Tumgik
#it's so weird that going to the dentist used to be one of the things that DIDN'T scare me. or at least not any more than just regular
running-in-the-dark · 9 months
Text
I've gotta go to the dentist again tomorrow. I got two fillings done on Thursday but they feel really rough and it's hurting my tongue (plus my brain doesn't stop noticing something like that so I'm constantly aware of it and it's exhausting), so I've got to get that fixed.
this time I have to drive myself, so I can't take any Lorazepam. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a quick visit anyway, at least this kind of thing has never taken long in the past, so. it should be fine, I know that. but I feel so shitty anyway. it's like the anxiety/fear is there right below the surface but it can't quite come out (probably thanks to the anxiety meds) so I just feel off all day. it sucks (though I much prefer this over the actual anxiety, that completely ruined the days leading up to anything like this).
12 notes · View notes
thinkingnot · 1 year
Text
wait, you guys do know that having braces means the possibility of metal nails nailed into your jaws right?
6 notes · View notes
superhumanfoods · 4 months
Text
We need to talk about Sending Rocks.
You probably don't understand what that means. That's fine. It's a weird little example I made up, and I'll explain.
I'm the creator of the near-future cyberpunk podcast SINKHOLE. SINKHOLE is weird, short-form, nearly impossible to explain to people, and utterly unmonetizable. It's also got a very healthy listenership for something so esoteric. (I promise season three is coming; life just keeps happening, constantly.)
Because of that, I have a reputation as a weird little indie creator. And if I were to run a crowdfund, I could set up a donation tier that was literally just
"I will go outside, find a rock on the ground, and mail it to you."
and most people would find that funny and charming. I think, at worst, people might find it puzzling, but they'd still opt in out of curiosity.
A lot of you would let me send you rocks.
Now we need to talk about the re: Dracula crowdfund- about the zines. A handful of people got very upset about the perceived lack of quality present in the zines.
That caught me off-guard. To me, a zine should always be kind of janky. You should be able to tell exactly how far down the pile your specific zine was based purely on how committed to hitting the fold lines the person folding it was. Zines are handmade and should feel handmade.
So it seemed like people were complaining about the zines being zines, and I didn't get it.
And then I realized something: it's not about the zines. It's about the fact that they were coming from Tal Minear.
If Tal Minear ran a crowdfund and set up a donation tier that was just
"I will go outside, find a rock on the ground, and mail it to you."
I would give it about a day before someone found a way to turn that specifically into a talking point about how Tal doesn't respect the audio drama community.
Tal Minear cannot send rocks. The zine was never the problem. The way people think about Tal is the problem.
We need to talk about how this community keeps trying to reinvent classism based on nothing but vibes and follower numbers.
I'm going to tell you something you already know but probably don't want to admit: the independent audio drama scene is to the independent film scene what a fish tank in a dentist's office is to the ocean.
The biggest names in this community are just a step up from being nobodies.
If you went outside right now and spoke to the first person you saw on the street, the only non-BBC fiction podcasts you would have any realistic hope of them knowing are Welcome to Night Vale or Archive 81- and the latter only because it got turned into a Netflix show, which means that they might not even realize it was a podcast first. There's also a chance they'll have heard of The Magnus Archives, but it's not a guarantee by any means.
Now, this last one I've mentioned to a few people, and was surprised to get a lot of pushback. There seems to be this thought that no, of course everyone has heard of The Magnus Archives.
No. No, man.
You're doing the Homestuck thing. I hate to hurt you like this, but you're doing that thing people did where they assumed everyone had at least heard of Homestuck.
There are people in your life that have never heard of Homestuck.
The Magnus Archives was a mini-zeitgeist in which the fandom engaged in wild speculating, plentiful shipping, and lots and lots of aligning yourself with a specific Fear.
And it was never as big as Homestuck.
I'm sorry. Jonny Sims is not a household name. That's simply the truth.
He is also in this fish tank with us. As far as I am aware, he has not escaped to begin acting in feature films or begun voicing characters in massive video game franchises. Slay the Princess was pretty cool. It's not exactly fucking Assassin's Creed, though.
He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
And notice how my metric for breakout success involved going to other, better-known mediums? That's because a breakout success in this community involves getting a blurb on Buzzfeed or in Cosmo. There is no audio fiction podcasting elite. The idea is hilarious.
Even Markiplier doesn't count, because he's YouTube royalty. He's not famous because of The Edge of Sleep. The same is true of any celebrity. They're visitors. They didn't get their break here.
Tal Minear is not your landlord. They're a slightly bigger fish in the same tank as you that likes to poke around in the muck a bit more than you personally enjoy. And, well, you cannot argue that Tal's position as showrunner of re: Dracula justifies framing them that way.
Because the thing is, I'm not just the creator of SINKHOLE. I'm also the showrunner and head writer of Mayfair Watchers Society as of season two. Showrunning and writing is most of my income these days. Tal and I are very comparable in terms of the material power we wield. This isn't a secret.
And yet, a lot of you would still let me send you rocks.
Now the actually important thing.
We need to talk about how this exact illusion, this fanciful idea that there are real industry goliaths in this fishbowl, has already been used to justify the mistreatment of marginalized people.
When Tonia Ransom brought up the issues she had with how the AnonymousAD tumblr had characterized her crowdfunding campaign, this is the reason why people felt they could dismiss and ignore her. Because yes, she's a black woman speaking out about having been wronged, but she's also a "Big Creator," and therefore it evens out.
It doesn't even out.
A lot of the most successful creators you know in this space still have day jobs. I spent yesterday and today doing inventory at my retail job. I spent hours poring over shitty little badly printed tags and biting back swear words because our owner will not let us close, so there were still customers in the store, actively buying the things we were trying to count.
This Us vs Them shit has got to stop. It's nothing. It's a parody and a sham. If you tried to explain it to your grandmother, she'd give you the exact same reaction as if you had tried to tell her about drama in the Homestuck fandom.
Because it's the same.
And you don't get to use it to justify being shitty to someone who you know perfectly well would deserve your humility and understanding if you weren't pretending they were your boss.
Who can send rocks is not and has never been a reflection of real power or privilege. Deciding someone cannot send rocks is just a convenient excuse to disregard their perspective when it makes you angry or uncomfortable.
At best, it's tilting at windmills. At worst, it is punishing your peers for daring to defend themselves or speak out against injustice while being marginally more successful than you.
1K notes · View notes
webshood · 3 months
Text
random Jason Todd hc's:
He has cauliflower ears
He's not necessarily catholic, but Catherine was a bit before she went on her addict espiral so he likes to go to church on her birthday and deathday
One of his ear lobes had to be stitched back together after a spar with Damian went wrong
Stephanie unintentionally got him into skincare so now he has a morning and night routine, he has all the top quality expensive stuff
He uses "women's" body lotion, so he's always smelling like jasmine and almond oil
His hair was very curly growing up, but after his dip in the pit it's more on the wavy side, Talia calls it his placenta perm
All his teeth grew back from zero after the pit so he had to use braces again and is stuck with retainers until his league assigned dentist says otherwise
He attends med school out of spite – gotta get that doctorate before anyone else in the family –, but everyone on his course loves him
Once he went undercover to a gym, spying on a villain and got swarmed by gym bros asking his workout routine, what he did for bulking and for his Instagram
Did modeling for one of his college friends as a favor once and people from the fashion department are bitter because he won't model again
Wanted long hair, but Dick has a mullet, Tim's hair is on the longer side, Damian's hair is long – but spiked – and Duke's locs were getting pretty long too, so he asked for a shorter haircut and got hit with the kdrama CEO haircut, carries around a tiny straightener to style it everyday, otherwise it looks weird
Has people stationed in every part of Gotham, from the working girls, drug trade, schools, government workers, the gcpd, every major company, kids also pass along messages like a big game of telephone
All of his lieutenants have a name related to red someway: Ruby, Valentine, Brick, Rusty, Sangria, Blaze
He's his own right hand man, Blaze, people are more open to him as Blaze and are mostly likely to spill or tell things to him they wouldn't dare to tell Red Hood so he uses it to keep his gang "clean"
Sangria is completely enamoured by Red Hood, but would throw a shoe at Blaze's face without thinking twice, Jason finds it funny
He was on the book club, theater, MUN and the choir during his time at Gotham prep , he was training to join the baseball team too, before shit hit the fan
Uses the British version of words/speaks with an accent constantly, since Alfred was the one who tutored him on stuff from the school years he missed
Talia sent him to a korean martial master and he had to learn how to do aegyo to survive, he sometimes will forget that he's a very large man and act/speak cutely whenever he's in the vicinity of an ahjumma, they usually find him adorable
864 notes · View notes
bettsfic · 2 years
Text
writing cheats
i know i’ve probably written about these all individually but i’m putting them together in one post. these are writing tricks that are extremely cheap and dirty; when you use them it feels like cheating and honestly by posting them i’m probably exposing all the easy moves in my own work, but more than a writer i am a teacher, so here you go, some writing cheats that have never steered me wrong.
quick character creation
what’s really annoying is when you have two characters sitting at a restaurant or something and the server has to come by. to what degree do you describe the server so that it’s clear they’re just a background character but that they’re not just a faceless form, so that the world has texture without taking up too much space on the page? rule of three, babeyyy: two normal things and a weird one.
she had pale skin and blue eyes but her hair was dyed black like a 2010 emo kid.
he was tall and broad, and he wore a sweatshirt with an embroidered teddy bear on it.
the woman stood there comparing the prices of toilet paper. she had a short angled bob and carried a keychain the length of a trout.
why does it work? it gives the reader something to hang onto, a brief observation that shows the world exists around your narrator. it also works when introducing main characters, but there’s so much action going on that you can’t take time to write a rich long paragraph about them. all you need is a little hook.
quick setting creation
i used to TOIL over descriptive paragraphs. for years i was like, description is my weakness, i must become better at developing imagery. i believed this because a famous writer once projected a paragraph i had written onto a screen and asked my cohort, “count how many images are crafted in this paragraph.” there were none. none! my friends were sitting there like, “we are TRYING” but they couldn’t find any.
i would say that after years of studying imagery development at the sentence level, i am, perhaps, competent at it, but what was more helpful was for me to shrug and tell myself, “i’m just not a writer who does that.”
anyway. my cheat is thus: 
there’s not much you can assume about your audience. the audience is not a homogenous whole. but your ideal audience is something you can guess at, and that means you can play around with their existing knowledge and expectations. 
if you say your characters are in a tacky shit-on-the-walls restaurant, if your ideal reader is an american who went to restaurants during the maximalist era of franchise design, they will conjure their nearest memory of one of those places. and for those readers who aren’t familiar with it, they’ll use other context clues to conjure that space. the point is, you don’t have to list every single stupid license plate nailed to the wall. you can leave it as one detail of one sentence and let your reader extrapolate from there.
if i say the dentist’s office looked like a gutted 90s taco bell, maybe no ideal audience would have ever seen a place like that, but a lot of people can mentally conjure a dentist’s office and a 90s taco bell and overlay them together to create a weird and fun image.
you can go even simpler than that: a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory. a tiny studio apartment with a hotplate instead of a stove. a mansion with a winding stairwell. the point is that you want to define the size of the space and its general vibes.
in some ways detailed description can be overrated, because your reader conjures images even in absence of them on the page. and for those readers who can’t mentally conjure images, it doesn’t matter anyway; they take you at your word. the trick is to figure out what details are unexpected, relevant to understanding the story and its characters, and those are the things that you add in.
one other note: after working with hundreds of writers on drafting, for *most* of us it’s difficult to develop images and establish setting in a first draft. it’s nearly always something to be saved for a second or later draft. i think it’s because while we’re writing we tend to put character and action first.
nail the landing
there’s a joke i heard once from a writer i really admire: “you know it’s literary fiction if the story ends with a character looking at a body of water.”
and god it’s so painfully sad and true how easy it is to nail the landing of a given story by ending on a totally irrelevant piece of imagery. the final beat of a story followed by your character looking up at the sky and seeing a flock of birds in the shape of a V flying past. or maybe they’re sitting in their car and they count the rings of a nearby church bell. or maybe they watch an elderly couple walk down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. i don’t know!! when in doubt shove an observation, an image, whatever, something neutral at the end and it’ll sound profound. 
(this cheat is the only one that can really bite you in the ass because if the image is too irrelevant you risk tonal incongruity. for use only in the most desperate of times.)
sentence fragments
when writers ask me how to punch up their writing or start developing their own style, my go-to advice is to give up the idea of a complete sentence. fuck noun-verb-object. if you have a series of character actions, knock off the sentence subjects like in script action. if the clause at the end of your sentence is particularly meaningful, don’t separate it with a comma but a period and make it its own thing. if your character is going through something particularly stressful or heinous, that bitch is not thinking in complete thoughts so you don’t have to convey them that way. make punctuation bend to your will!!
rhetorical moves
this one opened a lot of doors for me stylistically. remember that famous writer who called me out on my lack of imagery? i always thought his prose was beautiful, that he’s one of the best living prose writers, etc. once i learned more about rhetoric though, i realized he just employed it a lot. 
usually when we talk about beautiful sentences it means a sentence that uses rhetorical devices. the greeks were like, you know what, when we give speeches there are certain ways to phrase things that make the audience go nuts. let’s identify what those things are and give them names so we can use them intentionally and convince people of our opinions.
i love shakespeare, i really do, but one of the big reasons he’s still a household name today and his plays are still performed is because every sentence of every goddamn play utilizes a rhetorical device. the audience is hard-wired to vibrate at the sound and cadence of his writing, like finding the spot on a dog that makes their foot thump. for five hundred years, william shakespeare has been scritching that spot for us.
i have no idea why, cognitively, rhetorical devices are so effective. i’m no rhetorician. all i know is that well-deployed anaphora makes a reader want to throw their panties on stage. my intro to rhetorical devices was the wonderful book the elements of eloquence by mark forsyth, a surprisingly fun read! hopefully that will open some doors for you the way it did for me. 
the downside to this is that once you know rhetorical devices, it’s like learning how the sausage is made. on one hand, as a writer, you’ll have a lot stronger grasp of style, but as a reader good prose loses some of its magic.  
pacing it out
many writers, myself included, rely on the tried and true “he bit the inside of his cheek” or other some such random action to help pace out dialogue. one time my thesis advisor sat me down and said “you’ve got to take all of those out.”
“all of them?” i said.
“all of them,” she said.
i thought, but that will weaken the text! it didn’t. once i cut what i came to call cheek-biter sentences i never went back. and now when i edit for other people i’m like, look i know where you’re coming from but just cut all these out and see how the scene stands. if it doesn’t feel right you can put some back in. a lot of times when you’re drafting you put those in the way some people say “um.” they’re just sentences you jot while you’re thinking of what the other character says, so from a writing perspective it seems like you’re pacing, but readers don’t read it that way. they just want to get to the next line of dialogue.
but sometimes you really do need to pace out a scene and i think there are other ways to do that that don’t rely on banal physical movements, such as:
interiority: a sentence or paragraph of relevant cognition, bonus points if you weave in background context. good interiority defines the voice of your writing.
observations: i know i just said description is overrated but idk sometimes you just need a character to note the back and forth clacking of one of those desk ball toy things.
character texture: maybe your character notes something about the person they’re talking to. a wilted pocket square. a mole that looks like it needs looked at by a dermatologist. a scar on their forehead. some detail that deepens or complicates our understanding of a character.
narratorial consciousness and access
this one is less a cheat and more a problematic opinion i have that doesn’t win me any popularity in writing circles.
i believe that if you’re writing in first person or close third or any narration which is dedicated to the mind of one character, you are only ever obligated to convey the experience of that character’s consciousness. and nothing else.
by that i mean, if your point of view character is unobservant? then they’re not going to even notice the flight attendant is missing one of their canine teeth. if your pov character is focused and obsessive, they’re going to think lavish, detailed paragraphs about that which they’re obsessed with and have no acknowledgement of the rest of the world. if your pov character has no understanding of time, does your story even need to be linear?
defining the scope of a narrator’s cognition early on can give you parameters in which to work. even if you don’t consciously do this, you still do it. if you write in third person limited present tense without really thinking about it, that’s your scope. i’m just pointing out you can choose to do it differently. you get to define your narrator. 
whenever we talk about narration we also talk about information access and the order of information being revealed/conveyed. writing must always be in order; even if you’re writing multiple concurring things, it still has to be rendered on the page in order one after the next, because the human mind can’t read two sentences over top of one another. 
if we’re restricted to the mind of a character, that means we’re also restricted by their knowledge and experiences, and this can be used to your benefit. i don’t want to take too much space for this but i do talk more about the relationship between narration and reality here.
in short, you the writer get to choose 
what the reader knows,
in what order they know it, and
its relationship to the presumed real events of the story, which develops the (un)reliability of your narrator
okay going to cut this off now before i go on more rants about narrative scope. i hope you found this helpful and go on to put some of these nasty lifehacks in your own writing!!
7K notes · View notes
inkskinned · 2 years
Text
i. about 2 weeks ago, i was told there's a good chance that in 5 or so years, i'll need a wheelchair.
ii. okay. i loved harry potter as a kid. i have a hypothesis about this to be honest - why people still kind of like it. it's that she got very lucky. she managed to make a cross-generational hit. it was something shared for both parents and kids. it was right at the start of a huge cultural shift from pre to post-internet. i genuinely think many people were just seeking community; not her writing. it was a nice shorthand to create connection. which is a long way of saying - she didn't build this legacy, we built it for her. she got lucky, just once. that's all.
iii. to be real with you, i still struggle with identifying as someone with a disability, which is wild, especially given the ways my life has changed. i always come up against internalized ableism and shame - convinced even right now that i'm faking it for attention. i passed out in a grocery store recently. i hit my head on the shelves while i went down.
iv. he raises his eyebrows while he sends me a look. her most recent new book has POTS featured in it. okay, i say. i already don't like where this is going. we both take another bite of ramen. it is a trait of the villain, he says. we both roll our eyes about it.
v. so one of the things about being nonbinary but previously super into harry potter is that i super hate jk rowling. but it is also not good for my mental health to regret any form of joy i engaged with as a kid. i can't punish my young self for being so into the books - it was a passion, and it was how i made most of my friends. everyone knew about it. i felt like everyone had my same joy, my same fixation. as a "weird kid", this sense of belonging resonated with me so loudly that i would have done anything to protect it.
vi. as a present, my parents once took me out of school to go see the second movie. it is an incredibly precious memory: my mom straight-up lying about a dentist appointment. us snickering and sneaking into the weekday matinee. within seven years of this experience, the internet would be a necessity to get my homework finished. the world had permanently changed. harry potter was a relic, a way any of us could hold onto something of the analog.
vii. by sheer luck, the year that i started figuring out the whole gender fluid thing was also the first year people started to point out that she might have some internalized biases. i remember tumblr before that; how often her name was treated as godhood. how harry potter was kind of a word synonymous for "nerdy but cool." i would walk out of that year tasting he/him and they/them; she would walk out snarling and snapping about it.
viii. when i teach older kids creative writing, i usually tell them - so, she did change the face of young adult fiction, there's no denying that. she had a lot more opportunities than many of us will - there were more publishing houses, less push for "virally" popular content creators. but beyond reading another book, we need to write more books. we need to uplift the voices of those who remain unrepresented. we need to push for an exposure to the bigotry baked into the publishing system. and i promise you: you can write better than she ever did. nothing she did was what was magical - it was the way that the community responded to it.
ix. i get home from ramen. three other people have screenshotted the POTS thing and sent it to me. can you fucking believe we're still hearing this shit from her when it's almost twenty-fucking-twenty-three. the villain is notably also popular on tumblr. i just think that's funny. this woman is a billionaire and she's mad that she can't control the opinions of some people on a dying blue site that makes no money. lady, and i mean this - get a fucking life.
x. i am sorry to the kid i was. maybe the kid you were too. none of us deserved to see something like this ruined. that thing used to be precious to me. and now - all those good times; measured into dust.
/// 9.6.2022 // FUCKING AGAIN, JK? Are you fucking kidding me?
6K notes · View notes
plutos-dying-star · 8 months
Text
a serious talk about pacifiers
Please, no matter what anyone says, it is not 100% safe to use pacifiers.
this isn’t just about baby pacis. I’m talking about adult size ones too.
over time your teeth will shift if you use a pacifier intensely and for a long time. They will, after prolonged use, cause your teeth to splay/ flare out as well as potentially develop an Over/ underbite. If you feel your bite feels weird after using a pacifier, it’s not all in your head.
I’m not saying these things to scare you but it’s a common misconception that if you have a fully developed mouth than it’s perfectly okay to use adult pacifiers without any repercussions and that’s just not true.
I know our pacifiers can be essential to our mental health, our regression, etc. (plus they’re super adorable) so I’m not telling you to stop using them all together (i myself, am still going to use them). I would however recommend limiting usage to 15 minutes (25 max), try your best not suck incredibly hard on it, clean them before and after every use (because bacteria), wear your retainer or Invisalign regularly if you have them, and most importantly talk to your dentist or orthodontist because everyone is different. You may not experience these issues in the way I have or at all.
Please be careful ♥
668 notes · View notes
the-kr8tor · 1 month
Note
Hi! I hope you're well! I've got a bit of a request (maybe? idk can be whatever u want it to be:D) So- R recently has had their wisdom tooth removed, and I think you've seen how people get so loopy afterwards. I think it'd be hilarious writing Hobie trying to keep a straight face and talk to R rambling on about some random things in the most serious manner he can muster lol
Thank you for requesting! Muah 😘 ❤️
Pairing: Hobie Brown x fem! Reader/ Spider-Punk x fem! Reader
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, TW blood, Fluff.
ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ
Hobie's nervous for no reason, he knows you're alright behind the tooth shaped door but the sound of the drill’s muffled whirring has his spidey senses going haywire. He thinks it's the weird smell of the dentist's office and the stark white of the walls that adds to his anxiety. His leg nervously bounces to the beat of the crappy music that the dentist's assistant keeps playing on loop (torturing him basically.)
He kneads at his temple to get the scraping sound out of his ears, due to his enhanced senses that includes super hearing, he can hear every pull and tug of your tooth, unfortunately. But he thinks you have it worse since you're the one who feels every tug and pull. Or maybe he just hates it when you get hurt, especially if he can't help you or even see you. He curses the tooth shaped door for hiding you from his view. Seriously, who makes a door shaped like that?
With a sigh, the toothy door finally opens, and out you roll out of it in a squeaky wheelchair. Hobie stands up lightning quick to get to your side. The dentist smiles at him with her perfect teeth, hands guiding you out of the sterile room.
“She’s good, don't worry.” The dentist senses Hobie's worry, or she just sees it etched on his face. “Your girl's a bit loopy because of the meds but it'll wear off in a few minutes.”
Hobie kneels down to face you. He almost laughs loudly at your swollen cheek that makes you look like a squirrel that's hiding its nuts inside its mouth. He rubs your knee softly to wake your foggy self based on how glossy your eyes are. Drool drips from the cotton in your mouth and he swears he almost loses it right there and then.
“Hi, love, ready to come home?” Hobie smiles softly like he usually does when he finds you endearing. Despite all the bloody saliva dripping out of your mouth.
“Hat?” You ask, voice murmured by the cotton. Hobie guesses you said ‘what?’ instead of asking for his invisible hat.
Raising your hand to his face, you give him a good pat on his cheek, you then let out a giggle that sounded more like a cackle. It all makes him raise an eyebrow.
“You gave her the good stuff huh, doc?” He asks, never leaving his eyes off your disoriented self.
The dentist chuckles, “just give her paracetamol for the pain and don't let her eat or drink anything for an hour or two if she can help it.”
“Thanks, doc.” Hobie gives her a polite smile while standing back up to his feet. “Ready to walk with me?”
You narrow your eyes at him, eyebrows knitted, hands balling at your soft pants. You dressed for the occasion, or rather, dressed down for it. You had the foresight to know that you'll be bleeding all over your clothes right after. Like how you are right now with one of Hobie's old band shirts. He clearly doesn't mind since he owns a hundred like them. But he won't miss the opportunity to tease you about it once you're sober and well awake.
You look at him like he told you the copper you gave him is in a poor state. “I hab boyfriend.”
“I know you do, it's me.” He sees the dentist crack a smile. “Get up, love, you'll kick my arse if we miss your episode.”
“Episode?” You once again ask with wonderment.
“Yeah, that dragon show you like so much. Up you go.”
“Dragons?!” Your voice echoes out in the room, like he just told you dragons are real. You stand up quicker than he thought you could. “Really?” Your question cements what he thinks. “They're dragons right? Not wyverns, they're different creatures y’know.” He tamps down a laugh.
Holding you by your biceps, Hobie flicks his eyes behind you and over to the dentist who just shrugs with a grin. “Her tooth was stubborn. Sorry, I could've given her the lighter stuff but she would've felt it.”
“That's alright, doc, this is how she usually is.” He jokes, which you chortle at. Well at least you recognize humour amidst the fog of whatever concoction the dentist gave you. “Thanks again.” He waves goodbye whilst he guides you out of the clinic.
“Why are you so pretty?” You look at him with sparkling eyes like you're about to cry from his sheer beauty. Tapping his chin, cheek squished against his shoulder, you don't look at where you're walking as you continue to admire him in the sun. “So p-pretty…like a-an angel.”
Hobie does all the walking for you, his arms are looped around your waist, effortlessly lifting you off the pavement. The tips of your shoes grazes the concrete as you squish his cheeks in your hand, making him pout from your cuteness overload.
“An angel? Just last night you called me a dick for eating your mango.” How could he know you were trying to save it inside the fridge?
You giggle, “mmm, mango.”
“I'll buy you a hundred more if you continue to dote on me.” You two finally make it to the van, he thanks his abilities for not getting winded out by the trek.
You lean back dramatically, making Hobie catch you in his arms. You both look like a cover from a romance novel.
“I can't! I have a boyfriend.” You say with your whole heart, and as serious as you can with your mouth full of cotton.
“Fuckin' hell.” He laughs, lifting you back up before someone in the street sees. “I'll buy you some ice cream if you get in the car. Mango or chocolate flavour?”
“I will,” you poke his chest, “not be,” poke “bribed by you–you stranger!” You poke him several times.
Hobie catches your finger mid poke. Leaning closer to your face, he smells the iron from your mouth. You sniff, moving your head away from him with a pout.
“Love,” he says sweetly, catching the back of your head before it falls further back. Laying his forehead against yours, he gives you a minute to recognize him from his warmth alone. He'd give you forever if he can. Holding your hand, he raises it to his chest, letting you feel the familiar thump of his heart. He remembers that you do it whenever he gets home from patrol. “It's me, yeah?”
Hobie doesn't realize the tears brimming in your eyes. He stands up straight at the sound of your quiet sobbing.
“We're gonna miss the dragons.” Fat tears roll down your cheeks, the cotton in your mouth threatens to fall out as you weep in the parking lot with him trying his best to wipe the tears while he coos softly at you.
Hobie definitely has his work cut out for him, now to get you home without crying about dragons or acting like he's kidnapping you. Yet, he'd gladly do it all over again if it's you.
Tumblr media
247 notes · View notes
rockingrobin69 · 9 months
Text
Want
Malfoy did this thing where he only used a finger and a thumb for crisps. He’d wade through mud without a second thought to retrieve Scorp’s ball from the hissing nettles, he put his arm up to the elbow in cold spaghetti sauce on a dare, he rolled down not one but three different hills with Teddy on their hikes, but when it came to crisps, he was his perfect lordly self. A finger and a thumb going in neat motions, barely even crinkling the bag. A dignified amount of crisps pinched tightly, brought slowly into his mouth. So careful and clean and entirely unintentional. He didn’t even know he was doing it.
Harry did.
Harry noticed everything about him. Hard not to when Malfoy was like this, weird and loud and awkward, pathetic and incredible and everywhere. When Teddy adopted him and Scorp (officially, with a letter he’d hand-written, signed with a drawing of, randomly, a horse); when they moved in, and Malfoy’s pyjamas became a recurring vision, llamas and tiny buttons following even in his dreams; when he found the stray cat, named her Nibbles for no earthly reason; when he was a menace, and Harry adored it. Him. Adored—the whole thing, how their lives suddenly became this, tight and uncomfortable and too warm and perfect.
Teddy was no help. He practically had love-hearts for eyes whenever Malfoy walked in the room. All these ‘Draco, look!’ and ‘Draco, can you—’ and ‘Draco, Draco, come sit next to me!’ that drove Harry spare. And Scorp was such a tiny little thing in all his Molly-made-jumpers, babbling with a look of utter importance and following Teddy around, and cackling with joy whenever he was in Malfoy’s arms. And the cat, fucking, cat, always getting kisses and—
No, Harry wasn’t jealous, that wasn’t quite it. He was… overwhelmed with how gentle it all was. Never really imagined life could be like this, didn’t think he’d want it. Discovered he did with such terrifying intensity, that he yearned for something that wasn’t quite nameable, that he somehow almost had. It kept him up at nights and filled his days with this weird, feverish joy. It was soft and itchy and all his. Almost his. So fucking close to being his.
And Malfoy was right there, sitting across from Harry with his ankle on one knee and the bag of fucking crisps and the way he was eating them, almost—decadently, and utterly, helplessly serious. On the rug, Harry realised he probably loved him.
Stretched, leaned slightly to his side until he was touching Malfoy’s knee. “Hey,” he said, swallowed.
“Hi.” Malfoy offered him the bag. “Want some?”
“You eat crisps funny,” Harry said for an answer. “All cleanly and stuff. It’s funny.”
“Oh. Well. Always happy to amuse you.”
He was so ridiculous, with the little stickers he let Ted and Scorp stick on his socks, on the sliver of his leg that was visible. It would hurt like hell to rip these out, all the fine blond hair caught underneath. Harry couldn’t breathe for a moment, it struck him so hard.
It was the middle of August and a really cold day. All the lights in the living room made it look like… something Harry wanted so badly. Instead of trying to make it into words, he leaned his head against Malfoy. Allowed the fingers threading through his hair. The movement so, so gentle.
“I’m picking Ted early from school tomorrow,” Malfoy announced some time later, in this awful voice he used for Scorp, or when Teddy had a nightmare. “He hates the dentist, so I promised to take him on a walk after. Maybe the hill where we went last month, the one with the waterfall.”
Harry hummed something delighted and heartbroken. Buried his face in Malfoy’s thigh, surrendered to the feeling of his hands, of his warmth.
“Harry… I meant, do you want to come with us? Sorry. That’s not—wasn’t quite clear.”
Buried his face tighter.
“Or—maybe we can go another day? Just us. You and me, I mean. There’s this place I think you would like. If you absolutely insisted, we could take Nibbles along on her lead.”
Brought his head up, pouted at Malfoy’s pretty face. “No, that’s…” stopped when he noticed the smile. When he realised that this thing that he wanted was already his. Pressed a tiny kiss to Malfoy’s shin, to a sticker of a star on his hairy leg. “You are,” Harry said, and meant it from the bottom of his heart. Breathed, breathed. Sat there and grinned to himself.
The bag of crisps crinkled. The afternoon went on, lit and weirdly warm. It was the life Harry didn’t know he wanted, that he ached for, that he had.
(If you enjoyed this, I've recently shared the first part of Wonderful on AO3. Consider checking it out for your pining needs).
313 notes · View notes
hunnysnoops · 26 days
Text
Main Three + Craig with morbid/odd reader
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
“I want love to change my friends to enemies and tell me how it’s all my fault.”
Stan:
He lets you draw on him but instead of doodling you take a black marker and start to meticulously draw dotted lines and arrows like you’re a surgeon prepping him for cosmetic surgery.
While helping him with farm chores you go into detail about how you can compost and break down a corpse in soil, he just kinda nods along.
You give him tarot readings every week. He thought they were fake and just did it to entertain you until his week played out exactly like you said it would. When he realized he just froze up and went non verbal.
Stan- “Hey, do you have any spells to curse my dad?”
Met him when he was in his goth era.
The two of you were having a moment in the rain when you told him that he should’ve worn shoes with rubber soles in case he gets struck by lightning.
You started writing his eulogy when you were laying in bed together, bro was trying not to freak out. Just spam texted Kyle.
You’re date idea is taking him to an abandoned house.
You guys bonded over music. Now you help him write songs since you’re so used to writing poetry.
Reader- “You’re into music?”
Stan- “Yeah, I guess so.”
Reader- “Have you heard Carnival of the Animals, R. 125: Aquarium composed by Camille Saint-Saëns and performed by Philippe Entremont, Gaby Casadesus, and Yo-Yo Ma?”
Stan- “Can’t say I have.”
Tumblr media
Kyle:
Has veiny arms so when the two of you are just chilling you’ll put your finger on one of the veins and start talking about what would happen if you severed it. He’s lowkey interested from a scientific standpoint.
You’ll straddle his hips and pull his lips back to look at his teeth, poking around in his mouth like a dentist. You’re inches apart.
Reader- “Wow, you have beautiful teeth.”
Kyle- “Thank you?”
He’s kinda fascinated by you but also repulsed by some of the things you do/say.
He came to your house and you were butchering your own meat, left right away.
You listen to The Cure together.
When you climb trees to look for birds and squirrels he’ll climb too to help you.
Will get mad annoyed after listening to you say incredibly out of pocket things while he’s trying to focus on something.
He’ll buy you little knickknacks that remind him of you.
Before he got to know you, he talked mad shit.
Sometimes gets super freaked out by your behaviour, you straight up give him the heebie-jeebies.
Reader- “So this is my collection of human teeth.”
Kyle- “All of those are yours, right?”
Reader- “Actually, none of them are mine.” 😁
Kyle- 😨
Tumblr media
Kenny:
Sits through horror movies and weird foreign films with you. He didn’t like it at first but he came around and started sourcing out movies he’d think you like.
You took him to a Wicca ceremony and he had the time of his life.
You taught him how to make flower crowns and now he makes them all the time. He likes to give them to Karen.
When he sees something off-putting or creepy he will immediately take a picture and send it to you.
Reader- “Hey, it’s raining. Do you want to go look for earth worms and build a worm colosseum?”
Kenny- “Hell yeah.”
He likes to go for walks in the forest with you, you guys will look for bugs and pick them up or make them houses of leaves and twigs.
He’ll help you wash the skulls/bones you find.
Never really minded that you were weird, he approached you first because he thought you were hot.
He loves when you play with his hair and tie little braids into it.
You guys tried to recreate The Blair Witch Project but failed miserably when you actually got lost in the woods.
You’ll meet up at the graveyard and just sit in the grass while you talk about ghosts and ghouls. Sometimes you’ll walk around and stop at a specific grave and guess how they died.
Reader- “Would you rather be in Cannibal Holocaust or The Poughkeepsie Tapes?”
Kenny- “Erm, I gotta pick The Poughkeepsie Tapes.”
Tumblr media
Craig:
Generally goes along with whatever you want to do.
Reader- “Can we go down to the riverbank to pickup fish heads and then eat out their eyes?”
Craig- “Yeah, sure.”
He’ll just watch you roll around in the mud or set little twig piles on fire, he won’t join in but he also won’t interfere.
You’ll talk to Stripe, not in the baby voice that people usually use to talk to animals but your tone will be dead serious like you’re talking to a grown adult.
The two of you will watch true crime documentaries together.
He’ll fuck up anyone who calls you weird or a freak.
When you’re out in public, you’ll point someone out and predict how they’re going to die.
There’s nothing you can do that’ll shock him, he’s unfazed by everything that you say.
Sometimes gets concerned with you around Stripe.
You’ll disappear for hours at a time and he’ll get worried, sending you a million texts then you’ll randomly show up at his door soaking wet or covered in dirt with no warning.
Craig- “Where have you been? You weren’t answering my texts.”
Reader- “I was meeting with a friend of mine who is alive.”
Craig- “Oh, that’s cool.”
Requests are open! I’m working through a couple right now. Thanks to the anon who requested this.
105 notes · View notes
practically-an-x-man · 11 months
Text
ok y'know what. I'm tired of all the same questions in ask games so I'm taking matters into my own hands
OC/Writing Art Asks
For the character:
Pencil: does this character have any "sketchy" habits? Have they ever broken the law? Do they regret it?
Pen: what's one minor moment your character regrets? A small mistake, but something they "can't erase"?
Paintbrush: How often does your character "brush over" conflict instead of facing it head on? Is there something specific they don't like to face, or do they avoid conflict as a whole?
Marker: what's one thing your character would never tattoo on their body, even if they were paid a million dollars for it?
Crayon: what was your OC like when they were four years old? Were they loud? Shy? Were they the resident "weird kid" or did they get along with others their age?
Colored Pencil: if given the choice, would this character splurge on an expensive (but potentially worthwhile) branded product, or buy a low-budget alternative even if the quality suffers?
Copics: what is this character's most expensive habit or hobby? Do they ever feel guilty about the money they spend on it?
Graphite: what's something decently common that your character does in a unique or different way? (like how graphite is present in all pencils, but not everyone uses pure graphite)
Charcoal: share any unique physical features about this character that are not scars or tattoos.
Tortillon: does your OC "blend in" with the people around them? Physically? Metaphorically?
Pastels: Give me three colors that best represent your OC. Now give me three colors that your OC likes best. Is there an overlap?
Chalk: what was one activity this character enjoyed with their sibling(s) as a kid? If they don't have siblings, what they did with their neighborhood friends
Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.
Palette: list four of your character's primary skills, then share at least two ways these skills might blend or overlap
For the work:
Starry Night: are there any scenes in this work that take place at nighttime? Is this significant, or just the passing of time?
Mona Lisa: oh, it's the fanfic writer's favorite word. Do a find-and-replace on the word "smirk" and share any lines that pop up.
The Scream: are there any moments in this work that you think could scare a reader? Are there any moments where the characters themselves are profoundly scared?
Persistence of Memory: are there any moments in this work where a character's memory plays a strong role? Either an individual memory, or simply a character's ability to recall the past.
Girl With a Pearl Earring: are there any moments in this work where a character's clothing or accessories play a major role?
The Kiss: share your favorite kiss scene from this work. If there's no kiss scene, share your favorite moment of intimacy (romantic or platonic)
American Gothic: what's one relationship between characters in this work that you think people wouldn't expect? (i.e., how the people in American Gothic are not married, they're the painter's sister and dentist)
Guernica: look through a few of your imagery/descriptions in this work. Are they generally straightforward, or are they more "abstract"?
Wheatfield with Crows: are there any scenes in this work that involve birds? Do the birds play a definitive role, or are they simply part of the setting?
Woman with a Parasol: are there any moments in this fic that feel "blurry" to you? Is this a stylistic choice, or would you go back and clarify the descriptions if you were given the chance?
A Sunday Afternoon...: pick one "little moment" from this fic. How representative is it of the fic's tone and story as a whole?
Creation of Adam: choose one character that is not present at the beginning of this work. How did you introduce them into the story?
The Swing: are there any moments in this fic where the characters get to slow down and have fun? If not, why is that?
The Last Supper: does this fic incorporate any symbolism based on religion, theology, or mythology? If so, give an example.
For the author:
Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)
Canvas: Do you ever "prep" your fics with outlines or warmups before you start writing, or do you just dive right in?
Graffiti: Have you ever had to research something that felt illicit or illegal for a fic? What was it?
Photography: What's one moment from any of your fics that you feel is preserved in your memory?
Clay: Do you usually take time to "sculpt" your OCs before you write them, or develop them as you write?
Film: Which one of your fics do you think would work best if turned into a movie? Who would direct it?
Adhesive: when you write, do you usually "stick" to one character or story for a while, or bounce around various characters and ideas?
Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?
Felting: how often do you include soft moments when you write? Do these moments play a role in the main plot, or do you include them as an escape from the rest of the story?
Weaving: are your works typically similar to one another? Pick two works, and share one similarity and one difference between them.
Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.
Creative!: free space! share something you've been dying to share about your writing! Could be an OC that never gets the limelight, a moment you were proud of, or anything else you'd like to share
411 notes · View notes
mitskijamie · 3 months
Text
some more incredibly niche headcanons i couldn't fit on the poll/are too random for anyone to agree with me
Roy owes Phoebe over a million pounds in swear-word money by the time she goes to college. He eventually just buys her a house and calls it even
Bumbercatch has an identical twin and they're totally exactly like the creepy twins from the shining
Roy was arrested for public urination in his 20s and his mullet mugshot is the lads' favorite image to ever exist. they make like a billion impact font memes of it
Jamie likes to buy stuff for himself that he couldn't have as a kid. Toys/stickers/snacks/coloring books/etc. He thinks it's weird and embarrassing and doesn't tell anyone, but it's just a healing/comforting thing because his childhood was so awful
Keeley's favorite color is actually purple, but pink has become her brand and it's too late to change it now.
Roy is a message reactor. Why would he use words when they made a feature specifically to allow you to avoid using words. His text exchanges with Jamie are like "Can I have toast with jam for a snack" "Roy disliked a message" ":(" "Roy disliked a message"
Roy hates going to the dentist. That shit is private. No one should be poking around in there, much less with little lights and cameras. Violation
Rebecca unironically reposts minion memes on FaceBook. This one sends her every time
Tumblr media
88 notes · View notes
thenightfolknetwork · 5 months
Note
Hi, we are several hundred rats. More accurately, I am a rat, writing on behalf of my several hundred friends, who are also rats.
It's pretty good, being rats, certainly compared to all the nonsense sapios and other bipeds have to deal with. Like knees, and dentist appointments. Recently, though, we've run into a problem. It's very common for sapios to mistake us for a multi-coporeal entity or a collective intelligence or something of that nature. You know, quote-unquote hive minds. Ignoring the fact that most hives don't actually work like that and the way that the common vernacular exposes the inherent sapionormative biases of the modern social system, it usually isn't a problem. One of us corrects them, the human reacts however they react, no big deal. Their reactions are on them, not our problem.
I'm being asked to add that it's a little sad that the humans don't have the close social bonds that could be mistaken for that kind of thing. So now I have. And now they're discussing whether it's sad or just the nature of the human condition. I'm going to keep writing while they're not trying to co-author this letter.
Well, about three years ago, a colony of cerebrachnids moved in next door with their host body. We don't need to tell you, of course, that brain spiders are actually a collective intelligence. Almost all of us have been of great terms with them since day one. It's nice having someone around who can sympathize with how sapios view us. Rats and spiders, right?
Turns out that they've thought we were some sort of multi-coporeal entity this whole time. It came up last week when some of us were visiting for tea. They've thought for years that we were some manner of genus similar to them, and have just been too polite to ask what we are. I, the rat doing the typing, wasn't there, but the ones who were there all agree that our neighbor got a little weird about it, and they're a lot less overtly friendly since then.
We can't agree if they're feeling awkward, or if they're maybe reevaluating the whole friendship in the light of how we have less in common with them than they thought.
Any advice? Do we just pretend it didn't happen and go on like normal?
Thank you for getting touch, reader – or should I say, readers? I'm extremely heartened to hear how healthy your collective attitudes are to the misconceptions people have about multi-corporeal entities and collective intelligences. I'm also pleased that you recognise your own boundaries in managing other people's expectations and reactions to your lived reality.
That said, I don't think there's any risk of your overstepping those boundaries by reaching out to this neighbour and clearing the air about their misconception. I understand you don't want to take on more than your share of the emotional work. But frankly, simply being aware of that as a potential issue is generally enough to stop it from happening.
There might be any number of reasons for your neighbours' sudden standoffishness. They might be embarrassed by their mistake, or feeling foolish for misunderstanding your nature. Or they might be disappointed at the loss of what they assumed was a friendship built on commonality of experience. The fact is, you won't know until you talk to them.
Invite them over for tea and let them know how much you've missed them. Emphasise how much you all value your relationship with them, and that you're keen that this misunderstanding should be set aside.
I would also take the time to stress how much you do have in common, despite these differences. You may not share the same kind of consciousness as them, but there has been enough shared between you to sustain years of friendship – not only shared interests and talking points, but also deeper commonalities around how sapios treat your genuses.
I don't think anything will be gained by making them feel shamed or punished, especially if they were acting out of nothing more malicious than embarrassment. Give them a little grace, and take the time to clear the air between you properly. Then, with any luck, you'll all be able to shrug this moment off as nothing but an awkward bump in the otherwise smooth road of friendship.
97 notes · View notes
markrosewater · 11 months
Note
Happy birthday! Can we get some birthday trivia about you on your birthday?
Sure. I turn 56 today, so here’s fifty-six things you may or may not know about me.
1) I never lost a baby tooth. Every one had to be extracted.
2) I was once a contestant on Trivial Pursuit: The Game Show with Wink Martindale. I answered the most questions correct, but didn’t win.
3) I once had scarlet fever (the thing the boy gets in the Velveteen Rabbit).
4) I’ve been told by doctors I have very weird blood.
5) I self taught myself to juggle.
6) I was a magician when I was a kid with the stage name The Wiz Kid. I mostly performed for kids parties.
7) I was once a freelance greeting card writer. My favorite (that didn’t get printed) showed a jug of maple syrup tipped on its side making a puddle of syrup. In the syrup was a top hat. A hand is pulling a can of green paint with a shamrock out of the hat. You open up the card and it says Sappy Paint Hat Tricks Day. It’s a triple Spoonerism.
8) Sara Gilbert (of “Roseanne” fame) and I once went out for lunch. (It wasn’t a date or anything.)
9) I broke my collarbone doing a prat fall off a stage.
10) I once pet a cheetah. In South Africa. My face from the picture of me doing that was used as my “Making Magic” photo for years.
11) I once made a root beer float for Keanu Reeves. It was at a play I was volunteering for.
12) I once get trapped inside Fred Astaire’s Estate. This factoid is oddly on my Wikipedia page.
13) Starting during the pandemic, my family began fostering animals. So far, we fostered four dogs, six cats, and two Guinea pigs.
14) In college, I wrote and directed two plays, started an improvisation troupe, and a writing workshop.
15) I still have all my wisdom teeth.
16) I have visited every continent except Antarctica for Magic.
17) I once asked Clint Eastwood for directions, not realizing who it was until he started talking. I was lost on the Warner Brothers lot.
18) My first job in Hollywood resulted from me taking part in someone else’s interview. I snuck on the lot, and ended walking into a room where they asked “Are you here for the production assistant interview?”, and I said, “Yes.”
19) I once had a disease the doctors couldn’t identify. They called it Mark’s Disease.
20) I was born in Mississippi. My dad was in the Air Force at the time.
21) I asked out seven woman to my senior prom who all turned me down. I ended up going with a friend who also couldn’t get a date.
22) I took six years of Spanish.
23) Most of my family’s vacations growing up were ski vacations, so I’m a decent skier.
24) I once delivered a pizza to Richard Gere. It was as a production assistant, not a pizza delivery person.
25) I once broke into an actor’s apartment building to deliver a script. It was so late, they were asleep and didn’t hear the buzzing of the door bell.
26) I once drove six hours (three in each direction) to pick up one five-stick package of Blackjack gum as a runner (production assistant).
27) Dennis Miller once thought I was a crazy man. I was sent to get him from the parking lot for a shoot and he thought I was stalking him.
28) I have over two hundred tee-shirts. They are organized by color.
29) I was supposed to pitch to “The Simpsons”, but it got cancelled when I got hired in the “Roseanne” staff.
30) I pitched multiple times to “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, but never sold a script. The closest I got was a pitch about Data malfunctioning.
31) I once ate crocodile. In Australia.
32) I played the Tinman in fifth grade in a production of “The Wizard of the Oz”. I was so hot, my silver make-up had to be reapplied halfway through as I sweated it off.
33) My mother turned down being on “Oprah” to come to my college graduation.
34) My parents are both retired. My dad was a dentist and my mom a psychologist. I used to joke I had a “paradox”.
35) Every birthday since I was 9, I’ve celebrated my birthday with crab legs.
36) Since I was in grade school, every Valentine’s Day, I hand out candy hearts, and every Halloween, I hand out mellowcreme pumpkins (basically pumpkin shaped candy corns).
37) My tee-shirts every week are themed. Some themes are pretty obvious, but they often get tricky. R&D likes figuring out the theme.
38) I got a BS in Communications (no, really) from Boston University’s College of Communications.
39) I collect superhero Minimates (they look Lego-ish). I have somewhere around two thousand. They are displayed in a number of cabinets built by my dad.
40) My podcast was inspired by a talk by Kevin Smith (at San Diego Comic-Con) where he said anyone could make a podcast.
41) I have attended over twenty-five San Diego Comic-Cons.
42) I am related to Lorne Green of “Bonanza” fame.
43) My dad’s family came from Germany and my mom’s from Russia. In Germany, my family’s name was Rosenvasser, but it was changed to Rosewater when they came to the U.S.
44) There are so few Rosewaters in the United States, that if you meet a Rosewater odds are I’m related to them.
45) I have lived in five states (Mississippi, Ohio, Massachusetts, California, and Washington, in that order).
46) I have visited over thirty states for Magic.
47) I once met Jim Henson when I worked on a clip show that Kermit was on. The question I asked him was if Ernie and Bert were named after the characters from “It’s a Wonderful Life”. He said not consciously. Jim Henson is one of my idols and I feel so blessed to have met him. He died a few months later.
48) I met Stan Lee at Hascon. He is another of my idols that I feel so lucky to have met.
49) On “Roseanne”, I worked with Amy Sherman-Palladino (just Amy Sherman back then) and Chuck Lorre. She made “Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. He made “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men”. Amy was super sweet and we got along well. I don’t think Chuck liked me.
50) I am a super picky eater. For example, except for apples, I don’t eat fruit. I hate bananas with a passion.
51) I have been a game player since very young. My dad loves games and introduced them to me early in life.
52) I get the writing bug from my mom.
53) I used to collect lint in a giant jar. When I got married, Lora made me get rid of it. It was an impressive amount of lint.
54) I have a bad tendency to burn myself a lot. My family loves to make fun of it.
55) I own over fifty flannels. My favorites are from Japan because they are more colorful with their flannels. Normally I wear a large, but in Japanese sizes, I’m an extra large.
56) My favorite number is 254. I chose it when I was little.
180 notes · View notes
elumish · 1 year
Text
What Medical Stuff Feels Like (Scans and Stuff)
Content warning for general medical stuff, mention of IVs.
Also strong caveat that all of this is exactly one person's experience (mine) and so 1) may not be what you experience, 2) may not match up with other descriptions you've read, and 3) is not being written by a medical professional.
Ultrasound: For an ultrasound, they take an ultrasound wand (a one-handed thing with a smooth end and a wire attaching it to a machine), stick a bunch of goo on it, and then press it to whatever they're looking at and then have the machine collect images. The goo is usually cold, and they will usually apologize for it.
All of my experiences with this have been below the neck and above the pelvis. Depending on where they're pressing, it can hurt quite a bit--imagine having someone press something hard into your breast tissue or your ribs. How much it hurts definitely depends on what they're pressing on--things like the sternum and ribs hurt a lot more than places with a lot of fatty tissue.
You may or may not be shirtless for this--it depends on what they're looking for. For breast tissue or things in that range, you're generally in a patient shirt that you have either open over one breast or over both, and the other will sometimes be covered with a towel. For the rest of the abdomen, I've done it with my shirt pulled up and my pants down low enough for them to get to everything.
Once you're done, you wipe the goo off, but it also doesn't stain clothing (at least from my experience) and it doesn't irritate my skin. it just feels kind of weird.
I had to fast before an abdminal ultrasound but not a breast ultrasound, so it really depends.
My extremely hot take is that getting an abdominal ultrasound is my least favorite form of scan.
Echocardiogram: This is basically an ultrasound of your heart. That means the focus is on your left breast area, and if you have a lot of breast tissue, it means the tech is going to be awkwardly maneuvering it around/pressing on it pretty hard to get to the heart. I've had these twice--once, the tech was with a couple of doctors (or other techs? it's been like 8 years since then) and they were all making comments that I didn't understand about various parts of my heart. The second time, it was just the tech, and we occasionally made awkward small talk while he mashed an ultrasound wand into my breast.
Both of my echocardiogram techs have been men, and I will say that this is basically the least sexual experience you can have with a man while shirtless having them touch your breast. I think basically everywhere in the US you should be able to have an advocate in there with you, but I've never personally felt uncomfortable re: the shirtless in front of a male tech situation.
3D ultrasound: I once described a 3D ultrasound as if a dentist lamp was also a scanner and hated you. At least from the ones that I've experienced, they're essentially this weird giant thing that looks a lot like a dentist light on one of those moveable arms, and they cover everything with goo and then squish it against what they're taking scans of and then take the scans. It's less targeted than handheld ultrasounds but can get larger areas. I think there are also live 3D ultrasounds for things like pregnancy but I've never had that.
MRI: My favorite of the scans (unironically). For an MRI, you basically lie on a slab in a giant tube that makes horrible clanking noises for 45 minutes to an hour. Because they work using magnets, you can't have metal in or on you, so you have to take off all jewelry, earrings, etc. and then they ask a gazillion questions beforehand to make sure that there's nothing the magnets will disrupt (e.g., pacemaker) or will pull on (e.g., magnetic eyelashes). Twice, they had me change at least partially out of my street clothes; the last time I did it in my street clothes minus my bra, which felt vaguely illegal.
It's decently cold, so they generally offer a warmed blanket. At least for MRIs of the abdomen, there is a heavy thing that gets draped over your abdomen to basically make it pick up the images there (I don't really know how that works). To me, it feels kind of like a weighted blanket.
All of my MRIs have been since COVID started, though the first one was pre-masking; I wore a KN-95 in the MRI for my last one and had no issues re: the magnet.
Once you go in the tube, you basically just have to lie still for as long as the MRI goes. They will ask you if you are claustrophobic beforehand. It doesn't set of my claustrophia, but I imagine it happens a lot. They stick a ball in your hand for you to squeeze as basically an emergency stop/to notify them that you need out before it's done. They're also really bright, and at least from my experience, sometimes the paint is peeling a little. That doesn't matter, other than as something to stare at.
There are also headphones so they can give you instructions. For two of the three MRIs, they also played music (I listed to Taylor Swift for the last one). The headphones are kind of noise canceling, but nothing can block out the clanking, of which there is a lot, of various types, very loudly. The instructions will vary; one of the things they have you do for abdominal MRIs is hold your breath out, which feels very weird and is actually surprisingly hard--basically instead of inhaling and holding your breath, you exhale and then don't breathe back in until they tell you to. I can never hold it for as long as they say to, but it's never been an issue (at least as far as they've told me).
For some MRIs, they use contrast. Generally (maybe always?) they say that it's "with and without contrast" which means that they do the majority of it without contrast, and then they put the contrast in and take some more images. To get contrast, you need an IV, which they put in before you get in the machine. They attach the IV to a coil-y tube, which extends when you get moved into the machine. They generally hook it around your hand so it stays in place/doesn't pull against the IV site.
Contrast feels very weird. Someone mentioned this in one of the reblogs for the stabby stuff post, but basically it gets processed by your body really quickly so it goes to your bladder really quickly and also feels warm so it sort of feels like you've wet yourself. They warn you before they put it in.
Unironically, I find MRIs kind of relaxing, because you just lie still for like an hour under a weighted blanket. 4/10 would pick over the other options.
I have had a CT scan done but don't really remember it so would love someone to weigh in on those.
250 notes · View notes
foursaints · 5 days
Note
hi saints it’s pavlov’s dog anon back at it again (so sorry for taking so long, but if u genuinely are serious about wanting a tooth charm…….i’d be very excited to make one) BUT what do we think about odontophiliac evan? like, i can’t stop thinking about it. i want him purposefully removing his lover’s molars and storing them in tiny jars to put on display. or he stares at barty with a completely unwavering expression and says, “i’m going to touch your teeth” and he just…jabs his finger into barty’s mouth and starts stroking over his teeth, pressing the pad of his finger against sharp canines…he doesn’t know why there’s literal warmth pooling in his belly because that guy does not feel Warm Things. i want evan pinning barty down to the bed and practically unhinging his jaw just so he can admire barty’s teeth. he’s got some 1800s old school medical bag, pulling out the most obscure tools just to poke and prod the inside of barty’s mouth. like i feel as though i’m going somewhere with this, and i need your Thoughts
tooth charm anon!!! how i missed you!!! oh my god yes please 🦷🦷. we could even match!
this ask is so gorgeous. the dynamic of Barty fondly holding himself in place while his Little Blonde Freak pulls out his molars with pliers, shoves fingers in his mouth, sucks his tongue, and generally uses him as a living doll to blandly experiment on is so crucial. i see barty as having really nice teeth anyway... evan probably asks to see them up close when they're "still friends", (barty is panting at this opportunity) and he finds himself sitting there with his fingers buried in barty's mouth, trembling and wondering why he's fighting the urge to give his front teeth a lick. asks barty to bite him hard enough to leave a mark he can study afterwards.
i'm firmly of the belief that dentist!evan has a collection of antique dental headgear, rusty victorian cranks & gags to keep his mouth open (professionally!!). you'd think he'd fuck him like that, but i think evan just likes to try out all his weird tools on barty to make him drool on himself, then scold him for being messy. and barty would call it unfair, if he could speak.
32 notes · View notes