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eleanorfenyxwrites · 3 years

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Request (from this post):

@scarlet-gryphon suggested: Modern pre-3zun AU where for whatever reason, Meng Yao is challenged to do a tough rock climbing wall. Cue the italicized ‘ohs’ from Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue at his flexibility. (also posted to Ao3)

This kind of thing is very much outside of my usual wheelhouse of ideas so thank you so much for the challenge, it was super refreshing! Hope you like it ^_^

Fucking work retreats.

“ ‘It’ll be fun’ he says,” Meng Yao grumbles to himself as he plasters an extremely fake (perhaps slightly manic) smile on his face. “ ‘Lighten up, A-Yao’ he says,” he mocks again, his grin twisting into a mocking sneer for just a split second before he smooths it away again.

The benefit of being wildly unpopular is that no one milling around stops him on his hunt to try to chat, and finally after a few minutes of prowling he finds his prey.

“Nie Huaisang,” he says icily and he has the immense pleasure of seeing the Jiang Corporation heir and his brother look sharply at him over Nie Huaisang’s shoulders in (slightly eerie) synchronicity, both of them looking sufficiently aware of whatever it is they see on his face that promises danger for Nie Huaisang. Of course it’s in their own ways, which means Jiang Wanyin glares first at him and then at Nie Huaisang, and Wei Wuxian’s usual happy grin goes a bit manic as well, eyes glittering as he scents fresh mischief.

“A-Yao, there you are!” Nie Huaisang cries far too cheerfully as he turns, his ever-present fan already fluttering nervously in front of his chest. Why he insists on carrying that thing everywhere he goes Meng Yao doesn’t understand whatsoever, but he’s currently wishing he had the guts to tug it from his hands and snap it right in half.

“Could I speak to you for a moment?”

The fluttering of his fan gets a little faster. “Ahhhh hah, but we’re about to get started!! You know how da-ge is, hit the ground running and all that. Can’t it wait?”

“No,” he says with such a poisonously sweet smile and a faux-innocent little tilt of his head that even Wei Wuxian takes a step back, the brothers leaving their best friend high and dry to face his wrath alone. Sensible of them.

He holds his arm out for Nie Huaisang to take and, with no safe alternative options, the other man reluctantly takes it and lets himself be led away from listening ears.

“Now, A-Yao -”

“When were you planning to inform me that my father’s company would also be present at this retreat?”

“Oh good, you already know! So now the answer doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I’m going to murder you in your sleep, A-Sang. I’m in charge of our company’s hotel assignments. I know exactly where to find you.”

“Aiyah you do not, who in the world stays in their own hotel room during company retreats? Well I guess some people have to, But I definitely don’t. I’ve already found myself better accommodation,” he says breezily, flicking his fan shut to tap him on the forearm a couple of times. “And you’ll lighten up a little if you do too! I heard the Lans are coming~,” he adds, his glance at him out of the corner of his eye far too sly. Meng Yao can’t quite resist glaring at him right back. Nie Huaisang just walked headfirst into dangerous territory, but part of him (a very small part of him) can admire that his sort-of-friend, sort-of-employer is daring enough to tease him when he’s clearly irritated.

“You’re horrendous,” he replies sweetly and Nie Huaisang laughs as he turns them around to head back towards where everyone else is gathered.

“Oh hush, stop glaring at me and go find Xichen-ge, stare at him until you feel better. I’ll bet he’s dressed casuallyyyy~~,” he teases as he snaps his fan open again to flutter it and add to the flirtatious lilt in his tone.

“Lan Zhan!!!!” Wei Wuxian suddenly cries loudly enough to carry over the general chatter and in the next instant he goes flying across the spacious hotel lobby, a blur of black and red as Jiang Wanyin shouts after him for him to stop. Nie Huaisang giggles at his side behind his fan as heads turn to watch Wei Wuxian’s progress to where the Lans have stopped to check in.

“Oh perfect timing, and you won’t even have to waste any time searching! Wei-xiong is so useful, don’t you think?”

Meng Yao says nothing, just glares at Nie Huaisang until the man winks over his fan and carefully extricates himself from where their arms are linked to return to Jiang Wanyin’s side to pat his shoulder as the man fumes. Meng Yao sighs and after a moment he follows in the bemused wake Wei Wuxian had left behind himself on his way to his boyfriend. Though the retreat isn’t being held on any participating company’s actual properties, the Nie Corporation is still technically hosting it so it’s not entirely out of character for him to go and greet the new arrivals.

And if Lan Xichen’s smile when their eyes meet makes his frustration with Nie Huaisang and the presence of his own family melt away like snow in spring, then that’s his own business.

----

A few days into the retreat, Nie Mingjue’s patience is at its limit. He hates these things, he can’t remember just why the hell he let Nie Huaisang talk him into hosting this bullshit, but he can’t change it now. At least the Lans agreed to come - without Lan Xichen here to force him to enjoy himself he really would have become too miserable to bother staying for the whole retreat, he would’ve already packed up and dragged Meng Yao home with him to get back to work. Not that it would take much dragging, most likely. Meng Yao is as much of a workaholic as himself, maybe even more of one (which he hadn’t thought was possible prior to meeting him), and the Jins have been extra insufferable to him on top of that. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if Meng Yao was looking for an easy out of the whole affair.

“Oh dear,” Lan Xichen says softly at his side and Nie Mingjue pulls himself out of his ruminations to glance at him and then look at where he’s focusing on only to sigh as he spots Meng Yao being harassed by his horrible cousin - again.

“How long has that spoiled brat been talking to him this time?” Nie Mingjue growls as he pushes his sleeves up to his elbows and flexes his fingers a few times. God he’d like to use that asshole’s face as a punching bag. Mostly because he feels like Meng Yao would appreciate it and Nie Mingjue is maybe slightly too interested in doing things that make Meng Yao get that pleased little smirk on his face. But in his defense it’s also because he’s seen that smirking face far too many times to not want to rearrange it a little. If it happens to be because he’s bothering Meng Yao then that’s the perfect excuse, just two birds with one stone.

“About a minute, but it seems that’s long enough to behave unpleasantly,” Lan Xichen sighs, crossing his arms over his chest in a rare show of open disapproval, his lips turned down in an uncharacteristic frown. “What could he and his friends possibly have to bother him about now?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I’m gonna beat the shit out of him, I’m tired of this.”

“Mingjue!” Lan Xichen cautions with a sudden grip on his arm. “Please, don’t embarrass A-Yao and make a scene, it won’t help him.”

“Well what do you want me to do?! We can’t just leave him over there.”

“Ah...I believe we are not his only knights in shining armor,” Lan Xichen says, suddenly sounding amused and Nie Mingjue follows his gaze again to see Wei Wuxian, of all people, shoving his way through the crowd looking positively gleeful at the sign of trouble brewing, Lan Wangji trailing along behind him as serenely as ever. Such a weird pair, in his opinion. And of course, because it’s Wei Wuxian, his voice carries perfectly over the general hubbub of people chatting and the clink of carabiners from the people currently scaling the rock wall they’re all supposed to be taking turns climbing.

“Meng Yao!” Wei Wuxian cries and Nie Mingjue can see the man in question’s shoulders tighten all the way from here as Wei Wuxian throws his arm around them to lounge against him. “Are you holding back to spare the rest of us from having to watch you kick our asses without breaking a sweat? Oh. Hey asswipe.”

“Wei Wuxian!”

Nie Mingjue snickers just a little at the scandalized tone in Jin Zixun’s voice, and even Lan Xichen chuckles softly next to him.

“Yeah? Hi uh...hm. Can’t say I remember your name, Jin something-or-other, right? No, don’t tell me, it doesn’t matter and I want to keep thinking your name is ‘Asswipe’.”

“What the fuck is your problem?!”

“Problem? I don’t have one. What’s yours?”

Lan Wangji says something then, far too low to carry the way Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixun’s voices do, but whatever it is makes Wei Wuxian laugh and turn to Meng Yao. He lets go of him to turn and face Meng Yao fully, putting his back to Jin Zixun, but whatever he says next is lost in the noise of someone reaching the top of the wall and hitting the buzzer.

“Are you sure we should trust whatever Wei Wuxian just did to solve this?” Nie Mingjue grumbles, already knowing what his best friend’s answer will be.

“He’s a good man,” Lan Xichen replies, because of course he does. “I trust him wholeheartedly, and it’s a good solution don’t you think? Everyone expects him to make a scene anyway, A-Yao need not be embarrassed about being rescued if it’s him.”

“Are we sure he even fixed whatever’s going on?” Nie Mingjue watches Meng Yao square his shoulders and step up to take a spot next to one of the employees at the rock wall and he can’t help but frown, still concerned. “A-Yao didn’t want to participate.”

But then he’s quickly strapped into a harness around his hips and thighs and maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just….watch...for a second...

Lan Xichen’s slightly choked noise at his side is all the confirmation he needs that they’re in agreement.

Nie Mingjue tears his eyes away from Meng Yao just long enough to see that he’s lined up with the rest of the Jin employees that are in attendance and he blinks as he realizes what’s going on.

“This is Wei Wuxian’s solution?” he snaps. “To put A-Yao up against his stupid cousin and his cronies? He’s supposed to get A-Yao away from them!”

“Patience, Mingjue, trust Wei Wuxian’s methods, he knows what he’s doing,” Lan Xichen soothes, returning his hand to his arm though he still hasn’t looked away from Meng Yao as the man listens to the instructions and allows himself to be fitted with a rope attached to the front of the harness.

“You just like seeing A-Yao tied up.”

“Mm. Multiple things can be true at once.”

Nie Mingjue snorts at that but shakes his head in defeat and goes back to watching, staying still as Lan Xichen subtly steps closer to him and tucks his hand into the crook of his elbow as the start timer counts down from five.

Whatever Nie Mingjue was expecting before the competition started, it certainly wasn’t what ends up happening as soon as the buzzer sounds.

His eyes go wide as he watches Meng Yao instantly take the lead by putting his foot above his head and launching himself a full body-length up the wall while everyone else is still trying to find their first handhold.

“Oh my god,” Lan Xichen breathes at his side and Nie Mingjue is in full agreement. Meng Yao practically flies up the wall, taking the lead by miles simply by virtue of skipping over at least five footholds at a time to get to the highest one he can reach - which is never lower than rib- or shoulder-height.

Nie Mingjue has never seen anything like it and he can’t take his eyes off him. He doesn’t even hesitate, he just makes these impossible jumps and pulls until he smacks the buzzer at the top and turns to sit on the top of the wall, feet dangling and the dimples in his cheeks visible even from this distance as he grins down at the others still halfway down the rest of the wall.

“Oh shit,” it’s Nie Mingjue’s turn to exclaim as Meng Yao wiggles his fingers in a little wave while Jin Zixun slips and falls a few feet before tension gets applied to his rope, leaving him dangling in front of the hardest course on the wall like a sack of turnips.

“That was..oh my.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So flexible,” Nie Huaisang pipes up suddenly from his other side and Nie Mingjue doesn’t yelp but he comes close.

“Huaisang!!”

“Hi da-ge, er-ge. Enjoying the view? It’s very scenic.”

“Don’t be crude, A-Sang,” Lan Xichen chastises without any heat and Nie Huaisang snorts.

“I’m not the one checking out Meng Yao’s ass like a couple of creeps. He’ll want a drink this evening, by the way - he hates dealing with his family.” Nie Huaisang leans forward to look up pointedly first at him and then at Lan Xichen next to him. “Maybe even two drinks.”

“I can feel you winking at me, A-Sang,” Lan Xichen says with a smirk without taking his eyes off Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang laughs behind his fan.

“Good, then we’re on the same page! Does this mean I should tell Wei-xiong not to talk him into going up there again or do you need more convincing?”

Nie Mingjue coughs at that and does his best to glare. “No one said he has to stop. If he wants to go again to prove his point to that smarmy jackass cousin of his then who are we to stop him?”

“Subtle, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang drawls. He stretches his arms above his head with a little sigh before he steps away to look at them over his shoulder with a sly wink. “As many times as he’s willing to go, then? Noted, I’ll let Wei-xiong know right away,” he teases and then he’s off with a laugh.

“Well. That was..”

“We’re definitely buying him drinks tonight, right?” Nie Mingjue checks and Lan Xichen’s responding hum is perfectly easy to interpret as they watch Meng Yao rappel down the wall and set up to go again. “Good.”

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen #Meng Yao #modern AU #prompt fill #I hope this is coherent lol #basically act like this 'work retreat' is like a discussion conference #and Jin Zixun was being his usual dick self and boasting that he was better than everybody at everything or whatever #and just being generally shitty so NHS went to grab WWX who was like ohhh yES LET'S GET THIS FOOL

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fictional-worlds-are-exquisite · 3 years

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i am out there!! i'm glad you liked it! i'm definitely trying out the recipe you left in the tags. it sounds way better than just banana and peanut butter. i always have to pay a lot of attention when i type banana because i've ended up with "bananana" way too many times

i was planning to run straight to your askbox the second i saw you replied but then the end of the semester happened and it killed me. hopefully i'm done with it now

i do exactly the same thing with height! if you tell me your height in feet i have absolutely no idea how tall that is. if you say that in centimetres that's easy. i mean you're 155cm so that's 12cm shorter than me. when you told me that in feet i was like okay cool i have no idea how much shorter than actually is

i love birds!!! so that seems awesome! i am now titling you the queen of birds. and i'm glad your vacation was good! i think i saw a couple of posts you made about it so it definitely does seem like a lot of fun! and did you ever figure out completely what that see through animal (?) in the sand was? i had no idea stuff like that even existed so now i'm invested in knowing what it is

i am 100% hiring you for my coming out party i'm throwing in a couple of years. it's gonna be fun. if we don't get immediately kicked out i promise good food and some spicy drama between my homophobic relatives and my accepting relatives! and my brother's, who i already came out to, dry commentary

i was definitely not the one you told about burma trails! but from the tags i'm just gonna say how is that allowed and why does it seem like a weird type of torture? i hate it, i probably would've had a heart attack 3 seconds in

oh yeah i actually can't tell most of the time if the memories from my childhood are actual memories or if it's just a combination of having seen photos and heard stories about it

my glasses prescription is fine i think. my eye doctor said that i get headaches from glasses because... well i tried to explain this and then deleted it all because it was a very scientific explanation when she said it and i zoned out pretty much halfway through and even the part that i did understand i can't translate to english! but it has something to do with the fact that with contacts it's enough to move my eyes in the direction i want to look at and with glasses i have to move my whole head and my brain got so used to contacts that it overdoes it with the eye movements when wearing glasses? i dunno. this is the best i can do in explaining it

i must admit i'm very jealous of the never snows part because while snow is pretty to look at it's absolutely freezing! for the past week i slept under a duvet, three blankets while wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt and i still woke up cold. because for a couple of nights it was around -22°C. it's great

ohhh you got pretty lucky as a kid then! my kid self would have absolutely lost it at getting the equivalent of 5/10 bucks. i probably would have bought so much candy

excellent!!! hope you’re enjoying the vague void from whence you came! i’ve never said whence before in my LIFE i wonder if i used it correctly. anyway. the actual recipe was way more specific but once i saw ‘2 frozen bananas’ and looked at all the sliced bananas in my fridge, having no idea how many there were, i just started improvising sdfkhsdfs. I’d be interested to try it with yoghurt though if I can get some dairy free plain stuff, I’m sure I can somewhere. Banana used to be my biggest problem when I was younger. Then I learnt words like occasion and necessary and embarrassed and I realised the more english I tried to learn, the worse my life was gonna get. And I was right. On the bright side, developing an inability to ever spell occasion correctly made banana seem a lot easier to handle.

that is fair. end of semesters are rough. i cannot function during them at all. i hope everything chills out for you!! i’m not sure how the school year is over there but maybe it’s break time? that’d be nice. but rest in peace anyway, enjoy being dead! they say necromancy is frowned upon in all societies but I reckon it’s just called making a friend when you’re dead so maybe you wanna take that up as a hobby! I’ve heard it’s nice this time of year!

yup! sometimes I’m like oh you’re 5 foot 4? that sounds way taller than me. but it...it really isn’t...it’s like an extra 8cm or something. which adds up! but in my head I was picturing a MUCH taller height. In my head I think I picture 6 foot and 5 foot 4 as the same height, now that I think about it.

!!!!! my first order as queen of birds is to meet a morepork face to face so we can chat about the price of pork these days. yes!! the first half was nice but the second half was really fun. my best guess is still that it’s a salp? Maybe? So many salp pictures are massive groups of them but like,, from what i can tell of singular photos,,, it was maybe that? I guess the only other possibility is it’s just some clear jellyfish but salp does seem more likely. At first I was like oh duuude boob implant for the ocean!! but then I realised it actually seemed kinda alive and was probably an actual creature. my bad.

excellent. i’ll break any tension by dropping the vampire act for the mouse act. will do backflips for cheese. will bite ankles for homophobic comments. Will pull a knife out of god knows where, not to threaten anyone, just to clean my nails with to make everyone nervous. I offer many services. I’m flexible. And I love me some good food.

I actually DON’T know the reason behind burma trails. I really don’t. The reason ‘it’s a fun activity!’ seems a little fake. if it’s a fun activity then why did Mrs. G. tell us a horror story about the forest before we went out to navigate said forest at night, blindfolded, surrounded by wildlife and parents supervising (*cough* waiting for the opportunity to jump out at you *cough*) with a teacher at the end waiting to scare us. So we can learn how to navigate the forest in the dark? So we learn how to follow a mysterious rope INTO the forest at night? seems dodgy to me. school camps be like [drives you out to forest] follow this rope and don’t take your blindfold off. like. bruh. i almost DID have a heart attack one time, I got stuck like something was holding my leg. First thought-ah, must’ve got my leg stuck in a big stick. Second thought-maybe this is one of the parents fucking around, it feels more like a grip than a twig. Third thought-I cannot get my leg free no matter what I do what the fuck is HAPPENING so I started crying out for help. When they FINALLY came they found nothing my leg was caught on so that was fun. love that for me. I was able to move as soon as they arrived. That’s not weird at all. anyway.

I think most of my early memories are just from stories I’ve been told and photos I’ve seen. My memory tends to be horrible I highly doubt I remember that one time I was eating dirt from the garden out in the yard gleefully. I just saw the photo evidence. mm spaghetti. bone apple teeth. my character hasn’t changed at all since I was a wee babe.

ohhhh okay. I think I get what you mean by that. Thank you for trying to explain! That’s really interesting. I guess I do move my head a lot with glasses. Although I have massive glasses so it’s probably easier for me to just move my eyes where I want. I reckon with smaller glasses I’d have to move my head way more.

the temperature comment is so funny because during the heart of winter i tend to sleep with a sheet, a blanket, a duvet, then 2-4 blankets on top while in a long sleeve shirt and long pants and sometimes bed socks and often a hottie (i’ve never realised how that sounds out of context...a hot water bottle...is calling it a hottie normal or is a my family thing? is this a nz thing? now i’m questioning myself). in my uni accommodation last year we didn’t have proper heating during most of winter and well. there was a quilt added to everything else. every blanket i could find. how cold does it get here in winter? rarely ever past 0 degrees celsius. I would literally die in your position, clearly. I could not survive that. Props to you for making it through aha.

yesss. Before when I found five dollar notes it’d be on the street and I’d be like oh no! Mum we have to hand this into the police station! It’s a lot of money, someone will be looking for it! Understandably she was like,, lindsey they might miss it but there’s not really any way you can find them,,, I still refused to spend it. That was like my first time really getting that much money for myself. The dairy on main street sold lollies for 10 cents each and they had like, 30 different lil glass boxes so you’d go I want 3 of 26, 5 of 7, ohhh and 5 of 13 please! I dunno if they’re still 10 cents each but I thought it was the best thing ever as a kid. I think I wanted to save the money though sfdjsdkfhs put it in my piggy bank to save up for something ‘super cool’. Aka probably like a neat soft toy to sleep with sdfsdkfs.

#Anonymous #i wrote the majority of this reason like a couple hours after you sent it #then i went to bed because it was late. thinking to myself. oh i'll finish the last bit in the morning!#but of course in the morning the lil 1 didn't show up above mail and it was located in my drafts now so my dumb ass was like ah yes #absolutely nothing to respond to here!#i should know by now i never remember if i save things to drafts sfjshkdfhsdf #anyway #i REMEMBERED. a few days late. BUT i didn't just forget entirely so! there's that!#now i'll finish the last bit of the response and edit the incomprehensible tired mumbling parts #although i'm currently overheating so now it'll be incomprehensible overheated brain parts! fun!#no i cannot handle cold temperatures no i cannot handle 'hot' temperatures i can handle like a one to two degree range #and nothing else. life is. a trip.#I still don't know what to call dairy's when talking to people outside nz #corner store? they're not always on corners. convenience store? maybe. small shop? idk dude #i don't quite know the correct thing to equate them to.#but they sell lollies sometimes. that's the main point here sdkjhskdf #now to decide what I'm doing tonight #play stardew valley. watch someone else play stardew valley on youtube. stare at my ceiling thinking about stardew valley. do the dishes #earlier today i was like maybe...maybe i'll watch a movie...add some variety to my life...#i wanted to rewatch whatever movie has that song that is like agggooonnnyyyyyy #that's the only word i remember from the song. so it's that. or...well...back to my obsession

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victoriousscarf · 3 years

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Can I ask about the path you took toward working in public history? I'm in grad school at the moment. (I also have a complicated family situation and the world is kind of a mess so I'm not necessarily expecting an answer that gives some kind of set path I can follow, I'm just curious.)

Ok... So ...

Like I think it's always hard to be in the public history field and be like yeah! You're totally gonna get something! Because of my like cohort when I started grad school I think... 3...no 4 of us have stable employment in the field. One I know of is field adjacent. One left to become an artist, one has never held a job in the field at all, and a lot have either struggled with work or been underemployed. So it's rough and I think the pandemic has made library/museum/archives jobs way harder.

But.

I went to school specifically in a program for archives and records management. That program no longer exists, and most archives jobs want an MLIS anyway. (I've gotten some shady looks from hiring managers not in the field because they're like... It's not an MLIS and I'm like no? Because it was way more specialized?? Like I am super qualified okay I promise). This was... Not a great idea. The more specialized you are, the harder to switch tracks it is. I've been considering going back for a museum degree just for more flexibility because that's honestly the only way to survive in this field. Right now I'm seeing more museum jobs than archives, but my curator friend was insisting it was the other way when she was applying so it's also just luck of the draw.

So I have super specialized education. Pros and cons.

I then took an internship as an interpretive ranger at a national park site. And that was the best thing I ever did for myself. There are several programs that do internships with the NPS, but a lot of them are age specific. The one I did was for 26 and below, so it wouldn't be useful for older folks going back to school but! There's also federal jobs that are either for people still in school (I think it was called pathways back then?) Or some jobs are only open for recent grads. It was paid and they provided housing. A lot of internships don't do that and it's awful and there's been a slow but steady reckoning in the field that unpaid internships are bad and exclusionary to people who don't have any support sytem backing them.

Working for the NPS opened up a lot of doors for me. The federal government is very difficult to break into. It doesn't really matter what the job posting says, if you don't have experience, you probably aren't getting through the questionnaire. (And yes. There are questionnaires. So. Many. Questionnaires). But if you luck into an internship, you learn about the system and you get experience and no matter where you go after that, it's good to have in your pocket in case you need it again.

After that I also lucked out with a partnership program through my old grad program. It is definitely worth checking to see what sort of connections the program might have. Because I got something like 9 months of work that was paid for by my grad program to work in an entirely different state to finish a project for them. Look around, connections really matter in the public history field. If you have the chance to go to a conference, yeet yourself toward it. It's hard to like meet people, but the nice thing is most folks in the field are fucking nerds who are probably socially awkward too. Archives potlucks are hailrious because 89% of the folks have got social anxiety. They all wanna bring a book and sit and read quietly. But the more people you meet, the more connections you make, the better (also Archivists looooove twitter. Ugh. And there's a lot of really good archives/library/museum groups on facebook. I'd recommend them).

The more weird shit you can put on your resume, the better. Saying which parks I worked at (sometimes very famous ones) made me stand out. I also ran a day long academic conference in grad school and was president of a student chapter of a professional organization. It almost killed me, but it stood out in people's minds. One of my co workers did field work in Eygpt, and our supervisor mentions seeing that on her resume all the time. Like that was part of what drew him to it. Again, money is an issue for most people and this is hard to pull off, but weird shit helps you stand out. Emphasis anything cool you've ever done in your whole life. I also did national history day in high school. That meant I was our education specialists favorite person when it came time to help high schoolers on their project. Even if it's too late for you to do that in high school, see if you have a regional competition nearby. Or state even. Volunteer. That's also something that stands out (plus helping wee history nerds can be a treat... When you're not being reminded why high school was so terrible lol).

I also moved to 6 states in... 5 years. And I don't mean neighboring states either I mean I started on the west coast and flung myself all the way to the western side of the Mississippi River. And then North. And then South. And then West again. This is not possible for a lot of people because a) money and b) family. Even with all that moving I was unemployed for 6 or so months in the middle of it. It is hard to be looking for work so constantly and then packing up your life and yeeting yourself to another state /again./

I also have a chronic condition with regularly scheduled flare ups. Moving away from my family for work has sucked, being in pain and having to explain to a new boss I'll have to take some time off every year to like, lay on the floor in pain, sucks. So like. It can be done even WITH stuff like that too.

But I have been incredibly lucky. Because I got a few breaks when I needed one. Because I was in a position to go for what I could take. I also missed certain chances I should have been able to take. That's never a good feeling but it doesn't mean one missed chance or fuck up is the end of the road.

So yeah, as you said, every circumstance is different, every road is different, but I do think hearing a) it can be done and b) different approaches to how it can be done, can really help. Like even if you can't do the same stuff, maybe there's something in there that can help out. Some spark of an idea of something to try.

(I'm also making this public in case it helps anyone else ... I hope that's okay).

(this got long lol. But I was trying to think of like any advice that could help. There's a lot of pathways to get into the field, but volunteering, weird shit on that resume, being willing to go the extra bit, those are probably the most basic take aways anyone could try).

#vs does an ask #vs does a text post #public history

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inventors-fair · 4 years

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Lyrical Poets

There was a pretty diverse set of musical interests represented in this competition - a wide variety of artists and genres, which definitely kept things from getting dull on my end. Without further ado, let’s jump on in!

@antmations - Erissa, Bog Witch

Flavour: Spooky big bog witch makes everybody feel like dying. I'm not sure it communicates why I'm better off that way, but I'm sure she knows what she's talking about. Mechanics: A deathtouch creature is already a pretty significant deterrant to attacking, so adding extra downsides makes it especially unattractive. Be careful with effects like this because they often put the opponent in a position where they feel they can't progress the game without dying, which just makes the gameplay grind to a halt. Templating/Nitpicks: Nope, nothin'. Overall: Bog Big witch energy.

Charmera - Bad Moon Risen

Flavour: I respect how literally you played into this, especially the references to old card names. Kudos. Mechanics: Obviously with taking things as literally as you did, the design kinda has to wind up all over the place. My biggest takeaway from this one is that it feels like it should be a Saga that just ticks up through the lines you're referencing. Templating/Nitpicks: On MTG.design, you can use asterisks (*) to drop bullet points into your modal effects. It's super convenient. Overall: The chorus of this song is commonly misheard as "There's a bathroom on the right." That would probably be harder to design.

@corporalotherbear - Tranquility, the Trickster

Flavour: You chose a very simple effect which gave lots of room for flavour text. Just with the lines included I still don't totally understand the why, but it definitely conveys what's going on. Mechanics: This is repeatable removal, and pretty strong removal at that. Red is supposed to be weak against creatures with high toughness, but besides actual-factual walls this will generally circumvent that. Templating/Nitpicks: While a creature technically can fight itself, if you asked players what that means probably 9 out of 10 would get it wrong. The correct way to template this would probably be to just write out, "deals damage to itself equal to twice its power." Overall: It is a heck of a trick, tho.

@dabudder - Unbounded Truth

Flavour: The lyric you chose is really wholesome and pleasant. Revealing cards feels like "saying what we mean", though it fights the theme a bit that only our opponents get in on that action. Mechanics: Peek with some incidental lifegain tacked on sounds reasonable, I suppose. Control decks probably wouldn't mind knowing what answers they need to dig for while giving themselves more time to do so. Templating/Nitpicks: You're looking for "card", not "spell", and converted mana costs are "high" rather than "great". It probably comes out, "You gain life equal to the highest converted mana cost among cards revealed this way." Overall: Thanks for going to the trouble of submitting it until it went through. I expect next week to go a little smoother for you.

@dim3trodon - Paladin of Silence

Flavour: The lyrics are pretty evocative, and I can imagine a paladin saying (or explicitly not saying?) exactly that line. Good choice to lean on the spell Silence to define what exactly that means. Mechanics: I'm not sure what's Blue about this one. Perhaps it was for the Flash, but it's worth noting that every color has access to Flash for effects that genuinely require it to work - this would be one of those. Templating/Nitpicks: Kudos on being careful around flicker effects, though also be wary when you have to do that. It can be a sign that the core effect isn't very fun. Overall:

@dimestoretajic - Kawejitch, the Unrestrained

Flavour: Thanks for putting a face to the lyric that's been stuck in my head since my childhood. Only a little surprised that face has a trunk. Mechanics: This is functionally unblockable, but Mardu probably adds up to that. The rate could probably use some attention, as an 8/5 unblockable for six is better than anything that's been printed. Putting combat keywords on a creature that's nearly impossible to block feels like a miss; I think it's to really stick the "couldn't hold me back" thing, but I feel like super-menace delivered on that well enough. Templating/Nitpicks: I hope I'm not the only that gets unreasonably happy reading lines of text like this. Overall: I've been talking to myself out loud the whole time I've been typing this.

@emmypupcake - Burden of Despair

Flavour: Between the art and the flavour text, I can certainly feel the despondency of the situation. Mood. Mechanics: This is reasonably flexible removal, getting rid of little dorks entirely and mosty disabling bigger ones. The power drop feels pretty irrelevant since the creature can't attack or block anymore, but I suspect it's just there for symmetry. Templating/Nitpicks: Yours is one of only a couple submissions that correctly represented both title and artist in the flavour text. I'll be clearer about it in the future, but gold star for you in the meantime. Overall: Bog Big mood.

@fractured-infinity - Erase From Time

Flavour: I'm not sure what the art is showing me, but the flavour text does more than enough to set the tone. Gone for good. Mechanics: This is quite the clever little innovation, a variation on White's more permanent exile removal that is relevant in multiplayer. I'm a little curious why it phases instead of exiling, since the nonlegendary clause means it wouldn't hit Commanders either way, and the two are equivalent in most other cases. Templating/Nitpicks: No need for hyphens in "nonland" and "nonlegendary". Overall: This is one of those moments where you come up with a cool concept, you develop an awesome design around it...and somehow that design just no longer fits that concept. The biggest thing keeping you out of the winner's circle this week was that your innovation played in the opposite direction of your theme by making the removal less permanent. Solid design work, though.

@gollumni - Guildless Anarchist

Flavour: I assume the flavour text is mostly connecting with the first ability. Some designs just need the added context of a set or cycle to really make sense, and that's okay. Mechanics: Part of me suspects the first ability is a little overcosted, because it doesn't actually net you a card - see Haunted Crossroads for reference. That said, the repeatable removal and/or Lava Axe of the third ability seems pretty strong to make up for it. Templating/Nitpicks: Magic is picky, so you only "return" cards to the battlefield or your hand; you'll just "put" this one where it goes. Also, you'll want to include "untapped" in the cost of the third ability; the rules don't strictly require it, but templating praxis does. Overall: "Slaughtermatic" is my new word of the day.

@hypexion - Ravenous Extraction

Flavour: I've never heard it, but even just reading it that flavour text seems catchy. It has a clear message, and the Treasure tokens have added meaning thanks to the "inheritance" line. Mechanics: This hearkens back to Squandered Resources, both mechanically and thematically. Moving it to Red is probably correct in the modern color pie, though admittedly I'm not sure at what rate either of these effects would be fair. Nyxbloom Ancient triples your mana more permanently for seven, so...maybe five is fine? Templating/Nitpicks: For poetry, line breaks are as much a part of the writing as the words. If it's not possible to fit with line breaks intact, you'll want to include slashes to indicate where they should be. Geist of the Moors is an example of what that looks like. Overall: I'm going to have to look up this song to see how close it sounds to how I'm reading it.

@ignorantturtlegaming - Angel's Song

Flavour: An angel's song is definitely magic-appropriate flavour, and has a lot of room for interpretation. "Eternal life" as doubling your life total makes sense, though the burn part feels more like punishing the gathering than calling it. Mechanics: Moving Sphinx's Revelation to sorcery speed does hurt its power level, though I'm not sure it does it enough to compensate for all the upsides this has. Having the option of using it as a sweeper is huge, and the life doubling on top of the first mode seems like it gets out of hand quickly. Templating/Nitpicks: Modal spells only really have their modes. If you want the conditional part to occur regardless of which mode you pick, the correct way to do that is to include it in both modes. I agree this feels weird. Overall: A song called The Gathering was such an apt choice, kudos.

@illharg-the-rave-boar - The Key and the Gate

Flavour: I'm definitely picking up the "thrall to Yog-Sothoth" feel. And the card is powerful enough that it communicates a sense of powerlessness against cosmic forces. Mechanics: This card is quite the beating, but I suppose three-color, seven-mana spells generally should be. This is a pretty clear 'game over' in most cases - unless your opponents have another source of cards, the fact you're stealing one each turn and doming them for 7 every time they whiff should end the game pretty quickly. Templating/Nitpicks: There are enough details of the lyrics that lend themselves to Magic vocabulary (rainbow, cascade, even walls) that I wish the design were a little more explicit, but I understand there's only so much room. Overall: Songs these days really have nothing on great old ones.

@khyrberos - Neutral Physician

Flavour: Few things make me happier than "deniability" on a card that literally denies an ability. This has a few different things going on, but they're all pulled reasonably well from the text you're referencing. Mechanics: All the different pieces of this card kinda drag it in different directions. While they're clearly pulled from the lyrics, they don't really create a unified mechanical identity, which makes it hard to imagine how a card like this should be used. Templating/Nitpicks: If you want it to counter death triggers, you can actually just do that. "Counter target triggered ability if a creature dying caused it to trigger" does what you want without the weird timing restriction. Overall: I think there's actually something here, it just needs a little polish.

@macaroni-and-squeez - Rising Form-Claimer

Flavour: Using the untap trigger to show the creature "woke up" that way is really clever. Mechanics: The delayed trigger feels a little hard to track, and I can't help but think there must be a simpler way to achieve a similar feel. I do like the fact that the tap in the cost of the ability sets up the untap trigger, which makes the design feel internally consistent. Templating/Nitpicks: There's a comma missing between your costs, and you probably mean to say "When CARDNAME becomes untapped during your next untap step," otherwise the trigger hangs around indefinitely and goes off every time it untaps. Overall: Is this thing skinless until you activate the ability? Oh no.

@machine-elf-paladin - Goblin Firework Festival

Flavour: This line feels so much like a goblin rhyme, I'm really pleased that you felt that in it too. The unpredictability of the end result, and flavour of blowing up your friends and fireworks feels very resonant. Mechanics: This is a finisher, with a pretty clear multiplayer leaning. I think in practice this would generally kill whichever player is at the lowest life total, encouraging them to sacrifice everything they have, in turn possibly killing another player and encouraging them to do likewise. While the effect feels fun to read, I'm not convined the actual gameplay would feel interesting most of the time. Templating/Nitpicks: Gold star for the use of slashes to indicate line breaks in your flavour text. Overall: I hope this song is as fun as this design implies it is.

@martian-june - Blood Pact

Flavour: Combining a group hug effect with a group slug effect to convey "friends who bleed" is pretty clever. Mechanics: This is an interesting combination of 'White' and Black effects. The card draw is something that Black can do at this rate, and the opponents drawing cards probably covers any cost of the life loss. I'm not sure precisely what deck is looking for the combination of these effects, but it's neat to see them done together. Templating/Nitpicks: I don't think there's any strong reason for the "if" clause, there are very few effects that would prevent that from happening anyway. Overall: I like centered cards too.

@milkandraspberry - Taunting Slander

Flavour: I can see how "stupid butt" might get one's hackles up. Them's fightin' words. Mechanics: A fight effect with a little extra reach seems sensible enough. You'll often lose your creature along with theirs, so it's a little bit like a Heartfire. Templating/Nitpicks: "...each get +1/-1..." is the template you're looking for. Apart from that, I'd just like to see the flavour and reminder text italicised - it subtly communicates that I should be reading it differently, which is surprisingly helpful. Overall: Not too strong, not too bad.

@misswamyn - Bardic Inspiration

Flavour: I can definitely imagine how a great song could get your troops a-movin'. I do wish there was a little more to make me feel why this song has this effect, but the overall effect definitely makes sense. Mechanics: The biggest miss is that there's nothing particularly White about it. Otherwise, perfectly solid. Templating/Nitpicks: This is a really simple line of text that has apparently never appeared on a Magic card before. Those are always a treat. Overall: Makes me wonder what the actual greatest song ever would do.

@mistershinyobject - Ghastly Grasp

Flavour: Drain is definitely a classically Black way to illustrate the concept of touch. The impression I get is that the creature is the one overwhelmed by your touch, though I'm not sure I immediately connect with the "almost convinced me I'm real" line. That part seems especially poignant, so I'd love to see it show through in the mechanics. Mechanics: You expressed some concern over whether this was allowed in Black - personally, I don't think it's even a bend. Because Black can get full drain at roughly this rate, it certainly wouldn't be a break for it to get only half of that. Dealing damage without any lifegain would have to be a bend then, but this sets itself up to gain life almost every time it's used. I think you're fine. Templating/Nitpicks: Power seems like an odd choice over toughness, just because it feels like it's operating on an entirely different axis. Overall: Killing a Rampaging Ferocidon with this would be so satisfying.

@misterstingyjack - Keeper of the Fourth Mystery

Flavour: I wouldn't have picked up on what this card's flavour text was saying without your explanation, though with the explanation I can pretty clearly see what motivated your decisions. Mechanics: Expanding your tutor effects is an interesting space to play in, I wonder if there's a good way to make it work. Templating/Nitpicks: Unfortunately, this template probably doesn't do it. I don't believe an effect can really look forward to see where the searched card is going to be put, and I'm not sure the search replacement would work as intended anyway. This is a tough templating challenge though, so I think this was a valiant effort. Overall: A honestly hope to see a more polished version of this in the future.

@morbidlyqueerious - Lethal Prominence

Flavour: It works a little hard to convey its theme, but I think it gets there. Mechanics: You're right that it came out a little wordy, and I suspect there's probably a more elegant way to deliver on the notes this is trying to hit. I think it gets dragged in too many directions trying to incentivise everyone (the counters, the Gold, the attack requirement). That said, I do like where it's aiming. Templating/Nitpicks: Nothing stands out, which is good. Overall: This is exactly the kind of lyric I had in mind when I created this challenge.

@nine-effing-hells - The First Home of Crafters

Flavour: It does do the work of tying Dwarves, Artifacts, and Artificers together thematically. Mechanics: Lands that tap for multiple mana are often a problem, and there are enough cheap artifacts that I would expect the other two types to be largey irrelevant. That deckbuilding restriction is a limitation, but history has shown that cheap artifacts tend to be good together without a lot of extra help. Templating/Nitpicks: You noted that the wording on the trigger is hard to follow, and I have to agree. I think it does function correctly though, so points for that. Overall: It's definitely a song.

@quillpaw - Mercury in Retrograde

Flavour: It's hard for me to connect what the flavour text is telling me to the resulting effect, which is unfortunate because each of them seems cool on its own. Mechanics: This is definitely a variant of Kruphix that feels Red. I think it feels a bit bad that it costs so much, because by the time you can start holding onto your mana it's going to kill you pretty quickly trying to do so. I think the downside feels appropriate though. Templating/Nitpicks: Those are two different abilities, so they should be spaced a little differently. And generally you'll want quoted flavour text inside quotations marks. Overall: I still can't figure out if it's a friend or not.

@real-aspen-hours - South Wind

Flavour: Cute to evoke the spell Hurricane for a song of the same name. The second half is...Shatterstorm, which I suppose is on the storm theme? Mechanics: Suspend is something we probably won't see much of soon, and this isn't the kind of effect that plays especially nicely with that mechanic. When your opponent knows a sweeper is coming, they just know not to play into it. Templating/Nitpicks: I put the card image together for you. I think I do good work. Overall: You've got at least three more winds to design now.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Question to the World

Flavour: The design itself asks questions without answering them, which is kind of an interesting place for this to be. Mechanics: The coolest part of this design is that it asks your opponent whether they want to bother dealing with it (and giving you cards) or just letting it live as a minor inconvenience. This came close to winning, and my only problem with this design is that the combination of evasion and hexproof takes most of your opponent's ability to interact with it away, leaving that one interesting question pretty moot. Templating/Nitpicks: Cards would be exiled "with" it, not "by" it. Overall: Did they ever get an answer?

@scavenger98 - Horizon's Turn

Flavour: I definitely get the sensation of leaving the surface world behind and taking to the skies, which is a neat story. Mechanics: This a tough one. It's a six-mana (twelve, if you count the skipped untap) sorcery that can often do actual nothing depending on your opponent's deck. The frustrating part is that there's no real way to build around it, because it relies entirely on your opponent's things. Also, skipping untap steps is just rough. Templating/Nitpicks: Nope, nothing in particular. Overall: I feel like there's more story to this than I'm picking up on, and it genuinely makes me want to know more.

@shakeszx - Leave Breathless

Flavour: The "doesn't untap" clause is normally used for ice effects, but I can see it being used for breathlessness. Adding the activated ability bit certainly sells it as something different. Mechanics: Split second isn't a favourite of mine, but I suppose it's there to make sure the activated ability line gets to do its thing. This is only moderately better than normal freeze effects, so I'm not sure the color-intensive cost is really necessary. Templating/Nitpicks: It's a little weird that the effects last for different periods. I'd probably just attach the activated ability limitation to "until it becomes untapped", as many activated abilities won't be usable until then anyway. Overall: That line is a pretty good choice, I gotta say.

@snugz - Caught in the Act

Flavour: A song as well-known as this one is a bold choice because it comes with so many preconceptions. I'm not sure I'm picking up where all the different parts are fitting together thematically, and that could be part of it. Mechanics: This is some nifty little soft removal. It feels a bit like a Blue Stab Wound - most often, this will be used to immediately kill small opposing creatures (by leaving up a blocker big enough to eat it in combat), but occasionally it’ll be stuck on something harmless to achieve the recurring effect. In most cases, mill two each turn is not going to be too scary (and is even an upside at times), but in a mill deck every recurring source of mill is key. Templating/Nitpicks: Reimagining the artist of the song as a character was an interesting little addition. Overall: I would not be at all surprised to see something like this printed in an upcoming set.

@sorustyitshines - Fire-Forged Bond

Flavour: This definitely conveys the theme of two creatures fighting and enduring hardships together. I feel like you have the space to do a little more to really sell the theme, but it's certainly clear from what you've got. Mechanics: This is an effect that doesn't exist yet, which means it's got that much going for it. I think the theme gives you space for a little more innovation than what you took advantage of; something like "those creatures gain indestructible for as long as you control both of them" is a slightly more unique space that leans a little harder into the story you're trying to tell. Templating/Nitpicks: The effect wants "each of two target creatures", otherwise it sounds like you're splitting the one counter between them. Overall: It probably doesn't need to be rare, but otherwise this is a very printable card.

@teaxch - Sink and Drown and Die

Flavour: I had to actually listen to the song to piece together what was going on, as the flavour text only went so far. That said, aligning the three effects with the three verbs was really cleverly done. Mechanics: My only real qualm here is that your opponent makes all the decisions. This would probably be in the winners’ circle if you picked the three permanents and they picked what to do with them (a kind of Kiss, Marry, Kill effect). Templating/Nitpicks: The existing templating looks perfect, so instead let's imagine the Kiss, Marry, Kill version: "Choose three nonland permanents controlled by the same player. That player returns one of them to its owners hand, puts another on top of its owner library, and sacrifices the rest." Overall: Just hoping the flavour text wasn't aimed at me.

@tmstage - The Lone Digger Club

Flavour: You were correct in assuming I'd seen the video, so I did have a sense of what was going on here. That said, I warned that the card was the context I was most interested in, and it doesn't serve to communicate all of that itself. Mechanics: This is a really cute way to evoke the effect you were going for. Forced blocks (and attacks, for that matter) can be done within Blue, and the aggressive feeling definitely justifies the Red inclusion. Templating/Nitpicks: Nowadays attack restrictions refer to "combat" rather than "turn", so that it's clear how they interact with multiple combat phases. Overall: The purple art on a Blue-Red card is so satisfying.

@whuh-oh - The Demon Within

Flavour: I can see how each of part of the lyric is supposed to correspond to one of the activated abilities, though it's not immediately obvious which effect is which line. Mechanics: Free mana is often very strong, and being able to turn 2 life into three mana each turn feels strong - I suppose it's only a turn sooner than Gilded Lotus with a higher color requirement, but it's also a lot more flexible than that. The fact that the third ability doesn't seem to interact with the other two makes it feel a little out-of-place, especially since three abilities and the activation restriction means you could pretty easily have them work cyclically (i.e., have the last ability read "BBB: You gain 2 life."). Templating/Nitpicks: You'll want it to read "only once each turn", because templates. Overall: Form of the Demon is a pretty neat idea.

@wolkemesser - Memnarch's Manic Plan

Flavour: The strongest flavour points for this card go to the fact that it makes you think like the character; you immediately start to imagine the payoffs for doing the thing, and the costs just become an afterthought. I think that was really cleverly done. Mechanics: The biggest obstacle is that this is a bit of a one-card combo. As long as your deck has any game-winning combo somewhere in it, you just build up a lot of permanents and play this, hoping to draw into your combo and immediately have the mana to play it out. Either you succeed and win on the spot, or you don't and your opponent picks you apart while you try to piece things back together. It's possible this gives you enough resources when it works not to immediately fold to pressure, but if that's the case there's just not much risk to playing it after all. Templating/Nitpicks: Looks like you missed the word "cards" after "draw X", otherwise you're golden. Overall: I was really pleased to see Memnarch show up on this, thanks for that.

That’s our feedback this week - I wanted to get it out of the way so that you all could focus on @teaxch‘s challenge starting today. Thank you all again for letting me share one of my favourite design exercises with you, and I hope that some of you will keep it in mind the next time you’re struggling to nail an idea down.

Until next time,

~Mod [ @3smuth ]

#inventor's fair #custom magic card #wax lyrical #proving grounds #commentary #3smuth

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dogsplayingpoker · 4 years

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school complaining sorry but if i dont have the like parasocial feeling that im being heard i’m going to combust

you know its been really hard this semester, but it really makes it all feel worth it (’it” being going thousands of dollars into debt, having to quit my job and therefor straining our finances more and losing a big portion of my positive social relationships, spending every waking moment of my life on my classes, forcing my agoraphobic self to go out and ~be social~ during a pandemic that has killed a quarter million people just within my own country even though the horror of that and the toll it is taking on me because of how it triggers my mental illness has been making me physically sick, unable to sleep, causing me to have panic attack in ways i haven’t since i was 15) all of that is really worth it just so that i can get an email from one of our deans of students, a woman who has never physically been on our campus, who blew us off when we were protesting racism in the adminitration of the school, who says we need to have ‘good humor and flexibility’ during this semester and like to send out her patronizing ted talk drafts to us where she talks about how brave we are and how hard things must be for us during These Unprecedented Times..... It really feels worth all of it to get an email from That bitch telling me that i, personally, need to be “more professional and more responsible,” tattling to my teacher, and threatening to fuck with my grade (as a scholarship student who can Only be here if i keep my grades up) because I’ve missed the (Apparent?? Can’t find it in any of the syllabuses but i guess she’s the boss lol!) max three amounts of a friday morning online seminar that in the beginning of the semester we couldn’t even get a straight anwer to about whether or not it was even mandatory to attend (which is one of my absenses lol because i and half the other students in my program thought (because we had Been Directly Mistakenly Told) that it was optional even though it is acutally apparently mandatory again but not the sunday seminar that i was attending because i was told that was mandatory too no that one is optional and we’re going to tell you its been optional the whole time 45 minutes into the very last session?? Anyways), and that i missed last week because i was super sick and fucking asleep on the recommendation from all three of my actual prefessors that i should rest and not worry about it (and at any rate the seminars are completely useless and should be optional because every time its just 15-30min of technical dificulties before an alum we dont know and who has obviously put no effort of preparation into their speech tells us as a captive audience about the weird arthouse short films they make for an hour and a half) its so nice to be appreciated and have your hard work recognized, especially by people that i’m paying, especially while i’m just now feeling better after a horrifying covid scare and am trying not to work myself back into illness while i frantically try to catch back up with my classes and try not to think about any of the huge stressful home situation that still happening which i dont even have room to fucking Mention here and anyways im just so glad that my school is being so udnerstanding and willing to work with us through these trying unprecedented unpredictable unforseen unkonwoable weird strange etc etc times :))

and now i have to right my actual email back where i kiss ass and explain our covid-time illness-absense policy to my fucking dean and hope for the best while pretending im not about to lose my mind also i jsut remembered that next semester she’s teaching one of my workshops. lord help me

#i legitimately don't know how to write this email while being properly professionally apologetic even though ive done nothing wrong #and HER tone was completely innapropriate and rude...while still making it clear that ummm no you need to fix stuff on your end #but yeah totally im 'so sorry' that you fucked up Have a Wonderful Day signed Sascha Lastname Student ID :)))))

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enddaysengine · 4 years

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Building Mario (L5R)

Between working from home, freelancing, and well… everything, I’m feeling a bit burnt out, so I want to try something different today. I love building characters, and an exercise I particularly enjoy is recreating characters from media as RPG PCs. I contemplated doing this for Pathfinder or Starfinder in the past, only to discover that Tulok the Barbarian was already doing precisely that on Youtube for 5e, so I shelved the idea. (Tulok’s Building Character series is great though, check it out!)

While social distancing, I’ve been digging into the latest Legend of the Five Ring RPG properly for the first time. I never played the L5R card game, but Rokugan has a special place in my heart since I started playing D&D right at the same time L5R did their d20 experiment with WotC’s support. In fact, that was one of my first books! Plus, a couple of my freelance colleagues and developers work on L5R, and I try to go out of my way to read my peers’ work.

So today, I’m going to give you my take on building Mario in L5R! And while Mario may seem like an odd fit for a samurai drama, allow me to present my counter-argument:

(Also, it’s my series, and I find this fun, so I’ll convert who I like!)

I’m not going to dive deep on all of L5R’s Twenty Questions, but I will cover enough to give all the mechanics and a basic background, as well as some suggestions for advancement. I’m also going to try to restrict myself to only using schools from within the character’s clan, although as I make more characters, I’m sure I’ll break that rule a couple times. Here are my goals with this build:

Mario’s a plumber, which means he’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty and doing some manual labour.

Mario’s got some magic on his side, allowing him to shoot fireballs at his enemies.

Mario’s athletic, allowing him to stomp on his enemies or pound him into submission with his hammer.

First off, we need Mario’s clan. The plumber doesn’t translate smoothly into a samurai fantasy, but since Super Mario Maker is a thing, I’m going to interpret that as him being a proficient engineer. We know he is a supremely dependable warrior who defends the Mushroom Kingdom, both of which point me toward the Crab and their Earth Ring. For a bonus, this gives us a rank in Fitness for more jumping action and sets our Status to 30.

Moving on to Family, we see the other reason I wanted Mario to be a Crab (that sentence is weird if you take it out of context). If we are talking about a Crab engineer, we must be talking about the Kaiu family. Boost your Fire Ring, Mario’s a passionate guy and knows how to do about a billion jobs, so he’s got to be a quick learner. This also nets the Smithing and Labor ranks we need to be an engineer and sets our Glory to 40.

Moving over to school, I’m making Mario a Hida Defender. This maxes out our Earth Ring at character creation and bumps up our Water Ring. Take Fitness for more jumping action, as well as Martial Arts (Melee), Martial Arts (Unarmed), Meditation, and Tactics. Take Striking as Earth as your optional Kata, as you get Lord Hida’s Grip, perfect for downing Bowser and his oversized Bosses once you boost your Void Ring. Finally, we’ll get Mario his hammer by taking the ōtsuchi as part of his starting outfit. Within the school, Mario’s Void Ring distinguished him. Boos, walking skeletons, giant dragons, Mario faces them all down without losing his nerve.

95% of the time, Mario has to go out and rescue Princess Peach, which gives us a nice, clear giri. Mario is out to rescue a noble captive, likely a courtier (I will leave details up to you). Picking a ninjō is tougher given Mario’s lack of character development, but he is the most famous working-class hero in video games. I’m using it to suggest that Mario wants to be known for his hard work. Thus, since he is an engineer, I’ll say his ninjō is to build a world-famous castle (again, see Mario Maker).

Many distinctions work for Mario, but I’m trying to preserve that working-class everyman feel, I’m going to give him Ebisu’s Blessing instead. In a similar vein, we can also give him the Adopted Peasant adversity to reflect his humble origins. Although it is easy to miss in the games, if you listen carefully, Mario is clearly enjoying all of the ridiculous worlds he has to explore to save Peach, which gives him the Daredevil passion. There’s also not much in the way of mercy in these worlds, Mario pretty much has to beat up his enemies until they are toast, so we can give him the Ferocity anxiety.

Mario’s relationship with the rest of the Crab Clan is good, he certainly upholds the Courage virtue, so we’ll take the boost to Glory. Likewise, there aren’t any tenants of Bushidō Mario would disagree with, so we’ll take the increase to Honor too.

For a mentor, I’m choosing Yoshi since he literally saved Baby Mario’s butt time and again. That’s a positive relationship (sacrificial jump memes aside), so we’ll take the advantage and choose Support of the Dragon Clan. Yes, I’m being exactly that literal. Your Game Master may want you to make that more specific, but it works as long as it’s Dragon related.

For relationships, we’re going to say that Mario took the axe that destroyed the floor of Bowser’s castle back in the NES games, so we’ll give him an ono as well. It doesn’t reflect the mechanics of any Mario game, but it is a nice continuity nod.

We don’t really know anything firm about Mario’s parents, although double-checking what we do know did give me a new headcanon.

Art by Marcus Williams

What I do know is that we want Mario to have at least one rank in Medicine, courtesy of Dr. Mario. Smash may make them into different characters, but I’m not. Finally, that leaves us with Mario’s Heritage. If your Gamemaster lets you pick your Heritage, take Stolen Knowledge, then use it to pick up the Flame Fist kihō for Mario’s fireballs. We could also take The Fires from Within invocation, and I had that down for a long time since it has range. Ultimately, I decided on Flame Fist since it fits this build a bit better mechanically.

And that’s a-me a-Mario!

Clan: Crab

Family: Kaiu

School: Hida Defender (Void)

Ancestor: Stolen Knowledge

Rings: Air 1, Earth 3, Fire 2, Water 2, Void 2

Skills: Fitness 2, Labor 1, Martial Arts (Melee) 1, Martial Arts (Unarmed), Medicine 1, Meditation 1, Smithing 1, Tactics 1

Honor: 45

Glory: 45

Status: 30

Composure: 10

Endurance: 10

Focus: 3

Vigilance: 2

Void Points: 1

Kata: Lord Hida’s Grip, Striking as Earth

Kihō: Flame Fist

Abilities: Way of the Crab

Giri: Rescue a captive from the lord’s court

Ninjo: Build a famous castle

Distinction: Ebisu’s Blessing, Support of the Dragon Clan

Adversity: Adopted Peasant

Passion: Daredevil

Anxiety: Ferocity

Wealth: 5 koku

Items: Lacquered armor, traveling clothes, daishō, ono, ōtsuchi, club, knife, traveling pack.

For advancement, we’ll want to keep raising the Earth, Fire, and Void Rings (remember Lord Hida’s Grip keys off Void). Water would also be appropriate since Mario is friendly and flexible. Fitness, Labour, Martial Arts, and Medicine will be the essential Skills to increase, and we’ll want to put some ranks into Games for Mario Party as well. If you’re a Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle fan, put some in Command and Tactics too. Mario’s been in more than a few RPGs, so Honest Assessment and Touchstone of Courage represent his ability to help members of his party. At the same time, Iron in the Mountains Style and Rushing Avalanche Style makes your hammer even more brutal, and the various Striking as [Ring] katas can represent different jump attacks for unarmed combat.

#Legend of the Five Rings #Character Creation #Mario #Nintendo #RPG #L5R

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master-sass-blast · 5 years

Text

Gatekeeper.

*rubs hands together* Oh, this is gonna be a Good One.

Summary: You decide you want to rejoin the X-Men after an ill-fated mission in Hell’s Kitchen. Piotr, unbeknownst to you, disagrees with the choice and tries to sideline you to keep you safe. You manage to work around him to make it back on the active mission roster --but will your relationship with Piotr survive?

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader and Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson.

Rating: T for politics, mentions of abuse, the Reader having the Biggest Dick Energy in the room, fights, emotional angst, and almost-smut.

@marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie

Your legs are shaking. You’re feel like you’ve run a marathon. You’re covered in sweat.

You couldn’t be happier.

You pant and gasp for a minute, hands braced against your knees as you catch your breath, and then you straighten and let out a victorious whoop as you pump your fists in the air. “Fuck yeah! Kiss my ass, physical therapy! I’m finally done with you!”

After two months of recovering from getting shot at some God forsaken Hell’s Kitchen dock, you were finally done with physical therapy.

Which meant that you could finally get back to working with the X-Men.

From the patio behind the house, Piotr clapped his hands as you collapsed –triumphantly—onto the lawn. “Well done, moya lyubov’. You should be very proud.”

“Believe me, I am. And I’m gross and sweaty. Who wants a hug?”

He laughs and hugs you anyway, the good sport. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. And super happy! It’ll be good to get back in the swing of things.”

He stays quiet for just a beat too long, and you might’ve called him on it if you hadn’t been so focused on breathing properly. “You have decided to rejoin X-Men? Actively?”

You shrug. “I miss working with everyone. I miss helping people. I miss doing things.”

He chuckles at that. “Very understandable, dorogoy. For now, how about we get you showered and fed.”

“I can be amenable to that.” You grin up at him. “But only if you join me in the shower.”

He smirks back down at you. “I can be convinced.”

It takes you a while to stop hemming and hawing over whether or not to run missions with the rest of the X-Men. You know you’re good at it, that your skills are immensely useful, but you don’t want a repeat of the Hell’s Kitchen incident; you don’t want to put your friends in danger.

And then Mikhail hits you in the head with an energy pulse, and you get a proper diagnosis, and you finally land on a choice.

You want to be an X-Man. Woman. Person.

Whatever.

“Is it weird that I miss doing missions?” You’re hanging out with Piotr in his art studio, watching him work on a painting of a vase of flowers. “Like, you’ve done them longer than I have. Do you think it’s weird?”

He smiles gently as he carefully paints delicate petals on the flowers. “Nyet. Not so much. You like to be active. To help others. To me, sense is made.”

You can’t help but grin at the mild mis-phrasing; you press on. “I want to get back into it. Now that I know it can all be managed, I want to get back into things. Like, soon. I miss the action.”

“Understandable,” Piotr says after a beat of silence. “But… perhaps it is better to wait.”

“Wait?” You frown. “What do you mean?”

“You… have never been on medication before. Perhaps… perhaps it would be best to make sure you find medicine that works before re-entering field work.”

And that… makes sense. A lot of sense, actually.

“Yeah,” you agree as you flop down in the over-stuffed armchair Piotr keeps in his studio. “Probably best not to be newly fucking with my brain chemical when I start doing missions again.”

Piotr smiles, but given your new position you can’t see that it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Da. Very wise thinking, myshka.”

Sitting out of missions while getting your meds worked out turns out to be a good idea. Given your “latent healing factor,” certain medications don’t work for you. Add to that the list of medication that are not compatible with mutants, and, well—

You wind up in a tough spot, to say the least.

Piotr stays by your side for all of it, true to form. He holds you in his arms while you deal with the ups and downs of weaning on and off of different doses, keeps your hair out of your face when one of the prescriptions you try winds up making you nauseous as all get out, and rubs your back when the medications invariably fuck up your sleep cycle and make it hard to wind down.

He’s a gem. Your gem, to be specific.

Fortunately, the medication journey is much shorter lived than the diagnosis journey. Within six months, you’re on a dose that works with you and the telepathic therapy you’re also doing.

“You know, I was worried that the meds would be like the repression serum for me,” you comment one early spring night as you and Piotr get ready for bed.

He pauses changing into pajamas to kiss the top of your head. “How so?”

“I don’t know, I just thought… I thought I’d be afraid to be anywhere without it. That I wouldn’t be able to go do anything without dosing myself, just to be safe. But it’s not like that at all. It’s not about my mutation, it’s about me. About my brain. And it’s not to keep me controlled, it’s to help me feel better. And I like that.”

Piotr smiles and kisses the bridge of your nose. “I am so glad, dorogoy. You deserve to feel better.”

“Well, I certainly think so.” You grin up at him as he finishes changing. “And, now that I’ve got my medication worked out, I can get back to being an X-Man. Woman. Person. Thing.”

You expect Piotr to smile along with you, so it’s surprising to see a flash of a frown cross his face before he turns away and fidgets with his phone real quick. “You are… you are sure you wish to rejoin?”

“Well, yeah,” you say with a frown of your own. “I mean… do you not want me to?”

“Nyet, nyet. Konechno, net. I simply figured…”

“Figured what, Piotr?”

“That you would want to get back into fighting condition, first,” he finishes lamely as he finally –finally—plugs his phone into his charger.

And, not for the first time since you’ve mentioned that you want to rejoin the X-Men, you’ve got a sneaking feeling that he’s trying to stall you. To protect you, in his own –misguided, controlling—way.

He’s right, though. Six months of ups and downs with medication, your diet, and your sleep cycle have left you no where near the condition you need to be in to do right by whichever team you wind up working with.

“Fair enough,” you concede with a yawn. You flop down on the bed and wiggle your way under the covers. “Turn the light off; I’m beat.”

You work yourself. Hard. You spend at least an hour in the gym every day, save for one full day of rest. You alternate which muscle groups you work each day, making sure that you give each set of muscles time to recoup before you work them again.

Fortunately, the ‘teacher assisting’ and grading work you’ve been doing for nearly your entire stay at Xavier’s is flexible. More often than not, you’ve got it with you in some facsimile while you exercise so that you can stay on top of everything.

The amount of working out you do does keep you away from missions –and, unfortunately, Piotr as well—but it does give you time to think.

Specifically, about your darling boyfriend and love of your life.

It’s not hard to tell that Piotr’s sidelining you. He isn’t cutting you down or making you question your abilities; in fact, every step of progress you make he’s praising you, encouraging you.

But, the fact remains: he’s sidelining you. Deliberately bringing up obstacles to keep you from running missions. Granted, he hasn’t brought up anything invalid or stupid, but you know your boyfriend. You know when he’s trying to protect you via controlling you. It’s not the first time you’ve been on the receiving end of this treatment, and it probably won’t be the last. Piotr copes with his stress by micromanaging. It’s a simple fact.

The fact that he won’t talk to you about whatever’s stressing him out, however, is bugging you. Big time.

I thought we were a team, you think as you put yourself through your paces on a treadmill one sunny –if chilly—early spring morning. But we can’t be a team if he won’t talk to me.

“He’s pushing me out,” you admit to Neena over a cup of coffee. The two of you had gone out so you could talk uninterrupted –a near impossible feat when school was in session—and so that you didn’t have to risk Piotr overhearing while you were trying to figure yourself out. “I just wish he’d tell me what’s bugging him.”

Neena raises an eyebrow at that. “You don’t mind him micromanaging things?”

You shake your head. “I’ve known for a while that it’s how he copes with stress. Honestly, given how discombobulated my head is at any given moment, I kinda depend on it. I just wish he’d talk to me when he’s worrying about something.” You frown into your mug. “Am I asking for two different things from him? Like, if I’m willing to let him have his bad habits –because I have mine too, and I’m not gonna expect him to be perfect if I’m not—is it even right to want him to just talk to me?”

Neena shakes her head after a moment. “I don’t think so. It’s one thing if he just micromanages how the fridge is arranged or how stuff gets put away, but it’s another thing when he’s micromanaging you. That’s an indicator of bigger stress, and he should talk to you about that.��

“Which is what I figured,” you agree. “He doesn’t have the right to sideline me just because I’m scared. I need to be able to make my own decisions without him interfering. If he has concerns, he should just talk to me about them!”

“Exactly. And if you disagree, that’s your prerogative.”

“Right.” You sigh and slump back in your seat. “I just… I’m tired of always having to fish stuff out of him. I want him to come to me. But I don’t want to be passive aggressive either…”

“If you don’t confront him, are you going to not do it to specifically try to punish him?” Neena asks, pointing her half-eaten biscotti at you. “Are you going to cold shoulder him?”

You shake your head. “No. I think he might just need to run the course on this one, you know?”

“Well, in that case, don’t confront him yet. Keep doing you, and start taking steps to handle things on your own. Get your shit in order and get back onto active duty without him. The fastest way he’s going to learn that he can’t micromanage you is if you sidestep him completely. You’re an adult; you can make your own decisions and call your own shots.”

You nod slowly as you mull the idea over. “Yeah. That might be the best way to do this.”

It doesn’t take too long for you to get yourself back into fighting shape. By the time the school year’s almost out, you’re back in mission condition.

You’ve also taken the luxury of participating in the group sparring the X-Men do to keep their skills sharp, having anticipated Piotr would pick that as the next “reason” for you to not rejoin the mission roster. As far the group you’ve been working with is concerned, you’re ready to start missions again whenever you feel like it.

Which takes you straight to Xavier’s office. When in doubt, talk to the man in charge.

Getting things straightened out with the Professor takes virtually no time at all. With your exercise, training, and therapy records, you’ve got all the –virtual—paper trail you need to warrant him switching your status from ‘inactive’ to ‘active.’

You thank the Professor as you exit his office—

And nearly collide nose-first with Piotr’s steel chest.

“Moya lyubov’?” He frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting put back on the active duty roster for missions,” you say simply, as though it’s simple.

Which, technically, it is.

Piotr opens his mouth to see something, notices the Professor watching –the two of you are in his office, it’s not like he’s being a snoop—before ushering you into the hallway and closing the door. He escorts you a few feet away from the door –ever the gentleman—so the two of you can talk in relative privacy. “Myshka… are you sure this is good idea?”

“Alyssa thinks I’m ready, as does the team I’ve been training with to make sure I was on par against opponents,” you say. “And Xavier thought my records were sufficient justification to put me back on the list.”

Sad as the context of the situation is –and the stress and fear your know Piotr’s dealing with—it is a little satisfying to watch him flounder of the face of ‘you actually sorted your shit out and I wasn’t betting on that.’

Before he can say anything, though, Jean comes sprinting down the hall. “Y/N! Cable just called for backup! He and Wade accidentally stumbled into one of Magneto’s hideouts! We need to move out to help them!”

Your boyfriend stiffens. “Where—”

“You can’t come, Colossus,” Jean says quickly. “Magneto’s on site. Non-metal powers only.”

“I have to go.” You pop up to kiss your boyfriend’s cheek. “We’ll talk when I get back.” You sprint down the hall, keeping stride with Jean.

“Suit up and head out as fast as you can,” Jean says as she runs towards the hangar bay the jets are kept in. “We’ll be following you. I’ll send the coordinates to your phone.”

The site is an abandoned warehouse set on an equally abandoned, broken down industrial dock. Twisted piles of metal rebar lie everywhere –no wonder Magneto picked this spot to work out of—and various weeds are sprouting up from cracks in the concrete.

It’s also easy enough to track down Wade and Nate. You just follow the sounds of Wade’s pissed off screaming and the general sounds of rampant destruction until you practically walk into the fight scene.

Magneto and a few –much fewer than you expected, Wade and Nate must have caught him off guard as opposed to walking into a trap—of his men are facing down Wade and Nate.

Well, it’s not much of a face down since Magneto’s got a hold of all of Wade and Nate’s weapons, the weapons being metal and whatnot.

“Give me my guns back, you crotchety, geriatric fuck!” Wade screams as he pops his head over a concrete highway divider.

You land in the middle of the fracas, sending a gust of wind at Magneto and his henchman that knocks them all off their feet. “What’s good, dudes?”

“Oh, kickass entrance with casual catchphrase!” Wade chirps. “Very nice! Very on trend!”

Several meters behind you, the X-Jet lands on an open patch of concrete. The ramp to the main bay lowers, and Jean flies out followed by Bobby, Scott, Ororo, and Kitty –who’s clad in her trainee crop top, no less.

“It’s over, Magneto!” Scott says, pointing at him with an air of –arrogant—authority. “Whatever you’re planning won’t come to fruition.”

“See, now that’s just forced,” Wade says as he watches Scott, shaking his head. “So tripe-y. Yawn.”

“I am surprised you would declare this event over,” Magneto declares evenly as he stands up and dusts himself off. “Considering you nothing of what I am planning –to say nothing of the fact that I have not even started yet.”

“Give it up, Erik,” Jean says, glaring him down. “You’re outmatched and you have nowhere to run to.”

Magneto’s –Erik’s—lips curl into a cruel smirk. “On the contrary. You have given me everything I need to succeed.” He lifts his hand—

And Nate drops to his knees with a scream of pain.

Wade’s by his side in an instant, holding him. “Nate! No!”

Your stomach churns with horror as Nate’s screams echo off the concrete around you. They’re tortured, like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

Your vision goes red when you see a little streak of metal worm its way up Nathan’s neck. He’s activating the virus. He’s—

You whirl on Magneto. You can see his lips moving, no doubt saying something about trading Nate’s life for the escape of Magento and his team, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t care.

To your credit –or perhaps the credit of Magneto’s sense of self-preservation—he pales when you launch yourself at him. He lifts a twisted, thick steel beam with his other hand and launches it at you.

You let out an enraged scream and bat it away with an air current.

The beam punches through the side of a warehouse wall and clatters across the floor inside, out of view.

Magneto and his men look at the hole in the warehouse, then look at you –then tuck tail and run.

No.

You throw yourself after them, teeth clenched together as you keep your eye trained on Magneto’s dark red getup. You’re going down. I will dig your grave myself.

It’s not hard to catch up with him. Despite his ability to fly –and his energy and strength, which completely belies his age—you’re just plain old faster than him. It takes nothing to get in front of him, cutting off his escape from the abandoned docks.

He grits his teeth, then starts launching various discard scraps of rusted metal at you.

You cast a ball of whirling air around you, letting the random chunks of metal and hunks of rebar bounce away from you and across the concrete. Shield in place, you hurtle towards him again. “No one! Gave you! The right! To hurt others!”

“And no one had the right to hurt me, the rest of mutantkind!” he shouts back as he tries to press a steel beam through your air shield. “I will do whatever I have to make sure we are never hurt again!”

You send the bar flying with a flick of your wrist before you bear down on him once more. This fucking asshole—

No killing, Y/N. Jean’s voice echoes in your mind. We don’t kill.

Oh, you think back. I’m not gonna kill him. But he’s definitely gonna feel this for a few weeks.

By all means.

It takes a couple minutes to get Magneto where you want him, but you manage to corner him between the warehouse wall and you.

He sneers at you. “You’re all blind. You won’t take the shot.”

You narrow your eyes at him, fury boiling in your chest.

And then you unleash the mother of all sonic screams at him.

Magneto goes flying through the warehouse wall –which collapses before he hits it, which means you haven’t just turned him into gelatin—and out the hole you made with the steel beam earlier. He bounces across the pavement and rolls to a stop with a pained groan.

Before he can move, you snap a mutation repression cuff around his wrist. When he glares at you, you grab him by his cape and start dragging him towards the X-Jet. “You’re coming with us. Asshole.”

As fortune would have it, the rest of your team’s already captured the few henchmen Magneto had been working with. Kitty’s rambling excitedly about the fact that she managed to corner and take down one of the men all by herself, Jean and Ororo are listening and praising her—

And Wade and Nate are sitting off to the side.

You shove Magneto into one of the holding cells, then walk over to where your brother and dad are resting. You kneel in front of Nathan and give him a fraught once over. “How are you feeling?”

“Been worse,” he spits out through gritted teeth. He shoots a venomous glare in Magento’s direction. “Been a lot better, too.”

You squeeze his hands sympathetically. “Don’t worry. He got his. I made sure of it.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Nate smirks. “Not bad work, kid.”

“Alright,” Jean announces as Scott puts the last henchman in a holding cell. “That’s everyone. Let’s head back to the mansion.”

As per protocol, everyone heads to the medical wing for a basic evaluation and check up as soon as the jet touches down in the hangar.

Melissa, a purple-skinned healer that came to Xavier’s around the same time you did, smiles at you as you walk into your designated room. “Hey, Y/N. How’d everything go?”

“Magneto accelerated some of Nathan’s virus,” you say bitterly.

“I heard about that. Hopefully we’ll be able to help with some of the pain, if nothing else.” She starts checking your pupillary reaction with a penlight. “How’d it feel getting out in the field again?”

“Really good, actually. No incidents to report.”

“That’s great.”

There’s the tell-tale sound of heavy, metallic footsteps in the hall, and then Piotr’s standing in the doorway.

You don’t miss the nervous expression on his face and favor him with a soft smile. “Hey, babe.”

“Hi, Colossus,” Melissa echoes before addressing you once more. “Your pupillary response looks fine. We’ll do a quick set of X-rays, just to make sure everything’s good, and if that clears you’ll be good to go. Colossus, sorry, I’ll either need you to step out or armor down…”

“Up to you,” you say quietly when Piotr looks to you for instruction.

He armors down and steps just inside of the room, as out of the way he can be, given his size.

The X-rays go quickly, and –sure enough—all things are good.

“Alright, you’re all set,” Melissa says as she updates your medical records for the Institute’s database. She seems to notice the tension in both yours and Piotr’s shoulders –finally. “I’ll give you two the room so you can catch up.”

Your phone chirps as she walks out. You unlock it and check a text –from Charles, apparently.

The Prof: Will require your assistance with Magneto.

Your phone chirps again as another text pops up on the screen.

The Prof: Whenever you are ready.

Technically, you’re ready right now.

Not technically, you have a boyfriend you need to attend to first.

Magneto can wait, you decide as you pocket your phone. You look over at Piotr, who’s very occupied with looking at his shoes. “Hey.”

He looks up at you, guilt easy to read on his face. “Privet.” He swallows visibly. “I am… relieved you are well.”

“That makes two of us.” You pause for a moment, giving him an opportunity to speak. When he doesn’t, you sigh. Alright. Time to handle the elephant in the room. “You’ve been sidelining me from missions.”

He winces at the accusation. “Myshka, I—”

“No, that’s what you’ve been doing and you know it,” you say in a calm, level voice.

You’re not used to being this calm when dealing with confrontation. Normally, you’re used to exploding and raging until it all passes.

Maybe it’s that you know and trust Piotr, maybe it’s all the therapy you’ve been doing –it’s probably both, actually—but for now you’re just content to role with it.

You cross your arms over your chest. “You’ve been trying to keep me away from missions. And, since I know you, I’d hazard a guess that it’s because you’re scared of losing after the Hell’s Kitchen fiasco. Correct?”

He nods, looking down at his shoes again. “Da. You are right.”

“And you never thought to talk to me about your feelings? About any of it?”

His face creases with hurt. “I thought you would not listen.”

“And how would you know, since you didn’t try?” You walk over to him when he grimaces and turns his head away from you. “Piotr, I’ll cop to being the most stubborn pain in the ass at the mansion when Wade’s not around, okay? But I care about you, and I care about how you feel. If you don’t even give me the chance to listen to you, how am I supposed to know what you want, much less figure out if there’s a way to give it to you?”

He meets your gaze again, eyes shining with tears. “I almost lost you. I… I cannot go through that again. I love you, I want to be with you—”

“I love you, too,” you say when he cuts himself off, too overcome with emotion to speak. “More than anything, Piotr. But if you’re willing to manipulate me on stuff like this, who’s to say that you won’t once we’re married? Or have kids? We can’t be a team if you don’t communicate, Piotr, and it’s not fair to me to have you micromanage me, to have you not talk to me.” You purse your lips, then press on to finish your thought. “I can’t play second fiddle to your fear, Piotr. You have to pick one or the other.”

His eyes widen. “What—”

“I love you, Piotr. So damn much.” You try to swallow the lump in your throat. “But… but if you’re gonna choose to manipulate me instead of communicate with me, then… then I can’t be with you. We can’t be together if that’s what you’re gonna choose. And don’t—” You hold up a hand when he opens his mouth to reply “—don’t say anything about ‘you’ll always choose me’ right now. I know you, and I know you love me, and I trust that you want to choose me, but I want you to think about this. I want you to think about whether or not you can even accomplish it, and if you can how you’re going to do it. Okay?”

He closes his mouth, swallows hard, then nods. “Da. Khorosho. Okay. I… I will do that.”

Your heart squeezes in your chest as a tear slips down his cheek; you reach up to brush it away with your thumb. “I love you, Piotr. I love you so much.”

He wraps his arms around you and presses his forehead against yours. “I love you also, Y/N. You are… you are everything to me. Moye serdtse. Moye solntse. Moya dusha.”

You press your lips against his, and your heart cracks open at how passionately and tenderly and desperately he kisses you, and when you pull back you’re kinda sorta definitely crying, too.

“I love you,” he whispers as he cradles your face in his hands.

“I love you, too.” You kiss him one last time, then step back. “I have to go. Charles needs my help with Magneto.”

He nods, expression strained but understanding. “Da. Go. We will… we will talk later.”

You nod. “Yeah.” You kiss him one last time –you can’t help yourself, you love him—and then walk out of the examination room and down the hall.

The tension in Xavier’s office is palpable. Charles is seated behind his desk, engaged in a stare-down with a peeved looking Magneto –who’s changed into a button down shirt, a suit jacket, and slacks, somehow; the repression cuff still blinks on his wrist, a reminder that he’s powerless until someone decides that he shouldn’t be.

Wade and Nate are seated by one of the windows, watching Magneto with the precision and barely repressed aggression usually reserved for apex predators. Wade’s actually got his sword out, twirling it idly as he stares down one of the most powerful mutants known to history.

It’s a bit of a head trip, to say the least.

“I was summoned,” you say by way of greeting as you close the door behind you.

“Y/N.” The Professor shoots you a strained smile. “We seem to be at a bit of a stalemate. I was hoping you would be able to smooth things out—”

“You were hoping the young woman I consider as a daughter would be able to placate me into taking your side,” Nathan snaps. “Which is not gonna happen.”

“What sides are we even looking at?” you ask, feeling very much like a child being yanked into a messy pre-divorce argument. “What did I just walk into?”

“Knockoff psychic Seth Everman here—” Wade points his katana at Xavier “—wants to let Captain Magnet Kink here go. With a fucking warning.”

You –barely—manage to keep your face neutral as you look over at Charles. “Reason being?”

“I spent the first few years of my life in a Nazi prison camp,” Magneto spits out. “I am not going back into another one with a different label.”

Okay, you think as you try –and fail—to produce a counterargument to that statement. Guilt trip, trump card combo. Nice. “Wow. Alright. Uh. Not sure where to go from there.” You frown. “Okay, Professor –why did you even bring me in here? Like, you know Nate’s stance, you would’ve known that my being here wouldn’t change that, so why am I here?”

Charles steeples his fingers. “I was hoping in the event that Mr. Summers and Mr. Wilson would not… acquiesce to Erik’s release… you might be able to persuade Erik to… see our view of things. A guarantee of better behavior in the future, if you will.”

Magneto –Erik—rolls his eyes. “I have already made my stance clear, Charles. I will never side with inaction. The only way mutants will be safe is if we fight back and fight back now.”

“We are not about inaction,” Charles retorts. “We are about education. Which we cannot do effectively if you and your group of criminals are constantly causing chaos and striking fear into the hearts of non-mutants.”

“They should be afraid!” Erik snaps. “Non-mutants have held us under their boots for as long as the world remembers. They should be afraid, and they should flee like the bigoted cowards they are!”

“And what about the mutants that disagree with how you do things?” you interject before the two men can gain too much momentum with their argument. “What about those that stand up to you because some of your methods are violent, or dangerous? What then?”

“If they get in my way, they get what is coming to them.”

“How can you call yourself a champion for mutantkind if you’re willing to hurt mutants that get in your way?” you ask. “You can’t just walk all over people who disagree with you; there’s going to be people who don’t believe in your methods. That’s life. Deal with it.”

Erik narrows his eyes at you and draws himself up to his full height –which, for a man that’s pushing ‘definitely not spry anymore’ is impressively tall. “Those who refuse to act, or stand in the way of those that do, are complicit in the violence of our oppressors. Not doing anything is not an option!”

“We’re not doing ‘nothing,’” you fire back.

“Is that what you think?” he seethes. “You practice nonviolence against those who would have us killed. The last time I watched that happen, my people were gassed in extermination camps. I will not sit by and do nothing. Not now, not ever again. Perhaps you do not understand—”

“I understand perfectly well!” you snap, indignation rising in your chest.

Erik sneers at you. “You really think you can understand persecution the way I do? I watched my mother get shot by Gestapo agents when she refused to board the trains to the camps. I was put in a work camp and left to die.” He rolls up his sleeve, revealing a faded string of numbers tattooed on his forearm. “This, this is what persecution looks like. You could not possibly understand.”

“Oh, I understand just fine,” you growl out. “I was raised by anti-mutant parents in an anti-mutant community. I was beaten with a belt on a daily basis because I couldn’t control my mutation. I was hunted by men with rifles and shotguns when I tried to run away! My parents tried to have a telepath remove my mutation, which nearly killed me! Just because my experiences aren’t identical to yours doesn’t mean I don’t understand pain and persecution! So, buddy, if you want someone to walk down shitty ol’ memory lane with you and compare wounds, I’m glad to do and I’ll match you step for step!” You let that hang for a moment, then take a deep breath and continue when Erik doesn’t say anything. “Or, we can have a productive conversation and work on finding some sort of compromise that works as much as it possibly can.”

Erik scowls at you. “I am not interested in working with the enemy.”

“We’re not the enemy!” you shout. “Just because we’ve picked a different path doesn’t make us the enemy! And it’s not like your way is the end all, be all! No, no!” You glare at him when he opens his mouth to speak. “Look at him!” You point at Nate. “You were willing to run the risk of killing him just to get what you want. He’s a mutant; he’s your kind. If you’re willing to fuck over your own people to get your way, you’re the enemy we all need to be worried about. You cannot say you’re for mutants and then be selective based on our beliefs. Your pain and past experiences does not, will not, will never give you the right to do that! Never!”

Erik glances over at Nate then looks away, looking somewhat chastened.

“Look, Erik, I’m sorry for what you went through as a kid,” you say, gentler. “It’s fucked up and should have never happened to you. But if you want to make sure that never happens to mutants –to anyone—ever again, you can’t keep fighting us along the way. We’re the two different sides of the same coin. We need each other.”

He raises an eyebrow at that. “What… do you have in mind?”

You keep your face neutral, even as you’re stunned by the monumental breakthrough you just managed to set up. You take a deep breath and move on to the next part of your rant-speech-thing. “We need people like Charles –like the Institute—to take care of the ‘non-war’ stuff. Education, specialized training, housing for mutants kicked out of their homes. That kind of stuff requires special licensing which, given how many statutes and legal conventions you’ve broken, isn’t going to be possible for you to pull off. Some of us have to stay within the laws to take care of the kids and teens that can’t defend themselves. It’s how it has to be.”

“Agreed,” Erik says slowly. “I am surprised you are not advocating for ‘setting the model example.’”

“The decent people of the world? They’ll believe that,” you say. “They do exist. They’ll see us and support us. But there are a lot of non-decent people in this world. Places like Harmony, where I grew up. Traffickers. Government agencies that would exploit us for our abilities. That’s where we need people like you.”

“The X-Men do not practice or condone violence,” Charles interjects.

“And you’re a hypocrite on that,” you fire back. You hired my uncle as your hitman, you think at him. Don’t you dare try to paint yourself as a saint. “And you refuse to acknowledge that there are people who will never be swayed by what we’re doing. The people who’ve already decided they have the right to hurt us based on what makes us different are never going to care about what laws we get passed in our favor or what sort of example we set. And for them, we need people like Erik—” and my uncle “—to remind that when they try to hit us, we’ll hit back. The only thing that will stop them is knowing that we won’t be walked over.”

Erik smirks when Charles doesn’t argue back. “You seem… very willing to trust someone who has hurt your friends before.”

You smirk back at him. “Well, that’s because if you ever do anything like that again, no one is going to find what’s left of your body. I promise you that.”

He arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t seem too perturbed. “You would say that to a Holocaust survivor.”

Don’t let him see you flinch, you think to yourself.

Because what this really comes down to is if you’re willing to kill to protect the people you love.

And you are.

“You’re damn right I will,” you say, voice low and lethal. You stare up at him, unblinking while he scrutinizes you.

The corner of his mouth turns up after a moment. “You, Ms. L/N, are going places –and I cannot wait to see what those places are.” He looks over at Charles. “I only work with her. None of your other pacifistic followers, just her.”

You blink. Wait, what?

“Y/N is technically still a trainee,” Charles says, seemingly just as shocked as you are. “She is not—”

“Well, then, you better fast-track her for full status,” Erik retorts. “Because I work with her or no one else.”

Charles nods after a moment. “Very well. If that’s what gets you to cooperate.”

“Wonderful. Now that we straightened that out—” He holds up his arm, where the repression cuff is still latched around his wrist. “Get this damn thing off me.”

Charles sighs and wheels out from the behind the desk. “Yes. If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to someone who can do that for you.”

You wait until the two older men exit Xavier’s office, then look over at Nate and Wade. “Are you guys alright?”

Nathan shrugs. “Sure.”

You wince. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you guys out of it or—”

The corner of Nathan’s mouth turns up in a smile and he shakes his head. “Xavier threw you off a deep end. You priority was to make sure you could swim, not check and see if everyone else was swimming, too.”

You dart over and wrap your arms around him in a hug. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll live. Hurt more than anything.” He places a fatherly kiss on the top of your head. “You did good, kid.”

“She did better than good,” Wade comments. “She handed Magneto his balls.”

You look over at your honorary brother. “Are you alright?”

Wade nods. “Nate’s right. Xavier threw you the motherfucker of all curve balls. You did good. Besides, I trust your judgement.”

The praise makes you teary, and you manage to eek out a “thank you” as you let go of Nate. “Alright, I need to go wrap things up. You two just… make out on Xavier’s couch, or something.”

“Ooh,” Wade says as you walk out of the Professor’s office. “There’s an idea!”

You call your uncle as soon as you find a quiet enough spot and update him on everything that’s happened.

He congratulates you on doing the conflict resolution version of defusing a nuclear missile –“Yeah, Chuck’s kinda shitty about tossing people off a cliff sometimes.”—and gives you the go ahead to give Erik his number so that he can coordinate with your uncle on various missions –“Hey, as long as I can beat the shit out of him if he tries to jack me over, I’m good.”

You wind up escorting Erik –and his henchman—out to a waiting car on the front drive. You hand him a card with your uncle’s number written on it. “Someone will be contacting you through this number in the next forty-eight hours about how your partnership with the X-Men will proceed.”

He smirks. “So, you were not bluffing when you called Charles a ‘hypocrite.’ Interesting.”

“I don’t take shots I can’t make.”

He studies you for a moment, then smiles and shakes his head. “You are indeed going places, Ms. L/N. A shame you decided to limit your destinations by tethering yourself to the Institute.”

“Good for me that my opinion’s the only one that counts on that,” you fire back. “I think I’m doing fine.”

He smirks, then heads towards the car. “I will be seeing you, Ms. L/N.”

“I bet,” you mutter under your breath. You watch the car drive off, then jog back inside the house.

You’ve got a boyfriend to talk to.

You find Piotr in your shared room, sitting on the bed.

He’s armored down and dressed in casual clothes, staring ahead at the wall opposite the bed. His eyes look puffy, his nose is red, and there’s a pile of used tissues sitting next to him on the bed.

You shuck your flight jacket off –you haven’t had a chance to change out of your mission garb—and run over to the bed.

Piotr yanks you to him, pulling you to his chest in a borderline crushing hug.

You’re holding him just as tight.

“The Professor updated me on everything,” he says, voice slightly hoarse. “He says… you got Magneto to cooperate?”

“I think I just spewed a lot of bullshit that happened to make sense,” you say, a little shaky now that you’re out of all of it and coming down from a shitwhack of adrenaline. “I’m just surprised I didn’t write a check my proverbial dick couldn’t cash.”

He lets out a soft huff of a laugh. “You are gifted, myshka. Do not sell yourself short.” His face puckers with grief, and he drops his gaze to where his hands are holding yours. “And... I am so sorry for… manipulating you. I –I did not want to, I was not trying to, I just could not bear thoughts of losing you again—”

You press your forehead again. “Babe, I know, okay? I know that keeping everything organized and controlled is how you cope with stress, alright? I know what I’m walking into with you; it was never the fact that you were controlling, it was that you wouldn’t talk to me. That you wouldn’t try to manage your stress in a way that was healthy for both of us.”

He nods. “Da. I understand. And I did think, as you asked me.” He swallows hard and swipes at his damp cheeks with the back of his hand. “I think, for this specific instance, I never fully processed everything. I went from incident to taking care of you to my family to teaching. I never had a chance to address my fear or my grief. So, for this, I think some counselling would help me with that.”

“I think that sounds good,” you agree, encouraging. “And it makes sense.”

“As for possible future incidents…” He shoots you a nervous look before continuing. “I… confess I could not think of much. I can work with therapist for ideas, but on my own—”

You shush him gently when the pitch of his voice starts rising –it’s the closest to panicky you’ve ever seen him. “I’m not asking you to have all the details worked out. I wasn’t expecting you to have the details worked out. The fact that you’re committed to figuring out what tools you need to cope and how to get them is good enough for me.”

His shoulders sag visibly with relief. “Khorsho.” He wraps his arms around you and holds you against his chest. “Thank you.”

You kiss his collarbone, then his jaw. “I love you, Piotr. You’re my whole damn world. You know that, right?”

He nods, pressing his lips against your forehead. “And you are my world.” He exhales shakily, then lets you go to toss the pile of used Kleenexes in the trash. “I should take care of these.”

“Did you really cry that much?” You ask, heart tearing into for your giant marshmallow of a boyfriend. “Babe…”

“I was worried,” he admits. “That this would be the end of us.”

You shake your head. “I didn’t think it would come to that. I knew that you’d be able to give me a good answer. And I didn’t want to scare you –didn’t say any of it to scare you—but this is serious to me, and I had to convey that it was serious—”

“It is serious,” he agrees as he traces over your ring finger with his thumb. “It is good to take seriously. So… we are good?”

You smile fondly at him. “We’re good.”

He leans in and presses his lips against yours. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He kisses you gently –and then not gently at all. He pulls you into his arms, kisses you like a drowning man tasting air for the first time, clutches at your body like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

You’re clinging to him as well, tugging at his hair and rocking your hips against his. It’s like a fire coursing through you; you don’t care if you burn.

He mouths at your neck, presses wet, open-mouthed kisses at the spot where your skin gives way to the collar of your shirt. “I need you.” His voice breaks when he speaks, making him sound all the more crazed.

You lean back to shuck your shirt off and toss it somewhere behind you, press a gasping kiss to his lips. “I need you, too.” You cling to his shoulders as he rolls so you’re pressed between the bed and him.

The future’s uncertain. You don’t care about the future.

You’ve got Piotr, here and now. That’s all you need.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #cablepool #got some plot and some angst and some almost smut #what more do you need?#x men fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction

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gayagendaofficial · 5 years

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Wait, what’s gay lingo? Like, what does twink, bear, etc. mean?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Before I get into actually defining these terms, I’d like to write about a few things:

So this is probably in reference to this post I made. Not to explain the joke to death, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. I wanted to make fun of how people who aren’t mlm think they know what mlm terms like “twink” and “bear” mean and how they blatantly use them incorrectly everywhere, because they think they’re funny (bc gay men are a joke, right? //sarcasm), or because it makes them look “woke”. It’s an idea I had for the longest time when I saw something a str8 woman wrote about Zac Efron being a twink, in the present. Like yes, Zac Efron was a twink, past tense, but he is absolutely not a twink anymore (if you can even call a str8 man a twink). And she also implied that being a twink is something you can’t outgrow, which is laughable, because it’s kind of a meme among gay men that being a twink is something you grow out of whether you like it or not.

This mostly seems to be a problem among cishet women, since cishet men tend to be too concerned with their “masculinity” to touch gay culture. But since this is tumblr and virtually none of you are cishet, a lot of the times I’ve seen people misuse these terms on this site were LGBT+ people who weren’t themselves mlm. In those cases, the reasons seem more that these people are just misinformed, and they use these terms because mlm use these terms, and we share a community. Part of it comes from the fact that wlw might see the terms “twink” and “bear” as analogous to “femme” and “butch” respectively, which is not true in the slightest (Butch and femme are their own complex thing. What they actually have in common with twink and bear is that few outside their communities actually know what they mean lol). Another reason might be that other LGBT people see mlm using these terms sarcastically and think they’re being used in earnest; if an actual gay man calls a bodybuilder a twink, he’s probably being sarcastic, and also probably trying to insult him (which is a whole can of worms I’ll open up in a bit).

I’m gonna try to define what “twink”, “bear”, and a couple of other terms actually mean, as well as give a little bit of context to how they’re used and controversy surrounding these identities within gay spaces, partially based on my experience as a gay man and partially based on casual research. I’m just one gay man, and I’m not an expert in queer studies or anything, so take from that what you will. I hope this will be useful to mlm who are just discovering their identities and exploring their sexuality/gender, who are new to the community, and I also hope to inform our siblings elsewhere in the LGBT community. This info could also be useful to cishet allies, although please be mindful of your intentions in using these terms.

Anywho, lets get to the definitions:

A twink is a young, smooth, slim mlm. The definition here is generally seen as being pretty strict on those 3 criteria, although “twink” is sometimes used for older mlm who are skinny and don’t have much body hair. Those last two criteria are the most important, because there are other categories for mlm that fit one of the criteria; an otter is essentially twink + bodyhair, and there’s a whole host of other words for other body types.

The definition of “bear” is a little more flexible than “twink”, although it generally comes down to the inverses of those same 3 criteria. The most important of these is the bodyhair requirement; any definition you find of bear includes something about being hairy. Almost as important as bodyhair is body type, although “bear” covers a slightly larger range than twink in that regard. Usually, “bear” indicates that someone is large or plus-sized, although it can also sometimes be used to describe someone who is muscular in the sense that they are beefy (if you can see a 6 pack, he’s probably not a bear). It’s also sometimes associated with being slightly older, but that’s not nearly as important, and “bear” can refer to any age. The term “cub” refers to mlm with the same body type as a bear, but who are smooth and young.

Now, let’s get into some misconceptions/controversies surrounding these terms. The first of these is that twink and bear are the only two options, and that all mlm fall into one of these two categories, or that other terms are simply variations on those two main terms. This misconception is really only one held by people who aren’t mlm themselves (or are, but are only just learning the terminology). These terms are extremely specific, and the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of mlm don’t fit into either of these categories. And that’s ok! There are a ton of other words mlm use to describe themselves. I’ve already mentioned “otter” and “cub”; there’s also “jock”, which refers to muscular mlm; “wolf”, which also refers to muscular mlm, but specifically hairy ones (with a bit of overlap with the “beefier bears” I mentioned earlier); the relatively new term “twunk” which you may know from this video as “a combination twink and hunk”; and many many more. In addition, all of these categories are really just physical descriptions of your body, and don’t have any bearing on anything else. You don’t need to fit into any of them.

That being said, there are a number of stereotypes associated with these terms, and it is important to address them.

Our next misconception is one that’s as common among mlm as as it is among everyone else: that twinks are by definition fem, and bears are by definition masc. “Masc” and “fem”, short for masculine and feminine respectively, come with their own host of problems, and that is a can of worms that I am not going to open up right now. This post is long enough as it is. If you want the sparknotes version of the controversy surrounding the masc-fem dichotomy, it basically boils down to misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia. But back to twinks and bears: I would like to assume that it’s obvious that your body type or bodyhair has absolutely no impact on your personal presentation of gender. There are plenty of fem bears and masc twinks. But unfortunately, most people don’t seem to get this. And this super important, because the gendered way we think of these terms affects everything else I’ll be talking about in the remainder of this post.

My next point, which is really and observation based on my experience in the gay community, is that bear as a term seems to be much less… loaded. However, being a twink myself, there might be a gap in my personal experience, so any bears feel free to correct me. However, from what I’ve seen, “bear” isn’t really used as an insult in the way “twink” is. Which is a bit of a miracle, considering how prevalent fat-shaming is in the gay community. From what I’ve seen, bear isn’t a term that’s forced on you, it’s a term that bears choose for themselves, almost always in a positive way. It’s a term associated with body positivity, and bear communities seem to be much less toxic than the gay community as a whole. Even when it’s used to describe someone else, it’s always a neutral statement of fact. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used as an insult, or even sarcastically. The worst I’ve seen of it is that it’s used as a porn category, which contributes to the fetishization of fat people; but then again, twink and jock are also porn categories, so it would be weird for bear not to be. This isn’t to suggest that bears are treated better than anyone else in the gay community, if anything they’re treated worse; just that the word “bear” itself has neutral to positive connotations. (Again, any bears correct me on this if you’ve seen it used negatively!)

Twink, on the other hand, is absolutely used as an insult, and frequently. And while this may sometimes be harmless, more often than not it’s really problematic. If you’re plus-sized and you use twink as an insult in the same vein that Nicki Minaj said “fuck the skinny bitches”, that’s completely fine. Twinks are seen as being desirable (if they behave a certain way; more on that later), so effectively it’s punching up instead of punching down. However, a good 95% of the time that “twink” is used as an insult, it really comes from one of the many stereotypes that all essentially boil down to the idea that twinks are fem. And the idea that being fem is inherently bad and insult worthy is, once again, rooted in misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia.

This association between twinks and femininity also has a lot of scary implications on the beauty standards twinks are held to. I’ve noticed that twinks fill a niche in the gay community that is similar to the role cis women are supposed to fill in western culture as large, and that we’re only seen as sexually valuable if we perform the same behaviors and meet the same beauty standards that are typically reserved for women. We’re bottoms by default, submissive both in and out of the bedroom (yes I actually am a sub bottom, but that’s beside the point). We’re supposed to maintain a completely smooth, hairless appearance; a shaved ass is the bare minimum of hygiene. I once met a guy on grindr who demanded that I be completely hairless everywhere beneath my eyelashes, and while that’s a bit extreme, he was by no means an outlier. Just today I talked to a guy who wanted me hairless between my neck and knees. We’re often seen as vapid and stupid, and infantilization of twinks is rampant (some guys put way too much emphasis on the young part of the definition). And, to cap it all off, there’s the racism! Who’d’a thunk that all forms of oppression are connected? (sarcasm). Twinks can of course be any race, but the ones you’ll see men on grindr going after the most are white or light-skinned Asian twinks. Combine that with stereotypes of Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern men as dominant and aggressive, and you have a whole slew of white supremacist ideas painted over with a thin coat of gay porn. (mlm of color who’d like to add or correct me on anything, please do so!)

I’ll end this already long post with a comparatively brief discussion on who these terms apply to. Basically, if you’re an mlm and you fit the definition of “twink” or “bear”, congratulations! You’re a twink/bear! “Can bi men use these terms?” Of course! “What about trans men?” Are you attracted to men and male-aligned people? Then of course! That last one might be controversial to some cis gays, and to that I say fuck right off. However, it does get a bit muddier with trans women and transfem nonbinary people and the word twink. Trans women are absolutely not mlm, but many of them have been a part of mlm communities for a long time, often before they even realized they were trans, and some may be reluctant to give up the word twink (I haven’t seen this for bear, although again, lmk if you’ve seen evidence to the contrary). And on top of that, a lot of cis men looking to have sex with trans women conflate trans women and cis twinks. Because remember what I said about twinks filling the niche of women? It’s often a niche they share with trans women, except trans women have it even worse, because they are actually women. My two cents is, if a trans woman wants to refer to herself as a twink, she’s more than welcome to. Just don’t go around calling trans women “twinks” unless they specifically say you can; it’s a gendered term, you are misgendering them, and, once again, you can fuck right off. (trans women also please comment if you want!)

Well, anon, I bet you weren’t expecting a post this long. At least I hope y’all learned something! Be gay do crimes!

#mlm #twink #bear #gay #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbt+#lgbtq+#gay culture #ask #anon #sfw #long post #transphobia //#misogyny //#racism //#fatphobia //

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092219archive · 5 years

Note

oH IF UR STILL TAKING THAT SONG ASK THING-- bloodsport by raleigh ritchie

Send me a song and I’ll tell you which f/o it makes me think of

I LISTENED TO IT AND OHHH MY GODDD

chi, you slammed the “what and how eren envisions their selfships to be like.” absolutely decimated the head of the nail, and the entire thing while you’re at it. i was struggling to decide whether this was an ephraim or ozymandias song (as they are my main s/os), but certain verses helped me decide that it was definitely an ozy kind of song! but idate could also... be a choice for a song like this... another time-

immediately, the song starts off with “nothing is perfect but your; imperfections are quaint” which stabbed me in the heart when i listened to that, because... well, i selfship to cope with insecurities and life issues, you know? something that i continue to struggle with are the many flaws i have, and it’s difficult to accept myself when i know things are wrong with me. i always get thoughts of “i can play around with ozy/eren because eren’s a flexible and fictional character, just like ozy. but i can’t play around with ozy/real eren, because real eren is kind of gross.” but i guess something i’ve always appreciated are people that can be patient with me, because i’m a double-edged sword a lot of the times. i’m lucky to have people in my life that are willing to stick around with me, and also people who encourage me to do better.

ozy being patient is a weird thought, but not impossible. that’s because everything is already his, and if it’s not his, you’re wrong. it’s his. manchild. i imagine that... if ozy loves eren (i use “eren” as a temporary placeholder for actual me right now, because writing “ozy and i/me and ozy” is making me so unbelievably uncomfortable), i feel like he’d be patient with eren and their gross habits and behaviors, their unhealthy reclusive attitude, their crude language... eren is you could say, “already his” considering his high status -- just needs a bit of... polishing, refinement. maybe some major fixes here and there.

“and your love is worth it; and for that i will wait” is something i’m a bit iffy on though, because it’s really difficult for me to stay committed? it’s... very inconsistent -- how long i stick around and such. i haven’t been in a romantic relationship under good conditions, so i can’t really say that i’d be a “super devoted person” since i don’t have experience. i like to imagine that ozy would be able to recognize that maybe eren was someone that could love in a way that was unique, something that hits you when you least expect it, or maybe even when they’re gone. and so he wants to keep them around, even if there’s a bunch of daily missions he has to complete and side quests he has to fulfill to get what exactly he wants.

i do see myself as a chore, and that’s because i feel like a chore. i can play stupid on purpose, or it can be unintentional. i can play “hard to get” because i know what the other person wants, or i don’t. and sometimes when you’re not looking, i can leave but i won’t disappear completely. if someone and i don’t have a routine schedule, then things’ll fall apart on my end. there’s a lot to watch for. but thinking of ozy being able to push through all of that, to see past those habits and thoughts i get, it’s... really comforting. he kind of... knows that i’m more than what i make myself to be. you’re worth every second, kind of thing... yells softly

“i drive you crazy but you; always return” can either be “eren’s sept. 2018 - apr. 2019 ozy slowburn era,” or it can be scenarios of ozy “spicing” things up to keep things interesting. to get closer to eren, he keeps things unpredictable and hits them when they’re weakest, but i don’t mean that in a bad way. ozy would keep eren on their toes, and when they’re expecting something from him, he doesn’t provide. he keeps them guessing, and when eren wants answers, they’ll get their answers. and he knows that they will. if he keeps doing what he does (and he will), then eren will always be falling into whatever card he plays next. it’s a cycle that they’ll never win, but they’re determined to get what they want just as much as ozy is.

“if i fall short; if i break rank... // i am all yours;... i’m on all fours, willingly down” shows just how set ozy is on making sure he’s showing his devotion to whatever the two can have. he knows there’s some chemistry brewing, and he wants to ensure that [chemical] equilibrium. the wording isn’t something he would exactly say, but his motives show more what he means. it’s like in some of his voice lines where he says, “me, accompanying you to save humanity? wrong! it is you, who is accompanying me to save humanity!” it’s not really possessive speech or actions, but a reminder of the two’s positions when you consider him into the equation.

but by the end of the day, this is ultimately a master/servant relationship. if something he does boosts their fragile ego and it benefits him, then you can almost bet that he will dive right in. a strong master means an even stronger servant. he won’t really “lower” himself, but he’ll probably raise eren to a status nearly as high as his own. buuut, not necessarily. i’m having a difficult time putting what i mean into words 💦

“loving you is a bloodsport; fighting in a love war” is the title of the song, which is nice! but i got some analyzing and thinking to do-

i feel like, with the circumstances that eren and ozy are in, it’s really difficult to find time to “love” each other properly. rather, eren can’t love him back properly. they have to save humanity and fix the singularities, they have to work on saving themselves (as cheesy as it sounds), and getting other servants involved in the saving of humanity is already terrifying enough. loving someone with these burdens on their shoulders, especially something they can’t carry, is a struggle because god knows what will happen if you step too close.

but the thing with ozy is that, he’s spoken to gods. hell, he’s the pharaoh. what’s a master of chaldea to him? only someone he’ll conquer, just like anyone else that stepped on his path to getting what he desires.

“although you love me, sometimes we meet. things can get ugly, but we’re still a team” is something that’s like... they probably get into disagreements about the correct choice, or course they should take. what exactly is bad for eren, what exactly is good for ozy -- but they’re accommodating for each other’s needs. just, differently. and right after those lyrics, it’s “we are an army; the brakes are within // but that’s why we’re stronger; and that’s how we’ll win” which portrays exactly how i imagine things should be. they’re not going to get along 100% well at first. they’ll click, maybe, but learning about their differences, both obvious ones and those less so, help them build on each other to better themselves and achieve what they want to achieve. like i’ve been mentioning -- he knows there’s something going on, but he wants to make sure that it works. it’s like one of those symbiotic relationships in biology, or something.

“it’s not what i’m in love for; i know but i don’t know if you can help it // baby, i’m just being selfish” these also have big ozy vibes!! maybe he wasn’t actually considering on falling in love because everything is of equal value to him. it’s not like he liked the master of chaldea when they came strolling into his pyramid anyways. maybe he wanted to establish a strong master/servant bond because that’s one of the primary rules of the holy grail war (except this is the big one, and humanity is on the line), because he realizes that he’s being held back by something, which would presumably be eren.

and then he sees this weird, damaged magus and he takes interest, because this person looks just like moses for whatever reason -- and maybe it was their eyes, or certain emotions they showed -- and he invests more time into them, wondering just how and why he made that connection in the first place, and he tries to pursue something that doesn’t want to be chased, and he sees the blood and the cracks on their hands and self, and he wonders just how, exactly, did he get where he did, but he’s already so far down the rabbit hole that he keeps going and going into territory that’s dangerous and prohibited. but this is the same man that conquered leaders and land, and created structure for his people, and has had poems and movies made about him.

he’s already dedicated. he’s been that way since the beginning of time, and quite literally. there’s no reason to back down and out.

“i’ll curse the day that they return; with a smile on my face; as their heads hit the floor” is... well, excluding the cursing part, but this is how ozy is in f/go 💦 he’s always smiling! he’s always having fun!! the nerve!!!

“what i’m tryna say is; i’ll protect you ‘till the day i’ll meet my maker // so don’t fight me now; ‘cause you might need me later” kind of makes me feel like he could be referring to the database he comes from, and how he’ll be with you to get some answers from the king of mages. “i’ll poke fun at you, but i’ll stick around, especially for your final fight” thing... uuuううううー

#long post #thank you so much for the ask chi!!#and this song's so good i'm so weark #chiliechii #eren chats

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anhed-nia · 6 years

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BLOGTOBER 10/28/2018: THE PROPHECY (1995) aka ANGEL AUTOPSY

Faith is an interesting thing. When you have faith in something, it means that that thing is such an important component of your conception of your self, that it doesn’t actually matter whether it exists separately of you or not. It defines your relationship to the world, it gives your life context, it is a metaphor that gives your experiences narrative resonance. Its basic function is to give you an opportunity to save yourself from chaos: You personally choose to inherit a great myth, knowing that by definition you can never determine its factuality. Naturally, a truly great myth has enough vaguery and flexibility that masses of people can project themselves into it, whether it is a story of an omnipotent father who saves you, or a story of supernatural power that comes from within you. It is because of my own understanding of faith as this system of archetypal mapping, that I find THE PROPHECY so totally and utterly weird.

Let me put it another way: Most movies describe an allegory for something fairly universal. HARRY POTTER, and` SPIDER-MAN, and STAR WARS, and thousands of other movies are about underdogs who discover their true potential by facing impossible challenges. MEAN GIRLS and MEATBALLS are about being yourself. Any number of Disney classics preach that love conquers all. My point is that if you ask me what [Movie X] is about, I can usually tell you in fewer than ten words, in a way that doesn’t even touch on the real content of the film, and still have answered your question pretty clearly. Then there are some rare and baffling movies where, in order to tell you what the movie is about, I would have to describe every one of the literal events that happens in the movie, in order. There’s simply no way to get closer the truth. THE PROPHECY is such a movie.

Now that I’m done with my second introduction to this writeup, I will *try* to tell you what goes on in it. Elias Koteas (w00t!) is a devout seminary student who leaves it all behind when he has a divine vision of angels at war, so terrifying that he loses his taste for loaves and fishes. He turns to the gritty life of an LA gumshoe, but is thrown off course again when Eric Stoltz (huh), an angel from Heaven, tells him that the angel war is on its way. Stoltz kills another angel, and the cops do an angel autopsy, where they find out that angels...ugh...let’s go to Wikipedia: “It has no eyes, no signs of bone growth, (displays) hermaphroditism, and the same blood chemistry as an aborted fetus.” Thanks, thanks for that. The dead angel has an ancient Bible with a Book of Revelations bonus section that describes how like...a dark soul will come to earth and its job will be to like eat other dark souls, or something. For some reason. So the dark soul is this recently deceased, super evil army guy who was a complete asshole in the Korean War. Stoltz goes and gets the soul out of the corpse, and hides it inside this little Native American girl by really freakishly kissing her on the mouth. Meanwhile, Christopher Walken (sweet!) is another angel who is also looking for the soul, and he has to always have these zombie helpers for some reason that he makes out of people who committed suicide, and you get to hear a lot of rules about that even though it doesn’t contribute anything at all to the story, except that he loses one and has to make a second one out of Amanda Plummer (oh, word?). There’s a really great scene of Christopher Walken tricking all these little kids into letting him look around in their mouths for the soul, at the reservation where Virginia Madsen (hey!) teaches. Which, by the way, it’s pretty awkward to have this story about how the Bible is Real, and set it mostly on a Native American reservation. So THEN Viggo Mortensen (?!) shows up as Lucifer and tells Elias Koteas and Virginia Madsen this whole thing about how if Christopher Walken wins the angel fight then it will turn Earth into a second Hell, and Lucifer considers that to be one too many Hells, so he’s going to like help them or whatever. The reason this shit is all happening is that when God created humans, all the angels got really jealous and were dicks about it, so God shuttered Heaven, and no dead people have been able to get in there ever since. So finally, there’s like a big epic battle, and everything goes back to normal whatever that is. Lucifer asks Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas to come to Hell with him, and they just don’t. The end!

So that’s what THE PROPHECY is about, but also, I have no idea what THE PROPHECY is about. It ends with Elias Koteas saying some stuff about the nature of faith, which is kind of hilarious because this entire movie is predicated on measurable events that would completely eliminate the need for faith. Actually, even though Koteas is posited as someone who has lost faith, that’s not really what happens--he still believes in God, he’s just MAD at God because God showed him this terrible prophetic vision that he hated, so he’s just kind of giving God the cold shoulder. It’s actually very much like your average Chick tract. These ubiquitous and wonderfully kitschy pieces of religious propaganda typically portray a secular person getting saved by a concerned churchgoer, but in most cases, the one who needs saving...really sort of believes in Jesus to begin with, they just don’t like him for some reason. If you’ve never seen it, I urge you to read my favorite one, The Sissy, in which a pair of macho truckers don’t like Jesus because they think he was a huge wuss.

They meet a bizarrely handsome, strapping other trucker who explains to them that getting crucified takes a lot of guts, and that Jesus *had* to turn the other cheek because he was a supernatural badass who could crush you like a bug, and finally, he has the power to send you to Hell, which is not very sissified. The story ends with the truckers getting saved, having been thoroughly convinced that Jesus was not a pussy after all. Speaking from my own experience as a non-believer, if someone were to try to save me, the problem they’d run up against is my resistance to the idea that Jesus is real--as opposed to my feeling that Jesus IS real, he just sucks. But THE PROPHECY is built on a very Chick tract-like center, offering me a hero who truly believes in God--who has even experienced proof!--but finds the whole angel war business so distasteful that he just stops living the life of a believer out of spite. I don’t know if I would find it within myself to do that, if I were directly confronted with the awesome power of the Biblical God, and I don’t really know what kind of person it’s supposed to make Elias Koteas, that he can do that. But, that’s what happens in the movie.

It’s starting to occur to me that if I wanted to be really brief about what this movie is like, all I would have to tell you is that it is written and directed by Gregory Widen, the guy who wrote THE HIGHLANDER. What that means is, THE PROPHECY is basically just a collection of extremely nerdy and anal retentive, but memorably bizarre RULES that the director just came up with out of nowhere, on the bet that people will like it just because it hasn’t been done before and is suitably bananas. And people do like it, I guess! There’s four sequels and a TV series, and I cannot imagine what goes on in any of them. In this way, THE PROPHECY is not that much different from any sort of religion I’ve rejected: It’s stuffy, overly complicated, and so unrelated to anything even analogously similar to organic human life that I just don’t feel compelled to join up. I suppose I could show a little faith and just believe that it must have a lot to offer people. It’s just not the great myth that gives my personal life meaning.

#the prophecy #blogtober #highlander #christopher walken #elias koteas #amanda plummer #viggo mortensen #virginia madsen #eric stoltz #chick tracts #religion #horror #religious horror #supernatural #fantasy #gregory widen

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wlwaxolotls-archived · 5 years

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30, 18, and 7 uwu

owo hewwo jay

30. Mermaids or fairies?

Mermaids!!! I love thinking of all like the potential behind them?? think of all the cool variants depending on the various ocean biomes!! also may be because i just love ocean shit in general

18. 3 qualities you like about yourself.

i am. surprisingly flexible. i sit in super weird positions a lot that stretch or put strain my legs?? but i don’t feel much strain myself unless i actually start thinking about it asjkhfhlas. Another thing I like myself a lot is that i can get really easily passionate about stuff!! Even if I just recently got into it!! I can get especially passionate about animation and marine biology akshda. Okay last thing uhh. I’m really happy with my ice skating skills (sort of). I’m sort of out of practice but i can still move about with ease and calm!! ahhh ice skating is rlly the best feeling in the world to me

7. Butterflies, or dragonflies?

butterflies! they’re so pretty and they’re so many cool types??? Like glasswing butterflies, birdwing, vampire butterflies!!!

#ask #ask game #hewwo jay owo #also i should make a tag for u too!!!#jay tag #wlwdragons #mutuals i lOVE you

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bright-hao · 6 years

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soft bias tag

okay, its been ages since i did a tag on here!! but my hermanita @hocidi(or hijita now? since you call me mom?) tagged me to do this soft bias tag!

my ult is still minghao, but bc most of this is romantic stuff(and i dont really have a lot of romantic feelings for hao) i’m gonna do my other best boy, seungkwan

Who is your bias: Boo Seungkwan of Seventeen

What made you notice them: I always loved seungkwan, its so funny cause at first i used to be like “oh i wish seungkwan was my twin” and as time went on it was like “yes, seungkwan and i would be best friends we’d be a killer duo” but like...by the time boom boom era came around and he dyed his hair blond the first time? fuck dude, i knew i was in love. very specifically there’s one photo (here) that always comes to mind when i think about first falling head first for him, and well. now he’s my guy.

what’s your favorite thing about them: boy, everything! physically, i love his cheekbones/jaw combo, people really dont pay enough attention to his bone structure. and personality wise, i love his ability to just talk and command all the attention in a room if he wants to,especially because it’s not in a scary, authoritative way, and i feel it makes people comfortable while they also respect him and hold him in high esteem bc of it. I personally have a close relationship with words, so to see the abilities he has with just his everyday speech is...spectacular

who would initiate skinship more: i think both of us, but in different ways? i feel like i would initiate a lot of smaller touches, just so we can be in constant contact, and also id probably spend a lot of time thinking about something before i do it, but i feel like seungkwan would be like hey! let’s hug, and we’d...hug. he’d probably initiate bigger things, like hugging and hand holding, and it’d be more spontaneous for him.

who would hog the blankets more: i don’t really feel cold easily and tend to get warmer as the night goes on, so what might really happen is seungkwan will often wake up buried under all the blankets because i pushed them over to his side in the middle of the night

who would be more clingy: earlier on, it would be him, bc i dont let myself get overly attached to people, but maybe if we spend years together and i get used to him/his constant presence in my life, things might change

who would say I love you first: oooohhh this one’s tricky. if i feel like he’s still sorting through his feelings and commitments, i’ll wait for him to say it first, but if i feel sure about him and where his heart is at, i’ll say it as soon as possible. possibly way earlier than most people would. it’s not a big deal to me when the words drop(bc it’s really not about words anyway for me, its about proving it with your actions, and if he loves me i should know even without him saying it), but if it is for him then i guess i’d wait til he felt right about it. granted, i think the more open you are to begin with the faster seungkwan himself would open up, so maybe it’ll just be a toss up bc we’ll both already be on the same page.

who would be more easily flustered: i’m a confident gay, so like, it would definitely be me making him flustered as much as i can for fun.

What cuddling position would you two have: okay, so here’s what i’m thinking: he’s mostly on his back, however he’s comfy, and i’m curled up at his side with one leg thrown over him and he has one arm around/under me, and my head is either next to his on the pillow or on his shoulder (like this). we can reverse the positions too we’re flexible

which colors remind you of them and why: sunset colours!! i often call him my sunset boy, so sunset colours, and very specifically all shades of orange, make me think of him. they’re just...warm and sweet but also fiesty and bold colours which is...him in print.

which season would you like to spend with them: uhhh all of them for the rest of my life? Idk, I feel stupid answering this since I live in a tropical country but...mm, maybe the time period where it's not quite spring yet but it's not really winter anymore...like, imagine going on a road trip and you get to see the landscape change from white and snowy to bare for a little while and then everything blooms. gorgeous. i wanna do that with him. or maybe the summer season in the arctic where it’s light out 24 hours a day. or just mango season here in trinidad

who would bake cookies and who would steal the batter: seungkwan would probably make the decision for us to bake cookies together bc it’ll be a fun bonding experience or whatever, but he doesnt really know what he’s doing, so i have to give him all the instructions and explain everything to him, and then i let him struggle with all the dirty work and look on and occasionally snatch bits of the dough to ‘make sure it’s coming out right’

which one of you would make bad puns and how would the other react: i dont really do puns, so it’ll have to be him. he probably spends all his alone time trying to come up with them. over text, he might get a eye roll emoji or a ‘why are you like this’, in person i’d probably just ignore it completely and continue the conversation like it never happened. (which might make him pouty, but pouty seungkwan is adorable, so either way i win)

which one of you would nearly burn down the kitchen trying to microwave a poptart and who come to the rescue: i’m brown and poor poptarts have never been a thing in my house, so i suppose it’ll be me who screws up. wake up in the middle of the night hungry so i sneak into the kitchen as quiet as possible, not even turning on any lights, put the thing in the microwave for way longer than its supposed to be. when it explodes seungkwan runs outside half asleep bc he wants to know who got shot. he cleans the mess bc he loves me and tells me to leave the pop tart prep to him in the future.

who likes to lean over tall railings and who pulls them back: it would be me, adrenaline junkie and lover of risks and high places, leaning over the railing of a tall building like ‘omg, i could jump right now it would be like flying’ seungkwan would drag me away and probably sit me down and lecture me about it too

what would you watching a horror film with them be like: i would never watch a horror movie, lol. next question.

who would be the cheesy flirt and who would be the smooth flirt: i think we could both be cheesy when we wanted to, but maybe more him than me since he’s the king of cheese. flirting is one of my favourite pastimes, so i’d probably be a decently smooth flirt. as earlier mentioned, my greatest joy would be seeing him flustered and at a loss for words bc of just how smooth i am

who is more competitive: oh we are BOTH very competitive, it’s super fun when we’re playing a game or a sport and we’re on the same side and trying to crush the opponents, but i think we try to get on opposite teams bc its ten times more fun to try and beat each other. like just the thought of being better at him at something is already exhilarating to me ;;;)))))))

who would have to be given constant reminders: for tasks that are hard/uninteresting, i’ll have to have him remind me cause i’ll find 500 things that are more interesting to distract me when i just need to suck it up and get the thing done, and i’ll need the nudge. when it comes to just forgetting, i’ll probably have to remind him bc it totally slipped his mind.

who sends memes and who sends cute I miss you text at 3 am: he definitely sends the memes, im way too lazy to save them on my phone and then have to go looking for one that’s appropriate, that’s a lot of work. i’m happy to receive them though. and uhh...i wouldn’t send anyone a text like that at 3am and i wouldn’t like to receive one either, and i would tell him that. emotions get weird and warped at that hour, and i dont trust them on a regular basis, much less at 3 o’clock in the morning. i say, hold it in for now and if you still feel the same at 10am? then you go ahead and tell me you miss me. BUT if i get a message at 10am from seungkwan saying he misses me/loves me/is thinking of me? i would be on a cloud for the entire day.

this was really fun! my heart is warrrrrrrrrmmmm and ive been in soft stan mode for the past two days cause of it. so now i’m gonna tag @woozifi @minigum @mvpgyu @pabospoiler @seonyein @szrw @witchzi @yookik have fun friends!

#seungkwan #svt #ginger and honey #tag games

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disabilitythinking · 6 years

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"My Scoliosis Story"

In January 1977, I had spinal fusion surgery to arrest and correct worsening Scoliosis. I was 10 years old. It was done at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was the most serious and complex of the many surgeries I have had in my life to address various aspects of my underlying condition, which is Arthrogryposis. A little over five years ago, I blogged about what I remember from that experience:

Hospital Memories Disability Thinking - November 7, 2013

I’m thinking about all of this again now because I recently discovered, quite by accident, several YouTube videos documenting Scoliosis surgeries and recoveries. For a few days I was sort of obsessed with them. So far, I’ve watched 8-10 series of videos. These are my two favorites

Julia Carlile // merseygirls

youtube

This is the first series I stumbled upon. It turns out Julia is semi-famous in the UK, as a member of “Britain’s Got Talent” competitors “Mersey Girls,” a dance troupe. But I didn’t figure that out until well into her series of videos documenting her scoliosis surgery.

TheScoliosisDiaries

youtube

This young woman and her mother are hilarious together, and in the best way. They really don’t seem to be putting on a show, and their attitude seems genuine, with only a very small dose of hipster irony.

The first thing I noticed about these, and the six or so other video series I watched, was that their surgeries and recoveries were much more effective and less arduous than mine were 41 years ago. They were sitting up less than 24 hours after surgery, and walking the next day. None of them were in casts or back braces afterwards. They all got dramatic curvature correction. Julia’s operation even left her spine flexible, so she can continue dancing. It’s just really impressive.

My biggest surprise is that I’m not a bit envious or resentful that their experiences and outcomes seem so much better than mine. Honestly, I’m not. I’ve asked myself several times … “Doesn’t this make you angry?” No. It doesn’t. It’s super interesting to me, but that’s all. I guess that’s good, but it’s also a little weird.

My other takeaway is that I’m reconsidering my feelings about “inspiration porn” and the usefulness of the Medical Model as ways for some disabled people to process their own disabilities.

Some of the “Scoliosis Journey “videos I’ve watched are heavy on inspiration … all about “fighting” Scoliosis, with soundtracks of self-esteem-themed pop songs, and bland platitudes about overcoming and perseverance. But just as many of the videos are more subtle, straightforward, and unsentimental, like the videos embedded above. The people in them talk about their feelings and thoughts in specifics. They present as unique personalities, with distinct points of view, experiencing real things, not players in an overworked narrative. They are also funny, and I find that makes a huge difference.

Granted, there is probably a lot missing from these videos. For instance:

- We see some fear and anxiety, but little hint of real confusion, or any sense of feeling trapped and forced into the procedure. Maybe that’s because they all are really okay with what’s happening, but it’s got to be a pretty common feeling among children and adolescents undergoing this procedure.

- There’s little to no evidence of real conflict or even minor friction with the hospital staff. Again, maybe that’s because everything went swimmingly. But on average, I would say it’s more common for there to be at least some disagreement or personality clashes during a hospital stay, even if it’s just irritation that never becomes serious. I wonder if it would even be possible to continue with this kind of documentation if some kind of dispute emerged. Would the hospital try to shut down filming that looks like it’s going to make them look bad, instead of cheerfully participating as they seem to do in these videos?

- Only one or two of the videos I watched included any hint of viewing Scoliosis as a disability, in the broader, social identity sense. For most of these people, it’s just a medical condition to be taken care of. A few seem to view their documentation as a kind of peer mentoring for other people with Scoliosis, which can be the start of a broader disability consciousness. But for the most part, the people in these videos don’t yet seem to have much of a sense disability identity, good or bad.

And you know what? They seem to be fine anyway. Maybe its a good reminder that while the Social Model and disability identity contribute to a full understanding of disability and addressing correctable injustices in society, they aren’t always necessary for individual disabled people to live a happy life.

As for “inspiration porn,” the key to me is that these really are the patient’s own stories, told from their point of view, even though it’s almost always parents behind the cameras. Even when family and friends appear on camera, they don’t try to make the story all about them. I am also struck by the fact that although these people are clearly approaching Scoliosis from a Medical Model point of view, none of them seem to view themselves as “fighting” Scoliosis, and the sure don’t seem to hate the way they are or feel flawed or ostracized. They’re hopeful of improvement, but not particularly desperate.

The only thing i would like to say to these young people about their experience is that I hope they never feel they have to be cheerful and positive all the time. I’m sure they aren’t always upbeat anyway, but I hope they don’t beat themselves up about it when the pain in their backs, or maybe the funny way people may still look at them, gets them down. Like I said, they seem to be doing just fine without a deep relationship with disability culture or an understanding of the nature of ableism. But it’s one thing to be a positive person. It’s another to think it’s your responsibility to be that way.

These stories are obviously not fully representative of Scoliosis, and certainly not of disability in general. But I think they might be useful examples of how to maintain a healthy mix of the Medical and Social models, and a healthy balance between sentimentality and practicality when telling your disability story … to others and even to yourself.

#Biography #Medical #Video #Ideas

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beewitch · 7 years

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I’m a pretty big girl myself, and I can tell you, you do not have to be super flexible to be able to reach your cup. If you can wipe yourself after using the bathroom, you can put in/take out a cup. The position is a little weird and might be uncomfortable cause you kind of have to hunch over, but it takes seconds to put it in/take it out so it’s never been an issue for me. Honestly the only way you’ll know for sure is if you try one, so just do whatever you think will be the best for you!

Oh nice! Thank you so much! I may have to invest in getting one! I invested a while ago in getting a pair of those period panties and OMG best investment I ever made. I wear them overnight and they really keep me from leaking all over the place.

#anon ask #bee answers

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childpsychnurse-blog · 6 years

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The Bad Kid

Disclaimer: all names and identifying information about patients have been modified. Please see “About and Disclaimer” for more information.

I don’t know what my first post should be about.

Sometimes my work is sad. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s hopeful. Sometimes it’s disheartening. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it sucks. A lot of the time it’s downright weird.

I love it and would not trade it for anywhere else, at least not right now.

I think the first story I’ll share is one from when I first started, back when I was still learning how to coach and advocate and manage behaviors and be a part of this wild and crazy thing. It may not be the most interesting story I have but it was pretty instrumental in my own development. There were two defining moments in this day: one that taught me about myself and about the vulnerability that still touches us as staff, and one that greatly deepened my understanding of my patients and their humanity.

A little background: on my unit everyone starts as “coaches,” including the nurses. The coaches are a little like the CNA’s of the psych world. You could also call them mental health techs. They’re the ones who are the most “on the floor.” They wake kids up, take them to breakfast, teach them skills’ groups, run their schedules, chart on them, call nurses with concerns, monitor conversations, and basically do a good chunk of the ground work. They’re amazing, and the thought process is that anyone who will be managing the coaches (such as the nurses) should have a solid handle on the job first. The work they do and skills they learn are also pretty foundational to all the behavioral management the nurses do, hence all the nurses spend a few months working in the coaching role. The reason I’m sharing all this detail, although perhaps it is a little excessive, is that this story is from when I was working as a coach in my first month or two as a new hire.

My assignment on this particular day was to work with our younger teenager group. Working with this group can have pros and cons from a staff’s perspective. They can be a lot of fun, have a great sense of humor, and tend to be more engaged than the older teens who can check out and be “too cool” for peer groups. They can also be super sassy and overly fueled by peer pressure and insecurity. Some of our kids are very sweet and they come to our unit for a variety of reasons, so groups (and individuals) can change a lot. This particular hodgepodge of kiddos I was to work with was a bit notorious for being difficult to manage.

I was having a terrible day with them.

They were arguing with me about any sort of limit or task demand I tried to impose, they were whispering to each other and sharing personal information (a big no-no for lots of safety reasons), and we were making very little progress on much of anything. I found myself swept up into a series of power-struggles and on the verge of tears but trying to put on a tough front.

One kid was particularly challenging. He was in for aggression or something like that, I don’t really know and it doesn't really matter. He kept calling me bad words and pulling the rest of the group even more off-track. He was in and out of group, and emotionally I was done with him pretty early on in the shift. He’ll come up again later in this post.

Eventually another patient went into a crisis that necessitated the rest of us leaving and transitioning to a different area of the unit. We sat in the living area, arguing, and me wondering how the hell I thought I could do this job.

The first defining experience that came out of the day for me happened in that living area. Another staff was over there with a kid who was assigned to have an individual staff rather than being in a peer group. This kid was asleep, and the staff came over to check in with me.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

I look at her. “It’s okay. Well, I don’t know. I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do with this group.”

She nods at looks at the kids, drawing penises and writing down phone numbers and cuss words, then looks back at me. “You need a break.”

“Nah, the shift’s almost over. I’ll be fine.”

My coworker shakes her head. “No, you NEED a break. Trade with me. [My patient] is sleeping anyway; you just have to be here so he has access to a staff. Get some charting done, I’ll finish out with your group.”

Almost reluctantly but with a great deal of unacknowledged relief, I agree. She takes my group and I go sit in the nursing station and chart while checking on the sleeping patient.

There were a lot of things going through my head. First of all, I’m supposed to me a nurse. I went through an incredibly intense program and I did it. I got here. I’m supposed to be a leader. I’m supposed to be strong. Did I just fail? I think I might have. I shouldn’t have been power-struggling that much with the kids, that wasn’t helping anyone and was making it worse. I was letting them control me. None of my interventions worked, I can’t be a leader here, who am I kidding?

Then, in the middle of the nursing station, another thought. What does it mean to experience weakness as strength? We’re only human, after all. If I’m around people in crisis, I’m going to be in crisis too. What I can control is how I chose to respond to it, how I chose to take care of myself, how I chose to cope. And it’s okay for the kids to see that, maybe even healthy for them to see someone model functional ways to deal with that kind of emotion, and also to see the impacts they can have on other people.

It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to ask for a change. It’s okay to have an emotional reaction, even if you’re the staff. This job is hard. These kids are sick. You didn’t make them sick, but you can help keep them safe. You do need to take care of yourself if you want to last here, and taking a break is sometimes part of that self-care.

I was fortunate enough to have some follow-up at the end of that shift that would become the second defining moment for me in my job of that day.

We moved our sleeping friend and I was back to helping with evening routine and getting kids into bed. The patient I mentioned earlier was sitting in the hall, refusing to brush his teeth, go into his room, or complete pretty much anything that had been set out as an expectation. He was chatting with a peer.

“This unit used to be one floor, you know, then they added upstairs,” he told the peer. He glances briefly at me, then away. “I’ve been here a lot. I’m a bad kid.”

This kid has, quite frankly, been pissing me off and hurting my feelings all day. His words in that moment, however, grab at my heartstrings and completely catch me off-guard.

“Dude,” I tell him, “you’re not a bad kid. You’ve made some bad choices but they don’t define who you are. You can still make good choices.”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Y'all only ever say something when we’re being bad, nobody says anything when we’re being good.”

He’s right and I know it. Not about the entire unit: lots of staff members are good at positive reinforcement. But I haven’t been doing that today and chances are that a lot of coaches haven’t been recently, especially with this guy. I own it.

“You’re right. I haven’t said anything when you’re doing a good job, and I’m sorry. I should have. That’s on me, and I’ll work on it.”

He shrugs and doesn’t say much else. Shortly thereafter though he does go back into his bedroom and go to sleep.

I’m a bad kid.

Is that a story I tell myself when I’m frustrated with the kids? That they’re just bad kids? Does that thought, lurking in my subconscious, influence and drive the way I interact with them and the interventions I choose?

Some of these kids have been through hell. Some of them have lived on the streets, been abused, grown up in the foster system, and/or never had any sort of positive role model. And that’s not even factoring in the pressure of whatever is going on in their heads: anxiety, depression, shame, or voices outside of their cognitive control. They do make choices and they need to take ownership of their actions, but sometimes those choices are infinitely harder for them because of factors way outside of their control.

And they’re just KIDS.

They’re not bad kids. They’re just kids. They want the same things any kid wants: love. Acceptance. Security. Food. Water. Safety. Rest. Look at Maslow’s hierarchy. We see that all the time.

As it happens, I worked with that particular group again a few days later. The personality of the group had evolved slightly due to discharges and admits but was more or less the same, and my friend from the previous shift was still there. I focused really hard on praising that patient when he was making good choices, however small they were. I worked on not power struggling with the group and talking to them like adults. I let them know I expected them to be respectful and take ownership of their own learning and skill building because it would help them, but I wasn’t going to patronize them and was willing to be flexible on how we ran the day as long as they were respectful and somewhat engaged.

They had a great day.

And I had a great day with them, working with the group of great kids that just needed a little extra help and compassion.

#mental health #psych nursing #child psych #psychology

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