regular, normal practice, i was doing a jump i had usually aced, and i landed the wrong way and i dislocated my knee and blacked out. it’s a very disgusting injury and extremely, extremely painful. like, a good 50k in hospital bills for the surgery to fix it. i was very good and it was my favorite activity on the planet, but it was so awful that i quit. when i was fourteen, i started skating again, joined my team, etc, etc, but it was very difficult to recover from. and that’s a very common story. most people get injured and they have to stop. i know a girl who got a bunch of concussions, and wasn’t able to skate. i’ve been concussed on the ice. people tear their acls or their hip. we have a sports medic at all figure skating practices and comps. and a lot of injuries, once you hurt something, you will hurt it again because you made it weak. we are all very flexible but overuse will make your bones brittle. there’s also stress fractures and different things you can get from just overworking your muscles. shin splints, tendonitis, jumpers knee, etc. you name an overuse injury, and i’ve had it. i was one so exhausted after practice that i laid down on the ice and cried until my coach ( who i love very dearly ) gave me a bag of skittles and told me to suck it up. that’s not saying my coach is a bitch ( john mulaney vc my coach is a bitch and i like her so much ), that’s to say there is no break, no stopping. you get better, and move on, or you quit.
as-is with basically any competitive sport, if you get serious, you will probably go onto some sort of diet along with it. you want to be eating a lot of nutritional stuff ( granola bars are HOARDED in my locker room & to this day i gag at the sight of protein shakes ), anything with a lot of calcium ( because we do be breaking bones ! ), and iron. i used to eat pasta before comps ( like wayyy before not an hr or anything ) because it gives you ~energy~. you need to be eating a lot because you’re exercising a lot. gatorade is banned by my coach because it's so much sugar. you need to drink so. much. water. we all take a bunch of vitamins. usually will eat chicken / meat in general. but keep in mind, like any sport in which you are cutting things from your diet / eating specific things / etc, it can easily lead to an unhealthy relationship with food. there’s a lot of shitty mindsets you will encounter with coaches and fellow competitors about what weight a figure skater should be, and it's even worse in pair skating ( because of lifts ). when i was eleven, one of my old coaches told me that she hoped i never hit puberty because it’d fuck up my balance & when i did i cried. a fellow competitor once told me she wished she had my “ figure skater “ body ( and at this point of my life, i had very unhealthy eating habits ). another time a group of older kids made fun of how gangly i was while i was in earshot. the amt of times my coach has SCREAMED at ice skaters for making fun of / putting down fellow ice skaters is astronomical. it’s rough. a lot of figure skaters have opened up about how figure skating caused / contributed to their mental illness. it’s very easy to fall into because of how “ perfect “ you need to be. you can look up various figure skaters stories on this: adam rippon, gracie gold, and yulia vyacheslavovna - a very famous one as it was part of the reason her career ended & she was the youngest ever skating gold medalist. and i will say, personally, my unhealthy relationship with food ( that would eventually lead to lots o problems & i still feel the impact of today ) began when i was figure skating. there are other risk factors for mental illness as well because there’s so much focus on winning / losing. more than once, competitions would give me panic attacks because of the great stress.
another thing is MONEY. as fucked up as it is, you need money, or a grant, if you want to get good. you need expensive skates, costumes, travel fees, and more. my pro figure skates, not my casual ones, cost upwards of 300, and that’s low balling it. when i was ten, my parents spent upwards of 10k on figure skating. there are rink fees, there are competition fees, there are coaching fees. it adds up extremely quickly. i know a lot of skaters who stopped competing because it was just too expensive. i work for my rink by teaching classes and monitoring open skates and additional things, but if i added up every single dollar i ever made, it would be nowhere near enough to pay for everything. but the thing is, if you get really good, you can make money off of competitions, but getting there is the hard part. at one point in my life, my parents were paying $100 an hour for my private coach who i was seeing multiple days a week. figure skaters also oftentimes will take additional classes to help. my coach made the entire junior team take ballet one year. i took a ton of gymnastic classes as well to help with skating.
so, who are the kind of people that ARE figure skaters ? what do we act like ? there’s a lot of stereotypes that figure skaters are cold people. that’s not necessarily true. i would say that we are extremely competitive people. i’ve seen rinkmates get into full-blown fights during competitions. one of my best friends, who i met at my rink once i returned from my hiatus, HATED me because she knew i was competition. we are on-edge.  stakes are high and the pressure is on. a lot of us are very perfectionistic because you sort of got to be to get to our level. we can have control issues and we can become easily frustrated if we flop jumps or keep stuttering coming out of a spin. the other stereotype is that we are super delicate little flowers. probably because of the way we have to move. realistically, we’re a tactile bunch of people who would probably wind up hurting someone if we played hockey. ( another stereotype : figure skaters and hockey kids. the closest i’ve gotten to a hockey player is the one time i threatened to quick him in the nads because they came early and insisted we get off the rink. ) we all love skating and have a lot of fun while doing it. it’s dangerous, and that’s part of the thrill. speeding around the rink at extremely high speeds is, honestly, exhilirating. we love our sport and, though we can get on each other's nerves, love our rinkmates. it’s not easy, but it’s our favorite thing to do.
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sebastianshaw · 3 years
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Hey there @vvithteeth! So, this isn’t EXACTLY what you asked for the readlist to focus on, but I think it’s worth checking out all the same for a general sense of Emma’s history leading up to her current character!
 EVIL 80s EMMA She’s not good reference for who Emma is NOW, but a good look at what she used to be, and what she’s overcome. I think looking at Emma when she was at her worst, helps one appreciate her at her best. If you see what she had to rise above in herself, you understand the self that she’s fighting back, you have a better appreciation for the kinds of things she’s tempted towards---and the kinds of things she no longer does.  X-Men (1st series) #129-131 is her introduction, as she tries to recruit Kitty Pryde to her school before Xavier does. One of the most chilling moments, for me personally, is when she threatens to destroy Storm’s mind so that she will be “human only in physical form” And then Jean drops a house on her, which is why she’s not involved in the Dark Phoenix saga, as she was still recovering.  Emma continues trying to get Kitty and other kids into her clutches in  Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #180 and  New Mutants (1st series) #15-17, but in New Mutants (1st series) #38-40 she finally manages it by exploiting their current fucked-up state and having her student Empath use his powers to manipulate Magneto.  But when the kids decide to return to Xavier’s school, Emma allows them to do so without a fight, and just tells them that they’ll always have a place with her if they need it. Which seems nice, but then her thought balloons reveal that this is just so the kids won’t believe it when Magneto tells them she’s evil. Firestar #1-4: Whoa mama, Emma is at max abusive here. See, she desires to eliminate Selene, and to this end she trains a young mutant she names Firestar. She does so by manipulating the girl, isolating her, convincing her that she NEEDS Emma to help her control her powers or else she’s dangerous to others, and even KILLS HER PET HORSE. Emma is someone who says “I love children. Teaching is my life.” and she MEANS IT, she has a genuine call to teach and her love for her students is her driving force, but here we see how she USED to treat her students. Then put her against who she is now, it’s a huge contrast. Honestly, I don’t know why SOME WRITERS want to erase her growth by pretending she was Actually Good All Along but yeah, here’s Bad Emma. This is who she fights. This is what she has risen above.  EMMA’S BACKSTORY ISSUES Emma’s history is. . . kind of multiple choice. She tells one version in Generation X #24, but this doesn’t fit at all with the Emma Frost miniseries that came out from 2003 -2004, which also doesn’t exactly fit with “X-Men Origins: Emma Frost” single-issue backstory. I personally would read the “X-Men Origins” one and at least the beginning of the miniseries, specifically the parts that deal with her home life. The reason is that both of these show how unhealthy Emma’s home was growing up, and how that made her who she is. When I saw I think Emma is “wired” to be a villain, I don’t mean I think she was born like that, but as in, I think her environment trained her to become like that. It’s kind of like how a lot of personality disorders aren’t something a person is born with, but come from being in a shitty environment where certain behaviors will help you survive better, and then even once that situation is over, you can’t get rid of those behaviors because it’s how your brain is wired now. That’s how I read Emma---she came out of this toxic, duplicitous environment of manipulation and abuse where she and her siblings were set against each other, and that’s now her default for how she interacts with the world, even though she was originally just a sweet little nerd who only wanted to be a teacher. The “Origins” one features a generic Shitty Abuser Shaw and isn’t as good as the more drawn-out miniseries, as it focuses more on physical abuse (like her father suddenly slapping her) to get a point across that her family is toxic, rather than the more drawn-out miniseries, which I think works better for explaining Emma’s specific brand of. . .Emma-ness. But the bit where her mother tells her that her father is hardest on her because he likes her most of all, is really important I think, since that reflects her relationship later with the Hellions, which is also shown in this. Because Emma is cruel to the Hellions, even though she loves them, and in fact because she loved them. Her love for them and her agony over their deaths is what drives her to join the X-Men in the first place.  As for which origin story is true. . .I think the miniseries one is probably MOST true, as it’s the only one that Emma herself isn’t telling as a story. But as the friend who helped me assemble this list puts it, “ Think of any origin story of Emma's as "a sort of fairy tale, a parable," where it's the theme that matters, not the precise events or timeline “ 90s EMMA Emma spent most of the 90s teaching Generation X. I don’t remember a lot of stuff for specifically what I’m talking about with her, but here are a couple issues that strike me as significant. Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #311-314: In  Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #281-284, the Hellions were killed and Emma Frost was left in a coma, her body taken care of by the X-Men. This is when she wakes up, takes over Iceman’s body, and goes on a rampage thinking she’s the prisoner of the X-Men. When she finds out what happened to her Hellions, she collapses in despair and turns herself over to the X-Men. This is her turning point. This is when we found out Emma Frost had a soul. That she LOVED the Hellions. That they were not just tools. And there’s this one line in the yellow narrative boxes that really sticks out: “As the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, she spent the better part of her life traversing from one mind to another, violating the very essence of anyone she so chose. Losing herself in the memories of others. Altering, at times, the opinions of those who opposed her. This time is different. This time it is about survival. This time. . .it’s for the children.” The words are echoed when she agrees to join Krakoa's Quiet Council, after Charles and Erik tell her their plan and convince her it might just work. "One more time, then. For the children." Emma’s true love, in my opinion, isn’t Scott. Nor is it Namor. It’s teaching.  Emma becomes the teacher to Generation X, as mentioned, and in Generation X (1st series) #18-19, during the Onslaught crisis, she’s so terrified of losing them like she did the Hellions, that she snapped, took the kids to a safehouse in Canada, and put them under her telepathic control for their own safety. This is an Emma who has learned that abusing her students isn’t the right way, but still doesn’t respect their autonomy or consent even as she’s desperately trying to protect them, and has to learn from Monet (who is. . . .actually not Monet) that this isn’t the right way to do it either. Emma did not grow up with adult models who showed her how to love and care for a child, she has to figure it out herself, and it’s a rocky journey at times, even though she has the best of intentions. I think this is a good issue to show an Emma who is in the process of evolving. She’s getting better, but she still hasn’t got it “right” yet.  CURRENT-ERA EMMA Emma really becomes the Emma we know with Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in the early 2000s. This is where she starts affecting a British accent, calling everyone darling, and the delightfully witty Queen of Mean while also still a devoted teacher with trauma over losing her students. She always was witty and a little mean, but Morrison takes these traits up to 11 and gives Emma the foundation of what a lot of writers would build upon. It’s also when she begins her telepathic affair/seduction of Scott, which is a more than slightly problematic dynamic, as I’ve discussed. Also, this is when she got her now-famous diamond form.  We get a lot of lovely Emma nastiness in this series. New X-Men #128-139 all have lots of great moments for her where she’s just WICKED yet still on the side of the angels, and New X-Men Annual 2001 starts us off.  However, character-wise, I think what really comes out here is Emma going from blaming her past actions on substances (she tells Scott in the New X-Men Annual 2001 that she just probably out of her mind on drink and drugs all those times she was doing bad things) to being forced to face her past and herself for the first time when confronted by Jean & the Phoenix in New X-Men #139. It’s the first time we get a look at what Emma’s family and home life was like, as well as the first time she’s established as having a brother, but more than that is the emotion that gets brought in. This is also when Morrison decided to retcon the Hellfire Club as a strip joint (which I hate and also shows up in Emma’s “Origins” story) but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Jean makes Emma face all her flaws and pain and nasty, most vulnerable parts of herself.  Emma is left mentally broken...then one page later, physically, shattered by a diamond bullet that we later find out was fired by none other than Esme, the Stepford Cuckoo whom Emma later says reminded her most of herself. There is definitely poetic symbolism there. As my friend put it “This cycle of her students dying and Emma losing it and trying again but never facing the roots of her issues goes on and on until her roots literally kill her, and Jean of all people resurrects her. Jean, who saw right through Emma, saw something there worth saving, and literally and metaphorically put her back together again.” The next place I’d go is Astonishing X-Men, which is the first time Emma and Kitty work together. Kitty HATES Emma at this point, because, as she points out, Emma is the villain in her origin story. And Emma KNOWS this. That’s why she WANTS Kitty there. She knew that Kitty would keep an eye on her, wouldn’t trust her, and that’s what Emma WANTS, because Emma doesn’t trust HERSELF. So this shows that Emma KNOWS her moral compass is a very flawed one, and that she WANTS to be better so consciously that she’s getting someone she knows doesn’t like or trust her to be around because she knows she’ll watch her like a HAWK. This also means Emma is admitting she can fail, and giving some control to someone else.  There’s. . . so much that happens from here. Utopia. Phoenix Five. The Terrigen Mists shit. Secret Empire. I feel like there are probably great Emma readlists out there that include these, but honestly I just kinda zoned out through a lot of it. These are some additional read lists for her I found: https://lornahs.tumblr.com/post/87230882649/where-to-start-reading-emma-frost-lets-start  https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/2bwwok/emma_frost_reading/  It’s definitely a LOT and I wish you the best of luck tackling it! Also, I wouldn’t feel you have to read EVERYTHING, or incorporate everything into your depiction. Pick and choose what you feel works best for your version!
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saundraswriting · 3 years
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Missed Signals Chapter 1
SUMMARY: Reki might have a problem. He gets hyperfixated. He is too loud. He has a delayed sleep schedule. He forgets to eat and drink sometimes. He zones out a lot, and even more when he tries to pay attention. He fidgets with his hair and his clothes and his skin to the point of injury. His brain works, sometimes. Other times he has to fight it. He has learned to cope enough over the years but just like everything else, some days are better than others.
WARNINGS: Nothing too grand, descriptions of ADHD symptoms,
NOTES: I am trying to cope with what I am thinking is undiagnosed ADHD by projecting onto my favorite characters. I mean no harm and no offense.
Ao3 // Missed Signals Masterlist // Main Masterlist
Next Chapter
With the sound of the last bell, Reki and Langa tore off to the skate park. They had just finished mid terms. Both boys were lookin forward to the three day weekend. They both missed going to 'S' and the skate park and even Joe's place, trying to studying as much as possible. Langa was still terrible with his Japanese and Math even though he was getting better. Reki's English and Biology scores were dismal, but he seemed to be scoring consistently well on his other tests.
"Hey, Langa, Reki! Over here!" Joe called. "Long time no see." The four other skaters were standing near a bench in the skate park all seeming to wait for the two high schoolers.
"Joe! Cherry!" Reki's bright grin was visible to them from the entrance.
"Shadow! Miya!" Langa was a little more subdued in his greater but no less enthusiastic.
Both boys felt a weight shift off their shoulders at the presence of their friends. They were really finished with midterms, they had three days to hang out and skate with each other. Their week of hard work seemed to finally pay off.
"Hello there, boys. How did midterms go?" Cherry asked. He was dressed in his robes but had his hair up.
"I think we did okay. It helps that we struggle in different subjects. I am glad we decided to take the days to review things." Reki said.
"It was a smart idea to use past test to study off of, instead of just notes. Your notes are also so lacking but you do so well on the tests." Langa commented absently as he bent to retie his shoe.
"What do you mean?"' Joe asked Langa. They all watched as Langa fiddled with his shoelaces.
"Oh. Um. Reki often forgets his homework or his notes are very scattered. Rarely does he remember his homework and take good notes. But he scores high on his tests. I even overheard the teachers discussing that if he applied himself and did his homework and took better notes Reki easily could be a top student." At the second mention of his name, Reki stopped looking at his phone and came back to the conversation, glancing at Langa who was sighing at his shoe.
"Langa, your aglet is broken. You'll need new laces. but for now I think some tape will do." Reki said. Everyone looked at him confused. "What? The thing on the end of your laces is called an aglet. It is derived from old French meaning 'needle' or 'pin' designed for lacing shoes or bags easier. Originally they were for ornamental reasons." Reki rattled off unprompted into the silence. His face grew pink at the attention of the others.
"Reki, why do you know that?" Miya asked.
"I had a period of time where I customized shoes for people. I liked how different it was from doing a board. I could show off my art skills better and helped steady my hand a bit more." Reki shrugged, not seeing the big deal.
"You know the old French origins of a part of a shoe no one cares about but you can't be bothered to learn English?" Cherry demanded.
Reki shrugged again, rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassment evident. "I don't mean to not do it. I sit down and I get ready to do it but then my mind blanks. Sometimes I can force myself but then I am frustrated quickly and easily irritated. Sometimes I work on it at school but then my notes are shitty." Reki rubbed his forehead, voice hard. "Sometimes the lights are too bright. Sometimes my brain says no to English but yes to physics and even sometimes my brain says no to everything and I just sit there telling myself all the things I need to do but it is all too much and not enough." Reki's hands begin to shake, while Joe and Cherry share a look over his head.
"Skating is the only thin that helps. But when I skate I give up time that I could be studying or working on the homework. I don't mean to be bad at school, just sometimes I can't help it." Reki seemed to curl in on himself, drawing his shoulders up and ducking his head down. His voice grew small and weak.
"Reki we didn't mean to make you upset. We were just curious. You aren't the only person that has issues organizing their thoughts or staying focused. Has this been an issue for a while?" Cherry gently asked. Reki seemed to relax when the group stayed quiet, seeming to expect derogatory comments.
"I think I began noticing in my second year of middle school." Reki spoke to the ground, unable to look at anyone in the eye. Langa could see his muscles tensing, sensing Reki's desire to bolt.
"That is enough of that. We came here to skate. Let's skate." Joe broke the tension seeming to sense Reki's urge to flee.
"Yes! I have something I want to show you slimes." Miya skated off after joe towards the halfpipe, throwing taunts over his shoulder as he went. Reki and Lana flew after him, throwing their own teasing comments at Shadow, who deemed himself the adult supervisor of the rowdy children.
Cherry and Joe hung back a bit, watching them all tear off. The previous conversation still lingering in the air. Both adults tracking a brightly laughing Reki as he skated around Miya and Langa.
"Poor kid. That must be so frustrating. He tried to make it out like it was no big deal but even if he learned some coping mechanisms, they won't work all the time if he doesn't know what the source of the problem is." Cherry said.
"He won't. He isn't self aware enough to know that he even has symptoms. He seems to have an executive dysfunction though." Joe said, thinking back to his high school days, where everything was too much and not enough, the days of skating until the small hours to hopefully be able to focus, the cooking and baking he did to keep from tearing things apart.
"Maybe we can help him? Maybe if we play our cards right he will even let us. He is so smart, it must be terrible to be stuck in your own head like that." Cherry said, finally picking up his board. Joe followed suit.
"The hardest part is the executive dysfunction. You need and want to do the thing but because you're frontal cortex didn't develop fully you completely freeze and your brain checks out and you are worthless all day. No one else can really get it unless they know. It is hard to explain it to neurotypicals." Joe tried to explain to the best of his abilities. Cherry nodded and made a mental note to research neurotypicals and neurodevelopment disorders.
The two adults finally made it over to see everyone was in the middle of a trick imitating game. Miya was keeping the tricks to a lower difficulty than normal so Reki wouldn't get to disheartened Joe noticed. Langa was doing pretty well, some of the more subtle footwork tripping him up since he wasn't a long term veteran. They skated for a few more hours before finally taking a water break. They were leaning against the fence or the bench or even each other in Reki and Langa's case. Langa had his full attention on Reki as he lectured on another topic, Cherry wasn't sure but it seemed to be about the manhole covers in the streets.
"They have to be round cause any other shape will fall in when turned upright. It is to save the people who are in the pipe below it." Reki was saying. Langa soaked up every word, and Cherry almost felt sorry for how gone the kid was for Reki.
"Honestly kid, why do you know that?' Joe said, looking just as interested. Cherry could only sigh and hope he wasn't as readable on how gone for his idiot gorilla.
"I collect interesting facts. I like to keep them in my brain, never know when you need them." Reki said. Joe just smiled down at the young man, fondly.
"Of course you do, kid. Of course you do."
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sephiroths-stuff · 3 years
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Hey yall
Some advice from your friendly neighborhood dude who just had the most horrific experience with a """"""mental illness""""" group and has been part of way too many tumblr sponsored mental illness groups and is thinking of starting one for a teen outreach this summer for at risk kids.
If you join a discord server for mental health support for people with trauma based disorders, here are some RED FLAGS
- if they try to tell you you're not allowed to mention the word trauma because trauma is too triggering to say. This happened to me. I mentioned I had a trauma based disorder and someone was like "you better spoiler that word" uh buddy.... Maybe a discord chat isn't where you should be doing self help then. Online free therapy is a thing..... This is not me shitting on triggers. This is me saying if you haven't even hit a point where you can say the clinical word for what you've been through, peer support is not what you should be doing.
- instead of telling people privately "hey ____ upset me/ hurt me/ was not appropriate for this server or channel" the mods and other members do shit like attack you publicly and tell you that you act inappropriately when you're in... You know... A place where people with trauma are and many people with trauma don't always respond well under public pressure. One on one 99/100 times is better than a public confrontation for the vast majority of people.
- the blacklist reads like one of those parody DNIs. This is not a diss on unusual triggers. But this is a diss on people who are like "yeah, we will all be passive aggressive and such if in your intro you mention that you have an experience we don't like". This is also on the same note as the first one. If you have enough trauma that things that would either a) commonly come up in your group topic of choice (if u are a bunch of superhero fans who are also mentally ill etc) or b) common words or something else would disturb you so badly that you're going to have a breakdown? Once again, maybe large servers of people aren't for you, because when 25+ people who all have 25+ words to censor come together, that can mean a blacklist of 400+ words/phrases sometimes (25 to the power of 2 is 625 so this is not an exaggeration) and that is not practical in the long run. I'm not saying accommodations don't matter, but I'm also saying caring for yourself is important, and maybe smaller groups or just one on one with close friends is a healthier option than a giant proverbial marketplace.
- the whole place is a ball of toxic positivity where people won't talk about the real issue and are only passive aggressive in the name of trying to always be nice.
- no one is willing to acknowledge the danger in exclusively self diagnosing things like personality disorders. This is controversial, but personality disorders are tricky as hell. My BPD is comorbid with a lot. Same with my in progress ASPD diagnosis. It's not something you read about online and just willy nilly decide you have because you relate too much to a character in a movie or because you are impulsive or have an issue with remorse etc. Autism, ADHD, anxiety, etc. Those are pretty cut and dry, yes, it's pretty damn obvious if you have them. Self DX away. PDs? Not nearly as simple. I have 4 years of university of education and two and a half years of a career backing me as well as lived experience. Do NOT @ me on this.
- people swing around the terms like OSDD, DID, schizoaffective, schizotypal, schizophrenia, etc. like they're the fun new hashtags. These are serious conditions. And while these are much easier to self dx as it's pretty obvious if you have them (less so with schizoaffective and schizotypal as one is a hybrid of bipolar II and schizophrenia and the other is a PD with schizophrenic traits) people still don't know jack shit about them on this site sometimes...
- Lastly?? If your main mod is someone who has no actual education/experience on your mental health condition and doesn't know anything about proper therapy or coping (meaning they lack lived experience that's ended in success or at least a learning experience that has taught them something that is beneficial), maybe don't take mental health advice on what you should or shouldn't do from them regarding your condition. Also? If you're starting a mental health discord??? Try perhaps, to have at least A MODICUM of understanding about mental health. Please. For fuck's sake.
And this first point goes for any other member in my opinion. It's super frustrating both on discord and tumblr and twitter mainly to see people give out insanely bad advice about mental health. If you don't know what you're talking about? Shut the fuck up and don't endanger people with your misinformation. It could deadass kill someone.
Thanks for reading
If I start a server I'll follow my own advice and if I don't I promise you all are allowed to call me out brutally
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Note
Headcanons on disorders and illnesses (like ADHD, Anorexia, Some kind of condition or something) for both boys and girls?
ALL THE KIDS ARE DEPRESSED
It's a song by Jeremy Zucker
Lol.
Lesse. Everyone this HEADCANNON post has a mental illness. For the sake of the headcannon.
HEADCANNON CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
HEADCANNON #1- Karen
Karen had anxiety and depression. It comes hand in hand. The anxiety is not prominent and really the depression is only like a dark corner of her brain that only invades when the anxiety is high but...she has anxiety and temperamental depression.
Her anxiety is everpresent of course. Especially when she has to meet new people. But with time she wrangles her anxiety down and loosens up. It's a constant battle of 'of course they like me they're my friends' and 'am I annoying them' 'are they sick of me' 'do I matter to them as much they do to me?'.
It's exhausting. But of course..she won't let anxiety win. And neither will her friends! They makes sure to remind Karen just how special they know she is.
And that's final.
HEADCANNON #2- Kara
Kara always knew she had a bit of an anger problem. A quick temper. A psychoanalysis man told her that it was because I'm order to protect herself from being hurt she had to dismiss them.
She begged to differ. She wouldn't be so angry if people weren't so stupid. But whatever. She also had depression? Big whoop. It's not like she actually think anyway, or so she insists to the Danvers.
But the Danvers are dutiful legal guardians and got her a therapist. Of course she was super cold and prone to ignoring the man at first but somehow...over time...she told him everything.
Most of everything.
Things that pissed her off.
In fact, this is how most meetings start:
Kara, skateboarding into the room, with a smoothie in hand: Bruh, you won't believe what happened to me last night.
So...instead of stewing in anger she just spills out every single thing that makes her want to commit murder.
HEADCANNON #3- Jess
Depression. Just depression. Depression everywhere.
It isn't obvious. She's so out together and calm and collected. None of the stereotypical signs.
But you can tell when she starts to sleep less and talk less. When her words slur and her movements are slightly erratic.
When she neglects herself.
The girls make sure that Jess knows that they're there when she needs them. Jess is good at faking happiness, but they're good at detecting bullshit.
HEADCANNON #4- Diana
She is mental illness free. At least the kind that is hardwired into her brain. The kind people are born with.
But depression isn't always genetic.
And PTSD definitely isn't.
Diana has been sheltered in a pretty morally correct place but she has lived alongside monsters of Greek mythology.
She is pretty confident about most but she cannot, I repeat, she cannot, stand bears. And it might seem silly but seeing bears or any rendition of it sends Diana into gory flashbacks.
For that specific reason Babs makes sure to hide all bear themed stuffed animals when Diana comes over.
HEADCANNON #5- Zee
Being in the spotlight all her life has made Zee rather accustomed to criticism. She was always a bit above it.
Petty commentary like 'so annoying' or 'does she think she's cute?' was beneath her concern.
But one always nagged at her.
'Look at her- so chubby!' 'Haha, hamster cheeks'.
That was when the meal skipping started, what was once neglecting breakfast and avoiding extra calories was soon lying about eating and even, on some rare occasions, going as far as throwing up what her father insisted she choked down.
Yes, a kid can be depressed at the ripe age of 8 years old.
Of course she's doing better now. Not skipping any meals. And not giving the comment section the time of day.
Still, she flinches when she hears whispers of 'chubby' or 'fat'.
HEADCANNON #6- Babs
ADHD, Babs has a lower amount of dopamine so that's why she's always looking for a new thrill. Something to invest in that will give her regular amount of dopamine.
Things that lower dopamine like studying or school is of course of no interest to her so she takes no interest in learning about it.
That's why she has trouble focusing on certain aspects of school.
The BORING aspects.
Of course being forced to focus on the BORING aspects lowers her dopamine and she goes to a lapse of what looks likes depression.
It's horrid.
She still hasn't figured bout a way to be entertained with boring stuff but... she's working on it.
The BOYS
HEADCANNON #1- Carter
Carter. He doesn't have depression. At least, not depression depression.
Lol, I know.
I like to believe, in my AU, that he is a selective mute. Which comes in and as a sever anxiety disorder. He only speaks to people he feels comfortable with, or he is used to. And only when it's something he feels comfortable about.
This is just a headcannon. I strongly believe that Carter, in a another AU, doesn't think the twerps worth his time, nevermind his voice.
HEADCANNON #2- Garth
He is one with Depression. In fact him and the rude voice in head engage in daily conversation.
Before he goes to his therapist.
Who likes spraying the surprisingly self-deprecating boy with her plant waterer spray.
No one knows.
No one asks.
How can the confident water boy prince have depression.
HEADCANNON #3- Hal
Good old fashioned depression.
That's it.
He's a depressed Fuck. Who's so obsessed with feeling fine again he can't see how he's hurting others.
But he's being forced to see a therapist (thanks Jess) and he's working on it.
HEADCANNON #4- Steve
ADHD, he's constantly not happy. Dopamine less. So he just keeps his facade of pleasantness on and tries to find ways to be happy.
He figured out quick he liked war stuff. Especially pilots.
Now sometimes it's all that gets him through it all.
Looks fine is most likely silently screaming.
HEADCANNON #5- Oliver
Has anxiety.
I know.
Wouldn't expect it, right?
He's so loud and charming and confident.
Yeah, well it's a layer of confidence. Bravado to shield him from the world.
Be warned that if a single insult hits him it will most likely hit hard- and result in him working even harder to perfect a role.
He does go to therapy though. But he isn't very good at being sincere about his feelings.
HEADCANNON #6- Barry
Bipolar disorder.
This poor boy suffers through the highs of mania and lows of depression.
However since he's always at a higher speed then others they can't tell when he's lagging or acting up.
Unless- unless they pay close attention.
No one really knows....
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misterbitches · 3 years
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hi! this is long as shit i’m sorry. i hope it makes sense. i ahve adhd and like 5 million learning disorders so this is just word vomit cos there’s so many words in my brain. my b.
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i’ve had such a tough day so thank you for replying and sharing! @yeedak​ 
i was thinking about what i wrote and i meant to clarify that as well. some cases are fine for both parties and it’s not like you weren’t consenting and it seems like you were happy! same with my friend who was dating a 20 yr old. if they’re happy you know i’ll clown on ‘em but yea. so for anyone that sees these posts your relationship with your partner who is older or whatever. i’m some dumb girl on the internet okay. ill side eye older ppl tho
i think a lot of people feel the same way you do now (me included.) it feels really good at the time but alter we can see the dynamics playing out. i’m 29 now and i think aging is just such a huge process. it’s wild how you at 31 are a totally different person, right?
and the US racism is probably some of the worst ever in its iteration because of slavery which started from europe etc but USA is so fucking unique bc of columbus bringing slaves here and displacing indigenous peoples or hispanola and because america is so influential the way it views race, particularly with black people as objects, has so deeply permeated into the current historical psyche globally. it’s fascinating to track how necessary anti blackness is to the flourishing of america but also the world at this point. also want to point out how fuckign scary sinophobia is here especially for covid. one is a straight historical line (black ppl + the US) and the other had to be manufactured and to continue to exploit the non-white americans and keep antiblackness in tact.i could go on about this all day. the pain of this place is immense.yet as bad as it is here, this is still the only place i truly feel safe as a black person. because of the unique experience we have in america and through the diaspora especially because we are veyr much ocncentrated here. it would be nice to like move to norway and have some alleviation financially or get free healthcare it’s just not feasible if no one looks like me. it’s fucking tough. 
i hope you don’t hate it here though and people treat you with respect. but as you know being a woman and jewish and an immigrant....shit is tough. the USA is a hellhole. :( america is so deeply tainted and desperately bad because it was founded on strife and blood and there’s no way to reverse that and what this country did in turn when it gained enough power and could capitalize off of the colonial forefathers. this is why we hsould all luv revolution!!!
HOWMEVERRRR 
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boy oh boy oh BOY OH BOYYYYYYYY. well wlecome to the world of BL lmao especially as an adult with some obviously deep perspective just given your background. it is a fucking mess and it’s a hard mess to like but it pulls you in. i approach it like i do with soap operas since these are essentially telenovelas, you know? just like the drama at a billion. but the tricky part of that is like....what parts of it do we understand for critiquing? because so many of the shows are so bad at being like good pieces of things to look at just production wise and story wise. but i feel like these shows ask us to take them seriously, so why shouldn’t we take the content seriously? and this is being primarily peddled to young girls. 
i bring this up often but i read this thing about yaoi and the interest younger women/girls have in BL and its fascination with pederasty essentially. this component i think is key when we talk about who gets affected by these things the most. society in general is bad 4 girls bla bla we know lmao but in “more sexually conservative” societies it may be harder for these girls to feel safe even expressing normal emotions romantically and sexually and particularly with guys. some people hypothesized, and i think i agree with this hypothesis, that they can live through the casualness of BL. they don’t feel threatened because they can put themselves into the shoes of the other character. oftentimes, the more feminine or the younger. this was in conjunction with the age gap aspect (they say pederasty as well because there’s unethical age gaps that r gross and that is indeed what we would at least call a touch of sexual abuse if people dont feel like calling it an obsession with youth and power and uhhh young ppl and perhaps kids) where maybe girls could see themselves in these situations as the person being saved, loved, taken care of, and sadly also sexually active and penetrated. 
i think that’s just one aspect of it but i do think there’s validity in who gravitates towards it. i cannot imagine seeing this stuff and not getting enough information as a young kid, i sure as fuck know i didn’t!, and seeing these things and you look at it with 0 critique because you’re young and you may have no interest in it or you simply cannot understand what is wrong. no one is teaching you these things and these shows confirm it. and it is wild how intrinsic patriarchy is to BL although in its existence it also can’t be in line with patriarchy given the nature of two [cis] men!
it begs the question about the replacement aspect. is it just so girls can put themselves in these characters shoes? if so then that means we believe that gender is so interchangeable within our relationships and interactions and that doesn’t seem right. there’s more to lgbtq+ than just existing; it’s finding ways to communicate, finding a family, safety, your people, being a free person. there’s a lot to gain and a lot a lot to lose. and a gay man is also not a woman because those are also two distinct experiences.  especially in societies that have a more hidden aspect to sexuality (idk how to word this bc the BL industry would NEVER survive in america but in a way there’s a more “progressive” look at homosexuality but it’s still fucked up because we live in a Society, you know? at the same time look at what we are doing to trans kids. literally waging war so it’s bonkers how we all collectively have some real progress happening but at the same time not at all. the concept of ‘ladyboys’ and the frequency we see trans people in thai shows is wild and something that we absolutely do not see here in the US. still, none of these groups feel safe or are getting better material conditions in either place. we just show the ways we can try and tolerate oppression witout eliminating it imo)
to me it is clear: it’s money. which most things exist to make money so. but also who is the audience for these shows? and they have to market towards them. all that said all hope is not lost there are some decent shows. it’s just like regular media on TV though where it’s so fucking saturated as an industry that it’s literally sifting through garbage. and there are some days when you can handle the trash and others where it really fucking hurts to watch the violence, the rape, the manipulation, the violations, the stupid messaging. i have never seen more people trying to do mental gymnastics and seeing if things were “technically rape” than in teh BL fandom and that is so fucking sad.
i came into these shows at 28 with almost 0 clue of what as media BL was like esp as media that countries can use as soft power with the revenue. but i realize like...i’m 29 now and so many people don’t have a sizeable, though not huge, amount of life experience. and i wonder for people on the internet who are usually searching for something if they spend so much time on it like what a 15 year old girl thinks. what a 20 year old girl thinks. 
it is incredibly problematic and so awful but there’s also some rewards. if you haven’t i would definitely watch i told sunsset about you which i don’t think i’m going to finish and i doubt i’ll watch the second installment (watch this be a lie) but when i say some fucking impeccable storytelling and art? phew. now that is a fucking piece of media that works. it takes from moonlight heavily and you can see like...the artistic dedication is there and the story makes its world and sets up its stakes extremely well. 
i think because this is marketed towards much younger people too they know they dont have to try as hard. but they SHOULD because then you can have a fucking masterpiece like that. i think even this prolific gay thai filmmaker (who is like solidly against the government) who is so respected (and who i like a lot! if u wanna know i can tell u lmao but the films are very uhhhhhhhh “artsy”) would like i told sunset about you. i wish more people had budget like that and also just cared about the stories. it’s the fucking magic of art to figure out what you can do but there is very little incentive honestly. idk i am very pessimistic. there are days when it’s really a great pick me up and distraction but it is never a place i would love for to feel seen or heard but i’m more of the mind of i never trust the mainstream until they prove me wrong ;) 
or i never trust the mainstream and i still buy into it anyway and then cry when i don’t like what i see adn i yell “BOO GET OFF THE STAGE!” when an old man won’t leave a teenager alone
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scullydubois · 3 years
Text
Only the Light Ch. 14
14/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: early 1995 (Humbug adjacent) | T | 5k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic <3
As the new year beckons Scully to put her life back together, she and Mulder share a Valentine's 'anti-date' on the Hoover Building rooftop.
TW for brief discussion of disordered eating.
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The new year struck Scully with a particular melancholy. 1994 was, to put it plainly, one of the worst--if not the worst--year of her life. Even without her disappearance, it would earn that title. Her father’s untimely passing and the brief but brutal closure of the X-Files wrenched the few good things left from her fingers. Factor in the four weeks in late summer that she has no memory nor knowledge of, and you’ll understand why Scully has taken to calling it her year on the dark side of the moon.
Of course, the aftershocks of her abduction are still felt every day. Flipping the calendar does nothing to remedy that. At her last appointment, Dr. Zapolsky noticed that Scully’s weight had decreased rather sharply from previous visits and made the point that “rapid weight loss can stop ovulation,” which Scully interpreted as kicking her while she was down. That’s not exactly fair, after all. Technically, her period stopped well before she decided to restrict herself. 
It’s odd how it happened. Her weight was fine before her abduction; slender but within the healthy range for her height. Even when she was returned, it had only dropped a couple pounds, as if they fed her...as if they cared. She found that hard to believe. In the months afterward, she sought a physical representation of her mental anguish, and since she and food were never on the best terms to begin with, the choice was simple.
The other day, she had to punch an extra hole in all her belts to hold them steady on her hips. She knows the consequences of this; she’ll live them and accept it. 
There has been some beneficial progress. Dr. Zapolsky started Scully on low-dose birth control around Thanksgiving, hoping that it would balance her hormones and regulate her periods. It has, in fact, brought back her cycle, something that Scully did not expect. She gave Melissa her leftover tampons in October. Now Melissa buys enough for the two of them and insists that Scully doesn’t owe her a dime. Scully is too grateful for this to speak about it.
Her downward spiral reached a snag when she realized that smoking would make her birth control ineffective, shortly after her and Mulder’s Christmas Eve smoke break. She ditched the cigarettes, mad at herself for taking a month to read the disclaimer (she’s a doctor for god’s sake, she should know better!), yet glad to have an out. Smoking was a habit she exercised because she could. It won’t hurt her anytime soon, and millions of others do it, so where’s the harm? That was her thinking. As soon as she had a reason to stop, she did, and it felt a bit like jumping from a runaway train just before it skids off the tracks. 
So she is better, and she is worse. Which really means she is the same as she was. That is the conclusion she carries into 1995’s frosts and thaws. 
There is one thing she is certain of, something that she hadn’t given much thought to until the one year anniversary of her father’s death. She needs her faith back. She’s always practiced in a cyclical pattern, her devoutness orbiting in and out like the moon around the Earth. Sometimes closer and brighter, sometimes farther away, sometimes nowhere to be found.
She has to believe it will come back; it always does. She was made in God’s image, and her father’s. This is both a blessing and a curse.
But no one can be God, and she can’t be her father either. His faith never wavered. If hers was the moon--fickle and subject to doubt--his was the sun, steady and warming everything around it. This was a quality she was envious of, and then guilty in her blasphemy. She has never managed to feel completely content inside the bounds of piety like he could. She’s constantly shaking the devil off her back, then repenting for it, then wondering if it were all worth it. What if...what if...what if...she isn’t fully persuaded in her beliefs, and she knows that this is the worst sin of all. Like Mulder though, she wants to believe, and shouldn’t that count for something?
Imperfection is allowed. Understood, even. Doubt is not as permissible. “He who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind,” the Bible says. Sometimes Scully takes that to mean she should walk into the ocean. Then she realizes that would be blasphemous too. 
Some people believe without trying. Her father was one of those. Mulder too, in a different way. She used to think that she was too. Now she’s not so sure. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” How many times has she read that line? Has she ever lived up to it? She’s seen and still not believed. Certainly that means she’s going to Hell.
Or is she already there?...She wonders that sometimes. Maybe she didn’t make it back from the other side. Maybe the devil just wanted her to believe that she had, and so he’d constructed some kind of diorama of Scully’s life that would go wrong bit by bit, boiling her like a gradually heated bathtub. No resting in peace for the unbeliever.
She can’t imagine a worse punishment than all the potentially good things in her life getting dismantled beyond her control. She’d rather never experience them at all than know their joy then watch them fall apart. Missy would kill her if she heard this, but you can’t please everybody.
It is at this point that Scully embarks on her chosen method of religious self-flagellation: going through the Ten Commandments and determining whether she’s violated them. Count up your sins and God won’t have to; practically the tagline of the Catholic faith.
She thinks she does okay with the first few. She has no idols, she honors her mother and father, and Mulder knows not to call her on Sunday mornings. Of course, the part about not taking the Lord’s name in vain can be tricky, but she’s working on it. 
Number five is where it gets dicey. Thou shalt not kill. She imagines that she wouldn’t, not on purpose, but the circumstances of her job worry her. God makes no exceptions for self-defense. And what if she were ever to be a true doctor? If she couldn’t save a patient, does that mean she killed them? 
Her father was in the Navy. He never killed anyone.
Number six...well, she doesn’t mention that often. Few people know about Daniel. Missy is one. Scully harbors a genuine shame regarding that time in her life, not so much because of Daniel, but because she was complicit in hurting his wife and daughter. It was a young, foolish mistake that she never wants to make again. 
She feels pretty good about number seven. The only thing she has ever stolen is one of Charlie’s matchbox cars when they were kids. She was uninterested in Missy’s hand-me-down Barbies and Raggedy Ann dolls. The boys’ toys were much cooler. She trusted the Lord enough to know that He wouldn’t hold something she did when she was seven against her. Besides, she gave it back when Charlie figured out it was missing. She just wishes he had let her play with him after that.
Number eight: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. She considers honesty one of her best qualities. She sure hopes God does too. She’s not the most open person, but that’s different from lying…
Nine is a lost cause, considering six had been broken. This was her least favorite part of her family’s religion: the power it had to cause her shame about her own body, her own desires. She had her first crisis of faith over this at age 14. Missy comforted her with something she has never forgotten: “The original sin was the serpent’s deception, not Eve’s desire. Even God pins it on the woman.” She knew her sister could only say that because she didn’t truly believe and wasn’t trying to, but it had stuck with Scully through many moments when she needed it. 
And finally, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. She supposes she did this with the matchbox cars when she was seven, but in literal terms that’s about it. Metaphorically, she does this all the time and struggles with why she feels so inadequate. Her sister’s confidence, Mulder’s tenacity, her father’s faith...The ideal Dana Scully would have all of these. The real one is a work in progress.
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So it goes that she finds herself prepping a case in the office on Valentine’s Day. Mulder’s scheduled to fly to Florida the next morning to investigate attacks in a community of circus performers. He’s convinced it’s the Fiji Mermaid, she’s convinced he needs to get his head checked; the usual. This is one comfort Scully can always rely on. No matter how utterly twisted her life gets, she will always think Mulder is crazy, and he will always go along with it. 
The occasion of the day goes unmentioned until what Mulder lovingly refers to as “closing time,” which is not a specific time but rather the point that he finally gives up for the day, usually hastened by his partner’s prodding. Scully has learned the signs of his dwindling tenacity by now. She glances at the clock as he pulls his glasses off his head and tosses a sunflower seed in the wastebasket, pleasantly surprised that it reads only 5:15. He catches her checking, his eyes--amber today--meeting hers.
His lips curl in amusement. “You got a date or something?” 
“No,” she blinks, feeling like a child caught taking a cookie from the jar. Her cheeks grow hot, threatening to make a scene. “I figured you did, since you’re finishing up so early.”
Mulder straightens his stack of papers, clinking them against the desk obnoxiously. “Think again, buckaroo.”
He’s taken to calling her that lately. Neither one of them is sure why, it just popped into his mind one day and stuck. It makes her feel like a heroine in some 70s Western shoot-out flick who wrangles all the bad guys and locks’em in the county jail. She’s thankful that someone can see her for what she could be rather than what she is. It helps her see that too. 
He stuffs his papers in a manila folder, then rises from behind the desk and stoops toward the backpack he prefers to a briefcase. (She called him a kindergartener once because of it and he remarked that he’d ‘rather be a kindergartener than an adult.’ She couldn’t argue with that.) “Valentine’s Day isn’t really observed under the Fox Mulder calendar,” he says, unzipping the bag and putting the folder in. “Halloween and Thanksgiving, those are my holy days.” 
“You worship at the shrine of the food pyramid,” Scully smirks. 
“Yes indeed. Wait--” Scully’s gaze flicks to him, genuinely concerned. He dissolves her uncertainty with a boyish grin. “--does the food pyramid include candy?”
She rolls her eyes, but it’s not deeply felt. She misses these flat-lining comedic routines of his, usually at their best when they’re putzing through some tumble-weed town where the bathroom stalls at the gas station don’t lock. He loves being the funniest person in a ten-mile radius, and that’s not a satisfaction he can have in DC. She wonders if he tells these lame jokes to strangers now, or if they were just for her. 
“Speaking of food,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair, “you wanna grab dinner?”
Scully’s forehead creases. “Like, in a restaurant?”
“I mean, I wasn’t gonna be that forward, but I guess we could take it to yours or mine...”
Scully laughs lightly, wrapping her arms around herself, fingers caressing her bony elbows. “We’ve already covered what day it is,” she demures. “Everyone having dinner is going to be on a date.”
“You’re right...the restaurant probably won’t let us in unless we make out in front of the hostess,” he deadpans. 
“Not to mention that we don’t have any reservations…”
“Well, making out might remedy that, depending on the hostess.”
She gives him her ‘last straw’ look--crossed arms, arched eyebrow, stinging glare--and he raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll stick to slipping a twenty, then.”
Scully uncrosses her arms and slinks toward her purse rather languishly. “No restaurants, Mulder. It’s too much trouble on a holiday.”
“I sure hope you didn’t mistake my suggestion as an invitation to Mulder’s Downhome Country Kitchen, cause that place is not Michelin star rated.”
“I’m well aware. I’ve seen the menu.”
“Is Chateau de Scully open tonight?” he asks with an eyebrow raise that his partner couldn’t have missed if she tried--and she did. 
“Well, the chef is celebrating Valentine’s Day with her girlfriend in Oregon, so you’d be waiting awhile for your meal.”
“There’s no back-up chef? I don’t know, someone who may need to feed herself while the chef is away?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t serve the public.”
“Ouch.”
He plucks their respective coats off the rack, folding his own over his arm and throwing his partner’s over her shoulders. She jumps just the tiniest bit--she probably thinks he didn’t notice, so he’ll pretend he didn’t--then slips her arms in the sleeves and pulls it on properly.
“Thanks,” she murmurs, avoiding eye contact.
After he’s put his own jacket on, he hoists up his backpack, fielding off his partner’s near swerve into laughter. She’s barely maintaining a straight face, and even if it’s at his expense, he loves it because unadulterated joy is something she deserves so much. 
“You know what, I’ve got just the solution,” he says as he strolls out the doorway, flipping the light switch as he goes, leaving Scully scrambling in the dark. 
“Hey!” 
He hears her petulant voice, followed quickly by the laugh he was looking for. When she turns to him after locking the office door, her eyes are still shining from the momentary euphoria. He is so happy to know her.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is the Smithsonian of vending machines.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And I know a door to the rooftop that never gets locked.” He flashes her a sly look, his intentions pure despite himself. 
“It’s 40 degrees outside,” she counters before he can even voice his proposal.
“Sure, but we can make some fresh coffee, and there’s gotta be blankets in that storage closet of ours.” Ours. Very few things are theirs. She wishes he would say it again.
As much as her instinct is to protest, she can’t quite muster the resolve to. I mean, it checks all the boxes. It’s not a restaurant, she’d only have to eat a snack from the vending machine, and she wouldn’t have to spend Valentine’s night alone, which is a sneaky sadness that had been pressing at the back of her mind.
“Fine,” she bluffs, as if it were a great inconvenience to her. She enjoys the cat-and-mouse game, what can she say? “You find the blankets, I’ll get the coffee.”
Mulder smiles, his lips edging over his teeth in an aesthetically pleasing way that makes Scully feel like he missed his calling as a male model. Of course, this smile isn’t posed. The constant in his life is his partner’s unpredictability. Everyone thinks she’s a stone-cold skeptic, but he knows she’s an uncertain believer, and there’s no one harder to pin down than that. Her yes to his Valentine plans may as well be an admission that Bigfoot exists. 
“Let’s meet by the sixth floor stairwell, okay?” he prompts, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
Flashes of Christmas Eve sabotage her thoughts--her mother’s kitchen, her untidy tipsiness, Mulder just trying to iron things out. He’d touched her, and she’d lashed out at him. Reaction formation, that was the term for the defense mechanism she’d used. He knew it, probably studied it extensively. Concealing an impulse by acting out its opposite.
Instead of mentioning this, she looks him in the eyes and says, “Okay, I’ll use the coffee machine on the sixth floor then,” as if his touch hadn’t brought forth both memory and desire. 
“Great. See you there.” He pulls finger guns, and she thinks that maybe this is already her best Valentine’s Day yet.
----------------------
Five stories of stairs is a long way to go with two hot mugs of coffee. Scully had hoped there would be some styrofoam cups--something she could put a lid on--but the Bureau is stingy, so she had to go all the way back to the basement, grab their coffee mugs, take the elevator back to the sixth floor, brew some dark roast (to Mulder’s probable discontent), then hope that by some miracle, they could make it to the roof. 
Ever the idealist, Mulder takes the challenge in stride. Though his arms are already bundled with some comforters he found tucked away in storage (he shudders to think how old they must be), he takes the handle of his mug, squeezing the blankets snug against his chest. 
“Are you sure about this?” his partner asks with her usual uneven tone. “What if we get all the way up there and the door is locked?”
“We knock and get the snipers to open the door for us,” he answers matter-of-factly.
Scully’s eyebrows shoot up. “Snipers?”
“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? There’s a longstanding rumor about snipers on the roof that I’d like to get to the bottom of.”
His demeanor is just loose enough to make Scully question whether he is in fact kidding. A conversational casualness permeates all of his sensational soliloquies because to him, the phenomena he’s discussing should be regarded as a fact of the world. If he ever launched into an indifferent lecture on the subject, she’d know he was bluffing.
Having never heard the rumor herself, she decides this is simply a figment of his overactive imagination. She’ll play along. “Well, if it’s anything like the talk of you being spooky, then it doesn’t look good for us…” she teases, her own smirk eliciting an identical one from her partner. 
Masking his impatience by embodying the role of the gentleman, Mulder uses his free hand to prop open the stairwell door, ushering his partner through. The landing of each story has one stray light bulb, there for show more than anything. Most of them are either flickering or burned out, the agents discover as they inch their way up, one slowly taken step at a time. Step, pause for the coffee to settle, hope it doesn’t breach its container, step: that’s the process they adopt for approximately 100 steps in the cold Hoover stairwell. There are many ways to show love; Mulder bets that you wouldn’t find this in any lame self-help book. 
“Do you think Romeo would have done this for Juliet?” he muses.
“Depends on what he was expecting once they made it to the top,” Scully quips, the edges of her lips turning up slightly.
Mulder nods, perpetually amused by her (too) infrequent jaunts into suggestive territory. “My man really got ahead of himself with the whole ‘dying for her’ schtick.” 
“You’re one to talk.” 
Mulder eyes her. “Actually, I think it was you who was going to die for me.”
“Not for you, because of you.” Her statement is neither packed with malice nor free of blame. “There’s a difference.”
She may as well have shot him at point blank range; then at least she could see the bleeding. She didn’t mean to be so blunt, but he gave her the perfect setup. Mulder cauterizes his own wound, disguising his pain as a joke. “Damn, I was finally moving past that!”
“At least one of us was,” she says, her voice fluttering, and he knows she’s just teasing, but god, what if she’s cauterizing her own hidden wounds?
They reach the door labelled ‘roof,’ and Mulder can’t decipher what happens first, him putting his hand on the door handle or her placing a chilly hand on his cheek. Playing it back in his head later on he won’t even be able to figure it out-- it cut time loose from its axes in such a way. 
“Are you okay, Scully?” He’s not sure why this is the first question out of his mouth, but it is.
“I need a hand warmer,” she murmurs. “The coffee’s already cooling off.”
All the while, Mulder is acutely aware that her hand’s still on his cheek and she’s got him propped against the door, and what does she want him to do with that information?
Her thumb grazes his mole, and it becomes clear to him that there are two ways this scenario could go, and if she doesn’t want the second one it’s imperative that she stop rubbing rhythmic circles into his skin.
He clears his throat. “Do you want to...do you want me to check for snipers?” Her touch continues, uninterrupted. 
“Is the door unlocked?” Her voice sounds airy and far away. She probably didn’t even hear his question. 
He pushes on the handle, confirming their freedom. “Yes ma’am,” he answers, fear of a sort edging him into total politeness. He is twelve tiptoeing through the too empty halls of his house, again.
“Let’s have a picnic,” she says, still light and airy, as if that weren’t the plan the entire time. Then, she breaks into sudden laughter, pulling her hand away from Mulder’s cheek in her fit. “We forgot the food!” 
She is back to normal now, his steadfast Scully with a side of joy. 
Half of him mourning for the otherworldly Scully and the moment that could have been, he laughs too. “There may have been some lapses in planning.”
“We can make do, can’t we?” There’s a glimmer in her eyes that suggests the moment is not as far gone as he believed.
“Cold coffee sounds like an enduring Valentine’s tradition,” he affirms.
They choose not to dwell on words like “enduring” and “tradition,” entering the chill of the Hoover Building rooftop on Valentine’s night. 
------------------
They’re not that far above the city really--the Hoover’s no NYC skyscraper--but their heads are in the clouds, that’s for sure. It’s not the typical dinner date complete with melted candles and overpriced dessert and overly attentive waiters, but as it turns out, they would both hate that. After all, this is not a date, it’s a casual hangout between two coworkers who don’t have dates on Valentine’s Day. If anything, it’s an anti-date. That’s what they tell themselves.
February’s unrelenting chill swirls around them, catching Scully’s hair in playful tantrums and turning the two of them into life-size paperweights atop the blankets. More sensible people may call the night a bust, but not the Prince of Halloweentown and his esteemed guest. This unconventional adventure is exactly what they bargained for.
Scully looks to Mulder, who’s holding his coffee like it’s a beer. She smiles. That is so him.
She exhales, and her breath spells itself out on the air. She tilts her face to the sky, as if the sun might suddenly rise and bask her in its heat. Mulder notices and fixes his attention there too, happy to have an excuse to look skyward. It’s his outlet, like hers is the sea her father dedicated his life to. His preferred escape method is to fly away; hers is to drift off.
He forces himself back into the moment, here, with her, and the expanse of the sky. “I once spent fifty bucks on one of those ‘name a star’ certificates, and I can’t even see it because of the goddamn light pollution.”
“I think that’s really more about the gesture than anything else,” Scully replies, trying to soothe him as if this were actually a pressing problem. “Unless you bought it for yourself...?”
Mulder chuckles. “No, no. It was for an old girlfriend.”
Scully raises her eyebrows in amusement. “Did you name it after her?”
“No, we named it the Rhine star.”
A puzzled look passes between them. It gives him a twinge of joy that his partner is not the encyclopedia she seems to be. 
“After Joseph Banks Rhine, the founder of parapsychology,” he clarifies. “We were both fascinated by the field.”
“Oh.” She turns her face back toward the sky with the feeling of a kid who missed the winning word of the spelling bee. There are times when she is grateful she does not know everything, and times when she is not. Somehow, this is both. 
“I’ve thought about buying another one and naming it after Samantha,” Mulder continues, “but it feels too much like a grave marker.”
“I’d consider it a lovely tribute,” Scully counters, used to doing so. “But I’m thirty and I own my own gravestone, so take that with a grain of salt.”
It’s true--once Dana was returned, her mother couldn’t bear to look at the gravestone she’d had engraved in memory of her missing daughter, so she gave it to Mulder, who saw no logical place for it to go except the woman whose name it bore. Margaret hadn’t wanted her to know that it existed, that they’d gotten so far as considering her gone. While it brought Mulder no joy to present it to his partner, it served as a reminder of the miracle her survival was, and in such bleak times, they had both needed that. 
“It doesn’t scare me--the thought of dying,” Scully says to the stars. Mulder wonders if she meant for him to hear it. He wishes he hadn’t, but he’s met with the realization that she is trying to start a conversation when her eyes look into his.
He doesn’t know where to go with this, so he toes the line between deep and sarcastic. “I thought Catholics were all about that heaven and hell stuff.”
“Yes, but…” where is the line between truth and blasphemy, she wonders? Settling herself, she starts over. “I’ve lived both on Earth, so what have I got to fear?” She turns her glance to the blanket, as if shrinking out of the Lord’s sight. “Besides, sometimes I think I’m already there.” 
“Heaven?”
“No, Hell.”
He should have known. He grips the edge of his blanket, wondering why his parents had prioritized the sex talk but never explained what to do in a situation like this. He has a psychology degree, sure, but he’s as much a psychologist as she’s a physicist. 
“There are periods of life, I think, where everyone feels like that,” he says in the most earnest voice he can conjure. “It’s just that nobody ever talks about it.”
“Did you feel like that with Samantha?” 
Leave it to Scully to turn a personal conversation back on him.
He bites his lip. “Yeah, yeah, I did. Still do, if I think about it too long.”
“How did you...move past it?” The lights of nearby buildings reflect off her blue eyes, galaxies to his black holes. He’d give anything to sluice the pain right from her heart. 
He’ll rely on his words instead, despite knowing there are depths they cannot touch. “I, uh, I didn’t really move past it, I just moved. Kept moving, I guess. I found a place where I could make progress out of my pain. Here--the X-Files.”
Scully swallows hard, knocking back tears. "That’s the issue. I feel stuck. Just completely unable to go forward. There’s a current in my brain that keeps pushing me backward.”
Mulder lets out a deep breath, trying to take both their pain with it. “Have you considered seeing a therapist?” he asks delicately. “It sounds like you may have PTSD.”
“Over what?” she practically snaps. “I don’t remember a thing.”
“That doesn’t mean you have no memories. Regression hypnosis could help recover repressed or unconscious memories, so you could understand exactly what’s bothering you.”
“You think I haven’t heard this spiel from Melissa?”
“I bet Melissa doesn’t have first-hand experience with it.”
“No, she doesn’t,” she murmurs in the tone of an apology. She knew that he had it, she had listened to the tapes. How could she let it slip her mind? It is uncouth of her to look down on his chosen method of healing.
Mulder isn’t bothered. He continues, “It helped me. Both in recalling the details of the experience, and in having a recorded recollection of it. It helped me feel less...insane.”
“Mmm.” If he were just a bit closer, she’d reach out and touch his hand.
“If anything, I wish I did it earlier.”
Scully’s understanding of him sharpens, like an ophthalmologist flipping the lens, making her vision clearer. Her gaze probes him, mutual souls recognizing mutual pain. 
“Hey.” He uses his extended wingspan to touch her shoulder with the care an older sibling would show holding their baby brother for the first time. She turns her head, their faces mere inches away from each other. His eyes are a dopey brown, his breath scented with coffee.
“Yes?” she says with a coquettish flitting of her eyelashes. 
“You should come back out on the road. I could use someone to shoot down all my wild whims.”
She can’t help but smile, though she keeps her mouth closed. “Tired of telling jokes to strangers who don’t laugh, are you?”
He smirks. “Well, yeah, that too.” He leans back a bit, putting enough distance between them to keep the sparks in check. “Of course, if you’re not ready, there’s no pressure. I just think you could use the change of scenery and--you know--companionship.”
She nods, looks out into the night. He’s got the pulse of her problems and the salve that could soothe them. “You’re right.” How often does he get to hear those beautiful words come out of her mouth? “I need to get out of my cocoon, and I think I’m okay enough to do that now.”
“Yeah?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, something like hope.
She laughs--catharsis manifest--and it’s like a sheen of light coming through a crack in her jagged surface. “Yeah, Mulder. I’ll make the arrangements with Skinner.”
He pumps his fists in the air. “Hallelujah!” 
She hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her. Any stray thoughts she had of him being lonely she chalked up to her own delusions. 
“Florida is probably a lost cause,” she notes, “but after that…”
He nods, pats her shoulder. “After that.”
To have her back meant something like freedom. The X-Files had never been anything without her. He had never been anything without her. 
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Sakamaki Character Analysis: Cuntdelia's Children
continuing on to Cordelia's kids now. Again, they all need help in some form. Although full warning they aren't my favourites so I may not be as on point as I feel I was with Reiji and Shu.
Ayato:
So Ayato has a god complex and a narcissistic streak, why is that any why does that mean he needs the special care? Well his mum was abuisve, that's a fact. In the games we hear mentions of physical punishments as well as emotional manipulation, gas lighting, and all that other horrid stuff. Ayato is a ball of insecurities stuck in the way his mother forced on him. He has to be the best because she said she has to, and as a defense mechanism due to her constant criticism he developed his "I'm the best call me Ore-Sama" thing.
Now a lot of fanfics just see you the reader make fun of the ore-sama thing or be too depressed to even care about it, and lemme tell you why I don't think they'd actually the best thing for him. So let's say your mother, a primary care giver, puts you down all the time and makes fun of you. You grow up isolated and constantly feeling you aren't good enough but don't have anyone to talk to so internalize it all and put on an act. Then you get a person trying to date you or befriend you that does exactly what your mother did. Now when I put it like that do you see why the whole "pfft whatever oreo-sama" thing won't actually help. You'll end up dead when he snaps I'll bet money on it.
I think Ayato needs a partner who won't pander to him but won't put him down either. So when you don't want to make him takoyaki say "Not right now, I'll do it when I'm finished this level in Mario. Wanna play with me Ore-Sama?" don't say "Go do it yourself oreo-sama. Wait do you seriously not know how to make it? lol."
Furthermore push him safely. Ask for help making the takoyaki, start small with a "hey I can't reach this pan and you're super tall can you help?" as to slowly built up to "hey will you mix this sauce for me as I prepare the meat? I'll tell you what to add the ingredients are all there." I feel Ayato would benefit from this as he'll slowly realise he's learning how to do things. I think a big part of why Ayato struggles is that he was told he needed to be perfect first try and so he gets disheartened easily. Home boy needs compliments and you to not bring attention to his mistakes. Just be like "oh that's fine you can add more salt if it'd too sweet or sugar if it's too salty."
This goes for everything too he's gonna need someone who slowly teaches him, and trust me the day he realised he's learning he'll be greatfull, he won't show it much at the start but over time he'll get better. Like remember when Ayato slept with Yui in the anime? Sorta like that happens and he whispers a thank you when he thinks you're asleep. Then it slowly becomes a thing of if he knows it's just you and him in the room he won't be against putting his head on your shoulder when he needs some love.
When his grades improve you better make him takoyaki and suffocate him with hugs and compliments because he needs that to be a more open and better person.
Laito:
Laito is a hard one, because I see many s/o for him written as anti-sex who won't give into him, or those who give in whenever and I don't think either would fully work.
If you meet through a one night stand obviously you're never going to get in. I think his best chance would be a classmate he sits beside often, potentially a sacrificial bride but I'm kinda meh on that. He needs reliable no touch love before moving on to anything. So let's say he noticed you doing a crossword before class one day (it's canon he loves em) and he helps on a word or something. Now response here is everything, no swooning and "omg Laito-senpai sleep with me" crap but also don't ice queen it. Hearing "I don't want to sleep with you leave" will shut him out from you forever. I think something akin to "Oh thanks Laito, I didn't know you liked crosswords you seem pretty good at them." Now let's break this down as to why this works best in my opinion. First off you thanked him for something that had nothing to do with physical touch in anyway, second you complimented him but not on his body or skills with said body. Instead you showed appreciation for his brain. And finally the "I didn't know you liked crosswords" gives him an opening to start discussing interests other then sex.
Laito was sexually abused and I think as a result it'd need to be slow and steady with things. So holding his hand and not letting him touch the boob just yet shows you don't want sex you want him. Talking to him about things like fashion means he can do his perv on the girls for a bit before slowly toning down and starting to talk more on the outfits. He will definitely be sleeping with other people at this point, you're not dating at all. I think he'll slowly begin to appreciate the routine of having one person in his life he doesn't need to give his body to, and he may just open up about the abuse. I think being supportive and gently saying something like "well I'm not a professional so I'm not going to be much help, but if you decide to talk to a therapist I'll be there every step of the way for you." BE HIS CRUTCH.
I think he's the most likely to consider and maybe even go to therapy before dating you (I think eventually all the boys would be convinced to start going). I think it would be in therapy where he realises the fact he wants to be near you all the time isn't lust like with other girls but it's love. I imagine he'd be like "It's weird because I want to be with them all the time but fully clothed and eating macaroons or watching movies, not [the following is censored for a good reason]
I think Laito has the ability to be a great partner if he can deal with his abuse and PTSD from said abuse.
Kanato:
Kanato is a tricky case. He definitely has bipolar disorder or manic depression or some serious mental health condition past just PTSD or depression brought on by abuse. So I think he'll need medication and an actual therapist although getting him there is the hard part.
Firsts off toss the "Yeah I have a Teddy too and love sweets as well let's be 5 together" fantasy out the window, especially if the file up sentence to that is "I also like killing people, we're both crazy". Also you can't be a sacrificial bride, you'd be dead or he'd ignore your opinion.
I think maybe if you went to a therapist for a less severe issue (anxiety or something that doesn't make you STAB PEOPLE WITH FORKS) then maybe if he was following you or picking you up and had a meltdown the therapist would actually help him through it which will be like a "omg I don't have to scream to feel better" moment for him I think.
So from there he goes to therapy. He's still childish in his likes and stuff but he doesn't kill people or keep his weird ass dolls. You need to set some ground rules. "No I'm not going to make you cake unless my homework is finished and that's something I have to stick with. Remember your breathing, the longer you shout or be angry the longer you'll end up waiting for cake." Wear his pretty dresses and be nice to teddy and all that good stuff. But set limits. I see Kanato is pretty asexual, like I don't see him as the kinda guy to want sex, I don't think he's against romantic feelings for someone but I don't think he'd have sex with a s/o.
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not-your-damsel · 2 years
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I Gotta Let it Out, Please Forgive Me Guys
I got a random message on Facebook messenger from my bestest friend from the tail end of middle school until onwards… or so I thought.
*Names have been changed for this… mess? I’m so sorry guys, I’m all over the place 😑 and this is kinda long so, head’s up
She was like a sister to me, we told each other any and everything. We wrote fan fics for *N’Sync before fan fics were even a goddamn thing, before there was a place to even post them! She made the life move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania bearable and then livable after having my whole life uprooted once again. My Mom and I always moved a lot when I was a child so I was always bouncing from school to school once I thought I was finally settled and was steadily making friends only to up and move again. That coupled with constantly having to go to the hospital because of my illness didn’t bode well for my learning abilities. I’m great at everything else now as an adult but don’t even come to me about math or I’ll spit on you, I don’t make the rules 🤷🏽‍♀️
However, once my Mom met my Sister’s father, our living situation somehow downgraded from living in a beautiful brownstone house to then living in a trailer in a trailer park. Please don’t take that as me shitting on trailer parks or folks who live in them. I just despise them because they immediately remind me of the verbal, mental abuse/gaslighting I endured when we lived there which continued into PA and the house we moved to there is all. My stomach churns when I pass by one as I immediately feel like I’m 10 again and about to be in trouble and grounded for the next tiniest thing he deemed wrong of me.
Anywho, we moved to PA when I was 12, my little sister having been born in NJ just before we left it to come here and I was livid. Leaving all my friends behind after finally having a taste of actually settling in and making friends and not moving away right after the fact only to pull the rug from under me and do it again. As an adult now, I get it. It’s safer here than where we’d been and the taxes rock, no tax on food or clothing or pharmaceuticals and also utilities for heat and shit and not to mention, a better school system.
And school is where I met my immediate bestie, around the second or third day being there, we had to swim for gym and since I didn’t know I had to sit out for the period where the other girls and I started talking about *N’Sync and she asked me who my face was, which was Lance and then she said hers was Justin Timberlake and that she fantasizes about him. Anyone who can tell me that right off the bat with the same energy as telling me what their favorite color or animal is has immediately won my friendship. Immediately.
That’s how we met, that’s how we rolled and we stayed joined at the hip throughout the rest of our school years together. We’d been through it all, crushes, familial loss, pet loss, watching mutual friends come and go or fuck each other over, and yet her and I remained as though we were born sisters. I never needed a whole entourage of people to call my friends. Whoever’s gonna hang with me, I love and appreciate and protect dearly and those who won’t that’s fine as well. But she was a constant in my life, we both were constantly in each other’s lives.
She provided an escape and safe haven away from my home when it got to be too suffocating to be within my own home because of my overbearing stepfather and I taught her how to appreciate and accept and play video games, specifically of the survival horror genre and we’d get together for a sleepover when a new release would come out and we wanted to get lost in stories and scream for dear life at perfectly crafted jump scares. She turned me on to being a drama kid since her and I were in chorus together being Soprano 1’s, and it turned out to be one of the most fun things I did in high school.
But time passes and we graduated. Sad as I was to be parting from everyone, we all began to scatter, coming together during breaks to party and catch up. After moved to Queens NY to be with my fiancé at the time and she was doing her own thing. Over time, life got in the way. There was no grand fight to speak of, no secretly harbored feelings of ill will or hatred, nothing of the sort. Which is why I’m left feeling so baffled over how what was meant to be a great reaching out and reconnecting moment ended up turning into me feeling angry, dejected and feeling as though maybe there were some things she never spoke to me about when she should’ve.
It started out great, happy to hear from her especially out of the blue since the times I tried to reach her would always fall through. We caught up with one another, as you do, and then the conversation turned from catching up to suddenly me being questioned about why I never contacted her. I explained everything that happened, how I tried several times apart from the yearly birthday wishes and such, and how I never got a reply back, that I assumed it meant she had a different phone number. How as the years passed more and more, my insecurities of no longer being wanted by her ran rampant and that maybe she had better people in her life. I apologized for that, seeing now that I was blinded by that insecurity and that was something for me to sort out. That and that life literally got in the way.
I told her everything as honest and truthful to the best of my ability because I’d never lie to her, never had and never would/will want to. I admitted to her that I’m definitely different from the last time she’s seen me and that I’m now utter shit with the phone. I personally think it’s a mix of my Major Depressive Disorder mixed with my anxiety that I prefer messaging over actually talking on the phone. But that’s not for my lack of trying to reach her over the years.
However, that wasn’t good enough for her though apparently. She kept pressing me and questioning if “I ignored her” because of scenario A, B or C. She said that. She literally said, “Did you ignore me because of…”. She started labeling despite me telling her what happened, putting words in my mouth. It got to the point that I was just repeating myself over and over because she kept interrogating me on the issue, bringing up weak reasons as though she just knew that was the “reason I dipped and left her in the wind” when meanwhile, when you look at which of us two was the last to try to contact the other through Facebook messenger, it shows it as me and before that all my attempts to reach her through something I knew she’d see my shit to her through and yet I was never answered.
I ended up saying to her, “Look, I don’t know what it is you’re wanting me to say here. I feel like you’re trying to get me to admit to something to please you but I’m not gonna do that because if I did, then I’d be lying to you and I’m not here for that. I told you everything on my end here, what has happened and that’s exactly what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t secretly hate you, I could never hate you. It wasn’t your fault about what happened with my ex and I at your party, I’ve never held you responsible for his cheating actions. He cheated on me with Stan, not you, so don’t think that has anything to do with you when you stuck up for me when we all found out the next morning. Please stop fishing for a conflict that’s not there.”
I don’t hear from her after a long while and I explicitly tell her that I want to talk about this more the next day because this isn’t right and I want to clear up whatever it is that she thinks is wrong, that I love her and to have a good night as it’s past 2am at that point. She proceeds to bring up past scenarios hours later while I’m well asleep and she knows this, guilt tripping me about how she was there for me whenever I needed to be in the hospital but that maybe I had forgotten what it meant to be best friends with her and she then blocks me on all socials knowing I can’t even fight for myself because I’m asleep. All socials save for one and that’s Insta.
I call her out on that shady bullshit and tell her that it’s absolutely unfair that I sat there and I was being an adult and admitting to my mistakes and apologizing for them only for her to push all the blame on me for not contacting her which we established that I had many times and not been acknowledged. I said, “The phone works 2 ways, Sadie, 2 ways. Do not sit there and act like you’re not to blame as well, especially when I’m here admitting fault and apologizing for it and you haven’t even bothered to claim some of that faulted responsibility. That’s fucked because if it were me having come to you, yet again, and this time you answered, I would’ve taken my part of the blame and admitted to my faults here as well, I wouldn’t’ve piled it all on you the way you did to me. I was honest with you and it seems that’s not what mattered to you, what mattered to you was putting untruths into my mouth to fit your narrative that “I hate you”, “that you never mattered to me” and so on. Again, not cool. Will it hurt to lose you? Absolutely, it’ll kill me to lose you permanently, but not at the expense of a lie you want so badly to be true.”
Not only that, but several times throughout this conversation, she would bring up something factual that happened, that she knew happened, only to turn around and say something snarky like, “I wouldn’t know what happened or I wouldn’t know about that because you never told me about it.” I sat there for a good moment afterwards, seriously questioning if she was drunk or high or a combo of the two and just crossfaded because it made no damned sense!!!
I’m not gonna lie, I’m truly hurt by all this. I cried happy tears when we first started talking because it had been so long, and then by the end of it, I was left baffled, hurt, confused, and feeling like I didn’t even know this person anymore and crying in a panic that this was all actually happening. That I somehow unknowingly became a villain to my own best friend, my sister. It still feels unreal, the whole thing was so all over the place, it gave me whiplash. I don’t know what to do and I apologize for putting a portion of me and my troubles on here, I just needed a safe space to vent and let loose because I’m warring with myself of if this is even still worth it with her because this feels so… icky. Like in my gut I can feel that this isn’t the same person I once knew and I’m only gonna find more upset, hurts and disappointment and that feeling causes even more hurt.
Idk guys, I’m tired and worn out. I cried a lot so that’s gonna and made me even more tired only with puffy, splotchy pinky/red rings around my eyes that now are sensitive to the touch from wiping them so much. But thank you for letting me do what I felt I needed to do and just let this mess out. I know it’s all over the place but I can’t even bring myself to fix anything if there’s errors and shit. Love y’all.
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inaure-forhalla · 3 years
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because at this rate i will simply never have proper full written out bios for my muses, below the cut find some more detailed information about my muses that give you more info than just the vibey little blurbs i shat out at some ungodly hour of the day:
akllasqa mamani:
aklla is the daughter of a scientist that had all her titles stripped of her, and prohibited from working in the field after unethical experiments came to light. this doesn’t stop her from laying low and forming a personal lab, although under a watchful eye. she proceeds to learn and absorb all she can about genetic editing, and with the use of the CRISPR method and friends manning labs, she produces her own genetically edited egg. this is where aklla comes from, she’s planted in her mother’s womb and grows to be a girl who continues her life under a microscope. her mother is constantly poking and prodding at her, in a desperate attempt to note every deviation from regular behaviour from a girl who was tailored. aklla is diagnosed with anti social personality disorder in the future, and as a child is known to have conduct disorder. she’s been called a sociopath more times than she can count and is prone to sudden, and violent outbursts. all in all, a difficult teenager trying to maneuver through a society that works against anyone with any mental diagnosis.
jolene walsh:
honestly jolene’s the only one i have a full bio for, so because i’m lazy catch that here. 
vivian han:
vivian grows up in a house that values tradition, and in particular the image of a good family. her parents are not overtly religious, but they’re devout christian’s. they got married young, and without much thought and this leads to strife in their household. they start to fall out of love right in front of her eyes, but old time tradition and religious beliefs compel them to stay together despite divorce being the healthiest option for them both. being the oldest daughter in the house, vivian often has to play peacekeeper between her parents fights. she grows weary of it, but knows her options are limited. the older she gets, the more time she spends outside of the house. parties where the music is so loud she can’t hear her thoughts, she drinks away whatever she’ll have to face when she gets home. vivian is the fun girl, and the smart girl, and the party girl, and she does whatever she can to keep up every front she has. straight a student, but beloved by her peers. and only because she tries so hard. sometimes that comes with a small mean streak to be accepted by her peers, but she grows out of that quickly. guilt wears on her conscience heavily. an unhealthy relationship is all she knows as she grows up and so it leads her into her own. she dates a boy who becomes her ruin, but she tolerates it because that’s all she knows. she tolerates it even when he pushes her against a wall and she’s worried she has a concussion. he never hits her, and that’s his excuse. she files a restraining order after much thought and push from her friends. but it only makes her wild nights even worse, she has more pain to drink away now.
gabriel and ronan:
two boys that were once part of the same band, now leading two completely different lives. gabriel has always had his head in the clouds, always dreamt of life as a musician. his parents could do little to stop what his heart wanted. as a kid he’d play in shows any chance he got at school, and even kick started his own garage band with his friends. he never wanted to be the star of the show, gabriel was more than happy in the background. and that’s how he becomes the bass player of Golden Ours. he grew up in a bustling house that knew nothing about love, and it’s what he puts out into the world. his energy comes from genuine joy, and the desire to spread kindness. he’s a humble star from humble beginnings, and does his best to not let fame get to his head. naturally, there are slip ups, ones he does his best to hide. but all in all, he makes for pleasant company. not much tragedy in this one, rather typical if you ask me. 
ronan on the other hand grows up in completely different circumstances. the accident child of an alcoholic and a junkie, he never really knows stability in his life. his parents never have a good means to finances, and he picks up odd jobs as a kid to support himself if not his parents. he holds his father’s anger and defends himself after each bark and bite from his parents. he doesn’t grow up in a good house, and he doesn’t know if he likes them more when they’re sober or completely out of their minds. he swings a fist at this father at eighteen and is met with his ass on the curb. with little to nothing to his name, he sofa surfs as long as he can, gets himself jobs here and there, nothing that lasts too long. he comes across gabriel before the band hits the charts and it begins as roommates soon turned bandmates. he joins as lead guitarist. ronan’s one to butt heads with the band often, but at the end of the day, they’re family and family was meant to fight. but the disputes only heighten when ronan pushes them to take deals that come their way. change their look, change their sound, change change change for the mainstream media. they won’t take it, and so ronan does. leaves the band behind and embraces life as someone he doesn’t recognize in the mirror. he goes from alt indie rock to more mainstream pop rock. his manager decides what he wears, what he sings, what he signs up for. the money’s good, but he hates himself. but the money’s good.
mira deol:
mira lives a quiet life for the most part. second oldest daughter of five, their family is never without festivities. she’s a good student, not the top of her class, but trying. she sits in the middle of everything, never too loud, never too quiet. mira seems to breeze by life in the background and a part of her itches to be at the front of the show. she knows she’s not built for it, so instead she’ll smile and nod through it all. her life flips upside down, she becomes part of headlines when her family is killed at sixteen. in the middle of the night, the confront what they think to be a robber. her father and his broken english yelling downstairs, threatening to call the cops when a gun’s pulled out on them. mira, silent, watches from the top of the stairs while her entire family is sat down on the rug. one by one, they’re lined up and taken out with a single shot to the head. execution style. she scampers into a closet, and her hands search the dark floors for the gun she knows her dad has. and she sits there, as quiet as ever, hands shaking as she holds the gun in front of her. she thinks he’s left until she hears the creaks up the stairs and the closet door swings open. she closes her eyes and empties the bullets into her assailant without a second thought. mira’s found with blood, both her own and his, on her body. she hasn’t left the closet when they find her, a neighbour calls when they hear the last round of gunshots. her face takes the newspapers by storm and she’s a charity case. without any other family overseas, she moves in with her next door neighbours. a girl she knows from school. she suffers from traumatic mutism for a year. rehab and therapy get her to open up, and she cries anytime she speaks for another year. her life is spent in and out of therapy, and when she finally moves out and manages to get into university, she lives alone. everything about her life screams at her to live with company, but fear of what happens to company around her forces her into living alone. currently, mira is still healing. it’s been five years since her family’s death and she’s pushing herself back into society slowly. her emotions are hard to handle, and she’s incredibly clingy when she gets attached. 
buster jones:
buster lives a comfortable life. his parents work good jobs and they don’t expect much from him. as the youngest of a trio of boys, he’s the family’s baby for most of his life and he milks it for all it’s worth. he spends most of his time gaming, eating, or hanging out with friends. never the best student, but he manages to pull through with the tutors his parents throw at him a countless number of times. he doesn’t tell them that he’s paid kids to do his homework and essays, they don’t need to know that. but when both brothers leave the house, grow old enough to make it out on their own, the attention turns back to buster. buster who does nothing for the family but eat half the contents of their fridge, which can no longer be excuse as the appetite of a growing boy. so his parents make him take up a job, any job, they tell him, and so he goes to work at a mcdonald’s. he reckons it’ll be the least amount of effort he’ll have to put in, and impossible to get fired from. plus, free fries anytime he so pleased. he’s working through his last year of highschool, projected to have to take a fifth year if summer courses fail him. when he makes it to college he takes up criminal justice. not with the dreams of being a lawyer like his mother so hopes, but with the dream of getting into the fbi. only because it looks cool on television and he swears they know everything about area 51, and the gps’ that babies are injected with. an avid reader of conspiracies that he spouts like his life depends on it, what he doesn’t have in book smart, he also doesn’t have much in street smart. how buster makes it through the day, everyone wonders. but somehow he does.
elena castillo:
she grows up doted on. an only child, given the world at her every whim. her father loves her, her mother loves her, but doesn’t have to love as much since her father takes care of that part. her father dies when she’s eight, and her mother doesn’t take it well. elena had shown various talents at a young age, and the one her mother hones in on is her ability to skate. never having taken professional figure skating, her mother says it’s time for her to try. she doesn’t protest much, knows just how pushy her mother can be. she’s a good child for the most part, prone to temper tantrums, but mother knows best. elena’s mother focuses all her energy on her daughter, and it becomes obsessive. like a pageant mom, she signs her up for every competition under the stars. elena is bound to win most of them, and that’s because her mother doesn’t let her rest until she gets her routine down pat. elena’s perfectionism is taught and forced down her throat, it doesn’t come naturally. it doesn’t take long for the girl to embrace that figure skating has become her life. pulled out of classes on a whim just to participate in competitions, she learns how to catch up with classwork quickly without disappointing her mother. she never admits it, but she seeks validation from the one parent she still has. thinks maybe she’ll gain the same love she got from her father if she does it right. elena is quick to snap as she grows older. becomes her biggest critique, and with it comes a sharp attitude that she’s quick to lash out onto others. she projects her own insecurities, and drags people down to bring herself up. she’s now a professional figure skater, one of the best of her age at twenty. but it didn’t come easy, and she’s not willing to give it up easy. in front of the cameras and the crews she waves and smiles. once the lights drop, so does the facade and she doesn’t bother to lift a finger for anyone she deems not worth her time. she becomes more like mother, and over the years, they become more like partners than mother and daughter. their relationship is never healthy.
luciana pereira: prev lucarus
has the sexiest bio it deserves a read here
imogen, willa, devna mini bios coming soon !
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calzona-ga · 3 years
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SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched the March 11 crossover episodes of “Station 19” (“Train in Vain”) and “Grey’s Anatomy” (“Helplessly Hoping”) on ABC.
RIP, Andrew DeLuca: surgical attending at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, ex-boyfriend of Meredith Grey, brother of Carina DeLuca, and, as of ABC��s crossover episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Station 19″ on Thursday night, murder victim by the hand of a henchman in a trafficking ring. Yes, DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) was stabbed by one of the human traffickers he and Carina (Stefania Spampinato) had chased through Seattle, and despite receiving care at his own hospital, he died. But his efforts weren’t in vain, we learn: The traffickers are all arrested.
It was the culmination of a “Grey’s Anatomy” story that had been cut short by the COVID-19 production shutdown in March. In what turned out to be one of the final episodes of Season 16, DeLuca suspected a patient was being trafficked by her so-called “aunt” who had brought her to the hospital, but because he was in the middle of a manic episode, no one believed him. In the midseason finale of “Grey’s” in December, DeLuca — medicated for his bipolar disorder, well-rested and clear-eyed — spotted the trafficker, Opal (Stephanie Kurtzuba), and this time, he wasn’t going to let her get away.
In an interview with Gianniotti, who was on “Grey’s” for seven seasons, he said that when he learned how his character was going to die, he’d wanted to make sure that it was apparent that DeLuca — “a very brave and noble person,” in Gianniotti’s words — go out as “a pillar of representation for people struggling with mental health.”
“It wasn’t that he was unmedicated and unrested, and that’s what led him to put himself in a dangerous situation,” Gianniotti said. “This was the most DeLuca thing DeLuca has ever done.”
In the episode, as DeLuca hovered between life and death, he communed with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) on the beach where she has spent most of this season, also in a liminal state, having been taken down by COVID in the season premiere. There, Meredith has hung out with Derek (Patrick Dempsey), her dead husband, and George (T.R. Knight), her dead friend — as well as characters who are still alive.
Of his beach scenes with Meredith, Gianniotti said: “You see DeLuca more happy and relaxed than you’ve ever seen him ever on the show, because all of those stressors are all gone. And he’s with the person whom he loves, which puts them even more at peace.”
“Grey’s Anatomy” — now its 17th season, and still the one most watched shows on television — is itself in limbo, according to showrunner Krista Vernoff. With negotiations with Pompeo for a contract extension ongoing, Vernoff told Variety she has to “plan for both contingencies” as she and the writers room map out the end of the season — or the series.
Though DeLuca is dead, Vernoff revealed that we haven’t seen the last of him — that’s what the beach is for, it seems. And Gianniotti, mentored by “Grey’s” executive producer-director Debbie Allen, returned recently to direct an episode that will air in the spring. He will miss the fans, Gianniotti said: “I’ve never seen a show be so beloved. To feel that love, and have felt that love over the seven seasons has really been remarkable.”
As Vernoff said, “He’s still in the family.”
In an interview, Vernoff talked about how she conceived of DeLuca’s death, the difficulties of not knowing whether the show is ending and how shooting during COVID has changed “Grey’s Anatomy.”
And what in God’s name is happening on the beach!?!
You killed DeLuca.
I’m the worst.
How did this story come about?
Honestly, the story told itself to me. I went for my walk on the beach to come up with my pitches, and these episodes came in whole cloth, like a vision. And I was like, “Oh, no! Really, that’s the story?” And it was. We knew as I pitched it that it was the midseason finale story.
Sometimes stories tell themselves to you, and your heart just breaks. You’re like, “That’s not what I want the end of that story to be!” But that’s so much of life this year.
Can you talk about killing a major character this season, and having the cause of death not be COVID?
That was born, I’m certain, of my psyche wrestling with all of the ongoing tragedies and traumas in the world not stopping due to COVID. There’s this feeling of injustice, like, no, COVID is enough. But sometimes you’re going through all of it at once.
Can you talk about putting DeLuca on the beach with Meredith, and the larger meaning of the beach as a storytelling device this year?
The beach was born out of desire to have an escape from the pandemic.
We came back before almost anyone else. And the actors were scared, and nobody really knew for sure that all the safety protocols were going to work. Doing the pandemic felt like the right thing creatively, but it also felt like the thing that was going to make the actors feel safe to come back to work, because they were all going to be able to be in masks. And if they weren’t, they would be outside. And once the decision was made to do COVID, and then the decision was made to give Meredith COVID, it felt like a way to get Meredith outside without a mask, and in a non-pandemic world.
If you’re a magical thinker like I am, that beach is a real magical in-between place. But if you’re not, if you are not a believer in magical things — if you are an atheist, a scientist, a whatever, my stepsons don’t believe in a magical place — we’ve designed it very carefully so that it also could just be a dream. So anytime someone’s on that beach with Meredith, they are also in her room so she’s hearing their voices from her hospital bed.
When DeLuca visits her on the beach, for me, DeLuca’s between life and death. For my stepsons, Meredith heard in her hospital room that something happened to DeLuca. So now she’s dreaming DeLuca! I wanted very much for the motif to work no matter what you believed.
It just feels to me like whatever you believe, that’s right.
DeLuca has been on the show for a long time. What did you want his final episode to say about him?
I think he went out a hero. I think that he went out fighting for what he believed in. And he was through his mental health crisis. He’d become a very productive member of the hospital staff. And he wasn’t going to let this woman walk away again.
What was it like when you told Giacomo Gianniotti what was going to happen to DeLuca?
He was so relieved that I was not having him kill himself, or go out in a mania frenzy. And he was excited to play it — he played the hell out of it. He actually does appear in a couple more episodes this season. And he’s directing an episode.
I’m going to assume that Meredith wakes up and finds out that he’s dead. Do you see the beach as a place she’ll have an awareness or a memory of in any way?
Yes.
OK!
I don’t have too much more to say about that, because I don’t want to spoil too much. And also: Sometimes I change my mind. But at the moment, yes.
It’s been such a heavy season for both “Grey’s” and “Station 19,” reflecting the world right now. But I know that’s not necessarily where your heart is as a storyteller. Can you talk about where the thinking is on continuing “Grey’s Anatomy”?
When you’re living through a pandemic, and you’re coming back amidst a pandemic, and you decide to do the pandemic, the nature of the storytelling turns a little bit darker. And so for this moment, it is where my heart is.
And I also feel like my heart as a storyteller, my sense of light, and my sense of hope and beauty and joy that infuses most of what I do is expressed through that beach. The joy, the collective joy for all of us in getting to see Derek Shepherd again, getting to see George O’Malley again, in getting out of the hospital and getting onto the beach, and seeing Meredith’s relief there — I know that we’re worried about her, but also there’s joy.
And in terms of whether or not it’s the last season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” I don’t know. And that’s the truth. I wish I knew. It’s a source of frustration at this point. And it sort of doubles my job, my workload, because I have to plan for both contingencies. But I am. And God willing, I’ll know soon.
It can’t end like this! Can you reveal how many episodes will be in this season of “Grey’s Anatomy”?
17.
That’s a lot.
It is a lot. Yeah, it’s a lot, considering what we’re navigating.
Will anyone else be joining Meredith on the beach?
Yes! But I won’t tell you.
Returning cast members or current?
There are some surprises in store.
Now that you have shot more than half the season during COVID, can you talk about what you’ve learned over the course of the year?
The crew is exhausted because they’re behind masks and visors all day. The masks and visors are dehydrating and stultifying, and as a result, you need more breaks. You need to send everybody off the stage to take their masks and visors off to hydrate. You can’t ask everybody to be there for 12 or 13 hours at a stretch. So we’re shooting 10-hour days. And that is a really significant change to what we’re able to accomplish and shoot.
What I’ve learned, and I’m continuing to learn, is how to write the show in a way that makes it producible — we cannot have scenes with as many characters in them. And we cannot have as many scenes. And we cannot have as many locations! Because we can’t have as many company moves. All of it has to become smaller, and that changes the stories we tell. If you usually have five or six people in a scene, and now you usually have two people in a scene, sometimes the whole cast isn’t in the episode. You look at an episode and you’re like, “Where’s Amelia?” Well, she’s home with the kids! We didn’t make the company move.
I think that there are silver linings: Deeper, longer richer scenes are really beautiful things sometimes. But they’re different for “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel, both for these fictional characters and for all of us?
Yes, I do! I feel like we’re all living the light at the end of the tunnel right now as our parents and grandparents get vaccinated. And as we begin to emerge, hopefully, from this year of cocoon. I feel like we’re living in in some light, and I do see a light at the end of the tunnel for these characters,whether this is the end of the series or the end of the season.
There’s so much coming up! I know this one is going to be devastating for the fans. And I feel it too. I cried harder watching this episode, this cut, than I’ve cried since I watched the episode where George O’Malley died. And that is a really powerful tribute to the character that we built and to the actor.
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