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hawkinshighdropout · 2 years

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Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x (female) Reader

Summary: Your mental health has been getting bad again, worse than usual at least, and Eddie comes home at the end of the day to try and take some of the weight off of your shoulders.

Warnings: Mental health is mentioned in this briefly, not in any graphic detail and not really any specifics, but I wanted to warn y'all in case even the mere mention of depression and anxiety was triggering. There's a few sad tears but then it's full of supportive and comforting boyfriend Eddie, I didn't want to intentionally make anything to glorify or commodify mental health, this is meant to be sweet.

Note/Request: Requested by anonymous. “Hi! i love how you write for Eddie and I have never requested anything from anyone before so... here goes nothing I guess 😅 i've really been struggling with my mental health lately. everything has been setting off severe panic attacks, I've barely been sleeping or eating... it's been a rough couple months. i was wondering if you could write something about Eddie and the reader going through something similar? if you're comfortable, of course. if not, I understand!”

Word Count: 2.5k

Send me prompts to write about!

It’s been getting bad again… It comes and goes in waves, your mental health. Your social battery had been gradually decreasing for the last couple of weeks. Finding yourself to be far more irritable, sensitive, anxious. Smaller tasks begun to overwhelm you again and you found yourself residing most of your time in your room. Bed mocking you each and every night as you were laying restless and grew more sleep deprived. Things were supposed to be looking up, this was supposed to be your year. Not that you had any control over that realistically, you knew it would always ebb and flow, recovery wasn’t linear. You’d had so many good days that you almost forgot you could even have bad ones… Boy did you consider this a reality check.

You recognised the symptoms, the signs snowballing one after another as you slipped away. Dissociating more often, eating less, sleeping a /lot/ less despite the fact you practically lived in your bed when you could, even your general hygiene had gone down. Truth be told, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d showered or brushed your hair, it wasn’t something you had the energy to do as of late, it was a chore.

It was currently about nine pm for you, you were bundled up with blankets on the couch of Eddie’s living room. Eddie was your boyfriend, one you didn’t consider yourself deserving of. He was the light of your life, and you just felt like a burden. He never thought of you that way, not even for a second. He never even made you feel like that, those are just the harrowing and intrusive thoughts you felt on nights like these. The pair of you were happily in love, but nights like these tested your thoughts and put doubt in your head, constantly thinking he could do better.

He was none the wiser, he looked at you like you’d personally hung the stars in the sky, like you hand crafted the moon just for him. He thought you were God’s greatest gift, even though he wasn’t religious, he just truly thought so highly of you and loved you with all his heart, the way you truly deserved to be loved.

The front door closing in the distance is what took you out of your trance like state, blinking slowly before looking up at the bundle of joy walking through the door. You felt like you could breathe again for the first time since he left this morning. Having been out with his group of friends doing another campaign all day, this was the first time you’d seen him, the first time you felt at home. He had offered to stay home when he could see the look in your eyes, he made it abundantly clear that he would happily postpone to comfort you and be here with you, he didn’t postpone for anybody, that’s how you knew it was bad.

You’d insisted he go, you wanted him to have fun. He put so much love and effort into every aspect of his life, including his clubs, you wanted him to get the best out of his time and experience things freely. You didn’t want to keep him locked up in the trailer and suffer just because you weren’t doing great. He reluctantly left this morning with the promise of undivided attention when he got home, not parting ways with you until he had smothered you in kisses and reminded you that you were loved and cared for.

The corners of your lips threatened to tweak up into a smile as you saw him wandering towards you, his lips instantly pressing against your forehead as he crouched down to be eye level with you. His hands taking your own so he could glide his thumbs affectionately across your knuckles. He was so tender, so gentle with you, so scared that you might snap and break, like you’d crumble if he touched too hard.

“Hi, sweetheart…” he said, voice soft, “how’s my favourite girl, hm?” eyes scanning your expression to gauge how you were doing, a nervous smile on his lips.

“I’m… okay, I guess?” you didn’t sound convincing, not even to yourself. The sight alone of him kneeling down and being attentive made your voice wobble a little, feeling your eyes burning as they threatened to spill over with tears.

“You don’t have to lie to me, my love. It’s okay to tell me you’re not okay.” he reassured you, instantly causing you to hiccup as the first couple of tears spilled down your cheeks.

In a flash, he was up on the couch with you, arms around your midsection as you slumped against his chest. He adjusted the blanket so you were both bundled up, hands stroking your back and lips pressed to your forehead whilst he let you cry. He was good at this routine by now, which is a little sad to think about. He knew when to give you time to cry, and when to comfort you, and when to intervene and problem solve for you. You appreciated that.

After what felt like forever but was probably about ten to fifteen minutes, you’d resorted to just being a little sniffly and slumping against his chest. Seemingly all cried out. Or just too exhausted to continue, who knows? Once you were at a more relaxed state, Eddie pressed one further kiss to the top of your head and whispered fondly to you.

“Sweetheart… Look at me?”

Tilting your head up, his thumbs springing into action to delicately wipe the tears from your cheeks. Pressing the most loving kiss to the tip of your nose before brushing your bangs out of your eyes.

“Do you think you could stomach some food? Hm? Nothing crazy, just so something is in your system?” he would never pressure you or guilt you, he just wanted to provide options and comfort you in baby steps. Going at your pace so he didn’t make anything worse for you. You nod a little, you hadn’t eaten anything proper all day and the sheer mention of food made your stomach growl in response.

“Atta girl. How about you stay here and I’ll go make you some ramen, yeah? Sound good?”

Another silent nod came from you, gently shifting you so you’re comfortable and bundled in the blankets once more. Kissing your forehead as he wandered the few small steps away to the kitchen, he started to prepare one of your comfort meal, packed ramen. It only took a couple minutes of getting some hot water, cooking the noodles and adding in the flavours, but you watched fondly as he would dance about the kitchen softly singing to himself as he worked.

Placing the bowl of ramen on the mini dining table he’s got in the trailer, giving you the options of both a fork or chopsticks, accompanying the meal with a bottle of water fresh from the fridge. For himself? He just grabbed a Dr. Pepper and a handful of pretzels, mumbling that he had pizza with the guys earlier so he didn’t need anything real to eat. Sitting opposite you at the table, a fond look on his face as you slowly started to eat your noodles and sip at your water. You opted for the fork today, not having the energy to stumble your way through chopsticks.

“How is it, honey?” His voice still laced with love and affection for you, looking up from your noodles to smile across at him.

“It’s good… thank you.” the first words you’d really said since he got back, he was letting you be in your own head, giving you the space to just exist and be taken care of.

“Once you’re done, I was gonna hop in the shower. Did you want to join me?” He offered.

Nodding once again, you felt like you could shower if he was there to assist you. Something about him being about was just comforting to you, you didn’t catch the proud smile on his face that he gave you as you slowly chowed down. The moment you were done, he was happily scooping up the bowl and placing it in the sink to attend to tomorrow, taking your now-empty water bottle and placing it in the recycling.

“Let’s go, princess.” he said sweetly, kissing your temple before guiding you into the small bathroom. Flicking the shower on, making sure the temperature was warm, Eddie then started the process of undressing the pair of you. Stripping you both down to your underwear, making sure all laundry went into the basket, helping you take your hair out of its bun and making sure all jewellery was on the sink. Once all clothes had been slumped off of your bodies, you looked up at him for direction.

He hopped in first, acting like a Guinea pig, wanting to make sure it was warm enough for you both. Once it was to his satisfaction, he took your hand and helped you into the shower, closing the curtain behind you both so you didn’t flood the house. The first couple minutes of the shower were in silence, Eddie would take the wash cloth and put shower gel all over it, gently scrubbing you one limb at a time. You giggled as he ran the cloth across your stomach and sides as you were ticklish, resulting in a fond grin from the older man at the sound.

Your body was fully clean, and he wasted no time in grabbing your facial cleanser, applying some to his hands before giving your face a sweet little massage to clean you. Using the much smaller wash cloth to clean your face of any chemical residue. Repeating the same process with himself, cleaning both his face and body until the pair of you were squeaky clean besides your hair. Lathering his hands in shampoo, he gets you to spin on the spot, close your eyes and tilt your head back.

Taking his time with massaging the suds into your hair to scrub away any dirt or grime that had built up since the last time you washed it. Taking the shower head and cupping your forehead to make sure nothing got in your eyes, Eddie would rinse the shampoo out of your hair and let it wash down your back. He would repeat the same process with the conditioner, but of course he focused that on the ends of your hair instead. Making sure that all was rinsed out before you were allowed to turn back to him.

“All better, love.” He smiled, to which you smiled back. The first whole hearted smile he had seen from you in days.

He reached the shampoo bottle with the intention of repeating the process on himself, but you caught his wrist gently and stopped him from continuing.

“Allow me?” You mumble sheepishly, taking the bottle from his hands and pouring out enough to lather up. Eddie wasted no time in sinking down to his knees to give you plenty of room and access to his hair, his arms around your thighs whilst he pressed loving little kisses to your soft stomach.

Massaging the shampoo into his scalp, lathering up the curly locks with a soft giggle before you would cover his eyes for protection and rinse them from his hair. Repeating the same process with the conditioner as he has done to you, washing away any chemicals from his soft frame. Placing one last kiss against your stomach, he slowly stands and cups your cheeks in his hand.

“Thank you, princess.” He whispers, leaning down to press a few delicate kisses to your lips which you happily reciprocate.

“Not a problem, handsome.” You smile.

You both spend a little longer in the shower, mostly just letting your bodies relax under the warmth of the water, sharing a kiss or two every now and again as he would tell you all about his day. You listened with genuine intrigue, giggling or snorting whenever an embarrassing moment or funny joke was recited from his hangouts. Eddie turned off the shower and made sure to wrap his waist in a towel before enveloping your whole body in one as well. Standing behind you in the mirror and using his comb to gently brush out your hair so it would dry less frizzy later on.

Kissing your shoulder, he then stands next to you whilst you both begin the process of brushing your teeth together. Spitting, using mouthwash and wiping your faces clean before sharing another kiss. Taking your hand, Eddie leads you into the bedroom with a soft hum coming from his lips.

“Ozzy or Hellfire?” He asks, going through his pile of clean shirts, looking for something to let you sleep in.

“Ozzy, please.” You whisper, trading off his watch in your hand for the shirt in his, making sure he had his accessories before you wander back to the bathroom to change. You double checked that you were fully dry before putting the towel in the laundry basket and slipping on the Black Sabbath shirt he had given you, smiling to yourself that even when it’s clean? It still smelled of him.

Coming back into the room a few minutes later, eyes a little wide as the sheets had changed and Eddie was slumped back on his bed in just his boxers, playing with a dice in his hand to keep him occupied.

“There you are, hi.” He said like a giddy little child at the sight of you, shutting the door behind you as you climb into bed with him. It took mere seconds for you to curl up in his arms, him placing the dice down on the bedside table in favour of holding you and playing with your hair.

“Thank you, for today.” You whisper.

Shaking his head, kissing your forehead and bringing you closer with a squeeze. Feeling his fingers brush up and down your forearm whilst he shushed you. Everything he did was out of love, not out of needing praise and approval.

“Don’t thank me, it’s what you do when you love someone who needs a gentle hand every now and again.” He mumbled into your temple, pecking the skin there several times as you smile up at him. “You’re gonna have your bad days, and I’m gonna help you through them. Im proud of you, you know? Even if you’re just waking up and achieving something as small as mustering up the energy to toast some pop tarts or crawl out of your safety blankets and use the bathroom. I know they’re all small things you struggle with on days like this. But… You’re badass. Every day that you wake up and you don’t feel like you can do things? You still do. You still keep on pushing, you do your thing and then you smash it outta the park every single time. It’s pretty fucking metal when you think about it.”

“I love you.” You say proudly.

“I love you right back, doll.” He grins.

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loneberry · 8 months

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Baby's First Meditation Retreat

…attention is prayer. —Simone Weil

It would be simpler—the monastic life would be so much simpler. Wake, pray, meditate, do battle with the ego, eat, sleep—live such that everything inessential is stripped away. Why did you come here, I said, I’m tired of living a distracted life, of going through my days in a fog of unawareness.

In Cambridge, MA I attended a meditation retreat. I signed up on a whim, out of a vague feeling that I have lost control of my mind. I have been meditating very casually for the last nine years, mostly using the Calm app, listening to Tara Brach recordings, and attending guided meditations while a grad student. I had come to the practice out of desperation, in the midst of a debilitating depression that made me feel perpetually tormented by my thoughts. During that time, I would voraciously read every study I could find on depression treatments and tried basically every treatment modality out there: neurofeedback, ketamine, therapeutic yoga, medication, CBT, DBT, fish oil, an anti-inflammatory diet, psychedelics, and the “treatment” that ultimately saved me: intensive psychoanalysis four days a week. Meditation seemed a particularly promising and low-risk way to manage depression and anxiety—and yes, it did bring me some relief, working as a kind of supplement to the psychoanalysis. Even though I haven’t been as consistent about it as I would have liked, I continued to practice it regularly, usually for about 10-20 minutes a day. Not once have I regretted meditating, though when life gets busy it’s easy to tell yourself that you just don’t have the time to sit and do nothing, even though we seem to somehow always have the time to mindlessly surf the internet.

What is there to say. I’m just so tired of living on autopilot, of not having to face the moment, to face myself. There are a million ways to blot out one’s internal monologue, filling up our days with the background chatter of podcasts or social media.

The recrudescence of my Simone Weil mania has forced me to reflect on attention—that rare quality of mind which is increasingly in short supply. And yet everything is a matter of attention—not because attention can be instrumentalized to achieve one’s goals. No. Attention is the end in itself. Weil: “We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.” It’s in that second-to-second awareness that reverence for the moment blossoms. The fog is lifting. Here is the trembling world, a cloud passing, the dancing light on the pavement as the sun passes through the rustling leaves of the tree. Weil: “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.”

I landed in Boston late Friday night and early the next morning was off to the Zen center for the silent two-day retreat. I really did not know what to expect when I signed up. I knew a little about the different schools of Buddhism from studying it in a course as an undergrad. I remember being slightly afraid of “Zen” (or Chan) in particular because it seemed so severe to me. I imagined interminable zazen sessions, without guidance or visualizations; imagined slouching pupils getting whacked with sticks for bad posture or falling asleep. Yet surely if I were to test the Buddhist waters, I should do Zen/Chan since it is a specifically Chinese tradition? My father’s uncle was a Buddhist monk who wandered the mountains of China. I don’t know anything about him, other than his sister (my grandma) was devastated when he died after getting hit by a train. Whether it was suicide or just a manic pixie monk moment, I do not know.

Some meditation retreats are completely secular—they are just like a series of long, guided mindfulness sessions, with the context, rituals, and “religious” dimensions stripped away. This was not really that kind of retreat. There were robes, chants in Korean, elaborate meal rituals, and yes, getting whacked with a stick! Of course it is always possible to opt out of getting hit with the keisaku stick—I thought I would, but in the end I took the whacking almost every time it was offered, partly because it jolted me awake and relieved the tension building up in my body from hours and hours of sitting cross-legged on a cushion. The first couple of times the keisaku whacking was administered, I had to restrain myself from laughing. Oh my God, we’re getting whacked by a Buddhist master! In the orientation the instructor said it was for “tension release” but I did feel that it was something like a ritual of submission to the authority of the teacher, even if it didn’t really hurt. Watching how eagerly D. bowed to receive the stick in the orientation, I wondered if the Zen pupils were secretly sadomasochists.

Constitutionally, I am not a “joiner” and have an aversion to organized religion and anything that emits even a whiff of cult vibes. I’ve always been critical of authority and incapable of following rules, possibly because I didn’t have any growing up. But there was something soothing about how regimented everything was. We performed our actions in sync, chanted about emptiness at 4:30am. The whole experience felt almost militaristic, but a part of me enjoyed the austere, disciplinary atmosphere and the obsessive attention to detail. Not disciplinary in a punitive sense, but disciplinary in the way I imagine Russian classical music training to be: the methodical pursuit of self-mastery (it’s hardly surprising that the Zen master I received instruction from was a classically trained pianist). During the retreat I concluded that more discipline would be good for me.

Most of the retreat consisted of meditating in silence. There was no small talk, no psychobabble, no “now we will get started…”—he just hits the wooden clapper three times, and the sitting session starts. No guidance, no body-scan, no loving-kindness prompts. Just you, seated cross-legged on the cushion in silence, facing the tumult of your chaotic mind, your hands in the Dhyana Mudra position, your eyes half-closed.

It is a profound and difficult experience, having to face your own mind…both utterly banal and deeply disturbing, thoughts flitting from “maybe I should try to find a used bicycle on the OfferUp app” to thoughts of my parents’ mortality. I was warned by the Zen teacher that difficult emotions might bubble up. Thrice I broke out into tears and strained to regain my composure. It began during one of the short breaks, when I was lying on a bench outside looking up at the sky, imagining that a passing cloud was a life appearing briefly before dissipating. It was an unmediated confrontation with the eternal flux of the universe—pure panta rhei.

Weil: “Whatever frightful thing may happen, can we desire that time should stop, that the stars should be stayed in their courses? Time’s violence rends the soul: by the rent eternity enters.” Time’s violence has utterly and completely ripped apart my soul. I wanted to hold onto everyone and everything I love, for the stars to be stayed in their courses, for time to stop, for my parents to live forever. I thought about Mari Ruti’s rapid decline and death, about my recent visit to my older brother in prison, and my trip to my relatives’ assisted living home, where my mother’s cousin has been completely waylaid by the rapid onset of Parkinson’s disease. I thought about my father sitting down in the chair looking out the window at the assisted living home, talking about getting old, how his knees ache now. Time’s violence rends the soul.Will I be strong enough to face the eternal flux, the impermanence of everything I love, with a fierceness that borders on madness, grieving even the eventual death of the Sun? Sitting on the cushion meditating, crying: let go. Will I ever be able to let go with grace? Don’t know. Sink into don’t-know mind. Count the breath. Something passes through me.

What did I see, what did I hear—I heard every exhibit of the Museum of Jurassic Technology: the voice imploring us to follow the chain of flowers into the mysteries of life, the burbling waters of the miniature model of Iguazú Falls, a recording of David Wilson talking about exploding dice, the distant echoes of barks in the bestiary room, the mournful sound of the duduk in Djivan Gasparyan’s “Lovely Spring” playing the Sandaldjian room, Monteverdi’s “Lamento della Ninfa” as I ascend the stairs to the sublime courtyard, Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” in the ‘Ecstatic Journey of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’ exhibit (impossible not to see the levitation scene from Tarkovsky’s Solaris when hearing BWV 639), Mihály Víg’s “Valuska” in The Borzoi Kabinet Theater at the end of the day, and the sound of David’s nyckelharpa reverberating in the garden.

Now the birds of the mind are taking flight.

In, out. In, out. Return to the breath.

The mind opening like a door to the sky

a deep purple flower unfolding in the emptiness.

List everything you see, her feet standing on the lotus.

Clear mind

Don’t know.

(In) 1-2-3-4 (out) 5-6-7-8

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ ἐλέησόν με

The heart

The spherical heart of the manatee

Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts

like waves, saturating the swash zone of the mind…

It’s the weekend of the Perseid meteor shower. Eight years ago, Ed and I watched them from the dock of a Maine pond. We had rented an Airbnb from a man with the same name as a dear poet friend of mine, Dana Ward. (I was dreaming of Dana when I woke up this morning.) A week after the Maine trip, I was at the mental hospital. I had forgotten I had a poetry reading. The woman organizing it called, wondering where I was.

Eight years have passed me in the blink of an eye.

Thoughts.

out

In 10-30 second intervals: nothing. Just the space between thoughts.

There were two states of non-self:

one of calm neutrality—just the is-ness of the world.

The other, something more ecstatic:

a mystical amnesia, when you become the contraction and expansion of the breath.

What is there to say about it? In my stead there was a heaving purple cloud floating in a black room.

Then, the “I” coheres again. Head so full of language, thinking about everything I want to write. “I shouldn’t be so attached to my thoughts.” The teacher says in the interview: it’s not about suppression.

Writers are fundamentally hoarders of thoughts. I try to collect each one, as the squirrel does the acorns. In my head I am writing an essay about the antidepressant withdrawals, my astonishment that I did not relapse as David Foster Wallace did when he committed suicide after tapering off his antidepressant. I remember when my thoughts were stuck on the “I want to die” loop, how Ed installed the ad blocker on my internet browser because he was disturbed by the suicide hotline targeted ads. I do not think such thoughts anymore. Maybe it is true—we are not our thoughts. They pass through my mind like water through the sieve. Did Woolf train herself to observe the stream? Too much thinking. I must be doing it wrong. Wrong again—I’m supposed to suspend judgment.

I hear my friend Tim saying, “the mathematics section is the most mystical part of the library.”

Then Weil says, “As soon as we have a point of eternity in the soul, we have nothing more to do but to take care of it, for it will grow of itself like a seed. It is necessary to surround it with an armed guard, waiting in stillness, and to nourish it with the contemplation of numbers…”

Now I’m thinking about the relationship between math and mysticism, about the Indian number theorist Srinivasa Ramanujan, who received, in his dreams, thousands of formulas from the Hindu Goddess Namagiri. Ramanujan: “An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God.”

I remember my poem “Umbra,” in which I reference the French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck’s strange book, La Clef des Songes (‘The Key of Dreams’). As one commenter puts it: “It’s a book about God. Grothendieck’s thesis is simple. We meet God in dreams. But we aren’t ourselves dreaming God, rather God Himself is dreaming us. Or better: according to Grothendieck ‘a Dreamer’ exists, an external force who ‘dreams our dreams’ and at the same time dreams us. And this force can only be God. … he declares, in a little footnote that it’s almost hidden, that mathematics wasn’t ‘created by God’ nor by man, but by an aspect of God’s nature that, unique among his attributes, is accessible to human reason.”

A week ago, I was telling Alex about Oppenheimer’s mysticism, his proficiency in Sanskrit and intensive study of the Bhagavad Gita, his “feeling for the mystery of the universe that surrounded him almost like a fog.” I watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer biopic with Alex—a mathematician/mathematical physicist—and my father—an almost-physicist who immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan to do a physics PhD in Wyoming but dropped out after his first year to move to NYC to wait tables at a Chinese restaurant. After the film, we watched a documentary about Sir Isaac Newton’s heretical theology and alchemical studies, how he read the Bible as a cryptogram and determined the world will end in 2060.

Could there be a connection between mathematics and the capacity for the divine, between the abstraction of mathematical thinking and the ability to sense the invisible, to see the hidden points that connect disparate realms? Wasn’t Einstein a Spinozist?

Scraps of language jostle around in my mind like a shaking bowl of coins. Stupid thoughts like, “Lacan is to psychoanalysis as Zen is to Buddhism.”

I see myself thinking about the news, about geopolitics and the madness of nation states. China is preparing their population for war, as are we. A kind of nausea overcomes me, as I see the whole nuclear age unfurl before me.

We dwell on whatever we expose ourselves to, the articles we read, the people we see, the people we lurk online, the reflex to compare, to repeat the name of the Other like a mantra.

Everything you think you need, you don’t actually need.

A butterfly has somehow flown into the Dharma room. It flits on the floor in the middle of the room. The teacher scoops it up and brings it outside. She corrects my dreadfully sloppy attempt to perform the meal ritual. I panic because I’ve taken too much food and must eat every last crumb. The pear is not ripe, and it is a torture to eat the whole thing. The pear is not ripe—a Zen lesson! Mastication of the unripe pear, a kind of koan.

There was a short break. I decided to walk around Central Square, without a wallet or phone or headphones.

How can I describe the sense of aliveness I felt in that moment, that alert receptivity, when I looked at the sky and saw the birds of Central Square taking flight above the Greek Orthodox Church? I walked up the stairs—some ceremony is taking place inside. Down the streets, there’s a brunch spot I never knew about in the seven years I lived in this town. There’s the sound of a busker, so sweet, and a flower shop I wandered into. There’s the bus stop I would wait at on my way to psychoanalysis. I cross the street. Emanating from a building on Mass Ave is the rhythmic thud of Latin American music—it must be the music-dance sessions my ethnomusicologist friend told me about years ago.

Before dawn on the second day, we perform 108 prostrations. It turns my legs to Jell-O. When I walk up the stairs to use the bathroom, I have to grasp the banister to drag myself up. A few days later I can still barely walk from the soreness caused by the rapid-fire prostrations. Was there something off about my form? I noticed that the others relied more on their arms to hoist themselves up, while I relied almost exclusively on my legs.

And yet I quite enjoy prostrating myself. Outside of any religious or ritual context, I sometimes find myself spontaneously performing prostrations—to what or whom, I do not know. To the earth? I like to kiss the ground, to give thanks to this marvelous rock on which we all dwell.

The interview with the Zen teacher takes a bizarre turn: she asks me questions about DeSantis, in a ‘liberals-trying-to-commiserate’ kind of way. My hatred of DeSantis is bottomless—I had just flown in from Florida the night before the retreat. Please, anything but a DeSantis koan! She asks me if it annoys me that she has been correcting my attempt to execute the meal ritual. I say, No, I don’t mind being an amateur, and crack a joke about being an adult music learner. When the short interview is over, I return to the silence of the Dharma room.

Sitting in silence for long periods is much harder than it looks. Yet the second day feels easier than the first day, despite being on day three of almost no sleep. Toward the end of the retreat, I stare at a spot on the floor, convinced it is a moving bug. It jiggles and jerks, walks in a circle, but always seems to return to the same spot. I can’t stop observing the bug. At the end of the sit, I lean in to get a closer look only to realize it’s not a bug at all, but a dark spot in the wood flooring.

When the retreat is over, there’s the shock of hearing everyone’s voices, of realizing you had projected otherworldliness on people who are just people in the way you are just a person. We sit in a circle and take turns sharing our experiences. I say, “I came on a whim…because I watched YouTube videos about Buddhism with my dad.” We eat vegan pie at the table. The girlfriend of the man sitting next to me has come to meet him, with roses.

I grab my backpack, put on my Blundstones, and leave the center, in the soft afterglow of the mind’s clearing. What did it feel like: I had no desire to look at my phone. Turning on my phone was almost painful, and yet I needed to call the friend I was staying with. I met up with the religious studies poets, felt more present with others, more natural. We tried to go to the Harvard Film Archive to watch Ozu but were turned away for arriving late. We sat on a rooftop terrace to watch the sunset, with a view of the two spires of Harvard Yard, Memorial Church and Memorial Hall. Sun through the leaves, perceived crisply, as though a layer of mediation had been removed.

#meditation #buddhism #Zen Buddhism #mysticism #chan buddhism #mathematics #Simone Weil #attention

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queerbuckleys · 2 months

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Hello I want your advice on something if you don’t mind? So I’m 23 and haven’t had like a group of friends since high school and I had only my best friend for a few years after I graduated, even though we were living a few hours apart then, but then she passed away and I have had no (in person) friends. I’ve just been really lonely but I had my best friend even if we weren’t in the same space but since losing her I’ve been much lonelier, and my depression is bad but I think it’s a lot from being lonely. Anyways on Saturday my local LGBTQ+ center is having a “speed friending” event and part of me wants to go but part of me is terrified because I’m very awkward socially and I don’t know that I’d have anything interesting to say and I also don’t know exactly how the event works or how structured it is?? I just don’t know how I’d make friends any other way as an adult but the anxiety about going to it is super bad but do you think I should force myself to go? My mom sent the info to me and thinks so but idk what my thoughts are and cannot make a decision to save my life

sweet nonnie, first i am so sorry for your loss <3 my short answer is absolutely you should go! i went through very similar anxiety before deciding to go to my local yarn store's weekly craft circle, and i will give you the same advice both my mom and my therapist gave me: go to the center beforehand and check it out, test the commute, see the space so that part isn't all new on saturday. when you are there you can ask questions about it -- just say "hey i saw you're hosting this event this weekend and i wanted more information" if doing that in person sounds too scary DM them on instagram or see if there is an email on their site, answering the what ifs that i can has always helped me be somewhat less anxious. depending on the structure it might be really easy to be a listener, so be active, ask questions, and they will probably ask you about things too, people usually love talking about themselves! also its kinda like the guy on the bus meme with both sides saying "nobody knows you" so even the littlest things you kind of forget about yourself are brand new information to everyone you'll talk to, which is scary but also makes you interesting! the first time i was going to go to the craft circle, all the signs in the universe were telling me not to go, i missed my bus, i didnt have the money to get a lyft, and i was running late, so i called my mom on the verge of a panic attack because it's not perfect im giving up i will try again next week, and she sent me the money for the lyft and stayed on the phone with me until i got there. all that to say, use your support system, it sounds like your mom is rooting for you so use that to your advantage <3 another thing you can do it just keep showing up at the center's events in the future too! even if they are not friending specific, if you have time see if they need volunteers. just keep showing up and someone will see you. I am also terribly socially awkward and anxious so i 100% get it, all of that is much easier said than done, but i promise it is worth it to do it scared. you are doing a hard thing, so be kind and gracious with yourself, but also do a little tough self love. i believe in you. you got this.

#ask aj and they answer #anon #also keep me updated im here like all the time #and i love you

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cl0udpup · 1 year

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Autism Spectrum Quotient

For anyone following me on Twitter, you'd notice I interact with autistic people constantly, respond with strong relation to autistic experiences, agree with many "if you do ___ you may be autistic." Yet, online testing has been unclear.

I haven't brought it up to my therapist yet, as I just went through the ADHD assessment process (diagnosed, inattentive type.) I've had this anxiety like, I don't want my care team to think I'm like... trying to just collect diagnoses. No, I'm just desperate to understand myself and hopefully plan accordingly so the next half of my life can be a bit less chaotic than the first.

So, I wanted to take and post my results from the tests on embrace-autism.com here. I'll be posting my thought process as I go through the questions, because so much of it leaves me wholly confused, and unsure of what the questions mean. Maybe writing it all out will help me understand, or maybe others can chime in and help clarify, or give their opinion.

Questions and responses behind the cut. I answered middle of the road for a majority of questions, as many of them were vague or confusing. There were only a few definitely yes or definitely no.

RESULTS

Score: 32

Score Analysis: “The AQ doesn’t really offer much insight into specific autistic traits, as it only outputs a single score. Any scores of 26 or greater indicate the presence of autistic traits; the higher the score, the more autistic traits you have.

Furthermore, 79.3% of autistic people score 32 or higher (whereas only 2% of controls do), so scores of 32 and above are particularly significant.

The AQ is particularly sensitive in distinguishing between autistic and non-autistic adult females, as 92.3% of autistic females scored 32 or higher (compared to 1% of the control group).

Do note that no single test is conclusive, and not every autistic person necessarily scores above the defined threshold on each test. If you score low on the AQ but still think you could be autistic, try taking a few other autism tests.

1. I prefer to do things with others rather than on my own.

Well, I work alone, and need quiet, solitude, and privacy to complete tasks. Including hobbies, like if someone is around when I'm trying to make art, I get anxious and distracted. If someone is on the same page as me, focusing on the same thing, and participating together (not just talking and ignoring the task at hand,) I'm happy. As for things I have trauma around, like going somewhere alone that I've been harassed or assaulted before, I need a partner.So I guess I'll say slightly disagree?

2. I prefer to do things the same way over and over again.

Like what? I'm so bad with being asked vague questions on the spot. I need details, I can't always think up relevant examples on my own. I literally have no idea what this is referring to.

3. If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind.

Definitely agree.

4. I frequently get so strongly absorbed in one thing, I lose sight of other things.

Definitely agree.

5. I often notice small sounds when others do not.

Definitely agree.

6. I usually notice car number plates or similar strings of information.

I am noticing patterns constantly. Def agree.

7. Other people frequently tell me what I've said is impolite, even though I think it's polite.

I don't remember this ever happening. I typically try really hard to make sure everyone is comfortable, not upset, I am hyperaware of others feelings, to the point of having to ask clarifying questions to be sure things are okay. So, I'm typically very cautious with what I say.

Outside of that, there are situational behaviors I have been told are rude, or social conventions I don't subscribe to, so they fly past my radar for "things that could make someone uncomfortable." Those things I'm like, wait, why is that inappropriate, that doesn't make any sense.

8. When reading a story, I can easily imagine what the characters might look like.

I don't always find that to be necessary information, but as stated before, if I wanted to I can create images in my mind. Usually if I'm curious I'll just google what they look like lol.

9. I am fascinated by dates.

Uh, yeah, huge astrology nerd over here, and also love pattern recognition.

10. In a social group, I can easily keep track of several different people's conversations.

So like, at a family gathering, when uncle & aunt are talking about their new dog at one side of the table, and cousin is talking about graduating next year, and grandma is talking about how good the biscuits are?

I mean, it's all just chatter, I just pipe up in whatever convo is most interesting to me.My thoughts on this one are, sure I could if I wanted to, but why would that be necessary?

11. I find social situations easy.

Omg SO vague. If I'm hanging out with my few best friends, I'm generally at ease, besides worrying if everyone's having a good time, or getting overstimulated and needing to take breaks of alone time.

If I'm going to a party with a friend with a bunch of people I don't know, I'll be excited to meet and observe new people, but it's easy for me to feel anxious, like an outsider, and I quickly want to leave lol. This is where drinking has come in for me.

12. I tend to notice details others do not.

I have been told this a few times, yes.

13, I would rather go to a library than a party.

No, I get anxious when I could possibly be cornered alone in an isolated and quiet place where I can't easily run to safety of others.

I would rather read at home by myself than go to a library, and would rather be at a party with people I feel safe around than to one with strangers.

14. I find making up stories easy.

Yes, I have an active imagination.

15. I find myself drawn more strongly to people than things.

Is this asking like, do you go to the theater because you want to see the movie, or do you go because you want to spend time with the person you go with? Well those are two separate things for me, and would be a dual benefit combining them.

Is it asking, would I rather stay home and play video games, or go hang out with friends? I'd rather play games cuz socializing is both under and overstimulating.

I just don't really understand this question.

16. I tend to have very strong interests which I get upset about if I can't pursue.

Why wouldn't I be able to pursue them? My brain is going to examples like, going to a family gathering and having to sit at a table quietly and do forced conversation for 2 hours instead of being able to do activities while talking. My family is likely all ND, so no one chastises me if I am drawing at the dinner table while conversing.

My other thought is, school. Yeah I hated school because I wanted to be doing things I cared about, instead of being forced to sit quietly and do things I found pointless.

And, work. I get frustrated when I have so many boring tasks I have to complete, when all I want to be doing is focusing on whatever hobby I'm obsessed with that week. But, I am known to give in to distraction constantly.

17. I enjoy social chit-chat

It depends. I hate being asked what I've been up to, what my plans are for the weekend, I don't like being put on the spot. But if someone else is trying to make small talk, I'm much comfier asking the questions. If the other person obviously wants to talk about that stuff more than I do, I'm happy to let them share lol, and feel like I'm good at asking questions to get to know a person.

Idk if I'd go as far to say I enjoy it, it's kinda more just a "fill the awkward space of us having to have this interaction."

18. When I talk, it isn't always easy for others to get a word in edgeways.

Uh this one is hard bc almost everyone in my life is ND lol. Everyone is annoying and talks a lot and talks over each other and rambles on forever. I have been known to rant as well.

19. I am fascinated by numbers.

Didn't we go over this like 2x already? Hell yeah I love numbers.

20. When I'm reading a story, I find it difficult to work out the characters' intentions.

I don't really read fiction, but I watch a lot of films. I can predict what will happen because I've seen sooo many films and use pattern recognition. I also feel really intense empathy, so I easily relate to characters who go through things I've been through, or are experiencing pain or joy how I have, and I think about what I've done in past situations.

If it's a character I don't relate to, I pull up similar characters I've observed in the past, and go over their archetype in my head, and then can try to predict what they will do.

21. I don't particularly enjoy reading fiction.

I somewhat enjoy it, but I'd rather read someone's memoir and hear from their own words what their life is like, or learn about science or history in the real world.

I'll add films into this as well to make the q fit better. I do love fictional films, even fantastical genre's like horror, monsters, science fiction, so yes, I suppose I do like fiction.

22. I find it hard to make new friends.

I was in a discussion a while ago on Twitter about friends. Myself and others were coming to the realization that acquaintances aren't friends?? So this is confusing to me. I have an easy time approaching others, especially others who seem kinda like outsiders as well (people standing alone, looking around, probably feeling anxious like me that they don't have a "person" or group to feel secure and included in.)

I have made sooo many friends over the years because I love the stimulation of getting to know someone new. But close friends? Actual friends who text me regularly and we actually hang out? Yeah that’s incredibly hard, and not something I really want from more than the few people I’ve known for years. That level of intimacy and commitment is overstimulating.

23. I notice patterns in things all the time.

Yeaaaaa boyyeee I love me some patterns.

24. I would rather go to the theatre than a museum.

Wut? I mean depends on what kinda theatre and what kinda museum! I’m interpreting this as, go somewhere loud and noisy where you have to sit quietly, vs somewhere you still have to be quiet but you can walk around. I can’t sit quietly for 2 hours, so museum it is.

25. It does not upset me if my daily routine is disturbed.

I hate surprises lol. I have to plan everything out otherwise I get flustered. Please don’t spring things on me or ask me to do something in 2 hours.

26. I frequently find I don’t know how to keep a conversation going.

Idk as I said I’m good at asking people questions, but sometimes my brain freezes up. I really don’t like being the one “interrogated” though lol. I like situations with clear guidelines, like in therapy, I can talk and talk because we are talking about me lol and that’s something I know best.

I feel like I know general questions to ask to get through different scenarios, for example, I was nervous the first time I was alone with my partner’s mom when he got up to use the restroom, so my brain goes, ok, ask this set of questions, keep the focus on her so she doesn’t have a chance to ask me something I won’t know how to answer lol.

But then, when I was at one of his family gatherings, and ended up alone with a couple people I didn’t know, my instinct is, smile and be funny or find something I have to go do lol.

27. I find it easy to read between the lines when someone is talking to me.

I mean, if I ask someone if they want to do something with me, and they beat around the bush, I assume they are just trying to be polite, and will try to give them an out like “it’s ok if you don’t want to, don’t feel bad!” etc.

But if someone is being passive aggressive or negging me, I often miss it. I assume good faith in people most of the time, because I don’t do weird manipulative behaviors myself, so I forget some people operate like that.

28. I usually concentrate more on the whole picture, rather than the small details.

Is this like, it’s okay that I’m late and spilled coffee on my shirt and the food I was going to bring got messed up and I couldn’t find my chapstick, as long as I just show up to the event? Or, I have a meltdown getting ready before the event because all those things happened?

Or is it like, it’s okay that this person I have a moral problem with is going to be there, because we don’t have to talk to them and can still have a good time? vs I absolutely cannot be okay with myself if I attend something that someone I so strongly disagree with will be there to potentially cause me to get worked up.

I guess maybe I’m a details guy?

29. I’m not very good at remembering phone numbers.

I feel like this question is outdated. I haven’t even looked at a person’s phone number in years since smart phones became the norm. Let’s change it to something like, birthdays? I’m good at remembering birthdays.

30. I don’t usually notice small changes in a situation, or a person’s appearance.

I notice changes in people and settings all the time. Especially if it effects me sensory-wise, like a lighting change, a new sound, or smell.

31. I know how to tell if someone listening to me is getting bored.

Idk, I don’t know if I give myself a chance. I take away the possibility of me getting rejected by giving people an out before then. I make myself limit time on things I want to focus on, or space I’m taking up, and always tell people to just tell me when they are ready for me to leave. And just preemptively do so if I get too anxious that they might not want to hurt my feelings.

32. I find it easy to do more than one thing at once.

Not really? I have ADHD so I’m easily distracted. I come up with systems and strategies to multi-task when I have to, I kinda gamify it. But, an example I’m thinking is like, watching a movie while I’m trying to work on something, or listen to a podcast when I’m taking a walk, I don’t absorb that info great.

33. When I talk on the phone, I’m not sure when it’s my turn to speak.

Talk on the phone, lol. I don’t do that for pleasure. If I’m making a necessary call like for an appointment, I rehearse what I’m going to say ahead of time, or I’ve done it so many times I have the process memorized.

34. I enjoy doing things spontaneously.

No, lol. Too many variables, I need plans I can think out and prepare for.

35. I am often the last to understand the point of a joke.

Sometimes. Sometimes I have to ask for it to be explained, especially if it’s different from my usual sense of humor.

36. I find it easy to work out what someone is thinking or feeling just by looking at their face.

Again, I’m hypersensitive to people’s feelings, so I seek reassurance often, constantly scanning body language and verbal cues.

37. If there is an interruption, I can switch back to what I was doing very quickly.

It depends on how invested in what I’m doing. If it’s something I have been putting off because it’s difficult, and someone interrupts me, I get flustered and irritated. I usually just tell people not to interrupt me when I truly need to avoid distraction.

If someone interrupts me when I’m talking, it can be hard to continue.

38. I am good at social chit-chat.

Didn’t we go over this? I said I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I am okay at it.

39. People often tell me I keep going on and on about the same thing.

I wouldn’t dare, lol.

40. When I was young, I used to enjoy playing games involving pretending with other children.

Sure, we would play pretend family or school, or make up stories with toys.

41. I like to collect information about categories of things.

YES, yes, so much yes. I love collecting and cataloguing things, I fucking love making lists lol.

42. I find it difficult to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.

No, I love putting myself in others shoes. It’s part of what I like about social media, memoirs, documentaries. It makes me feel more connected to the world to imagine myself in someone else’s life, and see how similar we all are, but with different circumstances.

43. I like to plan any activities I participate in carefully.

Absolutely. That’s my role. I’m the planner.

44. I enjoy social occasions.

It truly depends, as I’ve stated above. I have a lot of conditions that go into it being a good time, but when my conditions are met, and I have the freedom to come and go as I please, I enjoy socializing with nice people.

If it’s with people I feel like an outsider with, no thanks. I’ll grin and bare it, fake it till I make it outta there.

45. I find it difficult to work out people’s intentions.

This just isn’t something I think about, and I have been burned for it in the past.

46. New situations make me anxious.

Yes. I need to know all the details so I can create a model of it in my mind, and go over all possible scenarios and how I will react to them in a way that doesn’t make me lose it with uncomfortableness.

47. I enjoy meeting new people.

This comes down to consent. I used to meet new people from the internet constantly pre-pandemic. I knew I wanted to meet them because we had xyz in common, and I knew the circumstances we’d be meeting in. I loved meeting people when I was in the party scene.

When it’s people who might judge me or think I’m too weird to be included, I’d rather just pass. Over the years I’ve realized I haven’t always recognized when people think I’m too weird to be there. I was blissfully ignorant, just being this nice, friendly person, then come to find out they thought I didn’t fit in.

48. I am a good diplomat.

Sure, I want everyone to be happy and feel included and seen.

49. I’m not very good at remembering people’s birthdays.

Oh oops I used that for the phone number Q lol. Yeah I remember childhood friends bdays, and my childhood dogs bdays. Always been good at that.

50. I find it easy to play games with children that involve pretending.

I haven’t been around children hardly at all since I was one, but sure.

#autism #autism spectrum quotient #aq test #possibly autistic #probably autistic #autistic #neurodivergent #actually neurodivergent #self diagnosis #self dx

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blackvail22 · 5 months

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bro i have been sick as hell these past few days

took a covid test and, well, i have covid!!

the first time ever, too

and now, in about 6 hours from now, i have to call my job and tell them that

I. FEEL. SO. BAD.

i know its not my fault im sick, but we only have, like, one person to replace me... and if he cant work, what then? i think there is a new person, but im the associate that trains people, too. who is going to train her?

i keep writing the script of what im going to say in my head. i keep going over it over n over... nothing seems quite right...

its so difficult to talk to my store manager, too. i mean, im socially awkward in general, but she doesnt respond in ways i can expect? and its difficult to read her facial expressions (if she has any at all), so it stresses me out. i cant understand her lol

and thats not her fault...

but i have to call off (again), but this time, its for five days. oooh my god.

i might just ask to talk to my assistant store manager, but i know shes usually busy when shes not mod... and shes stressed out enough lol

im going to SOB

i think my fear of not being believed is taking a part in my anxiety, too, since my mom never believed i was sick while growing up (i was sick so much it caused me to have a disease in my tonsils and severe sinus issues and allergies) so, i mean!!

everything always ends up back to my mom

kinda crazy

kinda... sad.

off topic, but i find it difficult to talk about my dad to my sister, specifically in a... bad way. shes so close to him that she wont see much, if any, wrong in him, so its generally hopeless lol

like, my dad has always had favoritism towards my sister. he showed up to everything for my sister and paid full attention to it. me? nahh. he'd go *sometimes* or if he had to take me, but he wont pay attention.

it makes me sad that i never really had a parent i could go to. i guess i go to my dad, now, but its not the same. its not. i still have this uncomfortable feeling towards him. or, like, he isnt my dad. i dont know. i just see him in a different light now... idk how to explain it

how did it go from me having covid to me being anxious abt telling my boss to me having daddy issues?

woah

i need to take my concentration medication LMAO

its 2:18am on december 2nd, 2023.

i am v much not okay! and thats okay

i just wish i get some actual sleep and i stop fucking coughing

oh, and for my boyfriend to text me back when he wakes up instead just reacting with a heart to my message

goodnight!

update: i got decent sleep, im not coughing as much, AND my boyfriend texted me back. didnt expect that to happen lmao

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naturecoaster · 1 year

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Coping with Dementia: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dementia

“PTSD” means “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” It is not a disease; it is a syndrome, a collection of symptoms and behaviors that can emerge after we experience an especially traumatic or disturbing event. This can be something that happens to us, or simply something disturbing that we witness. PTSD is often associated with military service, especially after the American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Previous generations used the terms “Shell Shock” or “Battle Fatigue” to describe war-related PTSD. But PTSD is not just a combat phenomenon. It can be a response to trauma in any walk of life. The symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, severe anxiety, flashbacks to the terrifying event or time that caused the PTSD, uncontrollable thoughts and fixation on the bad experience, inability to sleep, negative changes in thinking or mood, changes in physical and emotional reactions to routine events, loss of memory, and inability to concentrate. Symptoms of PTSD remind us of Dementia but they are not the Same Some of these symptoms – specifically memory loss, inability to concentrate, and mood changes – remind us of some of the classic symptoms of dementia. But they are not the same thing. While traumatic brain injury may be involved in the emergence of some cases of PTSD, it is not a factor in all cases of PTSD. Dementia, however, involves by definition, cellular degradation of the brain. It is progressive, irreversible, and terminal. This process is so dramatic that an adult human brain, which weighs about three pounds, can shrink to a weight of only one pound at the time of death from Alzheimer’s disease and some other causes of dementia. PTSD, on the other hand, is not by definition terminal, and can be diminished or cured through therapy. Traumatic brain injury (TBI), often associated with combat-related PTSD, can cause dementia, and probably at a higher rate than we realize. The brain is a fragile organ, and – without much evidence – we have too long believed that helmets used in contact sports play a significant role in eliminating concussions. We also believe that concussion is a minor injury that we will get over after a couple of days, but research has shown that dementia – a type we call chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) -- can emerge years later. Concussion can lead also to Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia. TBI can be caused by falls, vehicle accidents, and sports injuries. American football, soccer, and rugby cause more TBIs than we once believed. In soccer, TBI can result from “heading,” which was once thought a safe practice. I am concerned that the symptomatic similarities between dementia and PTSD can result in unnecessary anxiety and incorrect diagnosis. When any of the symptoms described above begin to emerge, we need to seek diagnostic help or psychiatric support to determine what the problem really is; dementia, PTSD, or something else. General medical practitioners are usually not qualified to accurately diagnose at this level of neurological specialty. We may get better results by turning to a psychologist or seeking a memory screening and MRI from a qualified research company. The latter is free and readily available. My guidance? 1) PTSD is difficult enough to cope with. Do not jump to the conclusion that you have dementia. Get tested. 2) Do not take “head bumps” lightly, and do not assume protective gear has made you safe. Follow up on any head injury with examination and testing. 3) Please be especially wary of children’s contact sports. As I said, little-noticed head trauma can emerge as dementia many years later. 4) Do not believe that you are immune to PTSD because you did not serve on active military duty. It can happen to anyone, and while it is not the same as dementia, it is a hard way to live. Final point: Remember that we all deserve the best! About Debbie Selsavage Debbie Selsavage is a Certified Trainer and Consultant in the Positive Approach to Care and a Certified Dementia Practitioner. She authors a monthly column to assist caregivers in coping with Dementia. Her company, Coping with Dementia LLC is dedicated to making life better for individuals living with dementia. Contact Debbie at [email protected]. Read the full article

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aminiatureworld · 3 years

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Disappearance

Characters: Diluc, Razor, Xiao, gn!reader

Word Count: 4,133

Warnings: Slightly claustrophobic

Premise: The line between small upsets and huge quarrels can be a blurred one, and it’s often difficult to cope with in the aftermath.

In which there is an argument and the reader disappears.

Author’s Note: Thank you for your request anon. I really cannot stay away from angst, and this was right up my alley. Poor characters, how I love to torture you.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write Razor, he isn’t in my list of characters I’m comfortable with. For one thing I find his broken speech quite difficult to deal with. I can’t tell if I find it irritating or not, or if it’s an example of good characterization or the “savage” stereotype a la Tarzan – sorry Tarzan I don’t like you. But I tried to make the effort and I hope it came out well! Though I still don’t feel quite comfortable with writing him. I hope I handled the dialogue well enough. He makes me think of San from Princess Mononoke.

Diluc

Diluc accelerated his pace as the Winery came into sight, his normally serene face breaking into a small smile.

It was the best time of day, the time when he came home, the time when he could finally see you. The two of you had been a couple for about five months, and though it wasn’t the longest of time, it was certainly the happiest Diluc had been, happier even than when he was a child with a family to call his own. You were his family now after all, something that you reminded him when he was in his darkest moods. You were his family now, and nothing could tear that apart.

“Welcome home.” Your voice was warm with happiness, and you threw your arms around Diluc the moment he came through the door. Diluc reciprocated the embrace and for a moment the two of you simply stood in the landing, the picture of perfect happiness.

“I’ve missed you, beloved.” Diluc whispered.

“I missed you too.” You replied, smiling softly. Your smile slipped however, and was instead replaced with an expression of worry. “You were gone so late tonight, I was unsure if something had happened to you. Really, I was about to go after you.”

“Well I’m glad you didn’t.” Diluc replied, tone firm though not unkind. “We’ve talked about this before my love, if something were to happen to me, which it won’t,” he quickly added, seeing your gaze cloud over, “but if it did I wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger. I fight for you as much as anyone else in Monstadt, and for you to be injured or worse on my part, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

“I know we discussed it and came to that conclusion.” Your words were slow, deliberate in tone. “But though I agreed to it then, I found tonight that I regretted it more than anything I might ever do. I cannot bear the idea of you somewhere near, hurt and crying out for help or worse…” you swallowed, unwilling to conjure the image to mind, “…I couldn’t bear thinking that you might be in a bad way and with no chance of rescue simply because I made a foolish promise. And while I was thinking about this all I came to the realization that I could never truly keep that promise. If you’re ever in need I will be there for you, no matter what. No matter what you said, what you think, it is the simple truth.”

“Please don’t do that.” Diluc replied, voice quickly becoming filled with emotion. “If there’s something out there that could hurt me like that, then how –” he paused, realizing his mistake, but you’d already caught it.

“How could I possibly defeat it?” You replied, a grimace replacing your smile. “You cannot treat me like glass Diluc. I’m an adventurer, a warrior in my own right. And I won’t be kept from saving the one I love the most, not when the only thing keeping me from it is his pride and a few words.”

The two of you said nothing more of it that night, but the argument hung in the air the next morning, continuing the awkwardness up until you left for your adventuring duties. Diluc did nothing to breach the gap. He was in the right after all. And besides, it was such a stupid little argument, barely one at that. In a day or two it’d be nothing, and then all would be well again.

This conclusion was sorely tested when you didn’t return to the Winery in the evening. As Diluc prepared himself for another night of patrol he began to worry slightly. Surely you weren’t avoiding him. About something so small? No, most likely you were simply late. You’d be there when he got home. If he was sure of anything he was sure of that.

Unfortunately Diluc was proven quite wrong. The doorway was empty at his arrival, you were nowhere to be found. A sinking feeling began to settle into his stomach, and Diluc found himself quite unable to sleep that night, instead tossing and turning this way and that, wondering if you were truly so angry over something that he’d seen as so small. It was the only logical explanation for your disappearance after all, though Diluc wasn’t sure what to do about it. Chasing after you seemed somewhat uncouth, and besides didn’t that always make things worse? No, he’d give you space, all the space you needed. If a week passed then he’d seek you out, but before then he’d let you be. No point in jeopardizing the relationship anymore than apparently he already had.

His promise to stay away for a week was nearly torn to shreds by the end of the next day. Were you truly so angry with him? How could he have hurt you so much? Diluc didn’t know what to do. During the day he tried to behave as always, keeping tabs on everything he could and busying himself as much as possible. At night, however, the feeling became more and more unbearable, and Diluc found sleep more fleeting than ever.

He kept replaying the argument, over and over again did he try to remember exactly what had happened. Was your tone of voice angrier than he thought? Was your expression darker? Had he been too curt, too dismissive, too demanding? What could’ve possibly caused you to simply disappear? It was unlike you; usually what arguments took place resulted in you trailing him more than anything else. Why was this so different? Turning onto his side once more Diluc closed his eyes. Tomorrow all would be well. Tomorrow you’d come back for sure.

You didn’t come back tomorrow, nor the day after that. Those days were some of the most anxious Diluc had felt since the immediate passing of his father. Work became unbearable, for words that one stood clearly on the page now swam before him, a sea of incomprehensible figures and symbols. Eating and sleeping too were utterly alien to him, and what those two days were mostly comprised of turned out to be him walking about in a stupor, too dazed and too worried to think about anything around him, anything other than you.

On the fourth day a knock came to his door, and with it came Katheryne of the Adventurer’s Guild. Her face was ashen, and she was fiddling with her hands. As Diluc gestured for her to sit down the anxiety that had been sitting in his stomach tangled itself into knots. What in the name of the Seven had happened?

“Master Diluc, we have some information, information involving your partner.”

“Yes?” Diluc’s voice was sharp and low, for he couldn’t bring himself to hide it. Collapsing into the opposite chair he tried to prepare himself for the worst, knowing that if you had left or, Seven forbid, been killed he’d never be able to move on.

“Well you see your partner, they went on an expedition, a commission rather. They were looking for bits of Noctilious Jade and Cor Lapis. Although these minerals are normally found in Liyue only there are a few reservoirs in Monstadt along the border of the two lands, specifically they can be found in certain caves behind the waterfalls that flood into the river. A merchant bought the rights to the land of one of those caves and, being a merchant, he couldn’t get it out himself, so we sent one of our own to mine it out for him, see if it was any good.”

“This is all quite fascinating,” Diluc replied, tone made sharp with worry, “but I can hardly see what this has to do with anything.”

“Your partner was the one selected. They went down to mine it but the entrance was the opening to a sharp drop and they fell down. We only managed to recover them this morning.”

The shock that ran through Diluc was something that he never wished to experience again. It seemed to pierce right through him, into the center of his heart. You’d been trapped. You’d been in need of help, stuck for days in the worst of possible situations, and he’d done nothing but loaf around the Winery. How could he forgive himself for something like that?

“May I see them.” He choked out, his throat constricted and burning.

“They are coming here right now. Thankfully injuries were minimal. Caves connected to water are the most dangerous kind, you can die and it can be impossible to retrieve your corpse. They were incredibly lucky.” And with that gruesome thought in mind Katheryne walked over to the door, opening it to reveal you.

Diluc had never moved so fast in his life. Instantly you were wrapped in his embrace. You returned the gesture just as fiercely, clinging on as if he was the only thing anchoring you, keeping you from collapsing from relief, from fatigue, from the terror that had yet to dissipate.

“Oh my love, oh I’m so sorry, so deeply sorry. Forgive me, forgive me for not being there. Forgive me.” Diluc whispered, practically incoherent. You were both shaking, and when you two collapsed in the chair closest to the fire there were no words for a good many moments. The terror you’d both felt was hardly over, and you both needed to be sure that this wasn’t a dream, that it was all over, and that you were going to be fine now.

“Diluc.” You finally whispered.

“Yes my love.” Diluc replied, a tremor still in his voice. You leaned into him, head perched on his shoulder, breath tickling his neck.

“I never want to quarrel again.”

Diluc reached over to cup your face. Raising your head slightly he leaned over, brushing his lips against yours, indulging in something he thought for a moment he might never be able to do again.

“Neither do I.” He replied, voice just as soft. “And remind me never to try to restrict you again, for if I’d not been such a fool I would’ve run to your side the very evening you were trapped.”

You smiled softly, expression conveying relief and tenderness and most of all love. Leaning in for another kiss you whispered something right before your mouth collided with his.

“I will follow you wherever you go.”

Razor

Sitting at the edge of one of Wolvedom’s many cliffs, eyes trailed towards the far away walls of Monstadt, Razor wondered if he might’ve been too harsh.

It wasn’t that Razor wanted to quarrel with you, I mean you were the first and only person that he’d managed to build a sincere connection with. It was only that he’d grown up with a complete distrust of humans, and as much as he tried to bury that aspect of himself it still came to the forefront at times.

“I don’t understand what you’re so angry about Razor?” You’d exclaimed, face twisting into an expression of annoyance.

“Why do you like them?” Razor had replied, gesturing towards the people who had arrived with you, trampling their way through the forest as if everything belonged to them simply because they were human. He could practical smell the arrogance wafting off them, and it made his hair stand on edge. It was frustrating that he didn’t have the words to convey that to you.

“My guild members?” You’d said, glancing over your shoulder. “Razor I work with them. We’re going on a trip.”

“I want them to leave.” He’d practically growled, moving to take your hand in his. “I want them to leave, I want you to stay.”

“Well you can’t do that Razor.” You’d said, tone growing more and more exasperated. “And I don’t understand why you’re so hostile to them.”

“They’re human.” To Razor this was enough, but evidently the answer was hardly satisfactory to you.

“I’m human.” You’d pointed out, raising an eyebrow. Razor shook his head.

“You’re different.”

“No, I’m not. You just like me. And like it or not I’m a human, and a human who has a job to do. I can’t stay here, and I can’t stop talking to all other humans.

“Why not?” He’d shot back. “It would be better. Humans are bad creatures.”

“You keep forgetting who I am!” You’d exclaimed, shaking your head. “Whatever, I’m not arguing this with you. I’ll see you in a day. I hope that you can think about my feelings by the time this is over.”

Well the day had come and gone and there was no sight of you. Razor was too angry though to feel much remorse, no matter how much he missed you. You were probably busy anyways, talking to other humans, fraternizing with the enemy. For what else could humans possibly be? They cut down trees, killed the inhabitants of the forests. Even the wolves weren’t safe, for what farmer hadn’t taken a shot at one of them at some point in his life? No, Razor was not the one in the wrong. You were just too used to them. You couldn’t see it.

Still your absence sat wrong with him, and he found himself scouring the edges of Wolvendom the next day, trying to figure out what had happened. It wasn’t as if you didn’t know what he thought after all. And surely you wouldn’t abandon him so quickly, surely.

Razor was hardly so sure when the sun went down the next night. It seemed you were well and truly gone, though where he couldn’t tell. Maybe you really had decided to abandon him, decided he was too much of a burden, decided you preferred humans anyways. The thought ate at him, and he found himself walking around with a bitter taste in his mouth, unsure what to do.

Razor wasn’t sure what finally caused him to cross out of Wolvendom to look for you. Perhaps it was anger, perhaps it was guilt, perhaps it was that he at least wanted to say goodbye. No matter the cause however he still found himself walking on an unfamiliar path, as the woods shifted to plains. He felt vulnerable, uncomfortable without his familiar family. But it was too late to turn back now, and so he pressed ahead.

All sense of discomfort faded away upon running into you. You looked the worse for wear, covered in dirt, your clothes ragged. For a moment Razor wondered what could’ve possibly caused this. Perhaps there was a creature out there he was not aware of. Running up to you he wrapped his arms around you.

“You’re hurt.” It was more of a question than a statement, and you seemed to understand that. Returning the hug you sighed slightly.

“I was stuck in one of the shallow caves off of the Stormbearer Mountains. The passage we went through started crumbling, and I was the last one in line. It took some time to dig me out.” You laughed slightly, but there was a tremor in your voice, and you seemed ill at ease. “It was so dark in there Razor, so utterly dark. I couldn’t imagine being a creature down there, it all seemed to weigh down on me, and I thought it’d collapse and bury me at any second.”

Razor had tightened his embrace, the image seared into his mind. There was a visceral fear in his reaction, the fear of what you’d just described, but it was more complicated than that. To be down there himself was terrifying, but for you to be in that situation, and for so long, it stole the air from his lungs and weighed him down with such a sense of dread he could barely stand it.

“Humans sent you down there?” The tone of his voice was seething, but your reply was much calmer than it had been before.

“Yes. They did. But they also saved me Razor, you must remember that.”

It was something he hadn’t considered, and as he pulled away to look you in the face he pondered the implications. What he’d said was true, yes, but what you’d said was also true. They could’ve quite easily left you if they wanted, could’ve left you for dead and said there was nothing to do about it. Certainly some humans would’ve done just that, but they didn’t. Instead they helped you, for days they had dug, and thanks to that you were safe.

“I was wrong.” He said, tone straight, for it was a fact. He was wrong, at least about your people he was wrong.

“There are many evil people out there.” You said, expression pensive. “There are those who kill and rob and lie and think only about themselves. There are those who cannot see the world around them. But you can’t judge all of humanity by that. There are also those who care for every aspect of the world they can, who burden themselves with all the misfortune they see, so much it might break them. Humans are complicated Razor. So yes you were wrong, but I cannot say you were completely so.”

Razor said nothing, absorbing what you’d said. It was hard not think in black and white, something necessary sometimes for survival. But ever since you’d entered his life he wanted to try to understand you, even a little bit. And, especially after today, he’d do anything to make that effort a reality.

For though he understood little of humans and their ways he knew of one thing for sure. And that was the love he carried for you.

Xiao

Looking back it was such a stupid argument. Of course all arguments seemed idiotic looking back after what happened. But if all arguments were stupid, then surely Xiao couldn’t’ve picked a stupider one to have.

“I wish you’d see me off at the bridge.” You remarked, strapping the last of your equipment into place. You were off to do another commission, something about recording a rare species of lizard and taking photographs of some rare luminous mosses, and once again the topic of goodbyes had come up.

“I’m saying goodbye now aren’t I?” Xiao tone was as brusque as ever, but this time you didn’t brush it off with your usual smile.

“I mean it Xiao.” You said instead, turning to look him straight in the face. “I know you don’t fraternize with people, I know that you consider it a result of the burdens you carry. I know that and I don’t ask you to go and set up shop in Liyue or some such thing. I do ask you though to simply be there when I leave the city. It would mean a lot to me to have you there when I step out into the wilderness, especially when I’m going to be gone for two days. Can’t you do this for me, at least this?” You searched his eyes, expression pleading, but Xiao simply scoffed and turned his head.

“Saying goodbye here should be enough. Besides, there aren’t any people here. Would you really want me to say goodbye surrounded by prying eyes?”

“No one is going to pry.” You pointed out, voice flat with annoyance. “And to answer your question, yes, yes I would like you to be there to say goodbye. I love you dearly Xiao, more than I have ever loved anyone, more than I ever will. But I cannot love you unequally. I don’t ask for much, but I am asking for this. Please say goodbye to me at the bridge.”

But Xiao merely scowled, shaking his head violently. Huffing you turned around, everything set and ready to go.

“Sometimes I don’t know why I put myself through this.” You muttered; stomping your feet ever so slightly, and slamming the door to the room behind you.

Xiao’s sense of time was usually quite poor. To adepti days were more like minutes, and even months seemed as abundant as grains of sand. One of the things that had most surprised him about starting a relationship with you was how his sense of time was affected by it. The days with you were mere moments, and the days where you were gone dragged on and on, minutes replaced by endless boredom.

This time was no different, instead the feeling was exacerbated. Although the first two days were a blur, made meaningless by Xiao’s irritation over your final conversation, the moment the third day dawned and you were nowhere to be found time ground to a halt, and Xiao no longer became sure of what day it was, sure that a month must’ve passed instead of a few hours. You must’ve been more irritated than he’d thought.

Still the adeptus was full of pride, pride and principles. If you were staying away over something so petty so be it. He’d not be the one going after you, not when he was utterly within his rights. Why should he changed so over the request of a human? No matter how much he loved you a part of him chafed at the idea, and thus he did nothing, instead sulking the days away under the concerned eyes of Verr Goldet.

If he was filled with pride though, there was also anxiety. Day three came and went, then day four, then day five. When day six arrived Xiao’s will seemed to give up, and he spent his hours in a restless sleep, something highly unusual for the adeptus labelled the “Vigilant Yaksha”. It was if you had taken all his strength away, and what remained was nothing but anxiety and his quickly shattering anger. Surely nothing was worth this feeling of being eaten away by poison. Surely.

Night had fallen, and the moon had taken her silent vigil over the land. Xiao knew that he should get up, knew he should go after you. But it was as if he was chained to the mattress. His head was filled with static and he felt as if he were burning up. A headache had come on the moment he’d opened his eyes, and now he found he could do nothing but lay with his thoughts, each becoming darker by the moment.

He recognized the weight of your footsteps as soon as they came into earshot. Bolting up, all fatigue leaving him, he slammed open the door, taking the stairs two at a time until he finally came face to face with you.

If he was expecting something, it certainly wasn’t this. Though there was a smile on your face it was marred by the bandage on your forehead, and by the long gash on your arm.

“What happened?” The words came out in a rasp. “Who did this to you?” The weight had come back, and Xiao swayed slightly, feeling altogether faint, the range of emotions he was experiencing becoming overwhelming.

You pressed your hand to his chest, the other moving to cup his cheek. “No one did this to me.” You said, voice slightly hoarse. “One of the caves I was in collapsed, and I fell and hit my head while running away from the entrance. Thankfully it was nothing serious, and it only took them three days to get me out.”

Three days. The situation seemed torturous. Xiao was a creature of air, the mere idea of being beneath the earth was claustrophobic to him. It was to humans too, that he knew, knew from what he’d heard from Rex Lapis. The idea of you trapped underground, injured and unable to escape, it shook him to his very core.

Taking your hand in his he kissed your palm, silently thanking Rex Lapis and all the other archons for letting you come home. The situation, what you’d gone through, it was all crashing down on him. You were the most precious thing in the world, the one he loved most, the only person he would truly love, in all his years on this earth it would forever be that way. How could he take you for granted? Take your needs for granted?

“I’ll never fight with you again.” He whispered.

“I don’t know about that.” You said, smiling slightly despite it all. “Fights are hardly unheard of after all.”

“I won’t. Not about something so stupid. Not when…” he trained off for a moment, eyes clouding over. “… Anyways I won’t do it.”

“Does that mean you’ll say farewell at the bridge?” You asked, tone hopeful.

“I will.” Xiao promised. “I’ll do anything for you. For you are that which I love the most.” And leaning over to kiss you Xiao made a silent vow that he’d never let you go through anything like that. Never again.

#I never know the right time to post these #diluc #razor #xiao #diluc x reader #razor x reader #xiao x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #requested #scenarios #my writing

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an-anxious-gay-mess · 3 years

Text

Here's my headcanons of what neurodivergencies the lab rats (and leo) would have if I had been allowed to write this show

Adam:

-ADHD and Dyslexia

-"What do you mean the letters aren't supposed to move around?"

"Uh"

"Are you telling me most people don't have to read the same paragraph six times???"

"Uh-"

- After he got diagnosed he actually became a bit more interested in learning! It helps that most people are actually working with him now instead of just reassuring him that he's dumb -Chase especially feels really bad for teasing him so much without realizing how hard Adam had to try and researches ways to help people like him study

-Adam still doesn't go out of his way to do well though, he's fine as long as he's passing his classes

- is almost never standing still. He loves swivel chairs and will spend hours just spinning back and forth completely zoned out before he realizes he should probably eat something that day

-the only time you'll see him completely still is when he's sleeping or super upset about something. He gets RSD pretty bad sometimes and will just shut down completely when upset

Chase

-Autism, baby!!

-Gets really bad sensory overload and has a lot of meltdowns if he gets too overwhelmed

-he gets frustrated with himself a lot when he gets sensory overload and will try to ignore it, which usually makes it worse

-He has a lot of stims but he typically will only do the more visual ones when he feels safe (mostly when he's alone or with his family if he knows they won't make fun of him)

-Just. Constant info dumping. If you're going to start a conversation with him make sure you have at least 15 spare minutes to learn about the history of needle work (or whatever he's been researching that week)

-hates eye contact but will force himself for the sake of being Professional, to the point where he makes himself do more destructive stims (like pulling at his hair) or even having a meltdown

-(his family yells at him for doing this A Lot "Chase please just put on the goddamn headphones why do you do this to yourself-")

-he was kind of embarrassed about being autistic at first and still tries to hide it most of the time to prevent people from bullying him about it, but after a while he learns to accept that it's not his fault people want to be dicks, and that autism isn't something to be ashamed of

Bree:

-dyslexia and anxiety

-She's the one I have the least amount of headcanons for whoops-

-i think unlike Adam she's really embarrassed about being dyslexic and goes out of her way to avoid talking about it

-this is partially because of her anxiety too: she doesn't want to bother her teachers or anyone so she never mentions anything about getting accommodations

-because of this she struggles a lot in some of her classes, but she spends a lot of time worrying about them and studying too

-she's had a lot of panic attacks at 3 am over trigonometry

-after a while of her grades getting worse the school guidance counselor probably pulls her aside and is like "you know we can give you extra time to do tests right?" And basically gets her all the accommodations she needs

-Bree is like "wow glad I spent 2 years building that 5 minute conversation up in my head and making myself worry so much I threw up multiple times"

-she generally tries to not let anxiety control her too much, and once she gets some help from her teachers she gets way fewer panic attacks over school work

-she even tries to over compensate by trying to appear like nothing worries her even though Everything does

-she hates when her brother's occasionally go on missions without her (like if she's sick or injured), and her anxiety will scream at her the whole time they're gone

-they're always willing to reassure her that they're okay, though, and will even update her over headsets when they can

-she also worried a lot that people around her are secretly mad at her or don't like her. Her family is usually willing to reassure her that they love her, but it does tend to put a strain on relationships she forms outside of them

-also I think part of the reason she latches onto texting so much (besides the stereotypical Teenage Girl thing) is because spell check is a godsend

Leo

-OCD and autism

-tasha: uh hey buddy what are you doing?

6 year old leo: idk stacking these blocks

Tasha: oh, okay, why don't we work together to make a big tower?

Leo: no. There must be Exactly Six blocks in each tower

Tasha: okay buddy that's great :)

-the lab rats are initially very confused by some of his rituals

-for example: when he turned the lights in a room on or off, he had to flick the switch 5 times. Or at night, he had to check to make sure the door was locked three times

-they asked him if that was something that most people did in the outside world, and he explained to them what OCD was, and eventually told them about a bunch of other neurodivergences

-"wait so you said you have something called autism too?"

"Yeah, it's what makes me do that thing where I flap my hands sometimes. A lot of people with autism will know a lot of stuff about a few specific topics and will hate eye contact and other people touching them, but everyone is different"

Chase: "tell me more right now."

-that's how they end up getting diagnosed too!

-Leo tells them about different disorders (including ones they don't have) and they immediately launch onto the feeling of Are You Telling Me Other People Do This?

-they go to Big D about it and he's pretty accepting right away

-they debate a lot at first whether they want to get professionally diagnosed, but then they decide that it would be a lot easier to get accommodations at school with a doctor backing them up

-where was I going with this I'm completely spiraling

#long post #lab rats #bree davenport #chase davenport #adam davenport #leo dooley #these are kind of ooc but i havent fully watched this show in a couple years lmao

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slasherhaven · 3 years

Note

I dont think ive see smth like this in your blog and im really sorry if im crossing a line, you dont have to do this but if you could, could you do vincent and any other slashers youd like with a unplanned pregnant s/o? Like they werent expecting it, how would they react? Im sorry again if this is too specific and out of your comfort zone!

The Slashers’ and their S/O reacting to an unplanned pregnancy:

Thomas Hewitt

A pregnancy can only be good news to Thomas (unless you know it’s going to put your health at risk).

He noticed that something wasn’t right but you both just thought you were sick. It was Luda May that pulled you to the side, telling you that you might be pregnant.

But you both agreed to not tell Thomas until you had taken a test and were positive, you didn’t want him to freak out over nothing.

When you tell him, you are nervous about his reaction since neither of you had talked about it. Even if Luda May had been hinting about grandchildren.

But as soon as you tell Thomas that you’re having his child, he is overjoyed!

He wants to be a father, to have a little family of his own. So what if it wasn’t planned? That doesn’t matter, he still wants this.

He’s smiling, placing a large hand on your stomach (even though you aren’t showing yet).

If you’re still worried about this unexpected turn of events, he would be there to comfort you and reassure you. Don’t worry, Y/n. He’s going to take good care of you and your child.

Michael Myers

You had every reason to be nervous about telling Michael about your pregnancy. You loved him, you really did, and you knew that he loved you but he wasn’t the most...nurturing person.

You really didn’t know what he would think or how he would react.

Even if you don’t think he’s the monster people think he is, a part of you worries that he’d just leave if he decided this wasn’t what he wanted.

But you had to tell him, he was going to find out eventually anyway.

Just as usual, your announcement is met with stoicism. The emotionless mask doesn’t help either. But this is one of the main reasons he wears the mask, so nobody can guess what he is thinking.

He wonders if you’re scared that they’ll turn out like him. Would you love them anyway, just like you love him?

He decides that he’s not going to be a good father (whether that’s true or not is a possibly debatable) but he also decides that he is staying put.

You’re going to be caring for this child, right?

You do notice that he’s much more gentle with you at all times. Maybe he cares more than he likes to show...

Jason Voorhees

You weren’t all that nervous about telling Jason about the pregnancy, you knew he would be there for you both and you knew he would be a good father.

When you told him, Jason definitely had to sit down. You’re pregnant? You’re both having a child.

This is big news! His mother would be so proud!

After wrapping his head around it, Jason will pull you into an embrace. He’s going to be good for you, Y/n!

He hadn’t thought about starting a family with you until now but he quickly decides that he likes the idea lot. He likes the idea of raising a child with you, of being a father.

And he’s going to do his absolute best to be the best father for his child. He’s excited to be taking this step with you.

Time to babyproof the cabin!

Brahms Heelshire

Brahms had noticed that something was right, he thought that you were sick. You did at first but eventually you realised what might actually be happening. So, you got a pregnancy test in the next delivery.

You didn’t want to say anything to Brahms until you were completely sure.

Turns out, you were pregnant and now you had to tell Brahms.

He’s not too pleased at first...neither of you had talked about this, he hadn’t even thought about having children. He doesn’t like surprises and he doesn’t like that he’s going to have to compete for your attention.

He might even sulk about it but he’ll slowly come around to it.

You’re having his child...you’re going to be parents...together...maybe this isn’t so bad.

He definitely needs some time to warm up to the idea but he will eventually, probably reluctantly apologising for how he acted.

Bo Sinclair

Haha, good joke...

...you are joking right? Right, Y/n?!

Well...okay, he guesses. It’s not like he could do anything about it now.

He’s going to pull away from you slightly at first, because he’s doubting his own capabilities as a father. He isn’t meant to have a partner, he isn’t meant to have a kids, a family, any of this...and yet here you were.

He stop pulling away eventually and make up for it. However, he becomes more attentive, more protective. Is pretty much going to try to turn you into a housewife type of partner.

But it’s not like he’s going to be doing all the chores just because you’re pregnant.

If you’re down for that, great! If not, just tell him to relax. You’re pregnant, not dying.

He’ll ‘deal with it’ but warms up to the idea more and more as the pregnancy progresses.

Vincent Sinclair

Is he surprised and worried about his abilities as a father? Completely.

Is he going to let that get in the way of doing the best he can? Definitely not.

He’s in awe of you. He loves you so much and you love him, you’re going to have his child...

Just places his hands on your stomach even though you’re not showing yet, there is a baby in there, his baby. God, he loves you so much.

He hadn’t thought about children, this definitely wasn’t planned but if he was given the choice to change it, he wouldn’t even consider it.

He going to be pretty anxious about it though. Both for the future and wondering if his child will like him, but also for the present. He’s so worried about you getting hurt, he fusses over you all the time, but it’s sweet.

Lester Sinclair

You told him just after you found out, when he had come home and didn’t have anything else to distract him. You could just sit down and tell him and the two of you could talk about it for as long as you needed too.

Gets a little frantic when you tell him.

First he’s pulling you into a kiss because: this is great news! He’s going to be a dad! And you’re the one having his baby! He couldn’t be more thrilled!

But then he’s holding you at arms length, eyes wide as he asks you if he can do this.

He goes through every emotion in the book in under a minute. Just let him go through it and once he’s calmed down, assure him that he’s going to be a great dad.

Because he will be!!!

Bubba Sawyer

Raising a child in the Sawyer household would be chaotic to say the least and that was probably the main cause of your anxiety, since you knew Bubba would try his absolute best to be an amazing father and to be there for you.

You need to collect yourself before you tell him, because you’re going to need to calm him down and reassure him.

When you tell him, he is going to freak out a little. He’s just worried about what this means, are you going to be okay, is he going to be a good father, this house isn’t safe for a child!

Once you’ve calmed him down, he’ll actually be pretty excited about the idea of having a child.

The two of you will have your own little family!

He’s going to give you lots of hugs and kisses while babbling happily, he loves you so much and can’t wait to have this baby now!

Billy Lenz

You knew this was going to be messy. Billy hadn’t exactly shown many signs of responsibility at all and he doesn’t really seem like the fatherly type. Not that he doesn’t have the love to give, you know he does. Just the idea of him raising a child...it’s not something that either of you considered.

But you were definitely pregnant, it was definitely Billy’s baby, and you were definitely going to have to tell him.

When you do tell him, he panics.

He can’t be a father! What?!

Yeah, he’s really freaking out. You’re going to have to comfort him and calm him down, assuring him that everything is going to be okay.

Billy’s just kind of rolling with punches. He really doesn’t know how he’s going to be a father but he loves you so much, so this is just something you’re going to do together.

He figures that as long as you’re there, he’ll be okay, you’ll make sure that everything is okay.

Asa Emory (The Collector)

Yes, you were nervous to tell him about the pregnancy. You had no idea how he would feel or what he would think.

But, of course you had to tell him before he found out some other way.

You weren’t even surprised when he barely reacted. He was thinking, you knew that, so you gave him a moment. This whole thing was a surprise for both of you.

“I had my suspicions” well, that wasn’t the response you were expecting.

But of course he noticed the little changes in you. Your fatigue, any sickness you had been feeling. He knew the signs, he already suspected that you were pregnant. So, thankfully, it wasn’t a complete surprise to him.

You’ll never know exactly how he felt when he first started suspecting pregnancy but by the time you tell him about it, he’s already come to terms with it.

(He’s also aware that this would be good for keeping up appearances. He loves you, he does, but he can’t help that his mind often wanders to more logical pros and cons of things)

He gets a little...overbearing, but it’s honestly nice to get all that extra attention from him.

Jesse Cromeans (Chromeskull)

You’re understandably nervous about telling Jesse, unsure of how he would react and already knowing about his past.

And when you do tell him...yeah, it brings back some less than happy memories. The last time he was going to have a child...well, it didn’t end well.

But you’re different. You know about what he does and you love him despite it. If you want to bring this child into the world, you know completely who they’re father would be and you’d love them anyway.

(Like with Asa, it would be undeniably good for his image, having a spouse and a child, but that’s not something that he’s making decisions based on when it comes to you)

It’s not always easy to throw off Jesse but this did it, and you’re just waiting for his reaction nervously.

Of course, he doesn’t say anything, but he guides you towards him. A hand resting on your stomach as he presses a kiss to your forehead. He’s telling you that he’s okay with this if you are.

Otis Driftwood

You’re not wrong for being a little nervous to tell him or have a child in the Firefly household at all.

I can completely see why you think he might react badly.

However, when you do tell him, he’s actually pretty calm. Sure, he’s surprised, but he takes it well.

Admittedly, he never thought about having kids, and if he did he might have even decided that he wasn’t interested in having them.

But you’re pregnant, you’re both having this child, and that’s okay.

He’ll pull you into him, smirking as he says something along the lines of “so we’re going to be parents, huh?” he’s a little surprised when you just pull him into a relieved hug, but returns it.

He’ll raise them ‘right’, whatever he considers to be right.

All he promises you is that he is going to be a much better parent than his were. That’s it, that’s all he wants to be and he will be.

Yautja (Predator)

You find out at the exact same time. As soon as you start throwing up or just not feeling right, he’s taking you to get some medical attention.

And the medic tells you that you’re pregnant, as blunt as Yautja’s are.

Your mate is overjoyed. This is great news!

Even if the two of you weren’t planning this, he still loves the thought of you carrying his child, of you having his child. Yeah, this definitely isn’t bad news to him.

But he understands if you’re kinda freaking out about this, it was a surprise to you both.

Still, he’s going to be right there for you. Super involved and supportive, assuring you that you’re going to have the best medical care (better than anything you could get on earth). It’s all going to be fine.

Gets ten times more protective, clingy, and affectionate.

#thomas hewitt x reader #michael myers x reader #jason voorhees x reader #brahms heelsire x reader #bo sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair x reader #lester sinclair x reader #bubba sawyer x reader #billy lenz x reader #asa emory x reader #the collector x reader #jesse cromeans x reader #chromeskull x reader #otis driftwood x reader #yautja x reader #predator x reader #my writing

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five-rivers · 3 years

Text

Danger First

Chapter 2

Heya @pocketramblr. I have no self-control.

Izuku expected his anxiety to subside, one way or another, once the exam was over.

As always, the universe set out to prove him wrong.

Home was more or less okay. But, for some reason, minor household repair issues started to bother him so much he spent the rest of weekend working on them

Then there was school, which was even more hellish than usual, despite being exactly the same as it had been since the sludge incident. Izuku was way too aware of how much of a threat everyone there was to him, specifically. Especially the teachers.

His hypervigilante state did keep him from getting poked (smacked) quite so much by the teachers, or cornered by 'fellow' students quite as much as usual, but it also led him to hide in the library storage room. He'd never be able to look at the librarian the same way again. Not knowing she kept multiple copies of books by anti-quirkless hate groups on hand.

And all through the week, he got nothing but silence from All Might.

But the end of the week came, and with it a letter from UA, which told him-

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIRST PLACE?"

"I don't know, Nana, Banjo makes a good point."

"Don't take his side just because he was your predecessor. You all know a One for All holder would never resort to such devious- Yoichi, why are you making that face?"

"In an unjust world, bribery can be a tool for justice. I'm sure Eighth didn't have to, though."

"That's it, I'm not talking to any of you anymore."

"Anyway," said All Might, wiping blood from his mouth and glancing nervously at the other beachgoers. "Congratulations, young Midoriya."

Izuku felt his lip wobble. "You're not mad that I couldn't use One for All?"

"Not at all! Actually, in some ways this might be better. We'll have some time to experiment privately. And if you're in school when it finally turns on... well, we'll just say you're a late bloomer, alright?"

"Okay," sniffed Izuku, rubbing his eyes. "I just... I couldn't use it. What if-"

"Hey, hey, it's alright, my boy. No need to cry. You passed the entrance exam without using a quirk at all! You should be proud. Even with a quirk, it's an incredible accomplishment. Also, just so you know, I had nothing to do with the selection process. Just in case you were worried about favoritism."

Izuku sniffed and nodded.

"What a strangely specific denial."

"Uh, Banjo, usually I'd be reveling in the chaos, but I think Nana is seriously considering ghost murder right now. Maybe you shouldn't insult her kid anymore?"

"You and Hikage would protect me, right?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd sell you to Satan for one corn chip."

"So would I; it's been way too long since I've eaten. As long as it is Satan and not All for One, you've got my blessing."

"You certainly proved this old man wrong."

"You aren't old," protested Izuku.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that," said All Might. "Here, sit down with me," he said, settling on the sand.

Izuku hurried to follow suit, and for a while, they both just watched the ocean. It was nice, today.

"I owe you an apology, young Midoriya."

"H-huh?"

"For what I said on that roof," said All Might, "and for what I... implied later."

"You already apologized for the roof, though?" said Izuku, confused. "I mean, that day..."

"That's what I'm talking about," said All Might. "I shouldn't have- The way I apologized, when I offered you One for All... It was like saying that you couldn't do it without a quirk, that you needed a quirk to 'fix' yourself and... well, obviously I was wrong. Quirk or not, you're going to be an amazing hero."

"Oh," said Banjo, "I can already tell this is going to be a problem once he finds out about Danger Sense. Gonna blow a hole right through his confidence."

"Maybe he won't find out?" suggested Nana, who'd wrestled her murderous impulses into submission. Temporarily. "Danger Sense is pretty low key."

"I feel like I should be offended..." said Hikage. "But if I got offended, that would be offensive to people who don't have quirks..."

"I don't know," said En. "If someone insulted your legs by saying they were so skinny it was like they weren't even there, would you being offended be offensive to people who don't have legs? Or would the original statement be the offensive one?"

"Somehow, I feel more offended after that."

"Oh," said Izuku. He felt himself crying again. "Are you, um. You're not going to- Are you- Do you want it back?" he whispered. "One for All?"

"No, no, of course not. You... There's no one I'd rather have it. I'm just... even if you didn't, you could be a hero. But I'm hoping... I'm hoping you'll keep it."

Izuku swallowed and nodded. All Might awkwardly raised his arm.

"Do you mind if I...?"

"Sure?" said Izuku, not entirely sure what he was asking.

All Might put his arm around Izuku and gave him a sort of sideways hug. Izuku leaned into it. It was the safest he'd felt since the entrance exam.

Because, surprise, surprise, that anxiety hadn't gone away.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! Uh... it isn't important, it's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," said All Might, concerned.

"I, well, I, ever since the entrance exam... maybe even a little bit before? I've been really... jumpy? About everything. I think it's just because I'm a wreck, but..."

"Huh. Well, you know, that could be a facet of One for All."

"R-really?"

"After I got One for All, it seemed like it was easier for me to tell when people were in danger and needed help," said All Might. "S- A friend who knew about One for All used to joke it was my original quirk. But it was subtle and intermittent, not constant."

"Huh," said Izuku. "So... it might have been One for All all along? Trying to get me to help people?" He picked at his lower lip. "Maybe... I noticed a bunch of stuff I usually don't... I'm not sure I would have seen all the people in trouble during the exam."

"So much for not noticing-"

"His confidence... let him have it for at least a little while..."

"He seems to be taking it alright," said Yoichi, hopefully.

"I'm sure you would have helped them if you did notice, regardless," said All Might, "and that's what was really being measured, so my earlier point still stands."

Izuku nodded. "It would be really strange for a quirk to have two completely different applications like that."

"Yes, but One for All is a rather strange quirk, and I've seen odder split quirks." He fell silent for a moment. "I can't think of a way to test for it, though. Speaking of which, we should find some time to try and work on One for All before the school year starts. How do you feel about coming to UA after school?"

"Th-thank you for helping us with this, Recovery Girl!"

"It's no trouble, dear," said Recovery Girl. "I'd be here at this time, anyway. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to go through. Just try not to break too many bones."

Izuku nodded vigorously, still somewhat in awe of being in the presence of not one but two incredible pro heroes. And at UA.

It was like living in a dream.

Except for the highly suspicious mostly-hidden wall panels and the very intense feeling of being watched through camera by an incredibly threatening being. It was fine.

"Alright, young Midoriya! Are you ready?"

"Y-yeah!"

"Then come at me, you zygote!"

Nana stared at her (former) student in despair. "Toshi... why... out of all the people..."

"So, you admit he can make bad decisions-"

"Bad and immoral are two different things."

"I think calling people zygotes is pretty immoral, actually..."

Silently, Nana agreed.

Izuku blinked at All Might- not because of the zygote thing!

... Okay, partially because of the zygote thing.

But mostly because he was still in his skinny, prone-to-coughing-up-blood form.

"Are you sure?" Izuku asked. "What if I..." he trailed off, blushing. What he was about to say sounded so stupid, and more than a little conceited, but...

"Hey, even like this, I'm much tougher than I look, young Midori- Ahem, I mean, zygote!"

"Toshinori, don't you think role-playing as Gran Torino is a little much?" asked Recovery Girl.

"Ah, do you think so?"

Recovery Girl shot All Might a truly terrifying look, but Izuku's mind was on something completely different.

"Is- is Toshinori your name?" he asked, awed.

Blood drained out of All Might's face, making him look more skeletal than usual. Should Izuku not have asked? Was it supposed to be secret? Oh no...

"Please tell me you haven't been training this boy for most of a year without him even knowing your name."

"Oops?" said All Might, faintly.

"He did do that, didn't he?" asked Yoichi, his eyebrows almost touching his hairline. "Nana, your boy is a disaster."

"All of us were disasters. We're still disasters."

"I'm not."

"Hikage, you spent most of your adult life living in the woods, completely isolated from humanity."

"I know, it was great."

"Unbelievable."

"Back to what we were talking about before," said Mr. Yagi (Mr. Yagi! Izuku knew All Might's name! And had permission to use it!) after Recovery Girl was done scolding him. "Focus on actually hitting me before worrying about accidentally hurting me. Today, I just want to get a baseline. Next time, we can work on basic punches and throws."

"So, do I just-?"

"Yep, just come right at me!"

The next hour consisted mainly of Izuku being thrown bodily into various padded surfaces. Despits this, according to Mr. Yagi, he was much better at dodging than expected. As a bonus, although he certainly felt sore and bruised, he didn't break any bones.

He also didn't manage to activate One for All. Not even a little bit.

Nor did he on any of the other days leading up to his first day as a student at UA.

Aizawa Shouta, down two nights of sleep and dreading the new batch of bright eyed hero hopefuls he'd be teaching- and crushing the dreams of- next week, glared blearily at a computer screen. Currently, it displayed a student's name, a quirk name, and the single least helpful quirk description he'd ever seen. Which was saying something, because he'd seen Hizashi's original quirk description.

Midoriya Izuku

Quirk: undetermined

Description: None.

I am either too tired or too sober to deal with this, decided Shouta. However, sleep simply wasn't on the table, and getting drunk was illogical. In that case, simply not dealing with it was the only option.

Nevertheless, he picked up his phone and called Nezu.

"Good evening, Aizawa!" said the internally chipper maybe-rodent. "Or should I say good morning?"

"Midoriya Izuku."

"Ah, you're browsing your class list, I see. Any thoughts about their potential?"

"Illogical." It would be, to make a call about a student's potential without meeting them first.

"Quite so!"

"Midoriya. Quirk," grunted Shouta, reminding him why he was calling.

"Ah, yes, he is a strange case. He's listed as quirkless in the registry."

That woke Shouta up, just a little. He'd seen a handful of documents for the quirkless over the years. If Midoriya was quirkless, his file should read N/A, not undetermined.

"What?"

"I have reason to believe that he might have been diagnosed in error," said Nezu. "I am still investigating. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on him. Assuming, of course, that he isn't expelled!"

Shouta grunted and hung up. He minimized the window on his computer and pawed through his files until he found the entrance exam video for Midoriya.

A kid who passed the UA hero course practical entrance exam either entirely quirkless or with a subtle, stubborn, or invisible quirk on rescue points alone. A kid who seemed to run straight for danger on purpose (mostly on purpose, Shouta amended after seeing him collide with the invisible girl, coincidentally pushing her out of the way of some sort of water pressure quirk. There was just no way he could have known she was there). A kid who had almost certainly faced brutal quirk harassment since the time he was four and most likely possessed the self-confidence and trauma to match.

"Least he's good at dodging..." muttered Shouta. He rubbed at one grainy-feeling eye and pulled his sleeping bag closer around his shoulders. Kid wasn't all that bad at falling, either. Some light martial arts instruction, maybe?

He paused the video and reopened Midoriya's file, flipping to school and admission records and exam results. He usually didn't look closely at this part of the file, it was enough for him that the students passed, but, exceptions...

Speaking of exceptions, Midoriya's file was a mass of contradictions. Unusually high written test score that didn't correspond with middle school grades. Dozens of citations and black marks on his disciplinary record that should have kept him from even being invited to take the exam, but a letter of recommendation from All Might.

He frowned at the last one. There was no way...

He shook his head, and clicked on the link at the bottom of the file. It brought him to a herotube video about a year old. A hostage situation with a vaguely familiar middle schooler and slime-like villain. Also, a bunch of heroes, but none of them seemed to be addressing the suffocating child. Shouta felt his lips curl. Even if this was in the past...

Then Midoriya Izuku ran into the frame and tried to pull the other boy free, just seconds before All Might arrived and punched the villain so hard it started to rain. Then the video ended.

Alright, then.

Shouta's admittedly currently-less-than-razor-sharp mind presented him with two possibilities. One, Midoriya was All Might's secret child and All Might had bribed Nezu into letting him take the exams despite his less-than-stellar records. Two, this child had, with bloody fingernails, managed to claw a single spark of luck out of an otherwise bleak existence by impressing All Might enough that he got Nezu to ignore the otherwise damning records.

If the first, well, he had still passed the practical without use of any obvious quirk. He probably had some potential.

If the second... Shouta had been a hero long enough to recognize the circumstances that drove people to desperate, and sometimes unforgivable, acts. Dangling a single hope in front of someone only to snatch it away at the last minute...

Forget the maybe-quirk. This was the real conundrum of Midoriya Izuku.

The rat knew he wouldn't expel Midoriya with these stakes. It would be the height of irrationality.

(Even if he did turn out to be All Might's kid.)

What a pain.

He flipped through a few more profiles, quickly reviewing 1-B as well, before hitting redial on his phone.

"Calling again so soon?" asked Nezu with a squeaky chuckle.

"I want Monoma." He paused. "In my class," he elaborated.

"Oh? Whatever for?"

"If I'm going to have to figure out Midoriya's mystery quirk, I want to make it as easy for myself as possible."

There was silence on the other end of the like, and Shouta checked to see whether or not he'd hung up accidentally. He hadn't.

"I must say," said Nezu, finally, "I had not considered that solution. Depending on the mechanics of Monoma's quirk... I cannot think of any reason to deny your request."

That was a strange way of phrasing it.

"We'll exchange him with Bakugo, in that case."

"Not that I'm complaining," said Shouta, "but why him? Why not..." He racked his memory. "Mineta. He's got one of those body part quirks Kan likes."

Nezu chuckled again. "Normally, I would pick Mineta, but, by my calculations, a classroom that contained both Monoma and Bakugo would be demolished within thirty minutes of their arrival."

Shouta groaned. Why did they even let people like that in?

No, wait, he had an answer to that, actually.

"Forget a mouse, a dog, or a bear," said Shouta. "You're a sadist."

"Some certainly think so! But one thing's for sure! I'm the principal!"

The door to class 1-A sure was big... and intimidating... and radiating a faint sense of malaise. But, then, Izuku's middle school classroom had done far worse, so...

He opened the door. No Kacchan. Thank goodness. He must be in the class B, then, because there was no way he'd let Izuku beat him to school.

The strict boy from the entrance exam was there, though, and, oh, dear, he'd noticed Izuku and was coming right for him.

(Oh, gosh, and the invisible girl was here, too. He felt himself blushing furiously.)

Still better than Kacchan.

"Hello!" he said, rather loudly. "I'm from Somei Private Academy! My name is Iida Tenya!"

"Oh, uh, I- I'm from Aldera Middle School..." said Izuku. Was stating the name of your middle school a normal thing? He hadn't read about this in any manga... "I'm Midoriya Izuku."

"Pleased to meet you!" He moved his arm in a rather robotic fashion, taking a deep breath.

Oh, no, was he about to yell at Izuku again?

"Danger Sense isn't even going off right now, Izuku," said Yoichi, despairingly. "Why are you still so nervous?"

"Maybe we never really gave him Danger Sense after all, and it was his natural anxiety the whole time."

"Please stop denigrating my quirk."

"Midoriya... you... you perceived the true nature of the practical exam. Meanwhile, I was blind! I misjudged you! I hate to admit it, but you were the superior candidate."

Oh, that was nice, but... "I didn't perceive anything, though. I had no idea rescue points were a thing. I was mostly just trying not to die."

"Ah! That curly hair! It's Midoriya!"

"Oh! Um, Uraraka?" Please, please, let him have remembered her name right.

"Yeah!" said Uraraka, smiling brightly.

Augh! Too cute!

"I'm so glad you're in my class! I was so worried I wouldn't know anyone here."

"Y-yeah. T-this is Iida, by the way," said Izuku, trying to get attention off of himself.

"Nice to meet you, Iida."

"It's nice to meet you as well, Uraraka!"

"Yeah! So, we've got the entrance ceremony and guidance sessions today, right? I wonder who our teacher will be- They're all supposed to be pro heroes, right?"

"Um," started Izuku, "that-"

"If you're here to socialize, then get out."

"That's a teacher, huh," said Yoichi.

"Why are you saying that like you've never seen one before?" asked Banjo.

"I've seen teachers before," said Yoichi. "I've seen all of your teachers. The ones you've had while you had One for All."

"Okay, now you're saying that like you've never had teachers."

"Yeah, that is kind of strange, Yoichi," said Nana.

"I had professors," said Yoichi.

"Still weird."

"I went to college. And med school."

"Did you graduate?" asked En, interested.

"No."

"Why not?"

"My brother kidnapped me, kept me in a vault for a while, and then I died."

"I didn't know what I expected," said En, shaking his head.

"Wait, weren't there several years between the vault and the whole dying thing."

"Yeah, but I'm ignoring them."

"Because?" Banjo hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Second and Third.

"Yep," said Yoichi.

"Todoroki. You were the highest scorer on the Recommendation Exam. See how far you can throw this ball with your quirk. Stay in the circle. Anything else goes."

A boy with white and red hair stepped forward, scowling faintly. He took the ball and stared at it.

"Time is valuable, Todoroki."

And then there was a glacier.

Izuku felt his jaw drop. How was he supposed to compete with that?

"My name is Monoma," said a blonde boy, offering his hand.

Izuku stared at it a moment before remembering handshakes were a thing.

"Midoriya," he said.

Monoma then offered his hand to Uraraka and Iida as well. "I look forward to experiencing UA's superior brand of education with you," he said.

Izuku laughed nervously. "You're confident," he said, glancing at the track where two others students were doing sprints. It would be their turn soon.

"But of course!" Monoma struck a sort of pose, fingers splayed out on his chest. "I welcome this sort of challenge, this opportunity to prove myself! It just goes to show, UA only accepts the best of the best!"

Monoma was called away to the starting line a moment later. "Two good, one dud," he mumbled under his breath.

What did that mean?

Then Monoma was at the starting line, and he was using Iida's quirk. Did he have a copy quirk? That was so cool!

... Is that what he meant by good and dud? Did he... did he see that Izuku didn't have a quirk? Oh, no... What if he told everyone? Even if people were being nice to him now...

"What's wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"U-um," said Izuku. "Nothing?"

"Oh, gosh," said Yoichi, crying. "I just want to wrap him up in a warm blanket. You deserve friends."

"Yeah, kid, it'll be okay," said Banjo. "Bakugo's just a freak. And so was your whole school. Place gave me MLA flashbacks."

"Sure glad they aren't around anymore," agreed En.

All in all... Izuku didn't do terribly. Especially given that he didn't actually have a quirk, and this was a quirk assessment. At least, he didn't think he did. At least, he hadn't tripped or hurt himself.

It had, in fact, been a rather good day. No Kacchan. No bullies. The teacher had clear standards and requirements, and he stated them up front.

He had been getting... bad vibes... from the short, purple-haired kid, and he'd noticed other people frowning at him, especially the girls. But he hadn't been able to put his finger on why, even though he had been watching him carefully during his turns.

Other than that...

UA really was the best.

"By the way, no one's getting expelled. It was a logical ruse."

Monoma raised his hand.

"What is it?"

"I must object!" said Monoma.

"You... want someone to be expelled?"

"In fact, I insist! To allow this to continue would blemish the reputation of the school."

"Well said, Monoma!" exclaimed Iida. "Living up to the reputation of UA and all the alumni who have come before us is a duty of us students! But what blemish are you talking about? Surely, as Mr. Aizawa said, we all went plus ultra!"

"Maybe so, but my concern has more to do with moral standards!"

"If you kids keep going like this, I'm just going to go to sleep. You're giving me a headache."

Izuku caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and a wave of unease went through him. He turned to see-

"Hey! What are you doing?" he demanded, shocked and more than a little horrified.

Once again, he was mortally embarrassed on behalf of the invisible girl.

"I wasn't doing anything!" said the small purple boy.

"You were looking up her skirt!"

"It isn't like there's anything to see!"

The invisible girl gasped and quickly moved away. "Gross!" she said. "That's terrible!"

"See? See?" said Monoma, wildly. "This is what I'm talking about!"

"Next time," said Aizawa, "get to the point faster. Time is valuable. Mineta."

"What?"

"You're expelled."

"What? You can't do that!"

"Go complain to Nezu."

UA really was the best.

"Midoriya."

Okay, never mind. He was doomed. Completely doomed.

"Monoma. I want to talk to you after class. The rest of you are dismissed."

Midoriya stood nervously as Uraraka and Iida bid him goodbye. Was this it? Was Aizawa going to expel him after all? At least it wasn't in front of absolutely everyone... But what was Monoma doing here?

Speaking of which, Monoma looked nervous, too... Was he okay? Surely, Aizawa wasn't going to expel him, too.

"Is this about me using other people's quirks?" demanded Monoma. "Because you said anything goes! I wasn't cheating. You can't expel me!"

Oh. There was some trauma there. Izuku could tell. Did people make fun of him for his quirk?

"I'm not going to expel you," said Aizawa, looking up at them from where he laid in his sleeping bag in the grass. He almost looked like he was praying for patience. "I need to ask you some questions about your quirk. For future reference and to better serve your needs as a student. I know how tricky meta quirks can be."

"Oh," said Monoma, slightly deflating. Then he sent a curious glance at Midoriya. "Is he-?"

"His matter is slightly more sensitive. If you would like me to send him away while we talk, I can do that."

"No, no, it's fine." Monoma sniffed, his eyes suspiciously wet. "What's the question?"

"You copy quirks through DNA contact. Do you decide when to activate passive quirks you copy, or can you choose?"

"I can choose, as long as it's within my time limit."

"When you first make contact, can you tell what quirk a person has?"

Monoma shook his head. "No, sir, I have to activate it to do that, so I can get duds- oh, that is to say, quirks I can't use because I don't have the proper activation conditions, like Midoriya's. He's got some kind of stockpile. I can get duds without realizing it. But I can tell whether or not someone has a quirk."

"Were you able to test all your classmates' quirks today?"

"Not everyone, yet," said Monoma. "I usually try to avoid more extreme mutation quirks outside of controlled conditions."

Aizawa's head bobbed up and down minutely. "Great. That should be enough for now. You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir! I look forward to seeing your superior lesson plans tomorrow!" He paused. "Midoriya."

"H-have a good day, Monoma."

Monoma had felt One for All! What a relief. Izuku had been half worried he'd lost it somehow.

But why did Aizawa want him?

"Um, sir?" he asked. Sort of asked. 'Sir' alone wasn't a question, even if it was said in an inquisitive tone.

Aizawa's eyes turned red, and his hair started floating. Izuku felt... Huh. Calmer, somehow? He was no longer vaguely aware of how the light post over there could fall on him, or any of the other many minor dangers surround him and oh, gosh, he was no longer aware of the dangers! How was he supposed to stay safe like this, when he felt like he'd been blindfolded?

Aizawa blinked. Everything came back.

"Wow," said Izuku. "That was so cool! Was that your quirk? Is it an emotional quirk? It made me feel calmer at first, but then I was, I don't know, too calm, and it made me anxious, but then-"

"Problem child," said Aizawa, and Izuku froze at the reprimand. "What I just did was erase your quirk."

Erase?

His quirk?

"Oh my gosh! You're Eraserhead! I'm a huge fan!"

Aizawa closed his eyes. Was he counting? No? Did he fall asleep?

"You do know you're listed as quirkless, right?"

"Yes?"

"But you just had a reaction to my quirk that a quirkless person definitely should not have."

"O-oh?"

"Combined with Monoma's ability to sense your quirk, I'd say you are not, in fact, quirkless."

"But I have the toe joint?" Izuku wasn't sure why he'd said that. He shouldn't be arguing against this, because, as Aizawa had said, he did have a quirk. It just wasn't exactly his.

"Yeah, that's an old wives' tale."

"Really?"

"As real as my quirk counselor license. Whoever diagnosed you was a quack."

"O-oh."

"My initial impression from your entrance exam video is that you might have a sensory quirk of some kind. On the other hand, we should take Monoma's assessment into account, and consider stockpiles. Either way, I would like to schedule some time to test things out with you."

"You- You'd do that? For me? I mean, I don't want to be a bother-"

"This is literally my job."

"It... yeah, I guess so." His previous teachers would have considered it a bother. Except Mr. Yagi, but Mr. Yagi wasn't really a teacher. He was more of a... a mentor.

(Or a dad.)

(Oh, no, he did not just think that. Bad. Bad brain. Bad brain that read too much All Might RPF as a pre-teen.)

"Besides, even if your quirk doesn't have many applications in hero work, it will be useful for you to know what it is and how it affects you." Aizawa yawned. "Also, don't tell your class that I'm Eraserhead."

"O-okay," said Izuku. "Of course, sir, but... why?"

"I have two full time jobs. I get my entertainment where I can. You can go now. We'll schedule tomorrow."

Izuku nodded, and Aizawa just... zipped his sleeping bag the rest of the way closed and rolled over.

Was... was he just going to go to sleep here? In the middle of the field.

"Um? Mr. Aizawa?"

A grunt came from the sleeping bag.

"This is... isn't this kind of a dangerous place to sleep?"

"Go home, problem child."

"... okay."

#bnha #boku no hero academia #fic #fanfic #danger first au #danger first

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www-artforoddballs · 3 years

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Alright, so notice. Most of you probably know this, since you're following me for the Autistic Levi stuff (thank you, we're closing in on 100 followers!!!!), but people with autism can have "tantrums". I've kinda touched on this in a previous post (it's a full meltdown, but you can see that post here https://www-artforoddballs.tumblr.com/post/644803780958879744/autistic-levi-angstkinda-i-guess-this-is-him). For those of you who DON'T know, an autistic tantrum is not the same thing as what you'd think of in regards to a toddler or kid, it's just the word used for it. This is a mistake my mother and I made when getting the paperwork done while I was going through testing that later got cleared up lol

I had a tantrum yesterday, and so I figured that I could post about Leviathan having a tantrum, since it's still ready on my mind. I don't care if anyone else is proud of me for coping with it as well as I did, since it's a major improvement from last time I had one, but I am proud of myself!...with that in mind, here we go!!

There will be some angst in this post, like the last post in relation to this one, but like the last post, it turns out fine.

However.

Trigger warning for things such as self harm, both physical and verbal. If you or a loved one is self harming, either reach out to someone for help or reach out to that person to help, yeah?

OK on with the post.

-------------

First of all, Levi's autism is part of why his brothers always agree to help when there's a raffle for tickets or something like that on the DDD messages, because he can get overwhelmed if they don't at least help, even if he doesn't win in the end.

They figured out that his autism was the culprit for this shortly after his diagnosis.

Now when I'm writing for Levi, I like to think that his diagnosis was around the early 1990s since, while autism was a separate diagnosis in 1980, it didn't really start becoming fairly accepted and expanded upon until 1987. Hence why everyone is mostly used to it by now, but are still sometimes off put by his odd behavior; for them, as beings that have been around since...the beginning of the universe, pretty much as far as we know, but for at LEAST since humans were around (so at VERY least 2.5 million years now, but potentially up to around 7 million years (if they haven't been around since the beginning of creation)), this would be like...I dunno, give me a second.

Waiting

Waiting...

Okay, so from 1990(earliest year I have in mind) to 2019 (the year it was released) is 29 years. That's a minimum of 1/86,206.89th of their lifespan, and a maximum of 1/475,862,068.96th of their total lifetime.

So this is a VERY recent development for them on the grand scheme of things, but I digress.

So they're still figuring everything out, especially as the human race continues to learn about the condition itself.

So the first time Levi threw a tantrum and they recognized it for what it was...it was certainly interesting.

What had happened was exactly the situation described; Levi had wanted to go to a concert in the human world and they were raffling off free tickets. Except, unlike now, his brothers hadn't offered their support. They hadn't in the past, why would this time be any different?

Except now they viewed it through a different light. Leviathan had an image in his head that he desired so badly and had asked his brothers to support him, hopeful, only to be rejected at every turn. That he was used to, but it was still upsetting.

He put that to the side, though. He really wanted to see this band, and these were VIP tickets where you got to hang out with the band for a few hours after the concert! They'd cost a LOT of human money, and while they COULD afford it, he knew Lucifer would be bringing hell down upon him if he used that amount of family funds on a concert. And his anxiety was already somewhat raised, so he decided to enter the raffle on his own.

He sat there for hours, waiting for the results to come in. He'd hyped this up in his brain the entire time; He'd win, go to an amazing concert, have dinner with the band, maybe even make some friends....!...and then the results came back. He hadn't won.

As per usual, our snek boi went into one of his rants about how unfair it was, but instead of going on a rampage or something like that, locked himself up in his room and cried, hating himself for getting so excited over nothing.

As I mentioned before, I've made another post about a tantrum/getting too overwhelmed slipping into something even more dire, as that's almost always what happens to me. This would be in the 90s, so this would be their first real incident with one of these moments where they had the proper diagnosis, so bear with me, there will be some angst here, but like the other post, it'll be fine.

So Mammon ends up feeling bad for rejecting his little brother, and, not knowing it was too late, decided to go to his room and offer his support. It was almost Leviathan's birthday anyways, and Mammon knew how rejection felt and how much it sucked. So, he knocked on Leviathan's door.

No response. He knocked again...still no response, but a quiet sob.

Right away, Mammon switched from semi-carefree to worried. "Levi...?"

Again, no response. He decided to just go in and check on his brother...

The door was locked. And he smelled blood.

"Leviathan, I need you to open the door," Mammon said with a half hearted chuckle, his voice now becoming slightly strained. "Because if ya don't, I'm gonna have t' break the door down."

"Just go away!" Leviathan cried from inside his room. "Just leave me alone, you jerk!"

"I ain't goin' anywhere. Either open the door or I'm gonna break it down. Those are your two choices."

A moment of silence, before Mammon sighs, stretching, as he transforms into his demon form.

"Alright, option two it is."

He rammed into the door repeatedly, before the wood finally splintered and fell to the ground with a loud thud. Mammon quickly looked around, eyes widening as he saw Leviathan digging his own sharpened nails into his arms, multiple raked wounds, made by the same culprit, carved into his skin.

"Levi...look at ya..." Mammon said, voice faltering, tears welling up in his eyes. "I...how long has..."

"Just shut up! Don't act like you care about me, I'm the freak of our family, remember?! I'm the one whose brain isn't right, I'm just a shut-in, good for nothing, re-!"

He was quickly cut off by Mammon going to him and hugging him.

"I don't care who you are. You talk about my brother like that again and I'll kill you. Alright? You're a little off, but you ain't a freak, and your brain works just fine as is. You're perfect just the way you are, and if anybody else says any different, I'm gonna beat them the fuck up. Including you. Got that? So what if you've got that fancy lable on ya now...? Labels like that matter, but it didn't change ya. You're still my cringe, annoying as hell little weirdo of a brother...and I wouldn't have ya any other way."

Leviathan fully listened to Mammon talk, before clinging to him, breaking down sobbing again, and trying to explain what happened through his tears, the older demon gently rubbing his back and allowing him to cry it out, making sure no more harm was done.

A while later, once Levi had calmed down, Mammon ruffled his hair.

"Let's get you cleaned up, yeah? Lucifer is already gonna kill me for breaking your door, but he'd be even more pissed if I just left you here with those wounds."

So they did. And Mammon, after telling a VERY angry Lucifer what had happened hours later, had surprisingly NOT gotten chewed out by the eldest brother. Instead, that day, the entire family had a long discussion, and they all agreed that if it was something as small as entering a raffle, or even if it was bigger but not an inconvenience to anyone in the slightest, they'd all help out from then on. It's not like it was hard, and it would save Levi from hours of stress and negativity toward himself and others around him.

They also made a plan for if a tantrum were to happen while someone was around, or if he became too overwhelmed and started to spiral...because, as annoying as he could be, Leviathan was still family. And they loved him, oddities and all.

---------------

Alright, so...that was the post! I hope it was okay. I know I've written about this type of thing before a little, but different situations can end up with the same negative outcome, like being in an overwhelming situation, or not being able to change your thinking and not easily being able to get over your expectations. I've personally suffered with both, and it's a regular thing for me, so I like writing about it, because maybe, just maybe, it'll help someone out, or help someone that isn't autistic understand a friend or relative or classmate or employee better. And I love these characters, I really do. The only ironic thing is that I see so much of myself in Leviathan, but I adore him and despise myself. Go figure 😂

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed, and if there's anything you guys have questions about (in regards to me and my experience), or any specific writing requests, asks are fully open!

Thanks so much for being here to support me, you have no idea how much it means to a little oddball such as myself.

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me leviathan #obey me belphie #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #autism obey me #obey me autism #obey me neurodivergent #neurodivergent #leviathan autism #autism #headcannons #obey me hcs

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mbti-notes · 3 years

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Anon wrote: INFJ here. One thing that I dislike about myself is that I am really avoidant and shy. I can't stand my ground or defend myself or others. I either doubt my rightfulness or worry about the other party yelling, beating me or overreacting.

I went to a butcher's with someone and the guy prepared us the wrong meat. The quality was a bit worse than the one we originally picked. The guy was still insisting and trying to sell it to us. Me being a pushover, accepted it easily. It was the wrong meat, but the guy had prepared it for us. And the guy could lash out and show a bad reaction.

However, the person who was with me went and confronted the guy and didn't back down, until the guy changed the meat and gave us the original good quality one. The whole time, I was worried about the butcher yelling at her or saying something hurtful. As we left, she told me to stop being weak and afraid of holding my ground, and learn to defend myself. I wish I were like her, but I clearly lack this skill and can't defend myself or others close to me, because I'm avoidant and confrontation-averse. I either don't know if I have to confront, or I'm afraid of the other person's reaction. I usually just smile and accept things.

I'm even afraid of driving and refuse to drive because I'm afraid of having to confront people for car-related or driving-related things. How can I improve myself in this manner and get thick-skinned? What sorts of steps can I take before putting myself into a (exposure) situation where I have to confront a potentially aggressive person?

__________________

Not knowing how to speak up for yourself harms you in several ways:

Low self-awareness: When you aren’t even aware of your own needs, desires, rights, and boundaries, you don’t really know yourself.

Low self-worth: What is your existence when you don’t even recognize that you and your needs matter just as much as everyone else’s?

Unable to care for yourself: When you don’t recognize your emotional needs or don’t recognize that they are important, you won’t work to fulfill them, which means that you won’t tend properly to your psychological well-being. This makes you more prone to suffering mental health problems.

Unable to protect yourself: When YOU can’t even respect your own needs, desires, rights, and boundaries, it’s a signal to others that it’s okay to dismiss you or violate you. Unfortunately, some people in this world don’t hesitate to take as much as they can from others. They look specifically for people like you because you let them get away with it.

Identify the root of the problem. Everything you think, feel, and do is rooted in fear. You have an overreactive fear reflex that leads you to always expect the worst from people. Do you honestly believe that the majority of people are violent rageaholics? People may get upset but it doesn’t mean that they’re going to attack you viciously. Is there a reason why your view of the world is so negative and extreme?

Fear is an emotional problem, which means that you have to work on your emotional intelligence. You’re trying to be smart by anticipating how events will go, which is natural for Ni doms. However, you only ever see how things could turn out horribly, which immediately activates fear. When your mind is so easily hijacked by fear and its related emotions, how can you think straight, let alone formulate a good strategy for handling a problematic situation?

Avoidance is exactly the wrong strategy because 1) it keeps you passive and stuck in weakness, and 2) you never develop the skills that you need to grow and solve this problem. To solve a problem, the first step is to confront it, then you can examine it and come up with a solution. INFJs who struggle with auxiliary Fe development usually struggle with learning social skills. If your fear and anxiety are extremely deep-seated (i.e. a result of serious past trauma), then it is also a good idea to get professional therapy. Unresolved trauma makes the process of learning new skills more difficult than it has to be, so it should be dealt with first.

When you don’t know how to do something (i.e. incompetency), it’s natural to be apprehensive because you feel like you have no control over anything. Thus, increase your social competency. Having good social skills allows you to think about social situations with more nuance and sophistication, as opposed to defaulting immediately to the most extreme scenario. Social skills are just like any other skill in that you have to study, practice, and improve systematically.

The following skills work together to improve social competency:

Emotional Intelligence: Be aware of feelings and emotions, both your own and others’. De-escalate intense emotions to keep a clear and calm head. Assess situations based on facts rather than fear, so that you can stop treating everyone as a threat and build common ground instead.

Communication Skills: Express yourself and your needs effectively. Respond to other people’s needs effectively. Ask the right questions to clarify situations and avoid miscommunication. Diffuse tension with empathy and diplomacy. Negotiate compromises.

Assertiveness Training: Know your rights, enforce your boundaries, and speak up for what you are owed. Treat your needs and goals as important. Ask for help or support as needed. Develop strategies for expressing yourself in specific scenarios that you’ve repeatedly found difficult to navigate.

Conflict Resolution: Have a strategy for dealing with conflict. Have ways to test how amenable people are to discussion and compromise. Have ways of making reasonable requests without anger or aggression. Have good contingency plans for when situations get out of your control.

Nobody is born with this knowledge. Most people learn social skills by socializing, making mistakes, and doing better the next time. The longer you’ve avoided natural experimental learning, the worse your skills will be. If experimental learning is too much for you, due to unmanageable fear and anxiety, learn on your own first so that you feel more prepared. There are plenty of resources out there. See the Emotional Well-Being section, the relevant tags, and the resources list for book recommendations on the above topics.

#infj #auxiliary fe #social skills #social anxiety #emotional intelligence #assertiveness #self worth #confidence #self care #boundaries #catastrophizing #ask

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slytherinsnekxvii · 3 years

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let's talk about severus snape. he's one of the most controversial characters the internet has to offer, with several blogs, channels and pages dedicated specifically to hating him, despite him having one of the most—if not the most—intriguing character arcs the series has to offer. so, as a result of me coming across far too many of said blogs, channels or pages, here's an extremely detailed explanation of why i like him and think he's easily one of my favourite characters :)

1. he's not that bad of a teacher.

just so you know, i'm a teenage girl fresh out of high school. so, my experience with teachers? still keeps me up at night :)

my family is pretty strict about religion. you can guess what that means. anything that was magic-adjacent, especially something that, god forbid, had an entire school dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry was a hard no if i wanted to have any sort of freedom over the media i paid attention to, and any opportunity to go about my life without being monitored to make sure i wasn't suddenly possessed or something. thanks to this, i ended up secretly reading the philosopher's stone in my last year of primary school. i would've been 11 at the time, just about to turn 12, so a little bit older than harry and co. going on what i'd heard from those who had already read the series, i went in expecting to absolutely despise this man. i went in expecting to read a demon. i finished the book and came out thinking... that really wasn't that bad.

my mom found out, so i didn't get to read the rest of the series until i ended up on the executive committee for my school's book club and my friends were appalled that i'd only read the first book. at this point, i'm still expecting him to get worse and... he just doesn't. when i was in primary school, i had multiple teachers break wooden meter-long rulers across my classmates' backs. the first time it happened, i was in infant year 2 (about 6/7 years old). i had teachers who would insult us, based on anything from hygiene to behaviour to intelligence if you looked at them wrong. my sister (who was three years ahead of me) had a teacher who kept her in hours after school was over because the teacher had a written a note in her workbook upside down, and when my sister corrected her, the teacher made her rewrite it, turning the book each time the note was written so it would never be done the correct way.

in secondary school, i had teachers who would actively humiliate us in front of the class if we didn't do as well as they wanted. i had teachers who would throw markers and whiteboard erasers at us if we did something they didn't like during class. i had a teacher who looked for a friend of mine who was petrified of attention and then mercilessly picked on her until she went to the bathrooms to cry. these are the kinds of teachers that i was used to. so, when i read harry potter and read snape, who would have probably been one of the nicer teachers i met in my lifetime, i thought to myself, he's really not that bad. he's just... strict.

antis claim that he traumatised every kid that ever went through his class, that he straight up abused them and... no. he didn't. all of them are comfortable talking back, they talk during his class, no one trembles when he walks past, except for neville, who usually bore the brunt of snape's anger because he was consistently messing up in a potentially lethal class.

after school, i hated the thought of formal education, so now i'm working until i feel ready to do university. coincidentally, one of my jobs is teaching maths and english to kids writing the end of primary and secondary school exams. given the sheer amount of annoyance i feel sometimes, i actually respect him for not being more harsh with them, especially when they're all running off into danger or exploding cauldrons.

he really isn't that bad of a teacher, and we know this, since his classes' owl results are said to be consistently good.

plus, he was written in the 90's when all this was okay behaviour for teachers. hell, compared to some of the teachers in text, given that he goes out of his way to make sure the students are always protected, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for.

2. i relate to him.

come on, the man grew up to be a dramatic, queer-coded, petty bitch who wears all black all the time and likely has at least one mental disorder. i'm a petty, emo bisexual with (actually diagnosed, don't worry) depression and anxiety and I'm in a theatre group. what did you really expect from me?

on a serious note, both of the schools i went to were considered "prestigious". i got into my primary school because of a teacher's recommendation (she was a family friend). the second school i got into was because i scored ridiculously high on the placement test that would determine which school i went to. in primary school, i was the poor, really awkward, really smart kid who got left out of everything, and my best friend was the only kid who was worse off than me.

in secondary school, i was just as smart as everyone else... but i was still poorer, and still more awkward and still got left out of everything.

i got that isolated feeling, that feeling of not being good enough, that feeling where life always seems to have it out for you and that's even though i still got dealt a better hand than snape ever did. so, i get it. i'm never ever going to have it as bad as he did, but i acknowledge what he went through and i sympathise, because i have a chance, but it only ever got worse for him.

3. i genuinely enjoy his character.

this dude went through absolute hell for basically his entire life. the best years he had were probably when he was neck-deep in the group of people who hated witches and wizards like him, but somehow managed to treat him better than the good guys.

all of that, and he still manages to be one of the most entertaining motherfuckers in the whole series, with one of the most interesting character arcs ever. it's the witty lines, the sheer dynamic of his character, the change from the twitchy, hypervigilant kid from the slums to the adult that managed to spy on the Dark Lord himself and save the wizarding world in the process, while still being a hot mess of a person. it's the managing to get shit done while everybody hated him and everything was going to hell. it's the everything, and i haven't even talked about how badass he is.

come on, potions prodigy turned master, exemplary duellist (cough, cough, winning 4-on-1 vs McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, and leaving a scratch on nobody, while managing to not take a single hit himself, cough, cough), spellcrafter, spy and one of the only wizards to ever figure out unaided flight. dark arts master, proficient at healing (dumbledore would've been dead a lot sooner, if it weren't for him, most likely). he's one of the most powerful wizards of his time. i've said that any universe where he's actually a bad guy—or just legitimately loyal to the death eaters—is a universe where voldemort wins and this is why. if he was motivated by literally anything other than lily, the wizarding world was more than likely fucked.

the point is, i just think he's neat.

4. spite.

every time i appreciate snape, a snater feels like someone is walking over their grave. every time i appreciate snape, a snater turns blue out of sheer rage. every time i appreciate snape, a snater loses their mind looking for their non-existent reading comprehension.

the spite in my veins is tempered only by the broth of instant ramen and ungodly amounts of sugar, and i'm going to use them all in my mission to cause antis pain when they refuse to acknowledge their lack of critical thinking and analysis skills.

so, yeah. why do i actually like snape?

tl;dr: he's not that bad. for a teacher written in the 90's and compared to teachers i've had within the decade, the guy's just strict. sure, he's a dick (who i personally think is hilarious), but he always makes sure the students are safe and he didn't leave any lasting effect on any of the students. he's really not that bad of a teacher. and hell, he's not even that bad of a person. i fully admit that he was an asshole and i entirely believe he was prone to self-destructive behaviour, but he still tried to atone for his mistakes and he did, is the thing, even though the odds were stacked more or less completely against him. i like him because he entertains me, and because i relate to him, as a teen who went through some shit and probably would have joined up with some bad people if it weren't for my friends and family, and as a teacher who really can't stand my students sometimes. i also like him because it irritates people who don't like him :)

also, istg if any of you respond to this with "bUt hE was ObseSsED with LiLY and just WAnTEd to FUCK hEr," i'm crawling into your bedroom window with the most unrealistic, mangled interpretations of your favourite characters and making sure they haunt you in your dreams. meet me in the fuckin' pit, babe. reread the series, actually think about it and come with receipts that aren't Voldemort, because i don't think you want to have the same opinion as the character who canonically doesn't understand love, now, do you, sweetheart? when you do that, then, and only then, will i consider entertaining your bullshit :)

that's about it from me, thanks for reading!

#severus snape #pro snape #why do people like snape?#i can't speak for anybody else but here's me #i probably left something out since i haven't written a good essay since my literature exam #but it's fine #let me like my chaotic bastard son in peace please #snape #snapedom

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tendermiasma · 3 years

Note

i’m not even into overwatch anymore but i just wanted to say I ADORE your art style and hope to develop my own into a similar semi-realism leaning...have you made a post about your art journey? I’m assuming I just need to buckle down and do anatomy studies but any tips are very welcome!! Ty for your time <3

Oh man thank you! I’ve never made a comprehensive post about how I got to *gestures* whatever this point in my art this is, and I definitely sat here wondering what “art journey” means for me since I always feel like I’m stumbling around so I’ll answer as completely as I can. But a great way to develop a realism-minded eye is to draw from photos and life. Everyone in the world has said it over and over but it really gets it done, it’s not any more complicated than that. It’s how I started when I was little and it’s not something I planned, but the Legolas posters were right there so how could I not? Your own non-realism “stylistic” touch will bubble up whether you want it to or not and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s not something you need to look for because it happens on its own, whether it’s you seeing something another artist is doing that you like and assimilating it into your work, or it’s your own unique way that you absorb information from the world and use it to solve problems in the drawing in front of you. Some new artists also still have the idea that using references is cheating-- I’m not blaming them, sometimes this weird thing is circulated by more established people as well-- but this is a very small minority. Please use references. I’d be lost without them. The Castlevania team has a giant collection of references for faces of every character from every angle, props, etc. and I always have a second screen up with 10 different sheets of whoever I’m drawing. Feeding yourself info is essential to getting better. Look at how other artists handle something you’re having a problem with too. If they’re doing a similar pose or something, study their drawing and ask yourself what specifically, extremely technically about that drawing is convincing-- what marks are where, and what is the quality or direction of the strokes? Try it out on your own drawing. If you’re stuck, become aware of if you’re holding on too tightly to what you think something should look like. I have to remind myself this as well. Really try to let go of the idea you have in your head about how something works and simply try instead to draw what you see, even if it feels weird. The results are often pleasantly surprising.

I have a funny relationship with studies. You seem to be looking at them like a chore and I feel the same way. It’s impossible for me to sit down and just draw something over and over, disconnected from emotion or a larger narrative. I think a wonderful way to “study” is to incorporate those studies into a project that you wanted to do anyway. I’ve used my minicomics to get better at background painting or specific figure poses that I needed for the story but wasn’t sure how to do. I’m a very “oops I need it now better learn TODAY” kind of artist, if that suits you better than buckling down and doing anatomy studies for hours. Both are great ways to improve, but you have options for how to get there.

In terms of how much time I spend drawing.. well lol it’s a lot. I almost typed “but I don’t do it every day” but yes, my jobs have made sure that I do (I tend to separate personal drawing and job drawing). But the truth is, to get better, a lot of very focused drawing time is important; how much of it is up to you and your schedule. You can sit down for 6 hours and doodle or you can sit down for 3 with an extremely critical eye. It’s about the volume of time as well as focus and I don’t have a clear answer for it, but I can point to one specific year in my life where I made artistic progress like I’ve never seen from myself since. I drew a comic with regular updates during that time and, looking back, the art was not good. But the point was, I was drawing for 7 hours a day after work, at least 5 days a week, and actively looking to draw things that I hadn’t done before or knew that I wasn’t good at, and the result was that every single update was almost like it was drawn by a different person-- readers noticed and commented on the progress as well. It was very much an art bootcamp and I wouldn’t have the skills I do at this point if I hadn’t done it. It’s important that you’re loving what you do if you do it for yourself! That’s how you get through big projects and continue to be excited with where you are. Love is one of the most important motivators and discipline-keepers in art, in my experience. Draw what sets your brain on fire and attack it wholeheartedly even if it’s really weird or niche, not what you think you should be drawing, and you’ll improve a million times faster.

Art journey in terms of what I’ve done with my life (if this is what you meant from the beginning I’M SORRY I’m just trying everything you might have meant) uhhh I haven’t been to art school. I have no idea what my relationship with art would be like now if I’d had any formal training and I don’t really dwell on it. I could either be a testament to being able to get by without it or an example of someone who has no idea what she’s doing at all and lacks many basic foundational art skills. I have an architecture degree. I love architecture, I love the language of space we build for ourselves, and I’m truly, deeply glad for that eye-opening and often grueling experience, but I think my current field is a much better fit. Before animation I worked as a graphic designer mainly drawing storyboards for commercials and internal-industry stuff-- lots and lots of quick colored sketches (one of our main clients was a big glass company and my god I never thought I’d draw so much glass in my life). I was able to do that job due to the skills I developed through personal work. Maybe I’d be a hundred times more powerful if I went to art school! Maybe I’d be completely burned out and bitter and not drawing anymore at all! I just don’t know. I have friends who have had both experiences. Whether you choose art school or not it’s best to keep tabs on if the art you’re currently making brings you joy. Joy and struggle aren’t mutually exclusive. Oftentimes I’m drawing something I care deeply about but it’s VERY FUCKING HARD and I’m frustrated but it’s worth it.

I also do everything while being very scared of the thing. I have a lot of deep-seated anxiety that I’m constantly trying to root out and my brain compulsively twists things around into why I can’t do something, why people secretly know I’m below-par and are just too nice to tell me, how I’m “tricking” people into thinking I’m better than I am, etc. It’s so bad that my first thought when I was initially offered the art test for my current job was to say no; not because I didn’t want it so badly it hurt, but because I thought I’d be too much of a disappointment. After completing the test I spent an hour figuring out the most gracious way to apologize for not being enough. It’s common, but not something to accept and we’re all working on it. I just thought it was important to mention because art is also a mental journey and forces you to do all this navel-gazey shit in order to advance, and feeling like you are Not Enough is rife in the creative community. The work feels entangled with my value as a person because art is a massive part of my life. Something I’m learning is that I don’t have to be confident or sure of myself all the time. This ensures that the process is usually painful and frightening. Often there’s no way to make it less painful or frightening, and I just have to hold my breath and do it. An oddly comforting thing to me the past couple years is to remind myself that the scary thing I’m about to do won’t be the scariest thing I’ll ever do. I implies both that this isn’t the pinnacle of my progress and also that I will inevitably get over it. If you continue with art you’re going to run into things like this and I guess if it was me it would’ve been helpful to know I’m not alone in it.

I hope that maybe answered some of your questions, maybe? If you have some specific questions feel free and I’ll try my best. Hope you have a good day/night!

#anon #asks

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