#ive been on that train for years and i feel like not enough people question his first team and why they never get brought up

[floralovebot]

Jayyy pls tell me you’ve read the new fic by the writer who wrote retired!! It’s so gooddd!!!!

I HAVE NOW

HOLY SHIT BABE THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS!!!

Here's the link for anyone interested (read it 👺)! I'm gonna put all my thoughts under a read more cause I am gonna spoil it's impossible not to !!

FIRST HOLY SHIT

This person never fails to amaze me!! I thought Retired was good but holyyyyy I loved this one so much!! Seeing so much of Helia's internal dialogue was so good! And just like Retired, it felt completely in character. You already know how much I can't stand Helia fics because so many people get his characterization wrong so I'm always pleasantly surprised and extremely happy to see someone get him right.

I loved the self assured attitude here! So many people get this wrong about Helia. They think he's egotistic and cocky when he really just knows what he's capable of (and what he isn't). I loved how he knew he could do it but also knew there was a chance of failure.

AND THE SKYLIA DYNAMICS LOOORRRDDD I loved seeing both of them do that "well he just needs to trust me" thing that was so cute and in character for both of them! And Sky confronting slash comforting him at the end :') I really, really liked Sky's characterization in this! He has those "boo i'm the leader" moments that some fans hate but is in character for him while also highlighting his more caring and worrying side! And it didn't feel like he was Just thinking about the team overall either! You could tell he was genuinely worried about Helia and that was so refreshing to see.

And god... where to start with Helia... I loved the suicidal ideology there because that is so common in the military. "I won't have to deal with the fallout if I die" is such a common thought when you're dealing with constant life or death situations and responsible for other people's lives. I really like how the author keeps drawing from his past experiences and how they shaped his current thought process, especially in regard to how Shadowfaunt messed with his mind. How he just kind of accepted those thoughts because he's had them before? Being able to move past them because he Knows that's not okay and Sky and everyone else doesn't deserve that? SO GOOD

And I really like how they explore his feelings after that mission! Him making more mistakes (which we know is something that literally kills him)? Him hiding away to have a panic attack? Knowing that everyone else knows something is wrong but can't bring himself to bring it up or talk to anyone?

I also LOVE how Sky mentions that the specialists consider him a friend but they're not sure what he considers them because that is exactly what happened!! So many people think they just accepted him blindly or that they never even got close to him which like... no... Showing that they see him as a friend and want to be closer but they're not sure how Helia sees them in return??? BABE

And ANOTHER THING!! I really liked Riven's characterization here too! I liked how he was clearly worried about Helia but also being more aggressive and a little petty about it too. He was undermining Helia but he was also fully worried about him and yknow... didn't want him to die. I feel like this is really on brand for how Riven shows his concern!

Idk man I'm just obsessed with this writer and how they portray everyone... I honestly can't wait for the longer fic they mentioned because bro.... I'm not sure if this fic is in the same universe as Retired but I feel like they could be! I really liked how Helia very crassly moved over talking about how his teammate died and how he had to clean up the mess? LIKE WHEW That's some tough fucking shit no wonder he was close to dropping himself

I really admire how strong everyone is portrayed in this fic! The winx with dealing with the effects of Darkar's Fortress, the specialists for trying to help them while also not dying, Helia's whole fucking deal, Helia for not giving up and wanting to keep going, Sky for not judging him or hating him for what he said... just... everything about this is so good i'm gonna be thinking about this for ages :')

#i literally love everything about this fic its so good #i love their fics so much oh my #im also so happy to see another 'helia's first team fucking died' fan!! #ive been on that train for years and i feel like not enough people question his first team and why they never get brought up #i just... this is so good :') #thank you so much for telling me about this!!! #ANN IM SCREAMING #answered #winx helia

[thedovesaredying]

Monsters in the Dark | Nikto x Reader | Cowboy AU

Prologue

Introduction to my fic set within the cowboy AU created by @ghouljams for our dear boy Nikto. This is just a quick starter piece to set the scene for the fic so to say. Also decided to include Sputnik since I don't see many fics including the precious baby!

A/N: Obligatory note that I do not condone the owning of dangerous or wild exotic animals as pets regardless of a country or state's laws. Exotic animals require a large amount of knowledge in their husbandry and specific requirements to ensure the highest standard of welfare is maintained. They should never be treated like domestic animals, they do not make good pets.

Warnings: Discussion of Serious Injury, Limb Amputation.

Masterlist: CoD Masterlist

Next Part

Nikto had been waiting for death to greet him throughout the entirety of his career. It was simply an inevitable fact of life both in the military and working as a mercenary for hire. People died constantly at his sides, and it quickly became a question of “when” and not “if” the final string would be cut and his body would fail him for the last time. 

There were days when he almost wished for the reaper to claim whatever remained of his empty heart. Torture was tolerable, an old friend at this point, but the months and years of recovery afterwards were what really felt like suffering.  

Alive, and yet completely useless. A fractured mind trapped within an equally ruined body.  

The only thing he could look forward to was getting back to work once his body was finally strong enough to pass medical approval. Tedious as the waiting game could be, he wasn’t stupid enough to push himself beyond his limits like some honour-hungry rookie. No, he waited and saved his strength for when it would one day be needed, for the days when nothing but sheer willpower can save his pitiful soul.  

And yet despite his many brushes with death, he had still yet to be taken by it, even when by all rights he should have been. Death yet remained a stranger.  

But why? Was his mind too corrupt and darkened for even the devil to want to touch? He had never believed in any God, but surely there was one looking down on him and mocking his pathetic existence. How else could he have survived an injury that should have killed him?  

He could remember little of the mission, only the sounds of people shouting orders, the potent scent of smoke and chemicals in the air, and pain. Certainly not the worst pain he’d experienced in his life, a blade to the gut still had the honour of that, but close to it. He was fortunate that the concussion he’d received had left him drifting in and out of unconsciousness for most of the trip back to base.  

His arm was fucked. According to the doctor and the reports from various other operators present on the mission, his elbow was bent in a way it definitely shouldn’t have been, and there was enough shrapnel in the remaining flesh that he might as well have lopped the whole thing off entirely.  

Which is exactly what the doctors ended up doing.  

It was their last resort, but with the complete lack of feeling in the limb coupled with an infection that just couldn’t be stamped out no matter how many antibiotics they pumped into his IV, it was necessary. They tried as hard as possible to save it, but necrosis had set in, and the safest course of action was to remove all damaged and dead tissue.  

He still wasn’t sure what would have been worse, being taken out by sepsis, or dealing with his current existence.  

And what a miserable existence it is.  

KorTac wanted to keep him on – surely, they couldn’t just let a wild beast like him roam free without a firm hand on his leash – but there was very little they could offer for him. Stay with the PMC and become a glorified guard dog? Train bratty little recruits? Sit behind a desk pushing papers nine to five? No, that would destroy what little grasp he still had on his sanity.  

That was how he ended up standing on the rundown porch of a house that could be described in a single word as dilapidated. It was cheap but came with enough land for him to not need to worry about nosy neighbours. He’s so far lacked the motivation to do anything to try and restore the building, but it has four walls and a roof, which is more than can be said for some of the “safe” houses he’s utilised over the years.  

He’d been lucky to discover the place at all with how small the town is. A passing comment from a fellow soldier about the region had caught his attention and, considering the impossibility of returning to Russia, he’d decided to look into it. America was a massive continent, and in the US he wouldn’t be questioned for owning weapons. Even better? This particular state allowed him to continue to keep Sputnik without suspicion.  

The old man who had been selling the house had been sympathetic after he’d played the whole “injured veteran” card and had even offered him a reduced price for the property. It still sickens him to think about how weak he must have looked in that moment, but needs must, and what he needed was a place to call home, even if only for a little while.  

One terrible accident and he’s reduced to begging for help like a stray dog wanting scraps.  

His irritation has the hand of his prosthetic curling gently into the fur of Sputnik’s pelt. All it can do is open and close around things to allow him some form of grip, but it works, and he supposes that’s all that matters. His girl doesn’t seem to care that it’s not a flesh and blood hand petting her, leaning into him regardless.  

She’s the centre of his current predicament and the reason he’s been forced to reach out for help. No amount of puppy dog eyes and wide grins sent his way are enough to save her from a trip to the vet. Or rather, a visit from one.  

He waits patiently as a large car rolls down the gravel road that leads to the small house from the property’s front gate. Sputnik whines as it draws closer, before beginning to laugh with nervous excitement. The moment the vehicle pulls to a stop she moves to investigate, but is quickly stopped with a barked, “МЕСТО!” command from Nikto.  

Sputnik huffs, unimpressed with not being allowed to greet their visitor, but settles for sitting at the top of the stairs while her master approaches.  

In all honesty, Nikto had been expecting a grizzled old man or woman with decades of experience under the belt when the receptionist had promised to send someone with knowledge of exotics. What he wasn’t expecting was... you.  

#writing #fanfic #call of duty modern warfare #reader insert #call of duty nikto #nikto x reader #cowboy au

[bengiyo]

Get to Know Me Tag :)

I was tagged by @telomeke and shaded by @lurkingshan.

do you make your bed?

Not usually, but I don't have a partner right now. I find that I'm actually really good at cleanliness when I have people in my space regularly. I am better about taking care of things when I'm doing them for the ease of others.

what's your favourite number?

14, but I couldn't tell you why. I think it has something to do with a girl named Ciara who I sat behind in elementary school.

what is your job?

I fix things for a government agency.

if you could go back to school, would you?

Probably. I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I went to college, and was far too much a mess at the time to study what I really should have. If I could do it and maintain my expenses, I'd retrain for my preferred profession.

can you parallel park?

Yes. I am the gay who drives.

a job you had that would surprise people?

I was paid for over two years to be really good at D&D.

do you think aliens are real?

So... I gotta be honest... I hate this question. This feels as loaded as the "Do you believe in God?" question. We are not aware of the existence of life on other planets, let alone sentient life. There is nothing for me to believe in. Do I hope that there are other intelligent beings out there? Yes. I think it would be really cool to engage in communication with a species that also crawled their way out of the muck and made it to space. I think there's much we could learn from each other about life and the universe itself. But belief is such a loaded term for me as a lapsed Catholic. I do not believe in aliens, but I hope that we'll get to meet some in the future.

can you drive a manual car?

Nope! Never needed to learn.

what's your guilty pleasure?

Hmm... Nothing really anymore?

tattoos?

Nah, I've always worked in the public sector in a way that hasn't made it an advisable choice, and I've rarely cared enough about something to mark my body with it.

favorite color?

Purple most of the time, but my wardrobe would say I'm in my green era.

favorite type of music?

I'm a soft rock 90s kid who embraced a lot of 2000s and later alternative. I've been on a huge synthwave kick lately. However, because I grew up in the 90s and remember the era of radio, I have a deep affection for Soul and R&B, classic rock, and pop.

do you like puzzles?

Yes? But not in a way that makes me yearn for them.

any phobias?

Probably falling, but that seems like a normal one for survival purposes.

favorite childhood sport?

Baseball! I was a shortstop.

do you talk to yourself?

Not often. I don't actually have an internal monologue, so I don't need to talk to myself often to get through it.

what movies do you adore?

This is...so difficult. I'm just going to name a ton of films: Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, Pacific Rim, Ghost Dog, Master and Commander, The Man From Earth, The Sum of Us, Big Eden, Kill Bill 1 and 2, Knives Out, Muppet Treasure Island, Gattaca, C.R.A.Z.Y., Weekend, First Blood, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Drive My Car, Nine Days, Really Love, Set it Off, Make the Yuletide Gay, Shelter, Pig, Kiki's Delivery Service, The Digimon Movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Star Wars IV and V, Isa Pa With Feelings, The Way He Looks... and probably many more.

coffee or tea?

Coffee. Tea does so little for me.

first thing you wanted to be growing up?

A train conductor or an astronaut! Trains are so cool, and space is the final frontier! We have to boldly go where no one has gone before!

I'll tag @shortpplfedup, @negrowhat, @chicademartinica, @so-much-yet-to-learn and @happypotato48

#tag game #tag meme #about me

[bruciemilf]

IVE GOT A QUESTION: harley quinn and bruce bromance. let’s chaos ensues

OKAY. OKAY. They mean so so so incredibly much to me. After seeing Harley's IMPECCABLE fighting in The Suicide Squad, I headcanon she MUST'VE trained/is training with the bats. Specifically with Bruce.

I think people who face domestic violence are regarded with a concerning amount of apathy.

Especially women and fem presenting individuals, who suffer from adversity and lack of resources when they're let go from the relationship.

But Bruce gets Harley. He's never going to be more mad at her for staying than he'll be at the guy beating her.

Besides, he's not walking out on Gotham either.

There's a very warm place in my heart just for these two. Let Dick, 10 year old, made of curious, wonder around that cavern of a house. Everything is so big, and large, and polished.

It's almost enough to be a home.

He hears voices, creeping from the kitchen. "... I should be dead B, I really should be,"

" No,"

" Yes. I hurt people. For him. While letting him hurt me. He would've killed me and I would've let him and, -- and I'd still let him. "

" You didn't let him do anything. He did it because he enjoyed it. He did it because there's nothing in him."

" But If that's true, then the only person in my whole life, the only person who loved me, doesn't exist."

"...Not the only person."

The old, wrinkled wood squeaks under Dick's tiny feet, and he squeaks with it. He barely dodges a batarang, now impaled in the drywall behind him.

"Dick," Bruce sighs heavy, but his love is easy and clean, " We talked about this. Stealth."

It takes exactly a second for Harley to twist her face in a beam. As if that haunted look of remorse and hatred didn't darken her face just moments prior. "Oh! So you're the babybird I heard so much about!"

Dick, who's been hiding behind Bruce's neck, slowly, carefully, lifts his gaze to her. "Are you my tati's friend?"

" I'm your tati's best friend! Don't tell me my own godson doesn't know me!"

" Dick is enough of a menace without your influence,'' Bruce sighs, kissing his little sweetheart on the temple, walking closer so Zitka can be introduced, " This is Harley. She'll be staying with us for a while."

Dick really likes Harley's smile, when it's true, " How do you feel about pillow forts?"

#THEMMMMMMM #adhd and autism solidarity #harley quinn #dick grayson #bruce wayne #batttinson #batdad #soft bruce wayne #dc #dcu #text #text post #HARLEY IS PART OF THE BATFAMILY I DO NOT CARE

[cock-holliday]

hey not rly a question just saying i appreciate your 2cents on things generally. i am a gnc transfem but am really a boy more than anything so someone looking out for those of us who arent palettably feminine is rly cool of you. a lot of the stuff you mentioned in your long post just now hits at some of the stuff thats making me feel uneasy around some of my transfem friends. i fear if i was fully myself i wouldnt be accepted. i hate to feel too queer for fellow queers, but. but yea anyway most of the time ive known i was trans most of my friends had actually been trans guys so when i hear this anti transmasc rhetoric going around it makes me rly uncomfortable im sick of the idea that trans guys have it easy. its not true and not fair do you fear being not accepted by others like you too? is this normal? idk. i didnt feel this when i came out 5 years ago this is new to me

I’m really sorry you’re dealing with that, and I can relate. Essentially I came out as a binary trans person a decade ago and raced to transition as quickly as possible (it was not fast, it was slow and frustrating) and when I finally got there then I had to endure Gender Crisis 2 where I realized I wasn’t this binary gender either.

It was very difficult to sort out. Did I just not feel special enough as Gender 2? Was I faking this whole time and was really just cis? Was I detransitioning? It took a lot to figure out what I wanted, how I wanted to be seen, and to grapple with the idea that it will continue to fluctuate.

I am masc but do not consider myself a man. Boy, maybe. Do I see myself as a woman? Also no. Girl, maybe. But a masculine girl. I think my boyness is more feminine than my girlness…but still both…butch.

I am trans but not a trans woman or a trans man. While figuring myself out in round two I flirted with transmasc/transfemme as labels, but neither fit better than the other. Or maybe neither fit. I know some use transfemmemasc but idk that I like it for me. I use trans women’s shaving tips. I use trans men’s voice training tips. There are members of both camps who wouldn’t consider me one of them.

I currently work a full-time job. I cannot present or fluctuate in my presentation when I want to. We have gendered locker rooms, gendered bathrooms, my ID badge has a photo that doesn’t look like me. I think a lot about that post that’s like “I might be nonbinary but I have a job so I can’t worry about that right now.” Only, I already know I am nonbinary. I’ve already been out to a lot of people IRL. How do you put that cat back in the bag? Can you? If I was allowed to present how I want now and everyone was cool…will they still be understanding when it swings back the other way? I don’t want that sort of pressure at work.

I am lucky I have a partner who understands and likes my presentation—and spectrum of it. I have trans friends who understand or try to understand, and genderweird friends who get it. It is a bit isolating—how everything is split into one camp or another. Things I supposedly couldn’t relate to I do, things I am not meant to have experienced (or acknowledge I experience) are not welcome topics in trans discourse.

It is difficult! There are huge Boy v Girl (but make it progressive) pissing contests on tumblr and it’s very irritating how deep the anger goes. Carve room for yourself and you’re accused of belonging to the other camp, as if it really even is ‘the other’ camp, it’s the same fucking camp.

I started to identify with the word butch only in the last few years, and because my gender exploration had taken me back to the trans folks of yore. They were brash and bold and contradictory and I liked that! It made me yearn for vague labels and defiant privacy while also being unabashedly authentic! Then I learned that it still exists. It’s small, and got pushed to the fringes, sure. But I’ve only had access to the books and zines and tales of the genderweird from the internet, and to hear it resonate with so many others proves to me we’re still out there.

It’s very tough to want to be true to yourself when there is a constant pressure to conform to something. It’s doubly tough when that pressure comes from other trans people. But finding more and more people who live this way and feel this way makes me feel surer in my choice to just loudly be what I am, fuck the rest, whenever I can.

I cannot always look how I want or be seen how I want, so the spaces where I do have control I refuse to be anything other than what I am 110%

I really hope you can find more and more space that lets you exist in the grey. I hope your friends become more accepting. In the meantime and hopefully continuously in tandem—you are not alone in this experience and others out there understand what it’s like. ❤️

#ask #anon ask

[richkidcityfriends]

your opinion on 2022 winter Olympics

okay so im assuming this is only about figure skating and i mean oml there was so much going on. below the cut bc i think this is gonna be long.

okay so FIRST OF ALL the kamila valieva situation. where to begin. (as a note: none of this is a statement on her except in relation to the 2022 olys)

the positive test being from rusnats and only being found out in february is weird. idk if we ever found out exactly why that happened? but i can only assume it was meddling from the russian end.

i think the media response was cruel, and i think part of that was a lot of people were trying to talk about it without knowing the full situation, but the amount of vicious hate and blame kamila received was unjustified. she was fifteen years old and in an abusive situation, to what extent she knew about the doping is irrelevant in my mind, the blame falls on the adults in power (mainly her coaches). eteri tutberidze is notoriously controlling and abusive, and there is no way any of that was happening without her being responsible. she controls the amount of WATER her skaters can drink. skating at that level, especially in russia, your coach is practically your primary guardian; if eteri told her to dope then there was pretty much nothing she could do. only eteri girls were ever going to go to the olympics, if she switched coaches that would have ended her life's goal (and the way they train is so all-consuming that to not get to the olympics at all would have felt life shattering).

should she have been been allowed to skate? i dont think so. at least partially bc it essentially proves to coaches that you can "get away with" doping as long as the people you are drugging are children. obviously having an athlete who has taken performance enhancing drugs is unfair to everyone else, but that goes without saying. HOWEVER i do understand the worry that the test could have been wrong or she might not have known, either way it would have been unfair to her. (the "irreparable harm" quote is always taken out of context - they meant that if she skated and was found guilty they could strip her of the medal, but if she was banned and found innocent there was no fixing it). ultimately though i think letting her skate was the wrong decision (especially since the case STILL hasnt been settled).

i dont think eteri told her to throw the free to make sure the others got their medals, because she looked so traumatised afterwards and eteri reacted so badly (ive never understood this theory tbh)

that was the first scandal from the olys but oml it was definitely not the last. there was so much going on. olympics from hell. lets talk about the womens podium.

(but first a note on ultra c elements: do i think the sport is suffering because of the increased value placed on jumps? yes. do i think artistry is important? absolutely. do i think there is a conversation to be had about the morals of training young children (especially girls) to do dangerous jumps that cause permanent damage to their bodies? one hundred fucking percent. things need to change in this sport. however. i will make repeated references to whether or not someone is jumping ultra c when discussing the podium, because that is how its scored atm, and i do think that they aren’t irrelevant (it is a sport, athletic feats are also important) just please please know that i am also taking artistry into account its just harder to objectively phrase in a short paragraph and this is already long enough). okay caveat over. please no one attack me. lets go.

look i KNOW the most pressing question is do i think anna deserved gold HOWEVER. have you considered. did anna deserve to be sent to the olympics at all. and this makes me insane because like?? skating like she did at the olys?? yeah she probably deserved to be there!! so it kinda seems mean to talk about this but ALSO i feel like we definitely have to not forget it so. the russian olympic team was pretty much based off of the podium for rusnats, which that year was kamila, sasha, anna. but anna in third place was veryyy controversial bc like. she had no ultra c elements at all (and her tech is DODGY so without them it gets even harder to justify her high scores) but elizaveta had a triple axel (and better tech) so a LOT of people thought that she should have come third, but rusfed just wanted to send anna to the olys instead (which i pretty much agree with).

but okay whether you like it or not she DID make the olympic team so. womens olympic podium. a grenade of a question. everyone is allowed their own opinions on it im not saying anyone is wrong if they think differently!!!!! also im only going to talk about the top five bc this is already wayyy too long.

i know on tiktok a while back the popular opinion was that wakaba should’ve been gold, which i don’t really agree with, however she absolutely should not have been fifth. no doubt in my mind she should have been at LEAST fourth, if not third. kamila should have been behind her i don’t care how many quads she was attempting, she fell like five times. she got through on reputation and the eteri bonus alone. kaori did skate cleanly, but with no triple c, and her tech isn’t great on some of her jumps, so wakaba (who fell on a jump, but had a triple axel, and generally better tech and artistry imo) could have come third and i would have been happy. anna i go back and forth on, because her artistry is alright, and technically she does jump quads, but her tech skills are SO questionable (her quad lutz is neither a quad nor a lutz). the tech bar for quads is lower than for triples, and i do kinda think that makes sense, but her quad tech is worse than most of the other quad jumping girls so it’s a fair comparison. i don’t think she deserved gold, but im never fully sure about silver either. honestly her, wakaba, and kaori can fight it out for second/third/fourth. in terms of actual skaters i like wakaba best, in terms of who performed best on the day i think you could make a compelling argument for any order.

that of course leaves sasha in first place. i know she fell on her triple axel in the short, but the only people who didn’t fall at all were anna (i’ll talk about her last) and kaori, and while triple c elements aren’t the only important thing, the skater who fell on one and landed five kind of has to be above the skater who attempted none at all, imo, so that puts kaori out of the running. wakaba fell once as well, and she definitely has the edge on artistry, but i don’t think sashas artistry was as bad as a lot of people say, especially in her short, so i don’t think thats quite enough to put wakaba ahead of sasha overall. sasha’s tech skills were so much higher than the rest of the skaters that i think it would be almost impossible to bridge that gap with artistry alone. lastly theres anna, who ofc actually won the ogm. two clean skates, slightly better artistry, much worse tech (i know sasha’s tech isn’t perfect either, but she’s definitely better – id say thanks to plushenko). annas tech should have been called, if not her edges then at least for prerotation. sasha fell on a triple axel and anna landed a double in the short, sasha landed five quads and anna landed two in the free. taking into account how poor her quad tech is, i don’t think that her artisty is enough to pass sasha.

however!!!! again i want to reiterate!!!!! everyone is allowed their own opinions on this!!! i do not give a damn if you think that anastasiia shabotova should have come first!!!! go you!!! to each their own <3

now for something that i do think you can wrong about. the reaction to sashas reaction to the scores was appalling. she was seventeen years old (a CHILD) in an extremely high stress situation and had been told by her (abusive, manipulative) coaches that if she landed all five quads she would win, and when this turned out to be untrue she got upset and had what was clearly a panic attack, asked not to be filmed and was ignored by every cameraman in the area, had to immediately go in front of millions of people while still being a mess, and was then attacked from all angles for being “ungrateful” and “showing bad sportsmanship.” show some empathy. (especially ppl who are still giving out about it now “on behalf of anna” when they seemed to be at least friendly again as soon as the very next day)

OKAY WE’RE ALMOST DONE i mostly only follow women’s so the rest of this is going to be brief

sui/han deserved ogm, my sister and i were rooting for miura/kihara to do well but we knew there was no chance for a medal. loving seeing them do so well rn.

nathan chen’s costume was ridiculous. last time i said my nathan chen take i got eaten alive on tiktok so im not gonna say much about him. he did deserve gold tho.

scoring felt harsh on yuzuru. wish he’d gotten another ogm but it wasn’t meant to be. im glad he got to attempt the quadruple axel at the olympics at least.

papadakis/cizeron ogm deserved.

oh MY god i forgot about the team event. pls someone save me. im so sorry i know no one wants this much. this isn’t even the worst i can do. i have talked at my friends for hours straight before about figure skating. i cant help it i have no control. we are going to ignore the team event okay. Just give them their medals. pls. i beg. they still don’t have their medals. i know it sucks for the rest of the russian team if they lose the gold bc kamila was stripped but you have to give the rest of them their medals.

anyway if you made it until the end here is a gold star ⭐ i don’t know how you did it.

#i am SO sorry #this is way too long #but anyway yes here is a brief (yes ik but i promise this is brief) overview of my most pressing olys 2022 opinions #yes this is almost 2000 words long and yes i wrote it instead of my english hw #oh also when i say you in the post that is the impersonal you. one. no part of it is directed in particular at anyone!!!! #im not giving out to anyone!!! #altho if anyone has any questions or anything pls ask and i will elaborate #asks #figure skating #roboobin #also idk if this is even legible its the middle of the night and im sick

[bloodgulchblog]

Hi!! Ok sorry for the mammoth question I’m about to ask but you’re super knowledgeable on Halo stuff and I need help- sorry if I don’t word things well my brain is having a day

Ok so I’m writing a Spartan character and I can’t find too much on the specifics of how they were trained. I’m trying to determine what kind of trauma would come out of being beaten into a Spartan, especially the IIs and IIIs.

Basically trying to figure out what kinda trauma they have/how bad it is so I can roadmap my character’s recovery yknow

*CRACKS MY KNUCKLES*

You came to the right nerd. This is pretty much like throwing a kong ball full of peanut butter into my enclosure. This post is gigantic and I had so much fun.

If you want to read it directly for yourself, you're looking for Nylund's Halo books. The Fall of Reach covers the Spartan-IIs, and Ghosts of Onyx covers the Spartan-IIIs. I'd happily recommend either of those, they're well-liked Halo novels for a reason. Ghosts does work pretty well on its own if you want to focus on the IIIs, but it benefits from having read Fall first. (...And First Strike, but I will contain myself.)

If you want IVs, which are very different because they were selected and augmented as adults with military experience, your options are New Blood by Forbeck or the comic Initiation. (I'm not really a big fan of either so it just depends on if you'd prefer it from Buck or Palmer.)

That said, let's get going.

(....I want the readmore cut to be here, but Tumblr keeps moving it when I make edits. So.)

Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs: Training

These guys have a lot in common, and they feel weirdly familiar to one another. (Just enough that the differences feel even weirder.)

Both groups started training as young children. The IIs were all six years old, the IIIs cast a wider net. Ghosts mentions kids as young as 4 in Alpha, but that doesn't... make sense actually. Because we have canon DOBs we know Carter would've been 12 and Jun would've been 8, and those numbers feel closer to right, but I'll get to why in a bit. (Researching this post has made me have a revelation about Spartan-III ages.)

Spartan-IIs were selected for genetic matches to a profile that Dr. Halsey determined was likely to accept the augmentation procedures. (The failure rate was still very high though. I'll talk about that.) They were kidnapped from their homes by ONI operatives and brought to Reach. Here's what they were told because hahahahaha big iconic moment:

(One note: Spartan-II training began in 2517. This was 8 years before the Covenant attack on Harvest in 2525. They were absolutely trained to bring down human targets, and were taught that it was necessary to sacrifice human lives for the good of innocent people. The first class of Spartan-IIIs kicked off in 2532, and they would focus from the beginning on Covenant.)

There were a total of 75 Spartan-II candidates. No one died during training (...at least I am pretty sure, if someone died during training it was a retcon introduced later) but it was hard. Halopedia has a pretty thorough rundown of things we know they did. Most of those are in The Fall of Reach. The Tango Company bit is from First Strike. Bonus: Here's a story Gray Team tells in Envoy that isn't mentioned:

(If you want to know who the most feral and defiant S-IIs are with the most atypical profiles, you want to look at Gray Team.)

Surviving Spartan-IIs are going to be 49 years old as of Halo Infinite. (Though, like all UNSC infantry, they've spent huge amounts of time in cryo during ship travel over the years. Sergeant Johnson was chronologically 78 in Halo 3, if that helps.)

Spartan-IIIs were selected along a wider profile because the augmentations were changed by Colonel Ackerson to be 1) cheaper and 2) have a much higher success rate with a broader margin for compatibility. They were working with orphans the UNSC picked up on planets the Covenant attacked, so they also could not be as selective as the original project. The young S-IIIs' fear and anger toward the Covenant (and their desire for revenge) were huge motivators. There were hundreds of Spartan-IIIs in all 3 classes. (They exhausted the available candidate pool after Alpha, and Ackerson was pushing for efforts to more widely genetically profile children from colony worlds as a result…. 😬)

Here's how the first company of Spartan-IIIs (Alpha Company) got the intro. (We don't know what Beta and Gamma were told, but it's likely to be similar):

(Ghosts of Onyx, Chapter 6, this is immediately followed by a bit from the perspective of a boy named Shane that would probably be really useful to you if you're looking for some insight to what those kids were feeling. It's just too long to paste.)

Another note: Chief Mendez trained both groups of Spartans. We have fewer detailed descriptions of S-III training shenanigans, because there is a lot of time skipping during Ghosts of Onyx to demonstrate the catastrophic losses suffered by the Alpha and Beta companies. Given that Mendez was involved, though, they are likely to have been highly similar.

Based on what we do get of training in Ghosts, I see the S-III teams being pitted against one another in exercises more often than we see mention of the IIs doing. (This is likely because S-II was on Reach, a huge ass military base, and had much more access to personnel that could be dragged into this than Onyx, which was extremely remote and established solely for the purpose of minting Spartans.)

The Spartan-IIIs had much less training time than the IIs... at least originally. S-III Alpha Company had 4 years compared to the S-II's 8 years. ONI was banking on improved augmentation protocols and technology to make up for it. Kurt pushed for the later two classes to get more training time.

Another another note: Kurt, if you were not aware, is Kurt-051 (Kurt Ambrose, using the name ONI gave him to work under.) Kurt was a Spartan-II abducted by ONI (making it look like he died on a mission) specifically for this job in 2531. Kurt loved those kids. Their deaths weighed heavily on him. More on that later.

Spartan-II Augmentations

I wasn't sure where else to put this, so it's going here: Spartan-II augmentations had a huge wash-out rate. S-III had a much much much smaller percentage.

There were 75 Spartan-II candidates, and only 33 came out as intended. The rest of them suffered serious side effects, and several died.

Halopedia once again has a big pile of information.

I bring this up for two reasons: the first is that it's a thing they all went through and all lost people who were as close as siblings to.

The second is that some Spartan-IIs that initially washed out of the program at this point were rehabilitated. Dr. Halsey worked on individual therapies for Spartans whose bodies rejected augmentations, restoring some quality of life and, in some cases, successfully getting them back to a point where they could continue training. (Black Team and Red Team (Halo Wars edition) are both made up entirely of former wash-outs.)

ONI created jobs for and retained most Spartan-II wash-outs that couldn't continue as Spartans. Serin Osman, Musa, and Fhajad are examples.

Differences Between Spartan-III Companies

There were 3 companies of S-IIIs trained, so if you're working on a III you'll want to establish which one they were from. You can identify the generation of S-IIIs by the letter in their tag number: Jun-A266, Lucy-B091, Ash-G099. Alpha, Beta, Gamma.

(Sidenote on picking Spartan tag numbers for OCs: There's a specific range of numbers. S-II had 150 candidates observed even though only 75 were taken and trained, so their tag numbers range from 1-150. Alpha Company had 497 kids, Beta had 418, Gamma had 330. WIki's really good for making sure you're not duplicating an existing number. Spartan-IIs are pretty much all accounted for canonically but if you're writing a II OC you're already in your own city anyway.)

Here's a good wiki trailhead for you, individual articles for the companies tell you what we do know about their training, too. But if you like reading my words about things:

ALPHA COMPANY:

The first group Kurt and Mendez trained, starting in the last days of 2532 and going active in 2536. There are very few surviving members of Alpha Company, only seven canonical, because almost all of them were killed in one operation.

Ages are kind of fucky for Alpha Company, as I mentioned earlier because Ghosts implies they were really young, but the problem with that is that after only 4 years of training they would have not been old enough to undergo augmentation. Jun, Emile, and Carter were Alphas. Jun was 28, Emile was 29, and Carter was 32 at Reach, so they would've been from 8-12 years old at the start of training. I feel like we're meant to go with that.

That means surviving Alphas would be in their late 30s as of Infinite.

BETA COMPANY:

Started training in 2539 and went active in 2545. Kurt was devastated by the loss of the Alphas (he's terribly upset when he finds out what happened to them, the information was kept from him.) He tried to train Beta company better and harder (he managed to squeeze two more years in for them), but in the end it did not save them from a similar fate. There are a handful of surviving Betas that were not present for Operation TORPEDO, but Tom and Lucy were the only survivors that were there. Kat and Noble Six were Betas. They were both 22 when they died on Reach. (That puts them both at 9 at the start of training. Tom and Lucy were a little younger, they both would have been 6.) Ages are still slightly fucky there because that means Lucy and Tom would've been 12 at augment, but that... is close enough to almost work, sort of, I guess, oh Halo you're so silly. Anyway. Surviving Betas would be in their late 20s/early 30s as of Infinite.

GAMMA COMPANY:

The last class of IIIs started training in 2545. (I had to do a little digging to confirm this year because it was authorized in '44, you're welcome.) They had just been deployed in 2552 and most of them left Onyx a week before the Onyx Conflict (you know, where the whole planet disintegrated into Forerunner nonsense) kicked off, with only three teams left on-planet for that shitmess. They were being shoved out the door because Reach had just fallen and everything was on fucking fire.

They had the most training and Kurt and Mendez were terribly proud of them. These guys would be the youngest S-IIIs both in terms of yes, that's how time works, and in terms of how old they were when they started training. We have canonical DOBs on several of them that put them at 6 and 7. This is significant because the Gammas are the ones that were being rushed into production: They were put on hormones to induce puberty early when most of them were 12ish, so that they could be augmented. (You know, horrifying!) (This is the thing that kicked off my wild confusion about Spartan-III ages that has consumed me for the last hour. Thanks, Halo! :,) )

The big thing to know about the Gammas is that they got built different. Kurt hated what had happened to the Alphas and Betas, hated it desperately, and was willing to do anything he thought would give the Gammas a chance at survival.

Kurt changed the augmentations. He did this without authorization. The Gammas' brains got tweaked to give them a heightened response to stress/adrenaline that makes them more able to block out pain/shock and keep fighting, which Kurt hoped would help them make it through the meatgrinder missions ONI was determined to use them for. The problem? The Gammas require regular injections of antipsychotics to keep them emotionally stable, and they can become less rational and start having extreme responses that make them a danger to themselves and others if they are deprived of them. (They call these drugs "smoothers.")

Anyway, the Gammas were 13-14ish at the end of the war, and surviving Gammas (there are significantly more of them) are in their late 20s by Infinite. Their altered augmentations mean they're considered unsuited for high-visibility work, ONI considers them a potential huge liability if a Gamma ever goes off the rails so they prefer to keep them away from people. A lot of Gammas that are still alive have ended up as Headhunters. (That's also the case for a lot of surviving S-IIIs generally. I don't know as much about Headhunters, they're a part of the lore I find uninteresting.)

Also just because I feel like it, here's Kurt with one of the Gammas dying in his arms:

What Are Spartans Like?

"Records show Spartans routinely exhibited mildly sociopathic tendencies, difficulty with socialization. Furthermore…" - Halo 4

We're getting into more and more headcanon and interpretation, but hey. I offer this as creative compost for your bin.

Spartans are weird. Spartans are weird. The overall portrait of an adult S-II/III is that they're mostly quiet, serious, and very intense about whatever they're doing. Some are more talkative and sociable than others, some are more unsettling than others. There's some wide variability on how careful they are about other people and how responsible they do or do not feel toward them.

As far as Spartans go, I feel like John is high on the polite end, and I have reams I've said and could say about how he handles himself. You've got Spartans who are very contained like him (I'd say Owen-B096 is another good example, he's able to be shockingly gentle with a pack of scared high school kids in Battle Born.) But you've also got examples like, say, Emile, and Gray Team, and Kevin from this one story in the Fractures anthology:

Let me break down some major traits:

LACK OF NORMAL SOCIALIZATION/GENERAL SPARTAN WEIRDNESS:

Overall, Spartans are poorly socialized. Their priorities and experiences are so wildly different from most peoples' that it's a difficult gap for them to bridge, and they're required to hide the details of their personal histories because that's very dangerous and inconvenient information (you know, for the UNSC) to have around. They were isolated from other people as children, and as adults they are extremely busy and the things that make them different make it difficult for them to make up for lost time on this.

If you've seen me writing John, I have him struggling a lot because it feels like social situations are always full of weird traps he can't see because he just doesn't have the background for them. There are so, so many things you casually assume another person is familiar with in conversation, and so many little social call-and-responses that someone who was raised under such weird circumstances wouldn't have.

There's a post that goes around sometimes about a small child who has never heard "Later, alligator" responding with "Goodbye, hippo" or something like that because they'd never heard the "After a while, crocodile" response and had to guess at what they were supposed to do. I think about that post sometimes when I'm thinking about Spartans. They're smart, and they can imitate and figure things out and get good at faking more experience than they have (and the older a Spartan is the longer they've been picking things up), but they need something to work with.

A Spartan-II never snuck out with friends after curfew to go to a concert, was never nervous about who was going out with who, and never stressed about what they were going to do after high school. But they know that enough people experience those things to pretend they understand.

It's easiest to lie by not saying anything at all as much as possible, because then you don't give anyone who's watching you a little too closely something to pick apart. Let other people assume you're what they expect, and don't give them details to the contrary.

This makes most of them quiet and sort of awkward, unless they've put in effort on their own part to work on it. If a Spartan cares enough to learn to socialize and banter smoothly with non-Spartans, that tells you something about their priorities and who they are. (And possibly that they got extra training for a specific purpose that requires it.)

Getting out of socialization: Spartans were raised in a highly structured environment, and I think most of them find comfort in routines, rules, and regular procedures that are done the same way. Following general everyday UNSC rules = not being bawled out or punished. Following some extra important serious rules = feeling like you're doing the best thing you can possibly do to prevent disasters from happening. How much that has broken down for someone vs how much they still hang onto it is gonna be real individual. Some of them really will not like being pulled out of doing things the way they "should" be done.

Amongst themselves, Spartans communicate a lot by body language and hand signals. (S-IIs and S-IIIs use similar but slightly different hand signals because Kurt was a II and they innovated on what they picked up from him. I'd also say it's very likely that each class had some variations unique to them, like a dialect.) They're also so used to being in armor that they do a lot with just flashing different status light colors on their HUD, which is neat (and also on that page.)

As a footnote re: sex and romance, it's a thorny fandom question that is up to you to answer for how you prefer to read things, but it's fair play to say that most Spartan-IIs are probably at least mostly asexual due to their augmentations. S-IIIs have no major lore implying either way about it, though later depictions of the Gammas have seemed to indicate they're not particularly interested either. It's up to you how you want to go.

REACTIVENESS

The other thing about Spartans is they are trained to react immediately in a crisis and have had that tendency reinforced by horrible traumatic experiences. I don't like throwing around real world serious words for fictional character things, but I think PTSD is fair for most Spartans. Do real research if you want to incorporate that, I don't know the most about it and won't pretend whatever I'm doing is an actual portrayal. But I do think a lot about reactiveness.

The problem with being constantly ready to react to everything like it's a life-or-death situation is... most things are not life-or-death situations. It's hard on a person, and it makes you blow some things out of proportion in a way that can become a serious problem. (For example: A Spartan that feels safer when following specific routines and procedures getting way more frustrated than is really justified by someone breaking from protocol in a harmless but definite way.)

Spartans are really good at controlling anger and fear and probably will not go all the way off the handle, but they still tend to go for immediate responses to things that startle or scare them. Make a loud sound in a room full of Spartans, expect hands on weapons and some pointed barrels. They are always always always ready to go. It is incredibly difficult for them to relax.

Most Spartans probably remember a point (or multiple points) somewhere in their lives where their guard was down, and then everything exploded under them and maybe somebody died.

LOYALTY AND SACRIFICE

This is a lot more personal and individual. The majority of Spartans are very loyal to the UNSC, it's been trained into them from childhood. The degree to which a Spartan may possibly have become embittered about it is going to be super dependent on who they are and what has happened to them.

I think a lot of them probably tend to fall back on their mission and sense of purpose (especially re: the defense of humanity) for a bare kind of comfort when miserable (which they have reason to be often.) They have sacrificed so much of themselves, but it was worth it, right? They helped save humanity from the Covenant, right? They're helping save humanity from new problems, right?

Spartans were all taught that their cause is worth their lives, and they're willing to die for it. They have known people they loved and grew up with who did die for it, and this fits pretty naturally into coping with those losses.

If the cause isn't paramount and loyalty to the UNSC isn't worth dying for.... what does that make everything they've done, and everything they've lost? What does that make the deaths of their fellow Spartans?

(Survivor's guilt is gonna be big for all of them, but especially S-IIIs. 2/3 Spartan-III companies died in almost their entirety in one go. The surviving S-IIs had remarkably few losses until... Reach....... )

I've talked/thought about sacrifice a lot with the S-IIs, especially John because I'm always in hell writing about John and people have poked my askblog about it. If a Spartan could go back in time and change how their life went and prevent them from becoming a Spartan, would they?

Being a Spartan and that sense of purpose is so core to them that I really think most of them would not. This is their world. This is their lives. This is such a huge part of who they are that they don't know who they'd be otherwise.

I don't care for Mortal Dictata much (that's a whole different post), but a huge part of the plot of that book is that Kilo Five's S-II (Naomi) is reunited with her father as an adult and it's a very uncomfortable process because... she's not the little girl he lost, anymore.

......

I think that's everything I have on this.

I am a perpetual wellspring of information on this topic tho so you guys let me know if you have more things you wanna talk about re: this. :V

#asks #spartan-ii #spartan-iii #halo lore #speculation #advice for ocs i guess

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

Like we know the parallel between the clawthorne sisters and luz and vee. At the start, eda and luz dont fit into "normal" society so they ran off to live an unconventional lifestyle where they can be true to themselves. They are happier this way, though they do leave behind family and friends that love but have failed them. Leaving behind loved ones cause them pain, but its not enough to pull them back to the constricting life they had before. Its not even enough for them to go back and explain themselves.

Lilith and vee seem to fit in and flourish in conventional society. But they had to fight for this life, and made fitting in part of their identity, which they think their sisters could have obtained without any effort. Lilith and vee envy eda and luz for their perceived superiority that for arbitrary reasons will help them fit in and excel better. They dont see their sisters' struggles, so lilith and vee grew to resent eda and luz for not "appreciating" how they could have fit into a normal life a lot better than lilith and vee themselves.

The wittebane brothers likely fit into this too. We dont know too much about Caleb, but him running off to marry a witch could be because he hated life in a puritan colony, even if he was the perfect model gentleman. And phillip would be the brother that the townsfolk thought less of, overshadowed by his golden child (ha) of a brother. And when caleb abandoned him without an explanation, phillips rage got the better of him and even if caleb offered to explain himself later, it was too late. And phillip was too resentful towards caleb for giving up their perfect life to understand why it wasnt perfect for caleb.

Another sibling pair i feel like the show might have explored in a longer season 3 is mattholomule and steve. To matt, steve is a respectable coven scout, who excelled at everything (because he had to if he joined the emperors coven) and whose image matt has to live up to. But steve also left his family when he joined the coven, barely seeing matt once a year. And although steve went through brutal training a whole crisis of faith in the emperors coven, matt couldnt see any of that and has been raised since birth to think joining the coven is an honor. For steve to question any of that, to mattholomule, would be to throw all his talents and privileges down the drain.

Like they might not have gone this direction with steve and mattholomule, and who knows what caleb and phillips relationship was like. But they did the parallel with two pairs of siblings so why not the other two sibling pairs we have in show as well? Maybe if we had a full season 3 they would even have done something with amity and her siblings. Ive seen people talk about the phillip and caleb thing and how they might parallel the clawthorne and noceda sisters but no ones ever brought up mattholomule and steve before.

#the owl house #shut up pandora #toh #luz noceda #vee noceda #vee toh #eda clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #phillip wittebane #caleb wittebane #steve toh #mattholomule

[1tsjusty0u]

now i remember the question ive been meaning to ask. does link have any friends outside of the champions? any training buddies etc? what do other knights think of him

OUGJ ALRIGHT SO. sort of!!

ive seen fanfics where like. the knights bully him to hell and back, or they just straight up hate him for no reason, however i am not doing that. to be clear they dont idolize or love him either hes just Some Kid. like i feel like all of the knights and guards and soliders would all be older than link because of a minimum age and skill requirement to apply to the hyrulean army, so even at 16 he’s still like. 2-3 years younger than the other youngest member. and also it depends on if link is above the ranks enough to be like a commander and command armies. he was the royal guard captain at one point so he probably did it at least once (some guards probably being a bit miffed over a 15 year old telling them what to do, but compared to other commanders he was probably more lenient. and unexperienced but thats another thing). when guarding zelda he doesnt really command anyone but before that?? grey area. so hm

either way he has people he more or less hangs out with, a friendly guard just straight up chatting with him and/or being one of the guards link doesnt passively hate. they probably chat from time to time but theyre less friends and more acquaintances . it also doesnt help that even if people links age Were in the army he would just passively hate more guards than he already does. like the older he got the more he did Not like people in his age group, especially because they were teenagers. it depends on the person as always and he would probably be able to make friends easier, but yeah he would hate it more than he already does . guard twins who tease him but greet him from time to time

in hateno and castle town he probably has some old friends. hateno especially, though with him in castle town and also getting more and more haunted by everything things have gotten strained as per usual. castle town some people are nice to him and he does his best to be nice back. the bakery owner and their kid mostly. hes also made a couple friends at stables, due to horse loving and also the fact he can see them more often because of traveling. a traveling painter he would get along with, like pikango. thats probably the only real friends too because traveling people would, too, be weird. also the bazz brigade- distant however the gang believes theyre all friends including link, and rivan likes to swim with him and mipha when they can.

training buddies he mostly doesnt have save for the 1 friendly guard guy mentioned earlier. and that guard is always the one to initiate, because honestly i dont think wreath would train at all. he served his time damnit hes done enough training!! plus it doesnt really affect anything because he has to fight monsters close to daily at points so. yeah.

as for what the knights and guards generally think of him? it ranges from ‘HAH i can do better than That loser’, to ‘wh. why is there a kid in here hello?? its not take your kid to work day’, to ‘ah Just Some Guy’ to ‘the quiet kid in the back of class except its in the back of the shared training hall’ to ‘kind of creepy. stop staring at me with those ole eyes’ to ‘of course the captain has a son goddamnit’ to ‘oh im so stealing how he swings his sword’ to ‘that One Guy. you know the one’. not universally bullied and hated (most who Would hate him are too cocky about themselves and break rules when they shouldnt punishing them and everyone else), but not universally loved. its basically “if youre going to Be In the Army then your going to be in the army god damnit. your going to Train and Follow The Rules like the rest of us”. they know him but have him suffer in a way because they All Suffer. though honestly earlier i did consider him to have knight friends but i remembered the age thing. even then he hasnt found anyone who likes the same things he does (though he never admits what he likes to others and at times doubts what he used to like because it feels like he feels no joy anymore. and hes hobbyless which doesnt help). its like. he feels like hes specifically engineered to where having friends is something he just cant have because hes Like This.

and to be clear the champions arent nessecarily better friends than anyone mentioned here (revali Has been making attempts though, mipha being dragged in). its actually hard to tell because feelings on champions differ from each champion including link. but the champions Do Care about link . toriel and asgore loving their kids, but it not being enough to save them from death if that makes sense. love without understanding

#wreath of the bild #HELLO. this may be contradictory? #revali being a friend to link is an idea i like a lot. However #also by the way daruks descendants will come soon i just. need to draw Without a cat on my lap #i. need to flesh out these guys #this. actually ties into a bit about my views on the champions and how. confusing it is but i digress

[givemearmstopraywith]

ohhh, can i ask why you personally don’t want to do therapy? not as a scrutinizing question but more of a “oh. i’ve never encountered a person who actively chose not to do therapy” because i’m really super curious!! but also, if it’s too intimate, pls feel free to just ignore this ask :))

i don't find that contemporary therapy practices, at least at the level which i can afford in the area where i currently am, serve the mental health issues that i have and what i've experienced in my past. therapy is subject to trends, like anything else. the current trend in therapy is one that has actively harmed my mental health and caused me to regress, dissociate, or worse when i've tried to access mental health services. i also find that most therapists who are available to me are not equipped to deal with the type of trauma and comorbidities that i have.

there's also, obviously, financial barriers. most free or low-cost therapy options are coming from people who specialize in cognitive behaviour therapy, which unilaterally does not work for me. cbt treats symptoms of mental illness in order to rehabilitate people who are "sick" so they can function at a level deemed "normal." it does not treat the underlying cause of the symptoms of mental health issues, and when ive done cbt i have ended up regressing hugely and wound up worse off than i was before. i thought maybe i was just doing it "wrong" for years and i was the problem, but i became friends with someone who has a similar traumatic background to me and discovered they also found that cbt did not work for them.

this isn't a choice that i would recommend to anyone, but for me personally being able to allow myself to not prioritize therapy and not play into a feedback loop of guilt and inadequacy- the idea that im not "doing enough" to "fix" a "problem" with my brain- has been hugely empowering. im saying that with caution because i dont want impressionable young people to take this and run with it. if i had the choice, i would be in therapy. and someday, when i have the financial means and access to the therapy that is right for me, i will absolutely pursue it. but we live in a wellness based culture that has simultaneously given everyone the tools they need for diagnosis, while also having coopted mental health into the same arena as fitness, thinness, and diet culture. if you're not actively try to make your brain work better or run faster, then you're lazy. if you're doing what should work to make your brain run faster and its not helping, then that's a problem with you and not with the help you're getting or the industry that's giving it to you. im very critical of how mental health is dealt with, and a lot moreso now that i've engaged in practical training in psychotherapy and spiritual care.

that being said, and this is very important: when my mental health was at its worst, when i was actively suicidal and experiencing extremes of manic depression, i was in therapy because i couldn't cope with it on my own. me deciding that i didnt want to therapy coincided with me recovering from serious issues with mental health and having numerous live changes that allowed me to be safe and stable- i left a very bad job, stopped talking to dysfunctional people, left abusive relationships, and reoriented my life path to one where i felt content and like i was fulfilling my purpose. not being in therapy only worked once the outside factors of my environment were as good as i could get them. if you are in crisis or feel like you may hurt yourself, you should absolutely not hesitate to seek help and not use me as an example in any way whatsoever, except in terms of being critical of the type of therapy you are getting and not being afraid to decide something is wrong for you if it feels like its not helping. you are allowed to decide that something doesn't feel right for you.

#replies #also taking classes with people who are certified or training for certification as therapists has made me never want to get therapy again

[fourphoenixfeathers]

I posted 492 times in 2022

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#5

Rejoice, DP x Submas crossover be upon ye! I'm calling it Ghost Train au because that's how Ingo and Akari get home.

The distortion world is just pokemon ghost zone and Akari and Ingo became halfas when they got eeby deebied.

Ingo's obsession is conducting and safety, but he can fulfill it well enough with his "guiding travellers on Coronet" job to survive, even if he isn't at full power. Akari, who is actually Rowan's assistant Dawn instead of the dppt protag Dawn, has an obsession with caring for and studying pokemon. Helping Laventon with the Pokedex and helping out at the pasture are right up her alley.

Feel free to ask questions, I spent all day monday brainstorming in discord and I have sooo many details. I love how many people there are also dp fans, I'm living.

Here's a sketch for the titular ghost train! I left my tablet pen at home today, so i couldn't clean and color it :'>

See the full post

391 notes - Posted June 9, 2022

#4

I finished that WIP! They have matching goatees :>

679 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

#3

I've been thinking about paper lantern au a bit for reasons, so i realized I never drew what Ingo looks like when he gets home!

Poor guy has to do his PT before he can get back on the trains... But hey, he gets a neat custom chandelure-themed staff to hang his lantern up on.

I also have extra spooky mode, for when the unruly passengers be acting up.

See the full post

710 notes - Posted September 12, 2022

#2

Happy trainguy Tuesday! Have a ghost train for a ghost guy.

Just when i think the hyperfixation is fading, i start a complex piece for my most niche au yet... Anyways i just really like the image of Ingo riding a ghost train through the Distortion World. This composition has been rattling around in my brain since I made the au.

St. Elmo's Fire is playing through the loudspeakers on blast. It's somehow not as loud as Ingo himself.

776 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The Nimbasa City police department gets a call from Gear Station about a Neo Plasma invasion. It makes sense. Subway Boss Ingo is missing and Subway Boss Emmet has been on vacation searching for him for a while. Neo Plasma probably planned to strike the heart of the city while its strongest protectors were away. The NCPD sent a team to their aid immediately.

They arrive to see this:

Well, it looks like the bosses are back at least.

1,013 notes - Posted June 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[strawberrybabydog]

sorry for sending a ask when you're so overloaded :,) i keep thinking about that post asking about humankin bio animals .

i follow multiple accounts on tiktok (i know) of "talking dogs", or dogs who communicate on some level with buttons . there's one account of a dog named bunny , one of the repeated dilemmas with bunny is that she either sees herself as human or can't understand the difference between human and dog . i really wanted your input on this !! ill link some of her videos where she "talks" about humans or identifies her mom/herself as a human and vice versa:

video one

video two

video three

would love your opinion on this , i think its really interesting!!

YES ive been wanting to talk about my specific experiences and feelings like this, as a dog, for SO LONG. YES!! I LOVE YOU ANON!!

also -- i follow bunny actually!! i have been for like 2 years now? i've heard people dispute the way she communicates as being a well-trained dog (and not actually talking on her own)... i'm not smart enough to know whether or not she's actually just well trained or speaking for herself, but i suspect she's speaking for herself mostly... and i'll also be answering based off that

anyways. before i continue i just want yall to understand something: we (dogs) don't experience existential feeling. at least, not the same way humans do. existential feeling as a dog is more like "huh, cool" rather than a... paranoid or weirded out feeling. when the recent NASA photos came out of all the galaxies or whatever, i've seen a lot of humans say things like "wow, really makes you think about how small and inconsequential we are." and like... yeah, so? it's not really that big of a deal, i dont get the hype lol. when Bunny's asking what she is (video two, "Bunny dog what?" and video three, "Dog why?") it's not an existential question like, "what does it truly mean to be a dog? what is canidkind?" like her owner's response somewhat implies. Bunny's kind of in a hard place because she's sort of the epitome of being anthromorphized which is a pretty dangerous spot to be put in... the things she does are often compared to human experiences... when they should be treated as individual because she's not human. when Bunny's communicating, i suggest removing yourself as a human looking in, and instead just understand that she's still not human even if she's now part of human culture

also... dogs dont experience identity the same way humans do whatsoever. i'd say im an exception but even then i dont really use labels the same way other people do so i'm not sure where i am on this as a dog

infact, its not that deep at all. heres my theories as to why she's asking:

bunny doesnt view herself as a different person from her owner or her dog friend (babies up to... 3 years old? do this with their parents. after that the consciousness kicks in)

bunny's not asking what we think she's asking at all (her brain isn't human so she could be asking about something that's eldritch to humans but not to dogs)

her buttons are still limited compared to human vocabulary, and she's probably unable to actually express what she actually means (she could mean "why is a human friends with a dog? where am i on a hierarchy compared to you/do we have a hierarchy? why are you different from me/are you different from me?")

#asks #woof #personal

[fenrisisms]

i have always wanted to know more about riva but didn't know where to start, so riva for oc questions if you're down to answer them? pick your own adventure (questions to answer) version though. what's rotating in your brain that you want to textually chew on?

HI!!!! THANK U FOR THE ASK!!!!

honestly where to start for any of my ocs is just "tell me now" i can talk about my ocs for hours completely unprompted and prompted? oh boy. as riva is one of my most specialist little meow meows in the world this will probably be super long <333 soz in advance the mental illness is about to be unleashed

does your oc have siblings or family members in their age group? which one are they closest with?

yes :) amell warden canonically has four siblings but for character theme reasons i fridged them all offscreen, which riva knows because he spends the years after the blight and in between warden business hunting down any family he has left because he's curious. he got records of the hawkes in lothering pretty early on but just assumed they died at ostagar (he was there, he knows lots of people Did That and hes sooooo so mad that he was in proximity and missed them) until several years later when he gets a letter from zevran that's like My Man You Are Never Gonna Fucking Believe This

anyway for like. age group. he's born in 9:11 dragon which makes him the same age as his cousin carver hawke, but younger than his cousin graham the champion of kirkwall hawke, which is a fact not known to graham the champion of kirkwall hawke until after he has spent like two years following this guy around on the assumption he is in fact older and thus wiser than him. graham does not take this news well.

anyway all of that to say he is very close to both gray and carver because they are the only family he has left and he really, really treasures them. he and gray have an especially close relationship as people who have taken on tremendous burdens and who feel alone in carrying them.

what kind of childhood did your oc have?

so he's the youngest amell sibling right [ignoring bioware's implications to the contrary] and so he's just a baby when amell sr dips from kirkwall with the kids and he's also quite a bit younger than his older siblings (he's 19 at the start of origins, his siblings are edith [30, kirkwall], ewan [27, ansburg], caspian [25, ostwick] & pippa [23, starkhaven]. yes i have thought about this a normal amount) so he's still just a toddler when the last of his siblings manifest their magic and his dad goes okay. ive had enough of this dude. rows his ass across the lake and dumps him at the tower because of course That One Is Going To Be A Mage Too and then he just. disappears.

so anyway riva doesn't really remember a life outside the circle because he's been there since he was like. three. and that has impacted his life in sooo many ways. on one hand he gets a lot of leniency because like. half the people in that tower Raised him, yknow? he was there for at least five years before his magic manifested and even after the switch the templars who were already grooming him for templar training still can't quite let go of the child they remember from Before. ofc that doesn't win him any friends because everyone he's supposed to be like is aware that if he hadn't been one of them, he'd be one of them. he's genial enough to fit in everywhere but he also belongs nowhere. i could talk about this specifically for hours but tldr same idea as sending a gay kid to catholic school to make them less gay. doesn't work at all how u think it's gonna <3

what relationship/s have had the most influence on them?

1000% irving is the single greatest influence on riva. greagoir can claim a little bit of credit as irving's opposite. whatever they are. but a lot of the way riva approaches life is from having witnessed how irving does it. irving is a surrogate father to riva and he is one of the best examples riva has of a mage who lives a successful (relative) life so of course he's going to emulate whatever the fuck he's doing and well. he is a prodigy after all :)

there's plenty of other people who had influence on his life. wynne. zevran. leliana. anders, even (the anders relationship is so. So. but there's not really any questions where i can discuss whatever the fuck was happening there) buuut the only one i really want to mention is cullen <3

i fell into the trap of trusting bioware to have their once per game banger moment and i. should not have. but unfortunately for me i love to look at bad writing and go "i could fix her" even if the character should NOT be fixed. anyway somtimes ur thirteen and you meet some random blonde kid while you're breaking into the templar libraries and you don't even know this meeting is going to irreversibly shape your beef with the chantry and also you're going to be hung up on this pathetic wet rat of a man for the next ten years despite being ferelden's most eligible bachelor. he is the most normal and well adjusted hero of his worldstate. i would say sorry to riva for inflicting whatever this is on him but i'm not really. i would say sorry to RIVER who has to endure me going insane about quite possibly the biggest L of a ship i have. but i am also not <3

how quick is your oc to trust someone else?

deceptively slow! he is really personable and charming, but he's also grown up in an environment where loyalty is transactional and he operates on the basis that the second he is no longer useful to someone, in whatever way he quantifies being useful to someone, then he is no longer in a position of power. so as you can imagine him and zevran interacting for the first few months is a Trip for both of them. and that is why they are now best friends forever <3 he gets better after being free of the circle for a while when he realizes some people are not having to play 8 dimensional chess to stay alive but in general he is very good at making people feel close to him even though he has thought of 16 escape strategies, at least 9 of which involve outright murder. he contains multitudes.

opinion on the chantry?

kind of combining multiple questions here but he understands the importance of religion or at least some conviction or belief in your life. something to bring you comfort when times get hard. something you can turn to when nothing else makes sense. he also thinks the chantry as an institution needs to be systematically dismantled and ground into the dust below his heel. he also grew up in a position where he watched the chantry change people he knew and cared for in irreversible ways. he is very sympathetic to anyone he views as victim to chantry exploitation (extremely broad category) and his preferred method of destruction is violent kindness. he is so nice and empathetic. even when people do not deserve it. if he can make people feel conflicted about being a cunt to him he wins. he will haunt your narrative for the rest of time. this is a threat and a promise. you meet him once you will think about him every day for the next 15 years and maybe THEN you'll have a chance at getting better, but probably not. he has staying power like that.

in what situation was your oc the most afraid they’ve ever been?

absolutely fighting the uldred abomination. there is just so much going on. uldred was one of the senior enchanters that riva didn't particularly like, but he's always been a part of riva's life. irving's life depends on him. in many ways, cullen's life depends on him even though he knows cullen wants him dead (and that hurts in ways he can't even begin to process). wynne, who has also been a staple of his life is depending on him. so many people he knew and cared for are dead, and all his prodigal talent couldn't stop that. he has a scar from getting fully run through in that fight because he was dealing with So Much. everyone assumes it's from the archdemon and he just lets them because he has so many Feelings about that whole thing and honestly he's fine with no one knowing how personal that is to him.

and that is all i will answer for now because i am. afraid of the size of my scrollbar in my peripheral vision. thank u so much for asking again. made my day! <3

#socksism #riva amell #ocs #ask and answer tag

[pansyfemme]

Oh also this isn't like. An ask but you could maybe share your favorites from being on T (if wanted!), but when I finally do start it I am literally so fucking excited for the "rat stache" so many trans guys get. I already *have* one kinda (it's more seeable when up close but it's there!) and like, my friend said too he thinks I'll really rock it when it grows in 8).

Also I so excited for tdick, unwell about tdick but like. That's a given. I wear the fact I'm a tdick lover on my sleeve <3

Oh absolutly!!

I will say i had mixed feelings on my "rat stache" when it first started lol. Well. more like, i liked it, my brother made constant fun of it until i started shaving constantly until he moved out. But around yr 3 on t, my beard and mustache came in so strong i kinda just wanted to see how far i could go with it lol!! I've been growing it out since august at this point, so its def the longest it's ever been, but considering just how hairy ive gotten over the past year, it probably could get a little longer. at this point im not sure if i like the beard or if it's just a get out of misgendering free card lol! But it's pretty reliable for that at least. (still get misgendered like once a day, but yknow. whatever at this point.)

I'm a proud tdick lover myself, so its probably my fave change? i don't need to go into detail bc i dont think ppl want to hear that TBH but i think i'm a little smaller than average and i still feel pretty affirmed with my growth! it's complicated bc im thinking of looking into metoidoplasty in the future so im not rlly all too concerned with my growth considering i'm gonna end up getting surgery anyways but i think ppl underestimate how much it does for bottom dysphoria. It changes the way you view your lower half a bunch!

As for my voice, i think its.. ok? i know you guys probably haven't rlly heard it before but it is what it is. Definitly flamingly queer and gravely in that typical t voice style. It's not suuuper low, not always enough to pass over the phone, but usally enough that people don't question it combined with my appearance. It's the kinda voice where those in the know spot that im trans just from hearing it, but those who aren't trained to the art of recognizing t voices probably just think im a gay dude, which i am.

Even though i enjoy dressing hyperfemininly, i've started to really appriciate my build when im just wearing tank tops and jeans. My dad told me i look so much like queer guys in the 90's dressed like that, which was a confidence boost LMAO. Fat redistribution was hard to visualize when i first heard about it, but it definitly happens. Most of the fat in my hips moved to my stomach and ass, and while it isnt a lot, it's def way more masc than it was before. I never was a particulaly curvy person, just large chested, but my build now is considerably more masculine, paired with top surgery.

My hands also got a bit bigger! tho it's not like. a huge difference and my hands r pretty chubby and not very masculine, it was something ppl around me noticed. not rlly sure how that happened but i was pretty young when i started so who knows!

I will say that my body and face are enough that i dont feel like i need any surgeries on them at this point in time. im not happy with my jawline, but i know a sharp one would look unatural considering my weight so, eh. I'm not against the concept of facial masculinization or body sculpting or whatever but the truth is i just. don't think those surgeries are made for my body type. I may be wrong, but a lot of the surgeries i see for masculinzing torsos need flat stomachs to work well, so im just eh on getting surgeries that im not sure would look natural on me. I have a few more surgeries planned but in all honesty im not certain on the path of my transition past those. I would like a hysterectomy as soon as possible, any maybe if i can, a minor bottom surgery procedure at the same time. I've thought of phallo possibly in the future, but likely not until im out of school at least. but even thats pretty up in the air. and who knows? i could change my mind and get facial masculization or go off t or do whatever, im just not really certain yet, and feel no need to rush into it. Something ive been thinking about a little lately is how i don't think i want to go stealth, but it's kinda nice when people don't know me immediatly as a trans dude, something im just starting to expereince. I never want to be closeted, but sometimes its nice to know im being viewed 100% as a guy, yknow? It's so hard to gauge when cis people actually see me as a man when they know im trans, it's just.. nice to not worry about that sometimes. I think as you get further on t, your ideas of how you want to be viewed change a lot. I never thought i'd be hairy, i thought that wasn't something i'd face, but im not mad that i am. I don't think it makes me any less of a femme. I've also, as i mentioned, become more comfortable with the concept of dressing femme in mens clothes. I didn't know that id still come off as gay and femme when i dressed in just a tshirt and jeans, but i do, it's kinda wild! this has become kinda rambly but i really have valued these past 4 years on t, it's been a whirlwind, truly.

[blackvail22]

i know im only [my age], but im starting to accept that im never going to live a peaceful life, at least my version of it. im not going to live in a beautiful city where i can walk to a café and work from "home." im not going to have the picture-perfect friendships or relationships. im not going to have a degree in the subject of my dreams and be successful in that way. im not going to be able to live on my own. im accepting it already and embracing it to such an extent that it makes me feel dead inside. i feel like im never going to actually live, and ill be surviving all my life.

im always in a state of mental torture. even my boyfriend said this, im always negative about myself. he believes its something to do with my heart, but i think its my brain. i want to love myself, but my brain has trained me to hate myself. growing up, i didnt have many people that cared about me. i bring it up wayyy too much, but being bullied 12 years straight did something to me. there was never an escape either—my family are the biggest bullies of all.

i was taught by many people that i didnt matter. that i was fat, ugly, a cow, a bitch, a waste of space. as much medicine i take, it doesnt take away the fact that my mind hates itself.

i wish it wasnt that way. i hate the way i live.

i hate that its hard for me to clean after myself, especially in my bedroom and my computer desk. i hate that its hard for me to get out of bed each morning. i hate that its hard for me to ask people to hang out. i hate that i always question whether people hate me or not because ive had enough people in my life say they care and then leave. i wish it wasnt this way.

i know i can change. i can try and change these behaviors i dont like. i can make myself better, move forward towards the peaceful life i want... but i dont have the courage.

ive been in counseling for 10 years, depressed for even longer. my counselor tells me now that being in counseling at a younger age will work out for me in the long run. i mean, yeah, but sometimes i feel like im not going anywhere. . . im just running in circles. part of it is my fault... i dont listen to advice sometimes, and sometimes, i dont share important parts of my life, specifically how deep my depression can go. my counselor doesnt know about how i planned my death in 2020, and i saw her the month after the death date passed.

sometimes i feel like a spoiled kid. things arent bad, but theyre just enough to alter my perspective. things could be worse. i remember my counselor told me, "verbal and emotional abuse is the worst kind because theres never evidence of it happening, except inside of you." which.. sucks.

i wish things never turned out this way. i know saying this all the time doesnt change anything, and im just a baby whining at this point, but i really do. i wish i had a normal relationship with my father. i wish people didnt hate me in school. i wish i had a stable relationship with my mom. i wish i could still see my nephew, and i wish i had extended family. no one talks to me. my friends never reach out either, and i know its mostly my fault, but it gets so lonely.

i will never be the happy and beautiful person i always dreamt of being, and it stings.

[thorntonkrell-blog-blog]

Today, I’m speaking to Pam Velour. Pam is an active stunt artist who specializes in quicksand entries, struggles and suffocations. According to Pam, if you’ve seen a quicksand seven in a film over the last 25 years, she’s either been in it or produced it. Currently, she has a private studio. In her studio, people can be videotaped sinking into quicksand while leaving messages for the people watching the tape. IR: Hi Pam….How long have you been into quicksand? PV: Hi! Well, it's a bit of a long story. I started out as a gymnast when I was young, and I always loved doing flips and tumbling. When I got a bit older, I started doing some acting and modeling work, and eventually I was introduced to the world of stunt performance. I was really drawn to it because it combined my love of physical activity with my passion for storytelling. IR: That's really cool. What's it like working with quicksand? PV: It can be pretty challenging, to be honest. Quicksand is really unpredictable, and it can be tough to maintain your balance and stability when you're sinking. Plus, it's usually pretty messy! But at the same time, it's also really exciting. There's something exhilarating about pushing yourself to the limit and coming out the other side unscathed. IR: How do you prepare for a quicksand scene? Stunt Person: Well, it depends on the specific scene and the level of danger involved. But generally, I'll spend a lot of time practicing my movements and building up my strength and endurance. I'll also work with a team of safety experts to make sure that everything is as controlled and safe as possible. And of course, I'll rehearse the scene over and over again until I feel really confident in my abilities. You: Have you ever had any close calls or scary moments while doing a quicksand scene? Stunt Person: Yeah, definitely. There have been a few times where things didn't go quite according to plan, and I had to rely on my training and instincts to get myself out of a tough situation. But that's all part of the job. You have to be able to think on your feet and react quickly when things don't go as expected. And at the end of the day, that's what makes it so thrilling and rewarding. IR: What is quicksand anyway PV: Quicksand is a type of loose, water-saturated sediment that appears to be solid but is actually in a semi-liquid state. It can form in areas with standing water, such as riverbanks, beaches, or swamps, where the water pressure in the sediment is high enough to overcome the friction between the sand particles, causing them to separate and float. When someone steps into quicksand, the force of their weight can cause them to sink into the sediment, as the sand particles flow around and trap their legs or body. Contrary to what is often shown in movies or TV shows, quicksand is typically not very deep and will not suck a person under entirely. However, it can be very difficult to escape from, as struggling can cause a person to sink further into the sediment. The best way to escape from quicksand is to remain calm, try to distribute your weight as evenly as possible, and slowly and steadily work your way back to firmer ground.

IR: Why do quicksand scenes show up so often in movies?

PV: Good question. I’m just glad that they do. They never seem to go out of fashion do they. Especially when the sand pit is pulling the tee shirt off the woman in distress. The idea of sinking slowly into the ground is a powerful image, and can be used to heighten the stakes of a scene and create a sense of helplessness and desperation.

IV: What goes into the construction of a convincing but safe quicksand pit?

PV: In movies, quicksand pits are often portrayed as being made of clay, which is a type of fine-grained soil that can become very slippery and unstable when wet. While it's true that clay soils can contribute to the formation of quicksand, quicksand can also form in other types of sediment, such as sand or silt. The properties of the sediment that contribute to the formation of quicksand are its grain size, water content, and the pressure on the sediment. Quicksand typically forms in areas where the sediment is saturated with water and the water pressure is high enough to overcome the friction between the sediment particles. When the sediment is disturbed, such as by a person stepping into it, the pressure can decrease and cause the sediment to behave like a liquid, trapping the person and making it difficult to escape. Start with a pit or depression in the ground that is sized and shaped to fit the needs of the scene. Line the bottom of the pit with a layer of plastic to prevent water from escaping. Add a layer of sand on top of the plastic. If you have enough money in the budget, a hydraulic platform can be used to create the effect of sinking. I stand on the platform and it is lowered into the pit. Add mist or bubbles and alakazam.

IR: Have you had any close calls?

PV: Yeah, definitely. There have been a few times where things didn't go quite according to plan, and I had to rely on my training and instincts to get myself out of a tough situation. But that's all part of the job. You have to be able to think on your feet and react quickly when things don't go as expected. And at the end of the day, that's what makes it so thrilling and rewarding.

IR: Have you ever gone completely under?

PV: thankfully I've never gone completely under. That's always the worst-case scenario when you're working with quicksand or other unstable materials. The key is to stay calm and focused, and to use all of your strength and training to pull yourself back up to safety. It can be really scary, though, especially when you're sinking and you don't know how deep it's going to go. I've worked with some amazing safety teams over the years, and they always make sure that everything is as controlled and safe as possible. But even with all the safety precautions in place, there's always an element of risk involved when you're doing this kind of work. That's just part of the job, though. You have to be willing to take risks and push yourself to the limit if you want to succeed as a stunt performer. Of course, it's not just about taking risks for the sake of it. There's an art to creating a realistic and convincing quicksand scene, and it takes a lot of hard work and practice to get it right. You have to be able to move in a way that looks natural and believable, while also being aware of the safety protocols and procedures that are in place to protect you. Overall, working with quicksand and sand pits can be a real challenge, but it's also incredibly rewarding. There's nothing quite like the rush of adrenaline that comes from performing a difficult and dangerous stunt, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

IR: How difficult is it to get out of the sandpit after the shot.

Yes, it can be difficult for stunt actors to climb out of a quicksand pit, as the sediment can be very slippery and unstable, making it hard to gain traction or maintain balance. Additionally, struggling or moving too quickly can cause the sediment to become more fluid and increase the risk of sinking further. To climb out of a quicksand pit, it's important for the actor to remain calm and move slowly and deliberately. They should avoid flailing or struggling, which can cause them to sink further, and should try to distribute their weight as evenly as possible to maintain stability. One effective strategy for climbing out of a quicksand pit is to slowly and carefully pull each leg out one at a time, while keeping the other leg still and stable. This can be repeated until the actor is able to reach solid ground. It's also important for the actor to use any available props or objects to help pull themselves out of the pit, such as tree branches or ropes. Stunt actors who are required to perform in quicksand pits should be trained in the appropriate techniques for safely navigating and escaping from these environments, and should always have access to safety equipment and personnel to ensure their well-being.

IR: I’m told that you regularly shoot videos of people who want to be submerged in quicksand.

PV: Yes, I do. It’s been quite a surprise to discover how many people want to be taped while sinking in quicksand. In my studio, we have all the safety equipment including the hydraulic lift. Smoke and bubbles cost extra.

IR: Why do people want to do this?

PV: Well first of all because it feels sooo good but there is an emotional payoff as well. Quicksand can be seen as a symbol of feeling trapped or stuck in a situation or relationship that is difficult to escape from while losing control when every struggle only leads to further entrapment.Psychiatrists are beginning to recognize the exercise as powerful therapy. Also when the people are in the pit, they leave messages of hope and resolution to people metaphorically trapped and without the ability to escape or control. Mostly though, our clients submerge for shits and giggles.

IR: Finally, what are your personal favorite quicksand scenes.

PV: The Princess Bride" when Westley is briefly trapped in a quicksand pit before being rescued by his love, Princess Buttercup. "Romancing the Stone" (1984) when Kathleen Turner falls into a quicksand pit while trying to retrieve a treasure map. She is eventually rescued by the hero Jack Colton. "The Mummy Returns" (2001) - when Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (played by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz) become trapped in quicksand while exploring an ancient temple. Those three represent all that is good and safe about quicksand scenes.

IR: Thanks you Pam. I’ve learned a lot. Maybe next time I’m in the sand, I’ll have better luck wedging out.

PV: No problem Ice. If your ever stuck again, I’ll throw you a vine.