Mrbonbon'sblog

I can, I could and I'll try

[hopping-bunny-radio]

Ever get that feeling of "I just want to go home" but you are home? You actually never left home, you're sitting in your bed listening to the quiet of your city and the static of your radio and it just makes you want to go home more?

No? Cool. Cool..

Yeah..

Follow the hopping Bunny_︳

[bakwaaas]

[the-phantom-peach]

BOOOOOOOOOO GET A ROOM!! 🍅 💥 🍅🍅💥🍅🍅🍅🍅 💥 🍅 💥

[luna-azzurra]

Tips for Writing Injuries

✧ Broken ribs suck. You don’t just “walk it off.” Breathing hurts. Laughing hurts. Existing hurts. Characters with rib injuries won’t be doing heroic sprints.

✧ Concussions aren’t instant naps. Dazed vision, nausea, dizziness, maybe even personality changes, but they’re not going to collapse neatly like in the movies.

✧ Blood loss is sneaky. It’s not just about dramatic pools of blood. It’s dizziness, confusion, and the body getting cold as circulation tanks.

✧ Adrenaline lies. Someone can take a serious injury and not feel it until the fight’s over. That “I didn’t realize I was bleeding until later” trope? Very real.

✧ Twisted ankles are brutal. One bad step and suddenly running is off the table. Even walking hurts like hell. Perfect way to ground a chase scene.

✧ Burns linger. Even small burns hurt more than most people expect. Blisters, infection risk, constant pain, it’s not just a cool scar later.

✧ Dislocated shoulders = useless arm. Characters can’t keep swinging a sword or firing a gun. They’re basically fighting one-armed until it’s fixed.

✧ Shock is a thing. Pale skin, trembling, rapid heartbeat, and eventually disorientation. A character might not even realize how bad their wound is.

✧ Stitches aren’t magic. Getting sewn up is painful and recovery takes time. They’re not instantly battle-ready after a needle and thread.

✧ Scars tell stories. Some fade, some don’t. Some stay sensitive forever. Don’t forget the aftermath when the wound becomes part of the character.

[meltesh28]

let's hangout together for the rest of our lives or something dude

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

how does being punched in the face feel like

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

literally i just wanna know

[burn-brighter-than-fire]

It depends on where you get hit

Cheek: a round dull pain that clocks your entire head in a different direction. It’s painful and throbs but the main effect of a punch to the cheek is how jarring it is. You feel it in your mouth, your teeth. And no matter how you position that punch the knuckles will always hit the jaw and cheek bones adding a frame of sharp pain in which the redness will be painted.

Temple: getting hit on the temple pushes your head to the side rather than turning it. It’s disorienting because it leaves you very off balance. It essentially feels like a bad pressure headache, like when you have a sinus infection on a plane, but in one spot and on the outside. It’s sharp in the middle and radiates outward and even after the initial impact it pulses like an earthquake epicenter. It easily causes long lasting headaches and is the most likely of these examples to cause a concussion.

Eye: this is a weird one. The fist doesn’t fit within the eye socket so either the knuckles on the brow and cheeks bones protect the actual eye or they don’t. The former option gives a full spreading pain below the eye which results in the classic black eye look and a sharp pain on your brow similar to hitting your shin on the couch. The latter option, well bad things can happen when a hard fast object makes direct contact with your eye but for the sake of this it feels like a vacuum bc the concave shape is being covered and pressurized. The eye feels pushed back and pulled forward all at once. It doesn’t necessarily hurt that bad for that long unless the punch was meant to do damage. I’m fortunate to say I don’t know what it would feel like then.

Nose: remember that prank kids used to pull where they’d line up their hands with their nose, push them in one direction and crack a knuckle at the same time to pretend to break their nose? Yeah that’s what it looks like when someone punches you from the side in the nose, except it’s someone else’s hand and your nose makes the sound instead of their knuckle. It’s just like breaking any bone where you hear it and feel the action if it being done but that moment of shock blankets you for a split second until all the pain comes rushing back. It’s sharp and needlelike and can give you black eyes just to add insult to injury. If you get hit in the nose from the front it’s like the uncomfortableness of when you have to sneeze but can’t. Except that feeling took all the steroids and is now using your face as a punching bag to express its roid rage. It crackles outward like static electricity under your skin, your eyesight gets fuzzy and you can’t tell if it’s because you’re tearing up, it’s hard to open your eyes, or you’re momentarily stunned and blinded. Just know it’s all three. I find that this one knocks the wind out of you the most. Gotta remind yourself to breathe just don’t try to do it through your nose.

If you really want to know what this feels like I’d suggest joining a mixed martial arts because they’ll teach you correct form and power distribution and you can spar with pads and actually hit each other.

I’d also recommend learning what it feels like to punch someone in the face. It’s much more fun and pretty damn cathartic when they deserve it.

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

i was just being stupid but these descriptions are actually so well written i could feel them lmao bless

[jenniferrpovey]

Well, thanks for “being stupid,” because this is a great ref for writers.

[logically-asexual]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[boop-your-dragons]

Does everyone "have" a gender?

Examining 'gender detachment' in the asexual community

[homunculus-argument]

I can understand how "modern person thrown into the past gets by pretending to be a healer/doctor" is as surprisingly common of a trope as it is. I mean I'm fluent enough at bullshitting to be pretty sure I could pull it off to impersonate a doctor in any time pre-1800s. If I have no idea what something is or how to treat it, I could just get the opinion of the other whatever-passes-as-medical-professionals around, but if their suggestions sound like bullshit I'm not doing it. And I'll beat the shit out of anyone suggesting bloodletting or mercury. With my healing stick. I've tied little bells on it, that jingle comically with every smack.

The awesome curative powers of my healing stick come from two separate sources: Placebo, and me using it to beat anyone trying to give my patients mercury.

[alexaloraetheris]

Ooooh you reminded me of that protocol I wrote about how to reinvent penicilin with only alchemical tools. You know. Just in case I did end up dumped in the past and needed a stable income.

[i-have-n0-idea-what-im-d0ing]

w

what's the protocol?

[alexaloraetheris]

I am so glad you asked! I unfortunately lost the protocol because it was probably on my laptop, but I remember the broad strokes. So! In case anyone does end up stuck in the middle ages and can find a kindly old alchemist willing to lend you his gear, here's the revamped Penicilin (Re)Discovery Protocol!

0. WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS.

We're not working in a lab here, cross-conatamination WILL happen. Your job is to minimize it as much as possible. If you end up in a place where soap hasn't been invented yet, wash your hands in distilled alcohol. Your skin won't thank you, but you can afford all the nice hand creams after you cure the plague and get rich.

Find some Penicillium mushrooms!

Yes, penicilin is produced by mushrooms, though Ascomycotes are usually called moulds, it's a fungus, and it makes me laugh to call it a mushroom. Plus, in the middle ages, mushrooms were known to have medicinal properties, so you'll get a lot farther by calling them mushrooms rather than molds.

First thing you need: mouldy fruit. Oranges, or cantaloupes are preferred.

Here's the thing: mold is everywhere, so getting it will be the easiest part. The tricky part start with identifying the correct mold. You don't want to feed your patients black mold, do you?

So. Leave some fruit out. The more the better, because you want to up your chances. Then let it rot in warm and humid places. After a while, pick any fruit that looks white on the outside and green in the middle:

Not the best picture, but that's what it should look like.

2. Transplanting your (potential) Penicillium mushrooms

Until you get it on a plate it's damn near impossible to tell which mold you got. Get ready for some trial and error because you will have to sift through a lot of unwanted mold. You might want to wear a mask.

First you need something to transplant it onto. Making modern agar plates is probably impossible but thankfully not needed. You just need:

Glass plates (the kind that can be closed, you want to minimize cross contamination)

1-2 cup of Hot water (preferably distilled, ask your alchemist if he can do that)

1 cup whole milk (should be 13g of lactose per cup, if your Penicillium won't grow adjust the water-milk ration in favor of milk)

If available: Instead of milk use corn steep liquor. Unfortunately only available after America was discovered, so YMMW, but Penicillium LOVES this stuff. It will make your life SO much easier if it's available.

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon Yeast extract (get it from a baker)

3-6 teaspoons Gelatin (get it from a butcher)

Disclaimer: The ratio of each of the ingredients will have to be adjusted depending on the purity of the ingredients and on the conventional measuring sizes of the place you end up.

Gently mix it all in and pour out into the plates, let it solidify. If you end up dumped far enough that such refinement isn't possible, make bone broth and strain it through cheesecloth several times to make it as clear as possible, then mix it 5/6 broth and 1/6 milk. Again, if available, use corn steep liquor, but if not milk is fine. Add gelatin (should still be able to get it from the butcher) as needed to solidify it. I'm afraid experimentation will be needed depending on the resources you will be working with.

When you're done, you should have something like this:

Now that you have your plates, run an inoculation loop through a flame to sterilize it.

Something like this. Wave it through the air to cool it so you don't kill your mold, grab it from your fruit and geeeeeently spread it on top of your improvised agar without breaking the surface of the gelatin!

You can see the motions on this one pretty well. Close your plates, stack them about a meter/3ft from the fireplace. Judge for yourself, but ideally somewhere you would consider comfortably warm (20-24°C).

3. Identifying your Penicillium Mushrooms

If all went well, you are going to have something that looks like this:

Well, realistically, it will look something like this:

We're not actually doing it in a lab, after all. But IDEALLY, it will look like the above. It doesn't have to be perfect, you just need to be able to identify Penicillium molds for now.

IDEALLY, on the plate that matches the description of the penicillium mold you'll see an exclusion zone of bacteria around the mold, like the fourth plate in the second row, so you know you have a potential winner, but if you managed to avoid bacterial growth you need to take a few extra steps.

Penicillium molds have characteristic rings of growth, grey-green-white rings. They're easy to differentiate from bacteria because the molds are fuzzy and the bacteria as smooth and slimy. In the above picture, there are four plates that potentially have what we want, and two are less certain than others. Wash out the unwanted ones, make new agar plates, sterilize your inoculation loop and transplant your best candidates. You might need to do this several times.

Two types are confirmed to produce penicilin: P. chrysogenum and P. rubens.

The former is far more widely used today, but since we're sourcing them from literally thin air, we're more likely to get P. rubens, but unless you're a mycologist you probably won't be able to tell the difference. Thankfully you won't need to, because they both produce penicillin. Which brings me to the next step.

4. Confirming it's the penicillin producing mushroom

We're gonna need more agar plates for this one, and believe it or not, you're gonna need to mix blood into your agar. Wash your hands THROUGHLY.

(Theoretically you can get away with just milk, but identifying the correct bacterial colony on white agar is going to be a nightmare, so just add some sheep blood to your agar, conventionally it's about 5% by volume but you might need more to make it)

You need some gram-positive bacteria, preferably of the Bacillota type. Please don't go out and find a patient with fucking botulism or tetanus, you need to live long enough to make the cure. Instead, if you have a vagina, scrape some of the white, mucousy stuff from there and plant it on your plate. If you don't have your own vagina, a borrowed one is fine. Penicilin also works on Treponema pallidum, so if you get a syphilis-affected prostitute that should also work. Just wear gloves.

Ideally you get something like this.

This is actually Lactobacillus brevis, but Lactobacillus colonies all look relatively the same. The important thing is that it's all gram-positive, and will therefore be affected by penicillin.

Take new plates again, plant your Penicillium mold in the middle, and the bacteria all around it, getting as close to the center as possible. You can put down a paper marker for the mold. Wait for about 20 days.

Ideally, on at least one plate, you will get something like this:

This is literally a textbook example of testing antibiotics, but the Zone of Inhibition is what you're looking for. It means the mold is releasing a compound to kill the competing bacteria for resources, in this case, Beta-lactam antibiotic, or penicillin. Make sure to pick the one with the WIDEST ZoI, because that's the one that produces most penicillin.

So now we have the root stock, but our problems have just begun. This is the part where you're absolutely going to need an alchemist's help.

The problem is that a human body is not a petri dish. It's quite a bit larger. And you want the good bacteria destroying stuff without all the nasty contaminants, so you need a SHITLOAD of mold producing a LOT of penicillin, and then you need a way to filter it. You are going to need actual lab equipment for that, or near as they had it.

Since I lost the original protocol I'm going to need to do research all over again how to do that with alchemy equipment (or at least a microbrewery), so that will be in the next installment.

[ospreyonthemoon]

Fascinating.

[punkahudsonia]

Concept: generic fantasy adventure where the wizard has a crackpot assistant and he explains sadly that while Hreithbert is an excellent person for keeping the wizard tower tidy and the homonculi fed they're obsessed with cooking like ten million plates of inedible goop but it makes them happy so he permits it

And at the end of the story the big reveal is Hreithbert is a time displaced biochemist who has finally fucking refined their process for penicillin.

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

Don’t lie, any wizard would love having ten million plates of inedible goop from their apprentice. The fact that he won’t let you lick them is the problem.

[shymagnolia]

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

[shymagnolia]

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

[flagellant]

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

[coffee-or-hot-cocoa]

i need all the help i can get for finals

[finnglas]

Hey so

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

This might be the real one, y’all.

[azaraspirit]

what the hell? i could use some luck *hits reblog*

[worldheritageposts-official]

World Heritage Post

[monsoonsosoon]

reblogging again… need it bad lol 

[ceilingfan25]

totally real quotes from my brother's keeper trust me guys

[sourdough-seal]

hey i know i asked for constructive criticism but what i actually wanted was for you to tell me i'm extremely talented. and also pretty. sorry if that was unclear

[cherribalm-deactivated20140609]

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms

[bumblebeebabie]

THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS

[archivestorystuff006]

OMG

[dduane]

This one’s an always-reblog, because who knows who needs it and hasn’t seen it yet?

[chrissyjoshys]

the aro/ace experience of going 'but am i actually aro/ace?' and then seeing an allo and being like 'oh. okay. yeah i am. what the fuck'

[ashoutinthedarkness]

...I feel so called out XD

[memewhore]

[collidedscope]

the “bad guys” in hallmark movies end up always being the most respectful men ever.

because they will find out their girlfriend of 3 years (that they were about to propose to) went off to a random farm in minnesota, hours away from were the two of them built a life together, and she decided to just… stay there without even consulting him.

and then he decides to take a trip to make sure she’s okay, because this is generally alarming behavior, and then sees that she literally fell in love with her ex within one (1) week- and he wasn’t there, but you can TELL that they’ve made out a couple times.

and then she just strings him along for a few days, until fucking christmas eve, when she just breaks up with him and is like “i know we used to have the same values, but i’ve never loved you. mark makes me happier than you ever did. and you ONLY care about work, whereas i like christmas and fun, like a Good Person.”

and then, after finding out his entire relationship was a lie and he had his life turned upside down in a week and he got dumped on christmas, this guy’s just like “ok yeah that makes sense. i only wish you the best of happiness with mark. i hope you guys build a great life together in christmastreefarmville. thank you for everything.”

[teashoesandhair]

An AU where two Hallmark Christmas Bad Guys are both getting flights back to New York after being dumped by their respective Smalltown Blonde Girlfriends, and they bond over their shared experiences and fall in love in the departures lounge

[ghostcasket]

@teashoesandhair your wish is my command :)

Probably, Levi should be more upset.

Probably he is still in shock. Right? He looks out of his taxi window (it's not technically a taxi, just some guy named Corey who offered him a ride to the airport, because Uber doesn't operate in fucking Tinyville, Bumfuck Middle-Of-Nowhere, Utah) and tracks water droplets racing each other down the glass, because of course it's raining, and his bad knee is killing him. 

Levi sniffs and rubs at his eyes and then pulls out his phone and books a ticket back to New York, wincing as four hundred and twenty-six dollars are deducted from his bank account. 

And, like, he should definitely be more upset.

He just got broken up with. He was engaged, for God's sake. A four-year relationship… over. Just like that. 

Corey says, "Ten minutes to the station." 

Probably he'll be more upset once he's home. When he starts packing up Anika's stuff into boxes so she can come collect them after New Year's. He'll have to do all that processing and he'll put away all the pictures that are up and probably he'll remember all the good times they had together and flashes of their relationship will play out in slow motion in his mind. Like a movie montage.

Levi catches his reflection in the passenger side window and starts, pulling his thumb out of his mouth. He hadn't even noticed he'd started biting the nail.

Corey drops him off at the train station and he books a ticket to Salt Lake City and Levi wants to tip him for the ride but when he turns back the car's gone, and it's started snowing again.

He re-wraps his scarf so it covers his ears and turns back. He has to jog—ow ow ow—to catch his train.

Once arrived at the airport, Levi's gotten over being baffled and has started being mildly pissed. 

You're obsessed with work, Anika told him. You barely make time for us anymore. Yeah, he'd had to pull some long hours for the last few months, but for good reason—he'd been working towards a huge promotion and a raise and he thought she'd be happy for him.

He'd gotten the promotion, by the way. Editor in chief. He'd tried calling her first, a whole bunch of times, and then she hadn't picked up, so he'd decided Well, fuck it, and flew out to Doodootown, Utah to break the news himself.

He thought it would be nice. Spend the few remaining days before Christmas with Anika and her family in their hometown, then flying back home for Christmas and New Year's and starting 2023 off with renewed vigour and excitement. 

Then, of course, Anika told him that she wouldn't be flying back with him for Christmas. Or at all. 

Which, well. Okay. 

She didn't even congratulate him.

He checks in, and the lady at the desk asks him whether he wants to drop off his carry-on luggage for free, since the plane is very full, and Levi shrugs and says okay and watches his suitcase disappear behind black rubber flaps.

His flight leaves in four hours. 

Levi decides to pay the extra fee so he can stay in the fancy lounge, because he thinks he probably deserves that at this point. It's quiet here, though, so he orders a tea and claims a table over by the window, stretching out his right leg with a contented sigh. 

There's an empty table in front of him, but at the next one sits a man who looks so miserable it's impressive.

The man is slouched in his chair, dark hair mussed and suit a little ruffled. The cuffs of his slacks are damp, and so are his knees. He's leaning his head against the window, eyes closed, holding a bloody tissue to his nose. A purple bruise is starting to form on his cheekbone.

Levi stares.

Damn. And he thought he was having a rough day. 

Should he say something? Probably not, right. Like, that would be weird, right? 

Then he notices the small, black velvet ring box the man is fiddling with and it's like all the air's punched right out of his lungs.

Damn. 

Levi looks down and takes a sip of his tea, then hisses and curses under his breath because it's still way too hot and he's an idiot. 

When he looks up again, the man is eyeing him with mild amusement.

And there are a hundred thousand ways that Levi could have handled the situation, but before he can think about ways to not embarrass himself further he hears himself say, "Ouch. Haha."

Somebody please shoot him. 

The man raises an eyebrow. Levi gives an awkward cough, then takes another sip of tea and somehow feels betrayed when it burns his tongue again.

"Maybe you should give it a second," the man says. 

"Maybe," Levi says, "I should." His ears are burning. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas plays over the speakers. 

Levi desperately wants to ask about the ring box. And the bloody nose. And whether there's a correlation. But then again it is so definitely not his business, so he just stares down at his tea and watches steam rise. 

There's a sharp sigh from across the table. "She said no." 

Levi's head snaps up, ready to defend himself, because it's not like he actually asked, but then the guy looks so tired and bitter that he immediately deflates and feels both like an asshole and an idiot.

"I'm sorry," he offers, which still feels lame but better than whatever he had going on before.

The guy gives a wry smile. "Gonna, you know. Return this. She, uh, said no to the whole relationship. So."

Ah. 

"I'm sorry," he says, running a hand over his face, "I don't mean to dump all this on you."

"Oh, no, it's okay," Levi says quickly, and then before he can think about it too much, he adds, "I get it."

The other guy looks immediately doubtful. 

Levi bites the inside of his cheek. "Four years," he says with a shrug. "Engaged and everything." He gives a thumbs down and blows a raspberry. 

"Aw, shit, dude," he says, sitting up straight. He removes the tissue from his face, and seeing as he's no longer bleeding, stuffs it in his pocket. "That sucks."

Levi shrugs again, suddenly weirdly self-conscious. He traces the rim of his teacup with a finger. "Yeah, well. I didn't get beat up about it." There's a moment of silence, then he sneaks another glance. "Levi, by the way."

A corner of the guy's mouth twitches. "Xavier Ortega." 

Levi gives a half-hearted salute. "Fuckin', enchanté. Or whatever."

Again, Xavier almost smiles. Levi thinks—Levi thinks he'd like to see Xavier smile. Properly. 

And then he thinks, What. 

No, he's just—Xavier just looks like he could do with a cheer-up. That's it. And, well, so could he, really. They're both in similar boats. Although it looks like Xavier got the shorter end of the straw here, Levi thinks, considering his ruined suit and, you know, face. Still a nice face, though. Symmetrical. Strong cheekbones. Dark eyebrows over dark eyes and a straight nose and—whatever. 

Whatever.

He just got broken up with. 

God, why's he trying to justify this to himself? Why is he feeling weird about this? He's not even gay. And even if he—even if he was, it's not gay to acknowledge that a guy is good-looking. 

But, like, it's fine. He's not—whatever.

Xavier has a split lip, he notices now that the tissue's not hiding half his face. "Got you good, huh?" 

Xavier rolls his eyes. He looks away for a moment, hesitating, then stands up and pulls the chair from the table between them, spinning it around and flopping back down at Levi's table. 

Levi thinks he must look quite surprised, because Xavier says, "I mean, this is easier for conversation purposes. Unless you're fine with the yelling across tables situation—"

"No, no," Levi protests. "No, you're right, this is—easier." He clears his throat and says, "So, what was her name?" before mentally kicking himself, but Xavier just looks at him weird.

"Well, her name is Chloe. We just broke up, she didn't die."

Levi nods, puckering his lips. Right, yeah. Yes. "Is she… nice?"

"Well, she cheated on me."

"Ha," Levi says with no humour. "Samesies."

Xavier lets out a dry chuckle at this, then rubs at his eyes. "Wow. Happy Christmas to us, right?" 

Levi raises his teacup and gives a ghost toast. "Merry Christmas to us." He downs his tea, which is at a palatable temperature now, then says, "Do you want a drink?" 

-

So Chloe and Xavier had been together for almost five years. The whole story is… disturbingly similar to Levi's whole deal, actually. Chloe decides, two weeks before Christmas, to take a trip back to her hometown, gets pissed when Xavier can't just take ten days off work to come with her, goes anyway on her sister's advice, meets up with her childhood nemesis who turns out not to be so bad after all and also cleaned up unfair nice, and then when Xavier went after her because hey, she hadn't been answering his texts and he was planning to pop the question over the holidays, she decided to dump him.

"She looked me in the face," Xavier says, head in hands, "and told me she was happier there than she'd ever been with me." He looks up and runs his fingers through his hair. "And I mean, sure, we'd had our rough patches, but, you know. We were gonna work it out."

Levi hums. "Yeah, no. I get it."

"So I said, Are you fucking serious right now, and I guess I raised my voice a bit, and then Mr Goddamn Farm Guy comes storming out and squares up to me and I don't even know who this dude is, and I tell him to get out of my face, and he fucking decks me. Like, completely unprompted."

"Rough," Levi says solemnly. 

"Yeah," Xavier says, exasperated. "And he didn't even apologise."

Levi whistles low. It's quiet for a moment while they both nurse their drinks, then Xavier vaguely gestures at him and says, "So what's your Christmas Tragedy?"

Levi gives a lopsided grin. "Well. Anika goes home to Middle Of Nowhere, Utah, 'cause she said she wasn't feeling great. Wants me to go with her, I can't 'cause I'm pulling long hours for an upcoming promotion, she's pissed. When she gets back there she rekindles things with her ex—"

"Augh," Xavier says. "Brutal."

"—and last I heard the plan was for them to start a combination bakery and tearoom together. So." Levi grits his teeth. "Hope that works out for them."

Xavier looks at him over his glass, then, after a moment of careful silence, says, "You're allowed to be mad at her, you know."

"Fuck her," Levi says immediately. "Like, seriously. Why even get engaged to me if she was so miserable? Just break up with me instead of, fuckin', cheating, and then acting like I'm insane for going to check on her after she just ignores all my calls and texts and goddamn emails. We were going to get married in February, for fuck's sake. Fuck her." He presses the palms of his hands against his eyes til he sees stars. 

There it is. The upset. Figures that it's the saying it out loud that really drives home how betrayed Levi feels. Especially when he's talking to someone whom he doesn't have to explain it to, because Xavier gets it. Xavier gets it better than anyone ever will, probably. 

It's not quite the movie montage Levi had been preparing for. Rather, what Levi remembers now are all the moments that Anika said things that cut, or did things that bruised. How she'd roll her eyes when Levi got so excited he got the wiggles. How she refused to entertain the idea of getting a dog, even after he begged. How she'd get annoyed with him when his knee acted up and told him to suck it up and stop being such a crybaby. How she'd give him the cold shoulder when she was upset with him and he couldn't read her mind about it and let it build until she exploded out of nowhere. 

Little things that didn't seem like such a big deal in the time, but that added up to something like a balm for the sharp sting of betrayal.

Because that's what it is, at its core. That's why Levi is angry.

More betrayal than heartbreak.

And even though it will hurt for a while still, there's something that tastes oddly like relief at the centre of his chest, cool and welcome like a breeze on a suffocating July afternoon.

Xavier stays silent. After a moment Levi blinks hard and opens his eyes and finds Xavier looking at him strangely. 

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Fuck 'em." 

Levi's stomach squeezes.

He glances wildly around, trying to find anything to look at that isn't Xavier's face, and settles for the screen hanging from the ceiling that displays flight information. 

"Oh, look at that," he says. "I should get to my gate." 

"Right," Xavier agrees quickly. "Yeah, of course, so should I." He picks up his leather briefcase. "Where are you going, by the way?"

Levi laughs. "How wild would it be if we were on the same flight, huh?" He stands up and winces, ignoring Xavier's questioning look. "New York City. The 9:15. You?"

Xavier's eyebrows shoot up. Levi's jaw drops. "You're fucking kidding."

They make their way over to gate B9 mostly in silence, a general air of What the fuck is happening hanging between them. Not quite uncomfortable, but definitely baffled. 

"So this is weird, right," Levi says, dropping into a boarding zone chair. "Like, really weird."

"Right," Xavier says softly. Then, eyes trained on the huge Christmas tree and determinedly not looking at Levi, he adds, "Cool, though."

Levi is—Levi is a little speechless. "Yeah." He feels kind of floaty. He can't stop looking at Xavier's ears, because the tips have gone red. "Yeah. Pretty cool."

God. Fuck.

-

Their seats aren't next to each other, because that would have been crossing the line from freaky coincidence into absolutely fucking insane, but Levi pulls some strings and switches seats with the nice lady who’s next to Xavier, because it’s an exit row seat with more leg room and he has a bad knee. He tries not to look too pleased with himself as he sits down. 

Xavier gives him a look. “So do you actually have a bad knee, or…”

Levi slaps a scandalised hand to his chest. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of such a thing. You think I’d lie about being disabled?” 

“I don’t know you that well.” 

“And here I thought we had something.” Levi sighs. “I broke my kneecap when I was a teenager. Never healed right.” 

“Ah. Sports? Don’t tell me you were a football kid.” 

Levi doesn’t know why he feels suddenly bashful. He always feels kind of stupid telling people how he got his injury; the reactions usually range somewhere between mild disapproval and straight up judgment. “Uh, no. Parkour. Actually.” 

Xavier’s eyebrows vanish into his hairline. 

After a moment of questioning silence, Levi shrugs. “I misjudged the distance between ledges. Fractured my kneecap. But I was stupid and an idiot, also, so I didn’t wait for it to fully heal before going back out, and now I am a human weather antennae.” 

“Huh.” Levi would say Xavier looks almost impressed. Mostly sort of exasperated, though. “You know what, now that you say it, I feel like that checks out.” 

Levi narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I don’t know, maybe you look like the type who would break his kneecap doing parkour.”

“And what kind of type is that?” Levi is halfway to miffed and sort of offended, but then Xavier grins wide and he forgets to be annoyed. 

“You tell me.” 

It sounds too much like an invitation to be a coincidence. 

Levi can’t remember the last time he spent so many hours talking uninterrupted. Or, well, talking to someone who was actually listening to him and actively engaging in conversation. Someone who was interested in him. 

Levi can’t remember the last time he enjoyed talking to someone this much. 

He cracks a joke that makes Xavier laugh softly, and the noise goes straight through his spinal cord like an electric shock, and then it becomes a game, a challenge, trying to make Xavier laugh like that again. 

Xavier shows him pictures of his dog, a wonderfully fluffy brown-and-grey mutt named Captain, and Levi thinks he might actually pass away over how cute he is. 

“I always wanted a dog,” he says after cooing over a picture of Captain showing his belly for ten minutes. “Like, really bad. I want a dog so bad. But Anika doesn’t, so it never happened.” 

“Well,” Xavier says loftily, “Nothing’s stopping you now, is there?” 

That is an excellent point. Levi tells him so. 

Then he starts thinking about how nice it will be to have the apartment to himself for a while, and then he feels guilty for being relieved about it, about Anika not being there, and then he ponders how weird it’ll be to be alone for Christmas. 

Levi's never been alone for Christmas before. 

His family lives in Alberta, and he can't really afford another short notice round flight, and anyway the plan this year had been just him and Anika, and they'd had a reservation for brunch on Christmas day, and Levi thinks he should probably cancel that, and that's just a fucking bummer.

After a moment of thinky silence, Levi quietly asks, "What are you gonna do for Christmas?" 

Xavier blows out a long breath. "I don't know. I think I'll try to see my sisters. They live a state over, though, and it's all very last minute, I—we—were supposed to spend it at Chloe's, and I'm not big on Christmas celebrations myself, you know, my family's culturally Jewish, so… I'm not sure."

Most of the rest of the flight is quiet, and a little sad, but also nice, and when the seatbelt light flicks on and the crew announces the imminent descent Levi can't help but feel a pang of disappointment.

The plane lands. Impatience in the cabin spikes; everyone wants to get home, it's the holidays, it's cold. Levi gets up and winces, catches Xavier's eye as he reaches for his bag and hands it to him. 

Xavier is gonna call a cab. Levi is as well. 

They're standing outside.

Levi shoves his hands in his pockets. 

"Well," Xavier says.

"Right."

"It was nice meeting you, Levi. The circumstances were… less than ideal, maybe, but…" 

Levi looks at him. A purple bruise is blossoming on his cheekbone, crawling up around his eye. The tip of his nose is red from the cold. His eyes are dark but if he pays very close attention he can tell where the iris ends and the pupil begins. 

And okay. Okay.

He might be a little gay.

"But nice," he whispers.

Xavier smiles, looks down. Is it—would it be totally weird to ask for his number?

But then Xavier's cab is there, and he tips an imaginary hat at Levi before turning away. He hands the driver his luggage.

The sharp stab of panic between his ribs takes Levi totally by surprise. As does the fact that when he blinks he's closed the distance between him and the cab and is holding onto the door.

Xavier looks at him, eyebrows raised.

Levi didn't plan this far ahead, or at all. He blinks, feeling rather sheepish, then when Xavier's eyebrows start disappearing into his hairline he blusters, all at once, "So I have a brunch reservation. On Christmas Day. I was, you know, supposed to go with Anika, but, you know. And it would suck to have to cancel. And it doesn't have to be weird, or anything, we're just two guys being dudes, getting brunch." He snaps his mouth shut, absolutely horrified. What the fuck was that?

Xavier's mouth parts a little. 

God. Shitballs. Fuck. Abort. "But that would be weird, right? You know what, never mind, it's fine, forget I said anything, it's—"

"Levi," Xavier says, exasperated. He covers his face with his hands. Then he says, muffled, "Yeah, okay. That sounds nice. I'd like that." 

Oh. 

"Are you—are you sure?" 

He must sound really incredulous, because Xavier snorts. "Yeah, I'm sure." 

Slowly, Levi grins. "Okay."

"Okay." They stand there for a moment, and then Xavier's eyes go wide and he says, "Wait, I should—hold on." He digs in his pocket and pulls out his wallet, hesitates, then pulls out a small rectangular object and holds it out.

Levi's grin goes lopsided. "Xavier Ortega. Are you handing me your business card right now?"

To his credit, Xavier looks away sheepishly. "My phone number's on there."

Levi accepts the card, hoping passionately that Xavier doesn't notice his hand is shaking. "Okay. I'll text you, then."

"Okay," Xavier says. Then, tentatively, "See you soon, then?"

Levi takes a deep breath and steps back, cheeks burning, and probably not just because of the bite of winter chill. Something in his stomach twinges, and he says, "Yeah. See you soon." 

[all-my-ocs-are-evil]

I wanted to do more, but this is all I had time for:)

[ghostcasket]

HELLO????

[lastoneout]

Ya know when people told me "when you're finally safe enough that you can leave survival mode and start to let go of and process your c-ptsd/trauma things are probably going to get really, really bad before they slowly start to get better" I thought that was reasonable. I did not understand that by "things are going to get bad" they meant "you're going to find yourself in the worst mental state of your entire life, but dw, that means it's working" and tbh I simply wish someone had been more clear.

[lucineblue]

Not letting these stay in the tags, damn. Let yourself be Goop.

[shadeswift99]

A few months ago I realized something I couldn't un-realize about Minecraft and that is that villagers being killed by mobs is a direct result of the player's existence. Hostile mobs only spawn within a certain radius of the player. Villages are so unprotected because they straight up don't ever have to deal with monsters before I get there. They live, they work, undiscovered, and then I bring them apocalypse by walking slightly too close at night.

Knowing that, the least I can do is help villages I find to survive it, so I build them a wall and new homes and traps for the creatures of the night - but all that time, they're creatures I created. To the villagers it must seem like the world started ending, hoards of the undead pouring out of the earth, and then this hero emerged to save them from it all, but the danger and the rescue are one and the same and they will never really understand that, and THAT makes me go completely feral. The player is a thing of infinite life which death follows like a shock wave in the fabric of the Universe. We are a self fulfilling prophesy. How is this a thing we've all just gotten used to in the funky cube game

[tboy-cock]

was talking to my gf about my fear of dying young for being trans and my mom putting my deadname on my gravestone, and she said "i hope that never happens, but if it does, i will carve your name into your grave myself if i have to." and i think theres something extremely raw about that sentiment and trans community in general. you can kill only our bodies, but you cant kill transsexuality

[flowerbleedme]

From The Sandman

[revengepvnk]

My Chemical Romance, Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back // I've Never Been Here Before, They Burnt Her Clothes