I’ve noticed lately that it’s often Americans who leave tags like “I don’t even care if it’s made up” on posts I make that are not particularly unbelievable, but are pretty specific to my way of life or corner of the world (like the one about the cheese vendor). It reminds me of that tweet that was circulating, that said Americans have a “medieval peasant scale of worldview”—I mean, if you don’t want to be perceived this way by the rest of the world maybe don’t go around social media saying that if a cultural concept or way of life sounds unfamiliar it must be made up?
It’s the imbalance that’s annoying, because like—when I mentioned having no mobile network around here I had people giving me info about Verizon to fix my problem. I post some rural pic and someone says it must be somewhere in the Midwest because the Southwest doesn’t look like this. My post about my postwoman has thousands of Americans assuming it’s about the USPS. On my post about my architect there’s someone saying “it’s because architecture is an impacted major” and other irrelevant stuff about how architecture is taught in the US. This kind of thing happens so so so often and I’m expected to be familiar with the concepts of Verizon and the Midwest and impacted majors and the USPS and meanwhile I make a post about my daily life and Americans in the notes are debating like “dunno if real. it sounds made up”
Going online for the rest of the world means having to keep in mind an insane amount of hyperspecific trivia about American culture while going online for Americans means having to keep in mind that the rest of the world really exists I guess
Watching US Politics as a non-American is like watching a horror movie where you're begging the protagonists to save themselves, except if the killer gets them then you get poisoned in real life.
WEEK OF CHRISTMAS 2024 (2/7) —🎅🎄🎁🦌— THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL 1992 — dir. Brian Henson
reblog if you would give cheeses to these meeces
just because elphaba is gay doesn't mean she's a friend of dorothy. in fact,
🦔
This is Charles. He wants to go on a journey around tumblr. could you show him around?
I don't know if you're American or not but in my experience as a person who is not American, American events and media are so incredibly loud and visible that they tend to leech into everything.
Like I'm Canadian born and raised and can name more American presidents than I can Canadian Prime Ministers. I have Canadian friends from Canada who can accurately describe themselves as Liberals but are still sorta foggy on NDP policies. Do you know what day Canada Day is? It's July 1st. Do you know what's on my dashboard on July 1st? Early posts about July 4th.
And if you're an American reading this: Or, hell, anyone else reading this: We all know George Washington was the first American President. Do you know who the first Prime Minister of Canada was? Can you name two British political parties? What are two countries that have Monarchies, not Democracies? What was the most recent political scandal you can think of that took place outside the US? What's your favourite TV show that takes place anywhere outside of America? What are your top three favourite non-american musicians? If English is your first language, how many foreign countries can you go to where you don't speak the language, but don't have to worry about it?
I said "International America Day" as a joke, but there is a very real phenomenon in countries outside of the US where the general population becomes Americanized through the prevalent American media.
We know American current events, we know American scandals, we know about American cops and American movies and American accents and American fast food chains. We have serious opinions on the American legal system and we talk about American law and American policy and American celebrities, and many of us don't know Jack Shit about what's going on where we live.
I'm Canadian. I've heard all about 'building the wall' and ICE and June 6th, the intentional government distribution of narcotics in Black communities and the use of Marijuana Illegalization to persecute Black and Mexican people under the Nixon administration.
Do you know what Canada did to Chinese immigrants to build the Canadian railroad? What about the Sterilization Act? Residential Schools? Do you know what a Status Card is? Does it, or does it not cost money to ride in an ambulance? Can people with breasts legally walk around topless? What's the legal drinking age? What are our biggest cities? Who was our least-popular PM? What are our allied nations? Where does the Canadian military get deployed?
"International America Day" was a goof. But Jesus, it's a little bit serious
Reblog to give the person you reblogged from the ability to finish their WIPs
Hello!
After the fall of General Dreykov, and the remnants of the Red Room still at large, Natasha first year at SHIELD is anything but healing. Labeled a traitor and a turncoat, Natasha tries to find her footing in a strange new world.
Whumptober 2024: Day 24 - I never knew daylight could be so violent. (No light, no light)
Warnings: whump/angst/therapy
Word Count: 2k (gif not mine)
Summary: Olivia needs help; but then again so does Natasha.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist.
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Pain shoots through her abdomen and and she bows to it.
She doesn’t allow herself a cry of pain, only a huff of a breath and closes her eyes.
Her hand shakes as she empties the last of the tryptophan her heart sinking as she feels nauseousness rise and tremors shudder through her.
“Fuck,” she swears.
The night is going to be long.
She takes one of the last two tablets anyway knowing it’s only delaying the inevitable.
She sighs, laying down and trying to breathe through the pain.
Shield had the medications that she needed, but she didn’t quiet trust them.
Pain thrusts its way through her, making her clench her fists and forcing breath in and out consciously.
She decides in the moment to find Coulson or Fury. Shield is not safe but the two men would perhaps help.
She owed them, they owed her, and she’s sure she could call in a favour.
.
The seizure leaves her on the floor, her head pounding as she feels her consciousness return to her.
Wiping her mouth, she pushes herself up.
Hands still shaking, Olivia takes the last pill, hoping it makes her functional.
She knows she’s running out of time. She didn’t realise how close she was running out when she left.
Stupid, she berates herself.
Living in America had made her soft, dependant… Compliant.
If she was on her own, she’d have stocks, but instead, she’d just worked through the emergency medication knowing she’d have access to more.
Allowing herself a moment of self pity, she wonders just how to find the others, and slowly dresses herself.
The number she’d memorised for Fury may still work, and she contemplates if she’s able to make it to the closest pay phone.
The small apartment’s furniture helps her to move on shaking legs, and the walking stick she keeps in the closet feels like a good option.
Armed with a knife and sunglasses, she makes her way out to the harsh light of day.
Nauseous, she descends the stairs, tremors still wracking her body.
She can do this, she’s done much harder things.
One hundred steps, she tells herself.
When she reaches that, she counts 100 more.
At 345 she stops, breathing labored at the public pay phone.
“This better fucking work,” she mutters to herself, dialing the number.
Four rings in and she feels bile rise in her throat.
On the fifth, the phone picks up and she closes her eyes in relief.
“It’s bad,” she opens, “I need… what you owe me.”
Fury seems to understand.
“Safehouse six. I’ll organise for it to be sent there.”
He pauses.
“You owe me too. Don’t think I won’t collect.”
The phone hangs up and she groans, sinking to the floor, holding onto the walking stick and feeling another seizure coming on.
.
The knock at the door sets them all on edge.
Even though Fury calls to tell them that Olivia is coming, they all stand. Maria’s hand on her gun, Clint close to his bow and Natasha stands near the draw with the knives.
Coulson opens it, and finds Olivia standing there, just as Fury had said.
He opens the door wider, letting her in and showing the others that they have nothing to fear.
She enters, and Clint frowns.
“Are you… are you okay?”
The woman waves him off, and says something quietly to Coulson. He walks to the back room and returns alone.
“She needs some privacy and sleep,” he announces, much to all their confusion.
The shower starts running and Clint thinks of all the scenarios that could have had her looking so drawn and pale.
He turns back to the game of cards that he had been playing with Maria and swears as he loses again.
“I’m bored,” he complains.
Maria shares a look with him.
“How do we know Fury is okay?” she asks, much to Coulson’s annoyance.
“He’s okay,” he assures, “but if you want to go help, then fine, I can’t stop you.”
Maria grins at Clint.
“I’ll let you know how I go.”
“He’s gonna be angry,” Clint assumes, throwing the cards to the container.
“Nah; he’ll be appreciative. Who reads the lackies of Shield, better than me?”
Coulson sighs.
“I should go with you.”
He looks to the door that Olivia just moved through, and sits back down.
“Go. Call me in four hours and tell me what’s happening.” He looks at time.
“Four hours okay?”
Maria grabs the keys and a piece of pizza.
“Yeah yeah, I’ll call,” she smiles, pleased to have something to do.
The evening feels early, even though it’s 6pm, the sun moving to sleep. Maria reveals in the fresh air; and heads for shield.
.
Natasha lays on the couch. She’d opted to take first watch.
Olivia was still in the room, door closed having not come out since she went in.
Coulson in the other room, and Clint gently snoring on the other couch.
She doesn’t feel tired.
Probably, would be unable to sleep anyway.
If nightmares plagued her like they did in the cabin, she would have the whole house on edge.
At least the cell was soundproofed.
Here, she thinks she would wake up the whole apartment block.
Clint has eyed her when she’d offered to take first watch, and she had nodded assuringly.
Maria had called to say she was with Fury, he hadn’t sent her away much to Coulson’s surprise.
Coulson had decided he’d return in the morning, barring no incidents during the night.
Natasha was determined to just let them sleep.
She liked the darkness, and with others around, she was sure she wouldn’t be seeing anything… anyone.
Lost in her own thoughts, she catches movement on her left and stands to confront it.
“It’s me,” Olivia announces quietly.
Natasha sits up straighter.
The psychiatrist moves into the dimly lit room, and then to the kitchen finding water and taking a sip.
She downs two pills as Natasha watches on in interest.
“I’m defective,” she says, noticing Natasha watching her.
“They experimented with us, trialing… god knows what, to try and make us better soldiers. And they succeeded but at a cost.”
Olivia’s eyes rake over Natasha.
“Shield has drugs that help combat the symptoms. The Red Room would have just killed me.”
She feels scrutinized and wants to hear so much more of her experience of the Red Room.
It’s like piecing together bits of her own history, things she’s forgotten, things that have been wiped.
Part of the debrief had asked so many basic questions that she should know, but couldn’t retrieve it.
Experimented was right.
Natasha moves to seat at the bench to sit across from her.
Her face itches where the cut on her forehead is healing, and she suppresses the urge to touch it. Her whole body is itchy, uncomfortable and foreign.
Olivia looks to Clint, and deciding he’s asleep enough, starts to make coffee.
Natasha watches practices motions and refrains from talking.
She wants to ask her so much.
Waiting until Olivia sits, Natasha takes an offered coffee and they sip it together.
“Ask, if you need to,” she tells her, voice tired and resigned.
Natasha has so many, she thinks of the last couple of days. How impaired she had been to take care of herself, of Clint and how, if she was back in the red room, she would have been killed ten fold by now.
“How do you stop the nightmares? The flashbacks? How do I… I can’t sleep and then when I do… it bleeds into the day. I try.. But everything in me keeps remembering.”
Natasha holds back, the feelings and worries that have been plaguing her, she wishes she knew how to articulate them.
She feels like she’s going insane.
Wounds wide open and she can’t stop remembering.
Olivia looks at her, takes a slow sip of her drink.
“Your mind is an open wound, they’ve dug into in debrief and left it bleeding.”
Natasha nods.
It’s exactly what it is.
She feels like an exposed raw nerve.
Olivia sets down her coffee.
“We don’t have a lot of time together. Not what you need anyway.”
She sighs heavily, fatigue seeming to weigh her down, but the kindness and patience that she has always shown to Natasha remains.
“It’s not fair, that you have to deal with this. So the coping mechanisms I’m going to say to you I want you to use when and where possible. There are going to be a myriad of times, where they don’t work, but for a lot of the times it will.”
Natasha swallows, understanding what she’s saying.
“We haven’t the time so I need you to listen. To hear me. Okay?”
Olivia doesn’t even wait for her to respond.
“Being triggered, doesn’t apply to you because your nervous system is always going to be heightened, walking on eggshells, and when they crack, is likely going to be when you will feel it. With or without flashbacks, the emotions will come, and you won’t always understand it. When this happens I need you to note that it’s there, label it and stay with it, even for a moment.”
The urgency in her voice makes Natasha give undivided attention.
She doesn’t notice that Clint sits up, moves closer; but Olivia does.
“Emotions, they try and tell us something, things we aren’t subconsciously aware of, they sit in our body, in our chest, sometimes like a weight, sometimes like itch you can’t scratch. They can sit in our minds; numbing us to the world that’s happening around us. In small ways, in big ways too.”
Natasha feels her face grow hot.
Olivia’s words are true and she knows it.
“Work on finding where the emotion is in your body. Close your eyes, for a moment and extend your mind out. Learn Natasha, learn about emotions, their labels and how they feel. The Red Room didn’t care and the words you have for emotions mean nothing. You have to learn beyond happy and sad.”
Natasha swallows.
“Learn what happiness feels like, and remember it so you have something to compare it to. Learn anger, and how it’s different to hatred. Disappointment. Anxiety. Frustration. You know these in a sense, but your education on them is poor.”
Olivia stops, taking a breath and then a sip of her coffee, acknowledging Clint.
“Accept help from those that are willing but don’t trust blindly. You have your own thoughts and feelings and they matter too. Do you hear me?”
Olivia talks softer.
“They never taught you, because they never wanted you to know, how smart and powerful you are. The feelings and emotions and the rawness of it all won’t last forever. But when it comes do something with it. Do something with your hands like shooting a gun at the range, clean, shower, breathe. Anything that you can do that acknowledges the feelings but doesn’t erase them.”
She reaches across and grabs at Natasha’s hand, pulling her sleeve up to expose raw handcuffed chaffed wrists.
“Nights will be the hardest,” she acknowledges, “but they will get better.”
Natasha pulls away, embarrassed.
“Feel it,” encourages Olivia, “try not to hide from it.”
The silence in the room extends; but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
“What if I can’t?” Natasha whispers.
Olivia smiles.
“Then you can’t. And you try again next time. This is not pass or fail. This is not the stakes of the Red Room. You won’t die because you can’t do something; even though it might feel like it.”
Finishing her coffee, Olivia stands.
“I’m truly sorry, Natasha, for everything you’ve been through. I can see why you’ve made it this far. I believe our paths will cross again, but it might not be for a while.”
Natasha nods, biting down on her lip.
The one person that understood her and everything she had been through… disappointment and grief floods her.
She feels it.
Olivia touches her hand again.
“You’re not without support.”
She nods to Clint.
Coulson bustles in and looks at the two women and Clint.
Daylight streams through the windows and Natasha feels herself withdraw.
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