#(no but it does make the writing a lot more disordered)

[shadow-pixelle]

Help the snippet grew legs

I did more snippet. I actually did more snippet checks nearly two weeks ago now, but then things went to pot a bit and I didn't post. Because I am a living disaster.

But yeah the last DCxDP snippet I wrote has grown legs. In fact it has grown so much legs that I know where it starts as well as where it goes from the last snippet onwards for a while.

I don't know how we got from the start to here, but that's not my problem right now.

This however is not the start. This follows up directly from this post from a month ago.

--

Jason had been on edge since getting back to Gotham. The sort of on edge that made him want to go patrolling Crime Alley, just to make sure everything was alright. Which was ridiculous, because he’d only been gone for a week, and more importantly he was exhausted and patrolling when he was this tired was asking for trouble.

Mostly, he just wanted to go home and sleep, but he needed to head to the Cave to check on some information regarding this case, just to make sure it was closed and stayed closed, so he turned his bike to go and do that first. At the very least it would be quiet there, since it was just late enough in the night that all the Bats would be swarming out on their own patrols.

So of course Babs patched herself into his comms not two minutes after returning.

“Hood.”

“Hey, O.” He said, because he couldn’t really be mad at her for any length of time. And it wasn’t like it was her fault he was on edge right now. “What’s up?”

“Are you heading to the Cave?”

“Yeeesss...?” Jason frowned slightly, leaning forward. “Why, is something wrong?”

“No, just need to warn you, we’ve got visitors.”

Jason jerked in surprise, then swore as he regained control of his bike. He pulled to a stop so that Babs wouldn’t lambast him about it, before replying. “Visitors?”

“Red Robin made some friends while you were gone.” She told him, with an odd tone in her voice. “They’re doing something involving the Lazarus Pits.”

Jason went cold. “They’re- what?”

“The Pits.” She repeated. “They- Hood, we don’t know anything about them. But Red Robin says they’re trustworthy, and yes we checked for mind control and things. There’s nothing. But they know more about the Pits than anyone we’ve ever met.”

Jason laughed, strangled. “What, really?”

“Really. I think they might know more than Ra’s does.” Babs sounded nervous, he realised with another cold flush, and he started his bike again and pushed off.

“That’s not suspicious at all.”

“No, it isn’t.” Babs sighed. “But Red trusts them, for some reason, enough to bring them to the Cave for whatever project they’re working on. The others are there too, he’s not alone, and we’re keeping an eye on things, but…”

“Yeah.” Jason knew. They were Bats, paranoia was in their nature. The fact that none of the Bats that had come into contact with these unknowns seemed bothered at all was… intensely concerning. “You want me to take a look or avoid it?”

“...You can come by, if you want. I’m watching remotely in case we need a League alert or something, but…”

“I hear you.” He sighed. “Who’re we dealing with?”

“They all look to be about mid-twenties. The main guy calls himself Phantom. The other two defer to him on just about everything, so he’s definitely the boss. No real description, he’s not human and only sometimes has a human shape. Fairly middling height and frail-looking when they do, white hair and glowing green eyes. Most the time he’s wearing a sort of hazmat suit of some kind, but that shifts sometimes. When he’s not human it’s pretty much impossible to describe him, but I guess the best way to put it is that he looks like space.” Babs immediately filled in.

“The other two seem to be some kind of subordinates. The man goes by Duulaman, he seems to be a mix of tech guy and magic. Phantom also seems to know his way around technology pretty well, hardware while Duulaman does software. His magic is Egyptian themed for the most part, and seems linked to his technological ability otherwise. Fairly tall, dark skin and blue eyes with a green shimmer, black hair. He wears glasses but I’m not convinced that they’re actually necessary rather than being some kind of device for either his magic or technology. Also, we can’t hack him.”

“What, at all?”

“Admittedly I’ve not tried too hard, I don’t want to make them hostile if they’re not going to be, but I think he uses his magic to amplify what his technology does. Just what little I’ve seen is incredible.”

“Huh.” Also concerning, but in a different way. Though if Babs wasn’t trying too hard then it might just be that Duulaman’s tech seemed harder to deal with than it is. “And the third?”

“A woman, Caucasian with black hair and mostly violet eyes. Little bit of a green shine there, too. She’s the tallest of the lot of them, pretty thin but not as frail-looking as Phantom. Not sure of much more about her, she doesn’t seem to have the same sort of technological abilities as the other two and she’s mostly been standing to the side like a guard or acting as an extra pair of hands whenever either of the males need something. Name seems to be Belladonna, but both males have been giving her a few different plant-related nicknames, so I’m not certain which one’s real.”

“Great.” He sighed again. “Don’t suppose there’s any way to get an idea of that?”

“Not likely. Other possible names are Nightshade, Overgrowth, Foxglove, Yew, and Daffodil.”

“Daffodil?” That didn’t quite fit the theme, though the fact that the woman had a theme of poisonous plants was concerning. Then again, neither did Overgrowth.

“Daffodils are poisonous, apparently.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Babs went quiet for a while after that, letting Jason drive, and only spoke up again when he reached the entrance to the Cave.

“Be careful, Hood.”

“Always am, O.” He replied, slightly nervous despite himself. A part of him wanted to just run back to Crime Alley and go to bed, not deal with whatever disaster Tim had apparently brought into the family trying to study fucking Lazarus Pits, somehow. He just… didn’t want to deal with this.

But he had to, because if there was any chance the other Bats were under some kind of subtle mind control, they needed someone outside to go and take a look, and with Jason knowing about it ahead of time, there’d at least be a chance for Babs to call in the League if she saw a change.

The Cave was surprisingly quiet when he entered, though in a way Jason wasn’t surprised. The place was practically made to amplify certain sounds, and his bike roaring in was definitely one of them. Plus there was the fact that there were three unknowns in the Cave, so no-one was going to be talking about anything private or secret. Still, it was disconcerting to enter the Cave when it was so quiet, with none of the others calling out a greeting and no sounds of sparring on the mats. It just felt wrong, and Jason felt a chill run down his spine even as he stopped his bike and headed further in.

The chill only got worse when he saw the group. Most of the Bats were just hovering around the Cave, doing nothing in particular and obviously only there to keep an eye on the unknowns. Red Robin was the only one over by the workbench that had obviously been hurriedly pulled together from about four other smaller workbenches, leaning over it with his back to Hood. One of the strangers was with him, and Hood could suddenly understand why Oracle had said Phantom was difficult to describe. For the most part, he definitely looked like Oracle had said, a black hazmat-like outfit and white hair. Given the way he was leaning over the table next to Red Robin, it was hard to see much of him, but he did look fairly frail.

Except when Hood blinked, the man suddenly looked… well. Not human. At all. He could see what she meant by looking like space, because he just… cracked. Like a swirling void full of stars.

Then Hood blinked again, and he was back to normal, and all three strangers were straightening. The woman, maybe-Belladonna, looked up first from where she was hovering- not literally, unlike Phantom, who Hood now realised was literally floating at Red Robin’s side- behind Duulaman, met Hood’s eyes despite the helmet, and paled sharply. Duulaman looked up next, and both their eyes flashed a bright green- a toxic green, one only a few shades off being very familiar- before both swore sharply.

That was when Phantom turned around.

Hood froze. Not just from the sudden chill, fear biting down his spine in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, but from the look. Something about Phantom seemed familiar, in a dangerous way. Floating slightly in the air, white hair waving like it was caught in an invisible breeze, and eyes shining a just as brilliant green as the other two but solid rather than mixed into their apparently-original colours. The being- because he wasn’t a human, no matter what he looked like most of the time and no matter what the other Bats thought, that wasn’t a meta or even an alien, he was something else- stared at him, a hazy mist of breath clouding in front of him, eyes wide.

There was a crackle of something like electricity and machinery starting, and Phantom disappeared. Hood suddenly felt like he could breathe again.

“Oh Ancients.” Duulaman murmured, looking pale. He was still staring at Hood, as was Belladonna, both of them looking horrified.

“Phantom?” Belladonna called, eyes darting upwards for a moment before returning to stare at Hood.

Slightly uncomfortable with the attention now, Hood looked up.

The Cave roof had been replaced with a starry sky. Based on… everything else about this situation, that was probably Phantom.

The electrical sound came again, somehow sounding apologetic and Hood had no idea how a noise like that could sound like that, and Duulaman sighed. “English, Phantom. Or at least something living, please.”

“Sorry.” The mass of space on the roof said, with an undertone of electricity and ice. “Just… Ancients.”

Belladonna laughed, a small, horrified sound. “You’ve got that right.”

“What happened to you?” Duulaman asked, and out of the corner of his eye Hood saw the rest of the Bats stiffen.

His focus was on the mass on the roof, though, which slowly crept down- like some demented dripping tap of space, Hood thought hysterically- to settle between Duulaman and Belladonna in a mind-twistingly strange blob.

The shape shimmered, and Phantom’s human form appeared, the space-blob folding away like it had never been there. He looked at Hood again, then winced and deliberately turned his head to focus on Duulaman as he leaned into his side. Light flickered again, and then-

Phantom shifted.

White hair swapped to black, the strange hazmat suit disappeared in favour of jeans and a long sleeved shirt- which looked immensely out of place compared to his… partners? Underlings? Outfits; Belladonna had a dramatic black dress lined with vines and pale flowers, and Duulaman leaned into the Egyptian theme with an outfit like a pharaoh. Compared to them, Phantom looked incredibly normal. Like a regular guy in his mid-twenties.

He looked over at Hood again, eyes now blue with only a faint green shine, and Hood shivered. No matter that he looked normal, something about the being still screamed unnatural.

“Phantom?” Both his partners asked, sounding surprised.

“Sorry.” He said, in a raspy voice. “It’s- easier, this way. Kidnapping isn’t exactly a good idea right now.”

“Kidnapping?!” Several of the Bats chorused, and Hood saw Batman stiffen ready to lunge.

Hood just couldn’t stop staring.

He was aware, faintly, of the conversation going on around him. More than aware, really; he was a Bat by training, he didn’t just… tune out of important conversations. Everything that was being said was being catalogued for later, held in the back of his head for evaluation once he had time. But at the same time, it was just… difficult. As much as he was aware of the conversation, he wasn’t really listening. A part of him just… couldn’t stop watching the three. Even as Phantom very deliberately looked away from Jason, almost like he couldn’t bare to look at him. As Duulaman put his hand on Phantom’s shoulder and Belladonna leaned into his side like they were anchoring him, while neither of them looked his way for more than brief glances that every time warped their faces into grimaces.

He was fully aware that the other Bats were interrogating the three. Something they really should have done long before this, before they brought them to the Cave because they were doing something with Lazarus Pits and knew too much about them. And he was well aware that none of them were making getting the information difficult. They talked easily, like none of it was a secret- and maybe it wasn’t. These Infinite Realms, these ghosts, everything about the Ancients and the halfas that Phantom apparently was, maybe none of it was a secret. Or maybe it was just that none of them cared, because-

Phantom looked him in the eyes for the first time since the start of this whole thing.

“Pariah Dark was a monster, and even he would consider what was done to you unforgivable.”

Jason jolted, pulling away from that horrible chill and the feeling that there was something incredible in front of him- something horrifying, something nightmarish and awful. And he listened, really listened, as Phantom laid out as best as he could what it felt like to look at him. It felt like drowning, almost, and somewhere in the back of his mind past the crystal haze of shock it felt like he was screaming. Jason just listened and stared as the three of them laid out how things felt to them- how he felt to them, and wasn’t that just hilarious, that there was something so deeply wrong with him that even these strange beings, these half-dead and partly dead people, were able to look at him and know immediately that something is wrong here.

He wondered a little if it was like the uncanny valley. If looking at him made these people, who were apparently ghosts or at least close to it, unnerved because there was something wrong here, something not quite correct for what it should be.

Of course he would be fucked up. He was already well aware that the Pit had done terrible things to him. What was one more?

Phantom glanced at him only once more, then focused on Batman.

“So,” he said, in a firm voice obviously used to being obeyed. “I’d quite like to know who did that to him. Because my next step is going to be to call the council, get war declared on them, and then erase them.”

Neither Belladonna or Duulaman objected. In fact they seemed like they agreed, or possibly they just didn’t intend to contradict the person that was their leader.

Jason wasn’t sure. He was still too busy being shocked, lost in a hazy daze of… something. He couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted too, and all he could do was stare at Bruce as well, waiting to see what was next.

Batman didn’t speak.

He wasn’t sure he was surprised.

The silence stretched, reaching a minute, two. Phantom continued to stare at Batman, who stared back, a firm line in what Jason could see of his mouth. No-one else moved.

Jason took a shuddering breath, and a step back. It was more of a stumble, really, and it broke the holding pattern the rest of the room was in. Eyes snapped to him.

The three- ghosts? Realms beings? Whatever they were- looked directly at him with only a slight wince. Phantom tensed slightly, like he wanted to spring, and both Duulaman and Belladonna did the same in response, hands grasping at their leader as if to keep him in place.

Jason took another trembling breath, and bolted.

Someone- Dick, he thought, but he couldn’t quite tell over the shuddering sounds of his own breaths and heartbeats- shouted after him, but Jason didn’t stop. He just ran, going straight for his bike and leaving.

The chill lingered in the back of his chest the entire time. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so cold.

He hadn’t even realised he’d been warm, until he saw Phantom. Now there was just the chill, slowly seeping into his bones. He wasn’t even sure that was Phantom’s fault, though.

After all, Bruce had been silent.

Why would Dad tell them who hurt him? It wasn’t like Jason was his son, or anything. It wasn’t like it was only the League, like it was only the Joker, like it wouldn’t deal with so many of their problems without them needing to do anything.

He somehow wasn’t surprised.

So Jason ran.

[mashmouths]

so i started this show and it just gets worse and worseeeee not only did it lift the romance subplot directly from twilight (and not well) but they also are trying to play the forbidden love angle hard in the fantasy racism vein except it's a "cross-species" relationship between the two whitest people i've ever seen in my life and there are three people of color in the whole (first season of the) show who aren't villains and it seems that every other episode (and sometimes ebery episode and sometimes twice an episode!) there is a man physically or magically subjugating a woman and i keep waiting for the big reveal at the end to be stolen from fucking rainbow rowell

[artful-peculiarities]

I uh. Finished the first chapter draft for Ouroboros. Little sneak peaks below the cut I suppose.

“Deep down, you know that something has changed. You can’t quite put your finger on it yet.

-

That’s what it is. You’re alive.

-

Death does not always mean an end. It is simply a pit stop on a very long highway. You still have many miles to travel.

It is best if you get back in your car and begin to drive again.

-

How long can you take it? The way you have a mouth but no voice to speak through.

Can you take it?

-

You realize you are being rebuilt. It is uncomfortable and itchy knowledge. You feel it in the prickling numbness at the tips of your fingers, the eternal ache in your temples, and most of all, you fear.

Your aches and pains are all fear.

You are no longer human.”

[cripplecharacters]

Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1

[large text: Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1]

While all disabilities are underrepresented in basically all sorts of media, it’s hard to not notice the trend in what disabilities make up the majority of representation. It’s especially visible when having a blog like this, where we can see what disabilities writers even consider including in their writing, and which ones never come up.

One in four people are disabled. With eight billion people alive it means there’s a lot of disabled people, and a lot of reasons why they are disabled in the first place - but this diversity is rarely represented, even on this blog, and anyone who has been following for a while has probably noticed that fact.

To be blunt: there are disabilities other than “amputee” and “(otherwise invisibly disabled) mobility aid user”. Does that mean that it’s wrong to write either of those? Of course not, and we don’t want to imply that it is. Does it mean that either of these have a ton of good representation? Hell no. Does it mean that when you are deciding on what to give your character, you should think beyond (or along! people can be multiply disabled!) just those two? Absolutely. Disability is a spectrum with thousands of things in it - don’t limit yourself for no reason and embrace the diversity that’s built into it instead.��

This is, simply, a list of common disabilities. This is just a few of them, as this is part one of presumably many (or, at least three as of right now). By “common” we rather arbitrarily decided on “~1% or more” - so at least 1 in 100 people has the disabilities below, which is a lot. Featuring!: links that you should click, sources of the % that are mostly just medical reports and might be hard to read, and quick, very non-exhaustive explanations to give you a basic idea of what these are. 

Intellectual disability (about 1.5%) Intellectual disability is a condition we have written about at length before. It’s a developmental disability that affects things such as conceptualization, language, problem-solving, or social and self-care skills. ID can exist on its own or be a part of another condition, like Down Syndrome, Congenital Iodine Deficiency, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. This post covers a lot of basic information that you might need. We have an intellectual disability tag that you can look through!

Cancer survivors (5.4% in the US, about 0.55% worldwide) A cancer survivor is a pretty self-explanatory term. There is a lot of types of cancer and some of them are very common while others are very rare, which makes this a very diverse category. Cancers also have different survival rates. While not every survivor will have disabling symptoms, they definitely happen. Most of the long-term side effects are related to chemotherapy, radiation, and other medication, especially if they happened in children. They can include all sorts of organ damage, osteoporosis, cognitive problems, sensory disabilities, infertility, and increased rate of other cancers. Other effects include removal of the affected area, such as an eye, a spleen, breasts, or the thyroid gland, each of which will have different outcomes. Cancer, and cancer treatments, can also result in PTSD.

Diabetes (about 8.5%, ~95% of that are type 2) Diabetes is a group of endocrine conditions that cause hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) for various reasons depending on the type. The vast majority of people have type 2 diabetes, which can cause fatigue, poor healing, or feeling thirsty or hungry. A diabetic person will use insulin when needed to help manage their blood sugar levels. There are many complications related to diabetes, from neuropathy, to retinopathy, and chronic kidney disease, and there's a lot of disabilities that coexist with diabetes in general! You might want to check out the #how to write type 1 diabetes tag by @type1diabetesinfandom!

Disabling vision loss (about 7.5%) Blindness and low vision are a spectrum, ranging from total blindness (around 10% of legally blind people) to mild visual impairment. Blindness can be caused by countless things, but cataracts, refractive errors, and glaucoma are the most common. While cataracts cause the person to have a clouded pupil (not the whole eye!) blind eyes usually look average, with strabismus or nystagmus being exceptions to that fairly often (but not always). Trauma isn't a common cause of blindness, and accidents are overrepresented in fiction. A blind person can use a white cane, a guide dog or horse, or both. Assistive solutions are important here, such as Braille, screenreaders, or magnifying glasses. We have a blindness tag that you can look through, and you might want to check out @blindbeta and @mimzy-writing-online.

Psoriasis (about 2-4%) Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition with multiple subtypes; it can cause intense itching, pain, and general discomfort, and often carries social stigma. It’s an autoimmune and non-contagious disability that affects the skin cells, resulting in raised patches of flaky skin covered with scales. It often (30%) leads to a related condition, psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, tenderness, and fatigue, among other things.

Stroke survivors (0.5-1%) A stroke survivor is a person who has survived any kind of stroke (ischemic, hemorrhagic, etc.). While the specific symptoms often depend on the exact location on where the stroke happened, signs such as hemiplegia, slurred speech, vision problems, and cognitive changes are common in most survivors to some degree. When someone has a stroke as a baby, or before they are born, it can result in cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other disabilities. We have a brain injury tag that you can look through!

Noonan Syndrome (about 0.1-1% - mild is 1%, severe 0.1%) Noonan Syndrome is a disability that is almost never mentioned in any context, but certainly not around the topic of writing disabled characters. It’s a congenital condition that can cause cardiomyopathy, chronic joint pain, hypermobility, short stature, facial differences such as ptosis, autism, and various lymphatic problems among other things. Some people with Noonan Syndrome might use mobility aids to help with their joint pain.

Hyperthyroidism (about 1.2%) Hyperthyroidism is a condition of the endocrine system caused by hormone overproduction that affects metabolism. It often results in irritability, weight loss, heat intolerance, tremors, mood swings, or insomnia. Undertreated hyperthyroidism has a rare, but extremely dangerous side effect associated with it called a thyroid storm, which can be fatal if untreated.

Hypothyroidism (>5%) Hypothyroidism is an endocrine condition just as hyperthyroidism is, and it causes somewhat opposite symptoms. Due to not producing enough thyroid hormones, it often causes fatigue, depression, hair loss, weight gain, and a frequent feeling of being cold. It’s often comorbid with other autoimmune disabilities, e.g. vitiligo, chronic autoimmune gastritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Extreme hypothyroidism can also be potentially fatal because of a condition known as Myxedema coma (or “crisis”), which is also rare.

Deafblindness (about 0.2-2%) Being DeafBlind is often considered to be an extremely rare disability, but that’s not really the case. DeafBlindness on its own isn’t a diagnosis - it can be caused by a wide range of things, with CHARGE syndrome (congenital), Usher syndrome (born deaf, becomes blind later in life), congenital rubella, and age-related deafness and blindness being some of the most common reasons. DeafBlindness is a wide spectrum, the vast majority of DeafBlind people aren’t fully blind and deaf, and they can use various ways of communication. Some of these could be sign language (tactile or not), protactile, the deafblind manual, oral speech (aided by hearing aids or not), the Lorm alphabet, and more. You can learn more about assistive devices here! Despite what various media like to tell you, being DeafBlind isn’t a death sentence, and the DeafBlind community and culture are alive and thriving - especially since the start of the protactile movement. We have a DeafBlindness tag that you can look through!

It’s probably worth mentioning that we have received little to no asks in general for almost all the disabilities above, and it’s certainly not due to what mods answer for. Our best guess is that writers don’t realize how many options they have and just end up going for the same things over and over.

Only representing “cool” disabilities that are “not too much while having a particular look/aura/drama associated” isn’t what you should aim for. Disabled people just exist, and all of us deserve to be represented, including those whose disabilities aren’t your typical “cool design” or “character inspo”. Sometimes we are just regular people, with disabilities that are “boring” or “too much”, and don’t make for useful plot points.

mod Sasza (with huge thank yous to mod Sparrow, Rot, and Virus for their contributions with research and data!)

[writers-potion]

Writing Mad Characters

Okay this is a bit awkward because I had this question copypasted into Google Docs I use to draft my answers, and I realized I've lost the question in my inbox (which is being flooded).

So...I'm so sorry for whoever asked this question. Sorry for the delay because I was struggling with life in general for the past month and definitely SORRY for losing your question (－‸ლ)

Q: I'm writing a story where a major character is slowly spiraling into madness where small details kinda hint into the downfall right before the bigger details appear and then it the floodgates open. Is there anything I should avoid? Anything that I should keep in mind? Anything that I should research?

Things to Avoid

“Mad” or “Insane” is too general. Writing a cliched ‘crazy’ character who randomly talks to imaginary people and lashes out at strangers, you’ll offend a whole bunch of people who've gone through/have mental illnesses. Read up on existing mental conditions (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic disorder and borderline personality disorder, etc.) to see what your character might have. 

Words like “mad” “crazy” or “insane” aren’t enough when you’re describing their status. As mentioned, these words hardly mean much when it comes to providing a clear description.

Contradicting yourself. Throwing random unhinged symptoms here and there wouldn’t work. In fact, you must have a clear arc on which they’re traveling and ensure that your “hints” are all getting at something.

Making the character overly destructive or harmful to others (when nothing really justifies it)

Justifying damaging behavior with this “madness”. Mad or not, your character will still have motives and goals that drive them forward. 

Making them look incompetent just the fact that they have a mental condition that makes them appear “mad” to others shouldn’t prevent them from achieving success. In fact, they may be even more cool-hearted and logical when it comes to their obsessions/goals. 

Research Tips

Narrow down the mental conditions your character experiences. Even if it’s a fictional condition, try basing it on existing ones and building on top of them. 

Take some time to study characters and/or real clinical cases that resemble the kind of madness you’re going for. 

- Anxiety Disorders: excessive fear and dread (ex. phobias) - Mood Disorders: persistent swings in mood or persistent feelings that interfere with daily life (ex. Depression, bipolar) - Psychotic Disorders: disordered thinking (ex. schizophrenia) - Eating Disorders: extreme emotional attitudes toward food (ex. Bulimia, anorexia) - Impulse Disorders: unable to resist urges (ex. Kleptomania, pyromania, gambling) - Personality Disorders: extreme inflexible personality traits (ex. Anti-social disorder, OCPD) - Past Traumatic Stress: persistent, frightening memories leading to emotional numbness 

Does your character have empathy?  

A sociopathic kind of madness is different. 

General Writing Tips for Spiraling into Madness

Establish a Baseline 

A lot of factors (stress, family history, innate personality, trauma, etc.) can contribute to madness, but it is not going to happen in a week. Define the existing mental and physical conditions your character has, and start from there. 

If you’re aiming for suicidal tendencies at the end, you want to start with symptoms of depression (a condition that may lead to suicide) - growing apathetic, erratic sleeping patterns, irritability, etc. 

This is also the stage where you want to plant some triggers that’ll go off later.

Trigger Events

A perfectly sound character suddenly spiraling down the madness route due to a single accident or traumatizing event isn’t convincing. 

A madness “snap” denies the reader the experience of watching the character’s journey into madness and how they feel about it. 

Internal Conflict (antagonist in himself) 

You must remember that madness is incurable. If someone could “cure” themselves by eating healthy, exercising and taking a few pills, it wouldn’t be much of a madness, would it? This means that the worst antagonist is going to be the character themselves, or the part of them that’s been taken away. 

Show how they are frustrated with themselves, scared of themselves, angry at their “alternative self”. The experience of not knowing yourself is a whole journey of its own.

Physical Manifestations/Quirks

If your character has a routine, show how they break down. 

They might develop habits that they otherwise would never allow themselves to have, perhaps as an effort to “keep this madness out”

Deteriorating Relationships

Depict how the character’s madness impacts his closed/loved ones. In the earlier stages, those close to him might be faster to notice and accept the signs of madness, even if the character denies it him/herself.

The first signs of madness might show when the character is trying to deal with difficult relationships - like losing patience and being unable to pick up subtle social clues.

Choosing Obsessions Over Primal Urges 

For these characters, obsession can take over a person’s normal urge to eat, sleep or even live. This can lead to, more or less, suicide. 

Example: In Black Swan, Nina’s obsession with becoming the perfect ballerina drive her to insanity, to the point where she doesn't mind dying on stage for the show.

[steviewashere]

Kiss and Tell

(Can be found on ao3)

Steddie WC: 2,279 Tags: Post Season 4, Steve Harrington Has Auditory Processing Disorder, Eddie Munson Loves to Talk, Minor Angst, Mostly Fluff, Queer Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington Has a Bisexual Awakening, But He Already Knows (Sort of), First Kiss, Lots of Kissing

Based on this post that I made. Happy reading! <3

-------- Steve has a staring problem. He knows this. He's been told this. And it's not something he can help or fix or find an alternative for. This is just what he knows.

It's something he's tried to maintain since he was a little boy. And, on that same note, is something he picked up while being a boy in a room with two adults who were fast talkers and big negotiators and all-in on the nature of their careers. But his parents certainly hate that he has a staring problem. Which, that's not unusual, most people hate that he does. Because he doesn't look them in the eyes for more than thirty seconds at a time. And even if he does, he doesn't hear a single thing they said, politely asking they start over, and feeling hurt when they just scoff as loud as possible and walk away from the conversation all together.

The audio just doesn't process. Never has. Probably never will.

He listens to music, but doesn't understand any meaning. He talks over the phone, but must have all other sound blocked out and the curtains shut and his eyes closed to imagine what the words look like leaving the other person's mouth. He argues, but loses track of the original point of the argument—when he laughs instead of apologizes.

And it would be fine—if—he wasn't close to losing his life every year. Where he has to listen to everybody and the important tiny details and the plans and the reasons for what they're doing. Which leads him to danger. Which gives him a bruised face. Which makes the listening even harder, once the concussion leaves and he's just got the leftover damage of his quirkiness.

It would be fine—if—he wasn't made to feel so stupid for what he must do. The jabs and the constant reminders and the...yeah, his sob story.

But there was Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins, who he could keep up with. Because they'd talk about the same things over and over, until he could practically relay all the information, pulled straight from the deep crevices of his brain, and it ends up that they had forgotten, rather than him.

And there was Nancy Wheeler, who was polite enough to repeat things. Who had flash cards and a soft, focusing voice. It was easy to write off looking at her lips. "Eyes up here, Steve," she'd say. "Sorry," he'd respond sheepishly, "getting lost." And he'd chuckle and she'd giggle and then they'd kiss a little and he wouldn't be reminded that he's just a little weird. That, maybe, he just isn't normal.

Robin Buckley makes things easy-ish. She talks fast. And a lot. And she never looks him in the eyes, unless she's asking for a very serious favor, or he has something on his face, or she just feels the need (she claims it's that she hasn't looked in a while, but he shrugs her off every time). (If he can get away with staring at her lips, then she can get away with never looking him in the eyes.) He's mentioned, though, that he has a hard time following her sometimes. That he needs the words repeated a few times. Explained the lip thing, with a tense voice and a quake in his chest and his fingers tapping at the sides of his thighs. And, for a brief moment, he had felt like a creep. Like one of those weirdos that preys on the idea of women kissing. And he wanted to open up Family Video's register, shove his head inside, and sort himself out into the container of fives. But she shrugged, said "Okay," and went back on some ramble, to which he was immediately drawn to her mouth. And saw her repeat the name, Vickie, at least twenty times. He grinned and then when the store was empty, he leaned across the counter and teasingly said, "You have a big fat crush on Vickie, don't you?" To say that he was proud of her sputtering is an understatement.

Now, Dustin and the others were harder to get through. Because they moved at their own pace. And they don't really stop to add him to the conversation. He gets it, to an extent. He knows that he's not really all that intrigued in what they enjoy. (Even if he really leans into the conversation when they mention Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or Star Wars or, even, Star Trek. And he pretends to not be interested in their science fair projects. Or the one time he caught them huddled around a Sports Illustrated, in which he fought the urge to chat their ears off about both baseball and basketball statistics.) But there's a point in the conversations where he's made to feel a little dumb; even if he was staring where they were speaking, but they always grow frustrated, a huff of air released, when they notice he's not "paying attention" (translation: looking them in the eyes. "Because, Steve, it's just talking etiquette!" Dustin had shouted once).

He loves all of them anyway. Even if he misses words. And he loses track of what they were saying. He just wishes they were a little bit more forgivable about it at the end of the day.

Then, Eddie Munson is walking along side him in an alternate universe. He's peeled the vest off his back and chucked it at Steve. And they're talking. Jealous of one another, but talking. But, Eddie's voice goes soft and quiet, his eyes pointing towards Nancy's back.

Steve is looking at Nancy, words fading into the background. And it's not a moment of realization. Or a moment of longing. Yearning, what say you. No—it's one of his moments in which he's "listening," but not processing. So he looks back. And for a mere second, Eddie's eyes are big where Steve stares. Big and wet and curious. Big and wet and persuasive. Big and wet and not at all his lips and Steve is still not listening.

But his lips. Well, Steve's seen lips. These are pretty. They're pink. Chapped and bitten and plush appearing. Mesmerizing. Stretching over Eddie's sharp teeth, exposing dimples and smile lines, making his recent stubble more noticeable than it's ever been before. But his lips are pretty.

Like girls lips, Steve muses. Not really taking in what that means. Because Eddie's saying something about true love. And—shit—okay. Steve can get behind an act of true love. He can get behind sharing denim and coating Eddie's clothes in blood and staring down his lips and—god, his eyes, Steve can't help but notice once more.

Eddie's like a vulnerable cow. With pretty lips, he has to point out. Or a baby deer. With such pretty lips. And he's talking and Steve's finally listening. But it's not just processing. No, Steve's intrigued, interested even. He tilts his head like a curious puppy. Leaning in. Eddie's breath ghosts the tip of his nose. And, sure, it's a little rank. But weirdly sweet. Warm where Steve is otherwise cold. Warm in places Steve's never considered to feel warm in, but he's willing to give in, to wrap up in whatever Eddie has to say. If it all means more of him.

So, it makes sense that after all that they go through, Steve finds himself in Eddie's orbit. As a friend. As a trauma bond. As everything Eddie needs him to be.

He sits on the Munson's couch. On the cushion that dips a little too low. The lights orange and dim and casting beautiful streaks of almost candle light on Eddie's soft, beautiful features. Highlighting where his nose is the most bulbous. His pronounced Cupid's bow. The outer edges of his irises, golden and honey against the off-white of his scleras.

Eddie talks like Robin does. Excited. A lot. Fast. But his voice is soft, focused on the information—like Nancy's. It's teasing, like Dustin's. Soft, though. So gentle. Murmured. Which makes sense, if Steve were to stop and think about it for just a moment. With how late it is. With the little amount of weed they smoked. And it all just fits, with how slow and careful Eddie's lips move. As if testing the words. As if searching for what he means.

But, god, Steve is following along. Of course he is. Hanging onto each one of Eddie's words.

"So, the cashier at the record store got all apprehensive about selling me this tape. Which, I guess makes sense because it's a special edition. Comes with a photo card or whatever, but like—Come on, y'know? If he wanted it so bad, he should'a bought it the moment it dropped. Not my fault he slacks on not just his job, but also his opportunities," Eddie rambles. And, that's right, he's complaining about the music store encounter he had today. Trying to buy some album for some band. Steve got lost part of the way through, so he's not sure who exactly Eddie was getting a tape for. The style of music. But he has most of the information. He just—

Has to squint harder.

So, Steve leans in. As casual as he possibly can. And narrows his eyes at Eddie's lips. The word pretty comes to mind again. Because of course it does. And he can't pull his eyes away, no matter how hard he tries. For some reason, the tips of his fingers tingle a little. Wanting to reach out. Trace his lower lip, right where it sticks out, just above the divot of his chin. Would it be soft, he asks himself. Does he wear chapstick? Steve sighs softly. I wish I could...taste it. His eyes widen, just the tiniest bit. But he ignores that in favor of whatever Eddie is saying. If only he could make it out. He leans impossibly closer.

And there it is again. The soft puffs of warm air. On the tip of his nose. His own lips. Tickling his stubble. Eddie's breath smells like weed and strawberry Tab; a little bit of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Maybe the smallest trace of pepper—

"Uh, Steve?" Eddie nervously calls out. But gets no response. Steve is only a couple inches away from his face. Eyes hooded. Glassy. Zeroed in on Eddie's lips. He's not talking. Doesn't even give a hum. Just...keeps staring.

Eddie sucks in a breath. Eyes darting over Steve's face. He doesn't talk again, hoping maybe Steve will stop. But, nope. In fact, the only thing Eddie gets as acknowledgement for the fact he's stopped talking, is that Steve pouts. Upset. As if his lips no longer moving is some great catastrophe to Steve, some tragedy, some misfortune.

And, Eddie, the awful wreck that he is, can only assume that this means one thing.

Steve wants a kiss. And is, maybe, too chicken shit to close the gap.

So, with no other option. And definitely not wanting to get away from the heated, stirring, calm mask of Steve's face—Eddie presses his mouth against Steve's. Hesitantly smushing their lips together. Dragging his lower lip against Steve's soft scowling one.

And he pulls away. Because Steve isn't doing anything in response.

No, in fact, Steve is extremely expressive now.

Wide eyes. Mouth opened into a silent "Oh." His cheeks are flushed. And as quick as it came upon him, whatever realization that was, fades. Like a cartoon character, Steve's face melts into one of pure infatuation. Mouth lilting. His posture slouching. Eyes going soft against the extreme red of his face.

"Do that again," Steve whispers.

Eddie obliges. And he obliges. And he keeps obliging until they're under a cool top sheet, skin slick with sweat and eyes piercing one another's mouths.

That's when, in the silent air of Eddie's tiny bedroom, Steve admits the greatest thing in the world. "I don't really process when people are talking unless I'm looking at their mouth. I have to read their lips. I didn't—I wasn't trying to kiss you at first, but—" And the motherfucker giggles. "If that's all it took..." Then he's kissing Eddie again. Like it's the last thing he'll ever get to do. And Eddie thinks, If I die from running out of breath doing this, then I've done everything in my life correctly.

So, sure, Steve has a huge staring problem. And he doesn't really listen. And it's something he'll never fix, even if there's a way to.

But he finds that his technique—the thing he's crafted since he was a little boy—no longer works. At least, not on Eddie. Because suddenly, looking at his gorgeous pink lips makes Steve only able to think about one thing: Kissing. And he can't follow along unless he fulfills that want.

Eddie could be in the middle of a deep, all inclusive description of his recent trap in the campaign he's crafting. He could be singing. He could be complaining about some movie he rented. But that doesn't matter. Because he stops talking the moment Steve leans in and kisses him. Kisses like he needs it to live.

And though he rolls his eyes. Huffs a breath. Smirks and barrels on. There's that giddiness, that love pooling in Eddie' heart. Just knowing the effect he has on Steve. And the way he's affected, too, when Steve just whispers, "Sorry, I got lost again. Start over?"

He obliges. And he keeps obliging. And his lips are usually swollen by the time he's finally done rambling.

Steve stares. Eddie talks. And it's the combination of a lifetime.

--------

❤️

[copperbadge]

So the ADHD Handbook post struck a chord with a lot of people...

I don't think I have it in me to write the book I suggested, mainly because most of what I want to write about is variable by situation. I can't actually offer a magic formula for getting a good assessment, all I would be able to do is say "Here are the warning signs, here's my personal story, shit's just rough". Which I could do but it'd be basically an entire book of "shrug emoji". The best possible way would probably be to offer it as a workbook, like "Here is a page for you to record every communication with the clinic doing your testing. Here is a page for you to write down possible other approaches to getting your medication if the pharmacy is out." etc.

I do think I might write it as a novel of some kind. Possibly even a novel about someone writing a handbook, I haven't decided. I had a dream last night about the book, in which I saw a woman watching a revolution taking place in the distance, thinking, "This is not what I intended when I set out to write a self-help book." Baller way to start a novel, honestly.

Anyway there were several suggestions for books in the notes, so I thought I'd compile those here. I have read none of these, so I can't vouch for their contents, but I'm including what my readers said about them.

@blogquantumreality linked to How To ADHD by Jessica McCabe, who is a well-known ADHD youtuber (I haven't found her videos super helpful but they're also not aimed at me). @knitsinweirdplaces added "The last section of the How to ADHD book is literally called 'how to change the world' and exactly points out we can advocate for a more disability friendly world that traumatizes ADHDer less in the first place. It's the only book I've read that hits the balance of 'your brain has immutable challenges' and 'these strats may help' right. Bonus, it is inclusive of people who use adhd meds and those who don't/can't."

@theindefinitearticle mentioned "I read how to keep house while drowning recently and it's been much more practical for me in terms of actual usable advice." This book has also come up numerous times during National Clean Your Home Month as a helpful guide to cleaning.

@buginateacup said "The year I met my brain is the only one I've read that actually felt like it was making useful suggestions for living with ADHD."

@cabloom said "iampayingattention on Instagram wrote How Not To Fit In."

@grison-in-space said "Do you have any idea how over the top excited I was when I found I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder?"

@doubleminorforroughing wrote "Please read Devon Price. He wants to tear it all down and I love it." I will add that I don't think I've read Laziness Does Not Exist but I have read Price's shortform work extensively and I think he's been very influential in rethinking how we frame laziness and productivity in relation to both work and neurodivergence, so I can second the recommendation.

[veren-cos]

Bachelors (sdv) x reader on their period

Gender neutral, but purely because of the prompt, afab reader. I'd say everything I write is gender neutral besides the very rare Trans masc reader ☆

Not proofread and I wrote this in like 25 min- I'll update this when I'm less tired.

Harvey

• A literal doctor.

• Is not weirded out like at all. He is all like, "Oh okay! Do you need anything at all?" And moved on with life

• Maybe has a little blush when you first talk about it? It's a completely normal thing at work (and in life), but it's just because it's you that he wants to make sure he handles it well.

• Would probably get you chocolate. And a heating pad. And blankets. And all the things.

• Aka would just spoil you a bit more than normal, periods suck and he knows-

• If you had any like disorder involving you Period he would be extra on top of stuff.

• Will make sure you are well stocked on and properly take pain meds!

Elliott

• Would just absolutely spoil you!

• Runs a bath, gets chocolate, threw your pajamas in the dryer to get them extra warm, heating pad.

• Might give you a massage if they are super painful? Probably would do it regardless but he would definitely offer if he knew that got bad.

• Idk why he knows so much, maybe it's because of Leah? I don't really write about the bachelotettes, but I feel like she would be super open about it so that's why Elliott knows a lot.

• But yeah he'd be super good to you! Would make you food just because. He is great at spoiling people, but not actually great at knowing what to do physically haha. (I think I mentioned in a previous fic where he just makes you soup if your in pain, he would do that here too)

Shane

• So if I just take Shane as a standalone character I don't think he'd know a lot / want to know/ care.

• But!

• Jas. I'm not sure what age she is supposed to be (literally anywhere from 7-12 imo) but I feel like Shane would have read up on Period stuff in preparation.

• So he would actually be more informed than Elliott!

• Now onto the actual stuff lol-

• He wouldn't be super pamper-y like Elliott and Harvey, but he would definitely help around the house more.

• Animals are all taken care of, crops are all watered, took care of some weeds, etc.

• He would also probably be a bit more physically affectionate purely because he knows you like it.

• Might be a bit embarrassed about it at first but after the first one he gets the gist of what to do.

Alex

• Would be relatively informed just because he is a health nut, but also doesn't know what to do because the most important woman in his life is postmenopausal-

• Probably would just give you chocolate and hugs because he knows like. Emotional and cravings.

• If they were super bad he would ask his grandma for help!

• Wouldn't be embarrassed about it! Once again. Health nut. Gets you pain meds!

Sebastian

• Okay. So. Sebastian.

• Literally lives with 2 ladies. Both very strong confident women. He wouldn't be uninformed by any means, but he probably is still awkward around the topic lmao

• Like if you were complaining he would be like "...." "am I supposed to do something about that?"

• AND HE DIDNT MEAN IT IN A RUDE WAY he was genuinely asking. But he just doesn't know and also is an awkward guy?

• Would do the least out of all the Bachelor's. Maybe just be more emotionally available because Period mood swings be rough. Makes more time to talk about things with you.

• Grabs you ibuprofen or Tylenol, whatever you have in the house.

Sam

• So Sam lives with a kind of coddling mom, does not have sisters, so like. His mom wouldn't talk to him about it. He has no 'personal' experience with it.

• Would be the most clueless-

• But he would definitely be like, "oh babe that sucks let me know what I can do"

• Gives you more cuddles, helps on the farm.

• Super enthusiastic about making you comfortable! He makes it into a way bigger deal than it is but he is genuinely curious about stuff so you think it's cute.

• After your first one when your together he is much better prepared / informed so he isn't all over the place.

• Just very cute and well meaning.

An* I hope this was at least a little cute / silly / comforting / whateveryouwantedoutofthis! I base everything off of personal experience because, like, it's all I got- but more people should be comfortable talking about this! It's completely normal and just a basic human function. So if yours is different than what others describe, that's okay! If yours is exactly the same, also okay! Idk where I'm going with this, but there is no shame in having a period, and that's on that!

This also came off way more dramatic than I meant it to be, but I live for the drama so it's okay (this applies to both the fic and the author's note-)

Masterlist

[ghost-with-a-teacup]

Hiii LOVE your fic 🫶🏻! I was wondering if you could write a fic where everything that happens in the chase scene, happens to fem!reader but Miguel actually catches up to her & kinda knocks her down. He begs her not to do this, to stay down. As she gets up she asks him if any of it was real, he says it was and still is. He tells her that he thought that if he pursue her romantically then she would accept her dad's fate & wouldn't go against him (of course it doesn't work) she says she can't do that & escapes. He loses it a little & starts destroying everything & makes it everybody's mission to find her

Just pure angst 😭 I'm sorry if this is a lot

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Reader

Summary: You finally understand the true purpose of the Spider Society; protecting the canon, protecting the multiverse even at the cost of all the Spiders' suffering. But you were going to stop at nothing to find your way home, though Miguel isn't keen on letting you go.

Warnings: Angsty, Miguel gets angry.

“Miguel…what are you doing,” you ask softly, still not wanting to believe what you were seeing. All around you, members of the Society began closing in, caging you in an inescapable circle.

You didn’t want to accept it. That all these people, the ones you have grown to call family would turn their back on you in the blink of an eye. Or rather an order from their leader.

“I can’t let you leave, mi vida,” he says, eyes apologetic but unrelenting.

“What is the purpose of this place, the true purpose of this place Miguel,” you ask, your voice hardening. You had always believed when Miguel first recruited you it was to act as Spider-Man across the multiverse, no longer limited to your own hometown. But it seems there was some other agenda you were made unaware of.

He hesitates for a moment before exhaling lowly, eyes boring into yours.

“The Spider Society…was created to protect the canon of the multiverse. To ensure that in each world the events progress as they should,” he explains as the world disappears around everyone, replaced with holograms of a complex web.

“I don’t understand, what does that have to do with me saving my father?” you ask, and he winces.

You were never supposed to see the hologram and the message that followed it, you realize now. But you had snuck into the monitoring room, carrying a lunch of all of Miguel’s favourite foods when you saw it.

A hologram of your father going about his day, the message ‘Canon Event Detected. Time: 2 Days’ followed by the words ‘Soon to be Deceased’.

You thought it was some sick joke, some prank a cruel spider thought to play on you. But when you asked Miguel about it he refused to make eye contact with you, and that’s when the intervention began.

“Your father dying, is a canon event,” he says. “Just like how every person in this room undergoes their own canon events, their own version of loss. It's what ties every person in this room together in the web that makes up the Arachno-Humanoid Polymultiverse,” he explains, and you only grow more confused as he acted like that explanation justified any of this.

“So you’re saying you know that some of the most important people in every Spider’s life will die, and you just let it happen?” you ask, in disbelief at the blatant cruelty.

“It must happen, to ensure that life continues. That it doesn’t disintegrate into nothing…like how my universe disappeared.”

You only shake your head, taking a step back as your breath becomes slightly unsteady.

“You’re saying that our job here is to make everyone suffer, because of something that you fucked up a long time ago?!” you say, and his eyes narrow at you. It was harsh, but it was true. Perhaps the cumulation of disordered events could destroy a universe, but there was no way of proving that slight changes would hurt anything.

Scientific fact arises through countless hours of testing and experimentation. One result that happened one time shouldn’t dictate what the conclusion will be.

“You can’t tell me not to save my father, Miguel! I can’t just let him die if I can do something about it,” he says, and a look of pity washes over his face as he walks closer to you, but you take a step back.

“All this happens for a reason, these canon events allow us to become who we are, even if it hurts,” he says gently. And even though you hate to say it, it soothes you. His voice always has.

So much so, that you let down your guard for a single moment. Allowing him to come close and slip the watch right off of your wrist.

“No!” you say, trying to take it from his grasp but he was too fast. “How am I supposed to go home?”

“You won’t,” he says in turn.

“I’m sorry,” a voice cuts in from behind you. Jess, with a sympathetic look in her eyes. “I know it's hard, but it's for the greater good.” Looking around, you see all your closest friends surround you, but against you.

“Even you, Peter?” you ask softly, and he only glances away with guilt.

“2 days? That’s plenty of enough time, I’ll get home one way or another,” you say, glaring at Miguel.

“I can’t let you do that,” he says before he tosses a trap right at your feet. Before it can work, you use your telekinesis to throw it back, trapping him instead.

“STOP! ENOUGH OF THIS!” Miguel shouts. It was the first time in your life you had ever heard him shout, and frankly, it scared you as you watch him try to claw his way out.

Everyone immediately starts to move in on you, but you throw your arms out casting a force field that throws everyone back.

Leaving an opening for escape.

~

Running from hundreds of different spiders all on the hunt for you was not easy. It doesn’t make you feel very superhuman when all that are chasing after you were also superhuman, and quite frankly you were exhausted.

Not only physically, but mentally as well. The whole situation was taking a toll on you even if you were trying to shove it to the back of your head.

Luckily everything served as a pretty good distraction for the pain your heart was in.

“You can’t keep running,” Jess says as you leap from car to car on the freeway, tailing behind you on her motorcycle.

“What choice do I have?” you say, though your voice cracks. You see her determined expression falter. You and she grew close soon after you joined the Society, she was truly one of your best friends.

But best friends don’t keep things from each other, especially things as important as the supposed ‘cause’ you were all working for.

You notice her hesitancy, and that’s when you strike. Kicking her off her bike, you pin her to a car with your webs as you snatch the watch from her wrist.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” she says, looking up at where you hung from the vehicle, sadness in her eyes.

“You already did,” you say before swinging away.

~

You were very quickly running out of options for escape. Even with the watch, you couldn’t find an opening to program the watch for home.

As a last resort you latched onto the roof of the high-speed bullet train of Nueva York headed toward the skies, hoping that the force of gravity paired with the speed would at least stall some of the spiders off of your trail.

But before you could realize it, Miguel was very quickly on your tail until finally, he grabbed ahold of you, slamming you down into the roof as you yelped out in pain.

“STOP THIS!” he shouts, straight into your face. He doesn’t even take his mask off as he does, making the whole situation seem even more impersonal. You could only scoff in his face before the hurt overwhelmed you, and you spoke before you could stop yourself.

“Was any of it even real?” you ask softly, tears welling in your eyes as you do. Miguel looks taken back for a moment, eyes widened in surprise as his grasp falters for a second.

“What?” he asks.

“Was any of it real?!” you say louder this time. “Those times when you held me in your arms as I cried, the times when you kissed me in the kitchen as we made dinner together, or when we danced in the living room at night. When you said ‘I love you’ for the first time, was any of it even real?” You say as you feel the anger rise.

“Or was it just some kind of sick way of keeping me under your thumb because I’m the 'original anomaly’, to keep me from going against the canon and your sick agenda that you force everyone else to suffer?” you say, your voice loud now as you struggle harder against his grasp.

“It was real...in the end,” he admits, and you feel your expression drop. You wished that this was all some horrible nightmare, that you would wake up and this would just be in your head and he would hold you like he always did.

But deep down you always knew.

Knew that you loved him more than he did you, that this relationship was built on a lie. But you ignored it for the sake of your fragile heart, and here it is getting shattered all over again by the one person in this life you thought you could trust.

“We’re done, Miguel,” you say, resigned at last.

“Huh?” he says, as though he couldn’t believe your words even after everything you had been through.

“I said we’re done,” you say before you kick him straight in his stomach, launching him off of you so that he has to claw his way back onto the roof.

“Goodbye, Miguel,” you say, before you take a leap backwards, flying through the sky for a few moments until you open up a portal back home.

~

Miguel shouts in frustration as he marches back into the monitoring room, rage radiating off of his form in waves.

In his anger he shoves everything in his path out of the way, talons scratching into the walls as the rest of the Society surrounds him, awaiting his next orders.

Finally, he manages to calm down enough to utter out a single phrase.

“Find her, for the canon…for the multiverse,” Miguel says as guilt creeps in like vines around his heart at his lost love.

Taglist: @beiroviski, @scaraza, @blueoorchid, @remuslupinwifee, @local-mr-frog, @johfaam0, @rawegggohan, @honeycriess, @alexenoirex, @chimpkinnuggies, @rqdior, @banana—belle, @notasadgirlipromise, @6billionyearsold, @gods-perfectidiot, @ieatmunson, @honeii-puff, @wh0re4zaynmalik, @toplinehyunjin, @ohworm-writes, @ishii03, @snowywhiterose

A/N: Could you believe I was going to post fluff today? Crazy how life gets in the way sometimes, but hey, managed to get this fic out lol. Sorry, I know I'm the fluff writer and all but angst just hits sometime :3

[scribblesofagoonerr]

— What if I'm not good enough, anymore?

pairings: beth mead x reader, vivianne miedema x reader

summary: reader has self doubts that she won't be as good as she was when she makes her return to the pitch.

Warnings: heavy angst, talks of mental health and a minor eating disorder.

Okay, I won't lie. This was, well this was hard to write and there was a lot of tears throughout because its' a little too close to home right now with things going on, but you guys wanted it, so here we go.

Let me know what you think!

"What if I'm not good enough now?" The thoughts spiral through your brain.

It's your number one fear. It's the thing that keeps you up at night, lying awake with those thoughts plaguing your mnd.

You know you shouldn't be thinking about things like that, but your mentality of your injury was overshadowing the physical rehab your still yet to get the greenlight for yet.

Would you be good as you were when you come back?

Sure you've watched each of the girls come back from their injury and make a return to the pitch, some of them a bit more rockier than usual, but now they're striving and you can only hope that your own journey will be as smooth sailing.

Your impatient though, both incredibly and insufferably impatient.

It's a downfall that has come back to bite you in the ass, one too many times previously.

Could you blame your dad for that though?

Growing up, hes' only ever pushed you. Pushed you to push through the pain; Your dad was an impatient man himself, one with a temper and he didn't believe that letting you rest was the best thing sometimes.

The first few months of your recovery after your surgery felt long, all you felt was agitation and more so frustration not being allowed to do things that you once took for granted.

You really did hate depending on those around you, you felt like a constant burden despite that fact that all the girls kept on reassuring you that you weren't, but in the back of your mind, you always thought different about it.

The one thing you never realised would be as hard would be the mentality of it all, the physical pain was tiresome and therefor, your mental health was taking a battering rapadly.

"You okay, kid?" The familiar voice of your team mum speaks up to get your attention.

Your too wrapped up in your thoughts to barely even hear her, "M' fine,"

"You sure? You seem quiet-- What is it, does your knee hurt? Do you want another pillow?" Beth tries to offer her help, assisting you with whatever you need.

"I'm fine, Beth!" You shout loudly.

You hadn't meant to snap at Beth of course, but your emotions got the better of you and your temper has always been your worst enemy, amongst other things.

"O... Okay," Beth is taken back by your sudden burst of anger. "Well, you know I'm just through the kitchen if you need me, okay?" She reassures you.

"Mhm," You barely acknowledge her precense, choosing to stare blankly at old episode of Bones you'd put on to try and disract your mind.

You wanted to retreat to your bedroom, but after the last time where you remembered the staged intervention with a certain blonde english skipper, you thought against the idea of that.

So for now, you'll just sit on the sofa, wallowing in self-pity and get attached to fictional characters whos' deathes are inevitable.

"Have you noticed that Y/N is uh..." Beth whispers, hesistant for you to overhear her from the other room.

"Distant?" Viv guesses straight away.

The blonde furrows her eyebrows and nods in slow motion, "Well, yes, uh and a bit snippy as well. Should we talk to her?" She wonders, trying to figure out the best approach to talk to you.

"It's probably a good idea--" Vivs' agreement is cut off.

"You know I can hear you guys, right?" You make your voice known, of course you knew they would be whispering about you.

After all, your not a complete moron to not hear it.

"Y/N," Viv begins to speak.

"I don't like it when you talk about me like that!" You uneasily stand up on your feet, going to move towards the direction of your bedroom for a bit of peace and quiet.

"At least use your crutches!" Beth shouts aloud, gesturing to the item that is currently the bane of your life.

"Bite me!" You respond, scowling at them as you shuffle slowly past, trying to withhold from wincing at the sudden shooting pain in your knee.

At least you do a good job to hold your tears back until your in the confindments of your own bedroom, comforted with the blanket that you can wrap around you and try to block out the rest of the world.

As soon as you got the go-ahead from the doctors to start your rehab at the training grounds, you were virtually jumping for joy.

At least you was on the outside; Inside on your head, it was a completely different story. You were battling your own inner feelings of doubt.

Of course from the minute you'd been allowed back in the gym, every single of your team mates were more than supportive of this step forward in your recovery.

They all knew you'd been finding it difficult, and sure enough most of them had even got the brunt of your anger.

Starting out with your rehab process, you had to start with light excercises but in your head that didn't feel good enough.

You want to be out there on the pitch already, you hate the fact that the healing process is taking so long.

You didn't feel it was fair at all, why won't your stupid knee just heal already?

"You've got this, Y/N!" One of the pyshios' encourage you to keep going with the current training excercise, something so simple felt so hard to you now.

Viv smiles encouringly as she cheers you on from the sidelines, "You're doing great kid." She states.

"Keep pushing!" Leahs' right there beside her, her voice gentle but still managed to hold a firm tone in a way to keep you going.

"You can do this, kid!" Beth chimes in, trying to keep her own tears of happiness at bay as she watches your journey to recovery step that step forward. "We're so proud of you!"

Tears of frustration were visable, even the simplest of tasks felt so gruelling; There were even times whether you questioned if you wanted to hang your football boots up, but that was an easy way out.

Football is your life and its your passion, you'd be gutted to do that.

You had to push forward, you had to do better. You had to be better!

If only it was that simlpe, right?

Nobody warned you off the setbacks in the journey. You had to figure that one out yourself, even the slighest knock and it was a step backwards.

It always seems to be one step forward, two steps back.

You shouldn't have pushed yourself, you should have known better, but of course, your stubborn streak let you down.

In your own opinion, your recovery wasn't going as quick as you wanted it to. So you took it upon yourself to train extra hard in the gym, sure it was difficult under the watchful eye of the older girls' as they wanted to make sure to not let you overdo it, but you had your ways.

Making excuses and staying late at the training grounds once the team had all gone, pushing yourself to the extreme - Unaware of just how much damage you'd be putting yourself through.

Damn stupid knee injuries.

It works to keep your extra training sessions a secret, at least for a while, until one night when your caught red handed, by no other person that the stern blonde English skipper, so just so happens to have come back to pick something up that she'd forgotten.

"Y/N?" You recognise that all too familiar voice all too well, having been on the recieving end of a few lectures.

You freeze in your spot on the treadmill, which isn't very safe in itself, "Shit-- It's not what it looks like!" Your quick to protest.

"Oh? So your not overworking yourself in the gym then, hm?" Leah quirks, raising an eyebrow.

"No, well, uh yeah. I guess?" You stutter your words, knowing you've definitely been caught out now.

Leah can't help but chuckle amusedly, "You guess?"

"I, uh... Look I know it looks bad, but I needed to do this, Le." If you've been caught out then you're at least going to try and fight your reasoning for it, even if she doesn't believe you.

Judging my her facial expression, the blonde definitely isn't fooled.

"Come on. Lets' go, baby England," Leah motions you to follow her, holding out her hand for you to take.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you shut the whirring treadmill off and gingerly look at her, "Why-- Where are we goin'?" You ask.

"Well first I'm taking you for something to eat and then I'm taking you home, its' already been a long day," Your English Captains' quick to tell you, although before you have chance to protest, she continues to speak. "And you shouldn't be pushing yourself anymore than you already are, alright?" She states.

"But..." You still try and protest against the idea.

"No buts, I know you haven't eaten much, buddy," Leahs' firm voice interjects, still continuing to hold her hand out for you to take. "Come on. Grab your stuff and lets' go,"

You should have known it would only be a matter of time before you were caught out.

How could you be so careless, though?

You didn't think you not eating enough would be that noticeable, but apparently not.

Begrudingly, you step off the treadmill and clutch onto her hand to steady your uneasiness coming off it, "Are you going to tell Beth and Viv about this?" You ask, cautiously.

"I have to," Leah replies in agreement.

"Why?" You fight the urge to whine, even if makes sense for them to know, you wish they didn't have too.

"You can't push yourself, kiddo. You know how serious this injury is!" Leahs' firm voice makes a return, not missing the chance to make it known how much of a bad decision this was for you to make.

You know it looks bad, you do but yet you still couldn't help yourself.

You wanted to get better. You wanted-- No, you needed to do better.

"But I'm so fed up, Le," You grumble, walking in the direction of the changing room to grab your stuff. "Why... Why won't it just fuckin' heal already?" You don't mean to swear, you've never been one to use colourful language, but your frustration is at it's brink right now.

"Whoa, easy on the language there, buddy," Leah jokes, chuckling as she wraps her free arm around your shoulder. "Listen, I know your frustrated, but its' going to take time and you know this. You can't rush it, or you'll make it worse!" She states, firmly.

"Stupid knees' injuries suck," You murmer, gathering your stuff together before you make the exit from the training grounds.

Leah chuckles as she unlocks her car, gesturing for you to climb in the passenger seat, "Yep, yes they do," She agrees with you.

"I just want to be out there on the pitch already," You admit, slumping down into the seat once you have buckled yourself in.

The blonde smiles sympathetically at you, understanding your frustration, "That day will come, but for now, you've just gotta trust the process and let your body heal," She pauses before she continues. "I know you don't like it and all, but you have to just be patient this once, buddy."

"Even if it takes forever?" You resist the urge to groan and throw your head back.

"Even then, because it'll be worth it when you make your return to the game," Leah promises you with a gentle tone of voice.

"Yeah, but, what if..." Your sidetracked from what you are going to say, trying to not spiral into your dark thoughts once again.

"What if?" Leah furrows her eyebrow.

You swallow the lump that forms in your throat, "What... What if I'm not as good as I was before I got injured?" You confess the fear that's been plaguing your mind for god-knows how long.

Leah looks at you concerned, "You don't know how its' gonna be, but what I do know is that whatever happens, we're all behind you," She promises you as she gives you a kind smile and gently squeezes your good knee. "The day you eventually do return to the pitch, you're damn sure we'll all be there cheering as loud as we can," She promises you.

"Even if you're on the pitch as well?" You can't help but giggle.

Leah proudly nods in agreement as she grins, "Hey, I'll personally stop the game just to welcome you on the pitch, baby England." The blonde winks playfully at you from where she sits in the car.

"Your silly sometimes, Le," You mumble, finding it hard to take the blonde serious in this very moment.

"I know you're all up in your head about this, but it's going to be okay," Leah words stick firm in your brain as you smile. "Your not alone in this journey, you're never alone. We've got you." 

© scribblesofagoonerr

[equizona]

⤷ ROMANTIC HEADCANONS

michael afton || five night's at freddy's

gender-neutral reader

masterlist, navigation

i'm having michael brainrot and I can't when write his name right and also the new tumblr update can go choke on some shoelaces

⤷ MICHAEL AFTON

Michael is the type to get jealous easily. He's insecure, has abandonment issues, is making minimum wage and has a fuck ton of trauma attached to him. He knows he isn't the best boyfriend one could ask for, and that you probably deserve so much more, so seeing you with other people he just knows are better than him? It makes him want to crawl into a hole and cry.

Despite how easily he gets jealous, he doesn't show it very often. He refuses to guilt you into staying with him, or isolate you from having relationships outside of him. His father did that with his mother, and he got front row seats to see how well that turned out for them.

Michael doesn't make a lot of money, so he can't get you expensive gifts or take you out on fancy dates. Instead you both often go on walks, have picnics and watch movies at home. He'll save up for occasional amusement park, circus or whatever else you like for dates, though he tries to save those for special occasions.

He probably stays over at your place quite often. He doesn't like to be alone and he doesn't like the idea that he'll wake up tomorrow and get a call that someone broke in and killed you, or something like that. He stays over where you live often for that reason. He doesn't let you go to his place, either, since he knows the animatronics could easily figure out where he lives if they wanted.

He gets a lot of nightmares, too. He doesn't expect you to comfort him or anything, he knows he can be stressful and doesn't want your sleep being put aside for something as stupid as a bad dream. He doesn't really want you to do so, either, since he feels so guilty. The best thing you can do for him is let him cling to you, hug him back and go back to sleep.

He most certainly has an eating disorder. He forgets to eat and drink most of the time, and majority of the time when he doesn't forget he either thinks it's too much work or too expensive or just not worth the effort. However, if you bring him food or a drink, he'll make sure to consume all of it, no matter how nauseous it makes him. If he ends up vomiting, he might have a breakdown from guilt. Especially if you made it yourself.

On a less angst filled note, Michael is really good at making food. If you have ingredients and don't mind him messing around your kitchen, he will make the most heavenly tasting food you can imagine. Since he doesn't work during the day, he'll make you breakfast when he gets back, alongside lunch for whatever you have to do during the day.

He'll also make you dinner, with him making you m meals a good chunk of the time, it makes there be at least one less thing to stress you out. At least, that's what he's hoping for. If you give him the money, he'll go grocery shopping for you as well! He has all your preferred brands memorized too, so not to worry about that.

His parents didn't teach him very basics things about hygiene or cleaning, so while he isn't really a messy person, he doesn't know how most things work and decides to just leave things where they are. If you teach him to do the dishes, use the laundry machine or a vacuum, and assure him you won't get mad if he does something wrong, he might try doing some of your chores for you.

If he does it right and it makes you happy when he does it, he'll keep doing it. It makes him pretty happy, actually, to be doing it. He remembers his classmates whining about having to do chores with their mothers while he spent most of his day worried he's get yelled at for moving a glass over to the sink from the counter. Most might think it's boring to clean, but he thinks it's nice. And if it makes you happy, and makes your life easier? He's pretty ecstatic to be doing the dishes.

Michael naturally runs really hot. He could be your personal heater easily, and he's very comfortable and warm to hug. Despite how warm he is, he gets cold super easily, so he's always dressing warm and laying under blankets, which just makes Jim run even warmer.

He has a soft spot for children. If he builds a more stable life and routine with you, he'll probably try doing babysitting during the day for some extra money. He's actually really good with kids, too, even if he might seem sort of intimidating at first. He's also able to make all of them eat their vegetables and fruits, so parents adore him as well.

He is weak for matching things. Matching outfits? Keychains? Bracelets? Phone cases? Mugs? Blankets? Shoes? He doesn't care, he just loves the idea of matching with you.

He likes doing arts & crafts. Sometimes the kids make him do it with them too, and he's pretty good! He occasionally gives you those handmade bead bracelets. If he sees you wearing them he'll probably cling to you for the rest of the day.

Michael is actually like, really good at singing. He'll sing when he cleans, when he's doing his night shifts, when he's cooking or baking. If you like his singing, he might sing you a lullaby to help you sleep. If you sing with him he will be the happiest person on earth.

He likes a lot of things that are less traditionally masculine and more traditionally feminine, like flowers and soft things. (Blankets, stuffed animals, etc.) If you get him flowers, he'll press or dry them so he can keep them for much longer.

He's not much of a fan of animals, and animals don't like him that much. The exception being foxes, since he thinks they're very pretty. If you have any pets, he'd be happy to help you takecare of them, but he won't have a very deep emotional connection with the animal.

[nanowrimo]

5 Tips to Avoid Burnout as a Neurodivergent Writer

When taking on a project as big as writing a novel, you may run into the risk of burnout. NaNo Participant Joana Hill gives some tips on avoiding burnout as a neurodivergent writer.

Burnout.  As writers, we all know it. For neurodivergent writers, burnout can be even more damaging than usual. We can be much more sensitive, both mentally and emotionally, than our neurotypical friends and family.

This means avoiding burnout, and taking care of it when it does happen, can be even more important for us.  I’m here today to provide some tips for my fellow neurodivergent writers to tackle just that.

1. Write What Interests You

Write what interests you rather than what you think you ‘should’ be writing.  Many of us get caught-up in pleasing others.  For neurodivergent people who’ve spent much of their life masking, or hiding their true personality and needs because of fear of rejection, it can be a hard habit to break.

If you want to write a 50k slow burn coffee shop AU of your favorite fandom, an epic space opera starring ants, or a main character with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or any other disorder or condition you have, go for it.

2. Get A Support Network

For neurodivergent people, we’ve often lived our lives with special interests no one wants to hear us talk about.  It often results in us not talking about them at all before someone can tell us they don’t want to hear about it.

Whether it’s offline with friends and family, or online here at NaNoWriMo or other sites, having people who are actively interested in listening to you and helping you plot and write can be a game-changer.

3. Celebrate As Many Victories As You Want

Many years, my personal goal is that I can get the new Pokemon game, which always comes out around the middle of November now, once I hit 50k.  But you don’t need just one grand goal.

Get a bag of your favorite candy and say you can have a piece every so many words.  Find something on Amazon you want (and can afford to get!) and say you’ll get it once you hit the halfway point.  Whatever motivates you to keep going, set it into motion.

4. Plan For Flexibility

That may sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out.  Neurodivergent people often love to have a plan.  I know I can get frustrated and upset when I’m expecting something to happen and something different does.  For a big goal like writing a novel in a month, a lot of things can end up going wrong.

Carry a notebook and pen or tablet with a keyboard case in case an errand takes longer than expected.  Back your writing up to several places in case your main writing device crashes.  Make sure at least one of those is a cloud service in case you end up writing on a device that isn’t yours.  The more contingency plans you have, the better prepared you are when life happens.

5. Be Kind To Yourself

Some days you may not get the minimum goal, or you might not write at all.  You may feel like you just can’t do it because you’re behind on your word count, or you decide you don’t like what you’ve written.

I get it.  But don’t beat yourself up about it.  Take a break.  Play your favorite game or read your favorite book.  Go for a walk.  And remember that you’re awesome.  No one can write this story like you can.

Joana Hill is a writer of young adult stories, as well as novellas inspired by Japanese light novels and anime. You can find her books, social media, and anything else you could imagine wanting to know about her on her LinkTree. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

[kouyou-arc-when]

ON DAZAI AND EMPATHY: A character study Before you read: Obviously diagnosing any character in fiction seriously is a fool’s errand, but I am a fool, so let’s just do this for amusement. The main thing I desire is to discuss is the extent to which Dazai is capable of various types of empathy, as well as how that influences the way he sees and interacts with others. It will be chaotic and all over the place because I just sat down and wrote this in a fit. Let me explain some factors in analyzing Osamu: The author's intention is clearly to make Dazai's internal world a mystery. Since we don't have enough information, all we can do is hypothesize based on external elements. Generally, across all novels, the only time we’ve seen anything of Dazai’s perspective is in “The Day I picked up Dazai” (Beast continuity) – where he “saves” Oda and tortures that random dude. We don’t hear his thoughts narrated from first-person perspective, unlike many of the other novels.

Now, the crux of the issue. For years, it’s been discussed whether Dazai is a “sociopath”. If we disregard that sociopathy is a very loaded term that can mean a lot of things depending on which specialist you consult, at the very least, Dazai does strike me as someone with a unique expression of empathy, who could qualify for Anti-social personality disorder or a related condition. I will abandon the idea that Dazai is a sociopath, and use actual concepts that have legitimacy within this post. Whether Dazai could qualify for ASPD or any other disorder is something I've seen discussed for many years within the fandom. I'll try to analyze how these concepts could apply to him. In regards to mental health and Kafka (since it is a contentious matter) and the validity of any of this: I understand that a lot of people are resistant to the idea that any of the characters could have conditions more complex than depression, anxiety, and PTSD. This is my counterpoint. I have noticed that Asagiri emulates a lot of characteristics commonly attributed to “geniuses”, without confirming or potentially even intending to write these characters as having a specific condition.

A great example is Ranpo – who will read as autistic to any decent mental health professional (Untold Origins). Did Asagiri intentionally sit down and say “I am going to write an autistic character”? Maybe not. However, the “genius” stereotype is profoundly connected to visions of autism, even if people aren’t aware of it. Take people like Sherlock, House and L from Death Note – they’re commonly believed to be autistic by fans. All of these characters borrow from the same group of traits, that just happens to correspond with a certain condition - savants have always been popular in fiction. It's been known that the favorite type of character for Asagiri is the “prodigy” type, and he has used geniuses across fiction for inspiration of most notable intelligent characters within BSD. For Ranpo it was Sherlock, for Fyodor it was Joker from the Dark Knight (a classic sociopath), for Dazai it was Patrick from The Mentalist.

What I’m trying to say is, you can see various personality disorders connected to the portrayal of these geniuses, and even without confirming their state, it is clear they are either intentionally or unintentionally coded to be that way. Extremely intelligent characters not being able to read social cues, lacking empathy, disregarding rules etc. is something we commonly see in fiction. Basically, a lot of people don’t even know that these stereotypes are based on certain personality types, disorders, and illnesses. It’s sort of like drawing a character and dyeing their hair a certain shade of blue that you don’t know the particular name of: it doesn’t change the fact that you used that color, and the fact it has a name. Most authors are not mental health experts anyways, so they may not be entirely aware of every detail of the psychological framework they write the character to possess. They also may not write it consistently, as they're mostly emulating stereotypes. I mention Ranpo and autism because a character can embody traits of a stereotype without the author even necessarily having the intention to do so, however, to anyone who knows a thing or two, it is clear Ranpo is on the spectrum. If Ranpo were to express a few traits that go against this, it would not necessarily take away from the large-scale portrayal he is meant to exude: an autistic coded genius.

Why am I saying this? It is entirely possible for the author to write Dazai as a person with anti-social personality disorder, to “code” him in that way, but to not be entirely aware of how an individual with ASPD realistically tends to act.  Because he may be emulating a certain "stereotype" of a genius, he may also end up emulating specific psychological states, without making them entirely consistent in a realistic way. Writing the way individuals with ASPD tend to deal with empathy can be extremely difficult for anyone. It's easy to emulate a sociopath on a superficial level, but beyond that, it gets more challenging. How would a person with limited empathy act when they're hurting someone? That is an easier idea to handle. But how will they act in a friendly relationship? This is where it gets tricky. That is likely why someone like Dazai can never be consistently compatible with a very specific disorder: but, he can come very close. Besides, concepts such as anxiety and depression are pretty well-known, but more niche mental health conditions are not as well understood. So, BSD Osamu was written with specific attention to mental health issues because the author himself was someone who spoke heavily on the topic. I’ve read a lot of real-life Dazai Osamu, with special attention to No Longer Human (the main inspiration for BSD Dazai was Yozo) – and neither RL Dazai nor Yozo gave me the impression they could qualify for ASPD at all.

I know BSD Dazai is the opposite of the RL author in so many ways, but I guess it’s relevant to mention this because we know so little of BSD Dazai’s internal working processes, and Asagiri's main inspiration can tell us a lot about the intentions behind Dazai's portrayal. Generally, an intention or idea behind a character can give a lot of clues to us - more than anything, I am under the impression some of the main ideas behind Dazai's creation was that: 1) He doesn't feel like he belongs among humans 2) He has mental health issues However, we have difficulty defining the exact source of why all of this is in more realistic terms.

Naturally, since Dazai, an extremely socially intelligent person, sees himself as "othered", it is logical to assume he is not capable of fulfilling some emotional function most people can in a successful enough way. If he were just mentally ill in more typical ways (only depression), I theorize he wouldn't feel that "othered". He specifically is not meant to feel human. Obviously, his extreme intelligence is one of the things that isolates him, but the question is what else?

We are led to believe Dazai "sees" something the rest of us don't, and that is one of the reasons he wants to die. However, there is something more to it, as I believe it to be. We have two characters who are as intelligent as Dazai: Fyodor and Ranpo, and neither of them is suicidal, as far as we know. I believe Dazai "feels" a certain way, and then finds a way to logically justify it. Due to his intelligence, he likely falls into a complex loop which leads him to existential nihilism: but you usually don't end up in a place like that if you tend to feel alright in the first place, regardless of how smart you may be. While Dazai is certainly isolated due to his extreme intelligence, most of the people who made an impact on him are nowhere near him in that respect. In fact, I'd argue Dazai isn't even looking for someone equally intelligent to him, unlike Fyodor (this would take another post to explain).

The man who means the world to him, Oda, is more emotionally intelligent and full of common sense, but definitely not his cognitive equal. You can tell a lot about a person depending on what they value: and due to this I believe that Dazai's main issues relate to emotional matters. He primarily feels isolated due to his emotional state, and his intelligence pushes the problem further. Otherwise, he would treasure people like Ranpo and Fyodor over guys like Oda and Atsushi: he's looking for something to ease his emotional pain. Dazai doesn't seek out raw intellectual stimulation as much as comfort/excitement. This post will be an analysis of how Dazai compares to the "average" psychologically and some of the reasons he may feel so othered. Basically, my theory is that the feeling of being "othered" comes from his emotional profile, as much as it comes from his intellectual capacity. Those two take equal parts in his psyche.

Why would Dazai feel so emotionally "othered"? I believe it may have to deal with a specific personality disorder or condition, and mainly how he experiences empathy. One of the possibilities is ASPD. Anyways, let’s look into common ASPD symptoms, and then we'll look into common behavioral patterns the character shows. Dazai is equal amounts portrayed seriously and in a “jokey” way, but his worst traits and moments are usually described without humor. To preface: Keep in mind that you can have any or all of these traits without it qualifying you for a certain disorder. It is the extent to which you show it that makes a person, like Dazai, out of the norm.

1. Repeatedly breaking the law: This one goes without saying, he was in the Mob as Young as 15, and seemingly a violent criminal even before that age. To differentiate him from other members of the Mafia, it is stated by tons of people throughout the story that Dazai was practically born for this job.

Oda in Dark Era:

He was openly murderous before the age of 15, according to both The Day I picked up Dazai and Fifteen:

Dazai and Oda interacting in TDIPUD When talking to Kyouka, it seems that he has an “interesting relationship” with murder as a whole:

One thing is for sure, Dazai is much calmer, calculated, and more Machiavellian than most criminals in BSD, and this all started at an extremely young age. Many people kill when they're young, but they're not this casual about it.  The age at which he was this cold about would be of diagnostic significance.

2. Lack of remorse: Everything mentioned above, it is clear that Dazai has an even more complicated relationship with guilt and empathy. I’m pretty sure anyone in real life would consider him out of the norm, as it’s explicitly stated Dazai doesn’t feel remorse for all sorts of things he does, but there are some hints he is either ashamed of the way he is, or regrets his nature, but accepts it. What is particularly significant here is how young Dazai is when he shows a marked level of these traits. A key event that stuck with me is from the Dragon Head event in Mayoi (from my understanding it was written by Asagiri), where Shibusawa mentions Dazai will regret something (to me it sounded like he meant that killing Shibusawa will end poorly for Osamu). However, Dazai’s reaction was interesting – it was like he was almost amused that anyone would believe Dazai “could” feel regret for anything.

Mayoi Later down the timeline it’s quite questionable whether Dazai feels regret for some of his actions because he hides his feelings like a snake hides its legs, but there are implications he is somewhat remorseful if you read between the lines. More on that later. Dazai has changed compared to his past self, but to talk about that, and the extent to which he has changed would take a whole other post.

More on his lack of remorse, In “The Heartless Cur” Dazai is very young when he gets some randos from the Mafia killed in front of Akutagawa, yet his main emotions are amusement and boredom. This is not the “typical” emotional range of most people, even practiced criminals. For example, Chuuya kills people just like Dazai, but his reactions to it are entirely different.  

from The Heartless Cur Murder tends to not be the preferred or first solution Chuuya goes for: there is an expected amount of hesitance if you read into Chuuya. He put a bomb below Chuuya’s and sabotaged Ango’s car without much bother. I’d say even if you do see It as a “means to an end”, the way he did it was really cold. Usually, when people of all kinds do bad things, they have remorse and empathy they need to suppress, but with Dazai we don't see much of that. It's like he can just "do it'. He’s also really great at torture, in Side B at age 15-16, he already describes himself as a “specialist”. This is also touched upon when he speaks to Kouyou:

No matter how "grey" a character is, torture is a very specific process that takes a particular psychological profile to pull off. To be a "specialist" at it, you definitely need to possess dented empathy. Lack of remorse and empathy does not mean a person is going to be a criminal at all - it simply opens the opportunity that they may get lost in those waters more easily compared to the average person.

3. Repeatedly being deceitful I’m pretty sure we don’t have to cover this one. Yozo, the character he was loosely based on, is a big liar, and commonly uses “clowning” to distract from his real personality. Even the real Dazai Osamu wrote extensively about the concept of “lying”.   There is a lot to talk about Dazai and “masking”, and I’ll get to that in the second half of the post. Generally, Dazai lies a lot, one can’t even be sure what his personality really is. He lies by omission, manipulates, and intentionally deceives people without any issues. There are so many quotes about this that I’d probably reach the image limit right there if I wanted to reference them all. 4. Being impulsive or incapable of planning ahead Does not apply

5. Has difficulty sustaining long-term relationships: Dazai is famously a hoe. From “All women are his type” (and it seems he has zero issues getting together with any woman, young, old or even taken) to being known as “the enemy of all women” (said by Chuuya), it’s clear he is very promiscuous. Wan is in the gray area of canon, but in one of the earlier chapters he has so many love letters by different women that Atsushi burns them all. Kunikida said he hits on any woman he sees in the Entrance exam novel, which is further supported by random Wan! Chapters, silly crossovers, and everything else (literally anything female).

Not only that, but Dazai sounds like a consistently manipulative and toxic romantic partner. In an Otomedia interview, written by Asagiri, Dazai’s real type was basically something like: “Any woman is fine, because he is confident he can shape her to suit his tastes” which shows a remarkable lack of care for the personhood and individuality of his partner.

When answered what he’d do if his partner cheated or betrayed him, his answer was even more concerning. Depending on the translation, it goes something like: “He has not been cheated on, but he has cheated on others” or “he set up women to cheat on him/betray him” where both are a lot, just in different ways.

Either he is compulsively unfaithful, putting all above together, or he plays mindgames with his partners. He’s also told Kunikida that: “And from my experience, it takes only a smile and some kindness to get a woman swooning over you when she's fallen on hard times” painting an image of someone who takes advantage of people’s weaknesses to get what he wants.

Regardless, it’s clear he is very manipulative and likely emotionally abusive. I won’t even touch upon his obsession with double suicide. There’s also the fact that he seems to use sex to get what he wants – insert scene where he fucks the nurse to get his phone back.

Other than that, Dazai appears to be rather solitary. Ango and Oda are said to be “the only ones close to him” because they respected said loneliness. Even in ADA, Dazai seems to be professionally close to people, but very few people seem to know him on a personal level. I’d say he keeps people at a distance intentionally – before it was violently, later it is by being avoidant. For as much of a womanizer he is, there was that early comic where he spent Valentine’s Day drinking at Lupin “with Oda”, instead of going out with any particular person. I think this demonstrates how emotionally distant he is from all the people he interacts with

6. Being irritable and aggressive:

Dazai is not particularly aggressive, nor irritable, but he has moments where he slips. Tbh, reading back, it says a lot about Dazai’s character who he gets angry at and why. It’s important to say that when Higuchi calls him out on “Hollowing out the hearts of his opponents” in incredibly brutal ways, Dazai replies that he thinks “Sadism is just a method, and how it’s boring”.

Akutagawa is the receiver of a lot of his violence to a disproportionate degree. He beats up Akutagawa beyond what could ever be “just training”. There’s something that ticks him off about Akutagawa, which is interesting, since Dazai tends to not react this way to anyone who doesn’t touch him “intimately” in some way. A lot of people justify Dazai’s physical abuse by saying it is “training”, but it stood out to me how he kicks Akutagawa in the stomach even the first time he meets him in “Beast”, when Akutagawa is just an extremely traumatized and deprived kid he refuses to recruit. There is not much utility to that kick, to me. It felt personal.

Another example of him expressing anger is when people “called him foolish for wanting to die” – clearly he did not take it well since all of those people ended up dead. This is from “The Day I picked up Dazai” when Oda tells him he is a fool for wanting to die.

Other times Dazai expressed rage was in relation to Ango and Oda, particularly anything that related to Oda’s wellbeing.

He snaps at his subordinates when they tell him he shouldn’t be friends with someone “of such low status”, and the only time we really hear Dazai say he hates someone is when he’s torturing one of the guys who put Oda in trouble in the Beast timeline of “The day I picked up Dazai”. Obviously, he is resentful towards Ango and incapable of forgiving him. “Dead Apple” guidebook touches on it.

“Though they were once good buddies who used to drink together, to Dazai, Ango is one of the persons who caused the death of Odasaku. He still holds that resentment up to now, and is unable to forgive. Ango also seems to feel Dazai’s silent wrath towards him.”

Harukawa has said to pay attention to how cloudy the eyes of a character are to accurately interpret their psychological state. I don't think there are many times Dazai's eyes are drawn in such an extreme way - there is no "light" she talks about here. His eyes are pure black when he talks to Mori during the Guild arc.

He also agrees with Fyodor on “Malice being the best fruit that God Bestowed upon Mankind”

There is also this with Jouno:

Basically, Dazai rarely gets angry, insults don’t work on him (as he tells Chuuya), nor does beating him up, but when he does get irritated he flies off the handle and has no issue crossing any normal boundaries.

That detail is what stands out to me – usually, people have a line they won’t cross when getting mad, but for Dazai it’s like most moral lines disappear. Imo, his anger is for social standards over disproportionate in how far he’ll go and how he'll act on it– he usually has a clear intention to harm the individual he's mad about. In comparison, Chuuya is someone who gets angry more than Dazai, but Chuuya clearly has a line he won’t cross. There is also no pointed sadism in his reactions. Dazai will likely do almost anything.

Basically, it's not how much Dazai gets angry, but the way he gets mad that sticks out to me. Most importantly, Dazai only ever gets enraged if it concerns something very personal and intimate: Oda and his death, his suicide attempts etc. At this point, for me, It’s safe to say that if Dazai gets extremely angry, it means the topic affects him on a deep level (a hint to whatever Is happening between him and Akutagawa, I could talk a lot about that). 

More on Dazai’s unpredictable and violent nature:

Stormbringer I think there is a valid argument in seeing Dazai’s aggression as just a tool he uses to keep others at bay, something to hold over people and control them – but even then, it shows a marked disinterest in social norms people usually respect.

7.Having a reckless disregard for their safety or the safety of others This one builds upon all the others. However, it’s always been interesting to me how it’s clear something flies over Dazai’s head when it comes to regularly empathizing with others.

This is often seen with Chuuya. In my opinion, most of the bullying Dazai gives Chuuya is not motivated out of rage, but rather some form of spite. He goes at length to Rimbaud about planning Chuuya’s murder in “15”, then he also lets Chuuya be tortured in “Stormbringer”.

I am under the impression he sees these moments as “amusing” and doesn’t fully emotionally understand why this is something bad, even if he does on a rational level. I’ll say that Dazai did seem to show some rage whenever anyone hurt him physically in the past (seems likely to be a hint to a traumatic past), which Chuuya did when they met, but I don’t get the impression he is generally angry with Chuuya, it’s more like he just enjoys fucking with him. Ironically, for how rarely Dazai gets angry, it seems he reserves his rage/irritation exclusively for people and things he cares about, so Dazai being specifically irritated at Chuuya is just a sign of how much the guy gets to him.

If Dazai were angry at Chuuya, it is in character that he would try to hurt him a lot more than he does. However, I'd say Dazai has a blurry space for what's ok between "keeping someone purely safe" and "deeply hurting them". There is some lack of emotional empathy there - to him, it is more amusing than anything to see someone he finds interesting struggle.

Dazai sees boundaries differently. He’ll put people into danger or through discomfort without worrying much, especially if he’s sure they’re going to walk and live after it, but sometimes not even that. (there’s so many examples of it). I’d say it’s not that Dazai doesn’t care, he just cares about people differently compared to what we’re used to socially.

Regarding personal safety, it’s pretty obvious: he’s a suicide maniac, but even more, he also puts himself in harm’s way all the time without any anxiety present. Examples are when he provokes that sniper in Dark Era (when Oda gets angry at him and wants to punch him), knows he is going to get shot by Fyodor, but lets himself get hurt anyway. When he “dies” in 55 minutes, he seems “lightly” surprised, but there’s no strong reaction to it.  To me, it seems that the only physical harm he dislikes is pain he suffers from another person (when he doesn’t plan it). Dazai apparently doesn’t feel much “anxiety” – I remember many different times when he comments on another character’s timidness or meekness, seeing it as something unusual.

8. Behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour He’s extremely eccentric, and even Ranpo says he doesn’t get him. Dazai asks women to commit suicide the moment he meets them, and often attempts suicide around people even if it distresses them (Entrance exam).

While I think he made this excuse in Dark Era to Taneda because he didn’t want to work with Ango, I do believe he believes what he said: “You’d lose your job if I did that.” Dazai wryly smirked. “I don’t like places with lots of rules.” Not being able to accept conventional rules is very often a telltale sign of a personality disorder. Clearly, Dazai fits many of the criteria necessary for having ASPD, so let’s look at some other details that are common for people with ASPD.

Masking: In psychology and sociology, masking is the process in which an individual camouflages their natural personality or behavior to conform to social pressures. Masking is common with many disorders, such as autism, ASPD etc. I am pretty sure it’s canon Dazai masks – on a BSD exhibit, the key element Asagiri wanted to talk about in Dazai’s personality was related to this.  

“When I describe Dazai to the staff, there is a phrase that I always use, “an unworldly being with a mental age of two thousand years.” Dazai has far surpassed the mental dimension that human can reach, thus no-one can even tell if the emotions he shows are the real things or not.

There are rare moments when that Dazai shows his very “human” side. That is when he talks to another superhuman who is on the same level with him. The other is when he talks about his old friend who has passed. This is the scene when Kyouka wondered “Maybe I’m, after all, just a murderer at heart.” and refused to be saved. And Dazai’s reaction to that. When he said “Don’t give me any of that!” here, he really meant it. That was an outburst from Dazai, as a 22-year-old boy, in this scene.” Light novels often describe his smile as fake, mask-like, and I could probably find 20 panels where Harukawa clearly drew him to intentionally seem like a fake smiler. From “15” to “Entrance exam”, Dazai often drops his mask, and then goes back to acting silly just to make the other person relax. He does this with everyone, Mori, Kunikida, Atsushi, etc. Chuuya also mentions that Dazai’s “happy-go-lucky” personality in ADA is something new, and he believes it doesn’t fit him.

Kunikida says this in the Entrance Exam: "For someone so full of eccentricities, there is something about his behavior that makes it seem as if he has an unobstructed view of the world. I don’t know exactly why, but all his emotions strike me as an act to some degree. Is he just playing dumb? Could there be more to him than he’s letting on, lurking behind his ambiguous mannerisms?"

More than anything, Dazai himself says that Oda was the person closest to seeing his “real” personality. That pretty much confirms he keeps his real self hidden away. I’d say that there are several possibilities to why this is: He hides it because he dislikes being vulnerable, he doesn’t know how to act “normal”, people are unable to understand him, so masking makes it easier for him to communicate with others…there’s a lot of theorizing I could do here.

Dazai also tends to have interesting thoughts about personalities as a concept.

You’ll commonly see Dazai say something serious, followed by a severe reaction of the other character, ending with Dazai changing his demeanor and saying “just kidding” to lighten the air.

Manipulation: Dazai is extremely Machiavellian – he is prone to manipulating everyone around him, regardless of how much they care about him or not. He manipulated Chuuya into joining the mafia, he does the same with Akutagawa even today: Here we have him preying on Aku's insecurities to sabotage his self-confidence

He seems to be able to cut off his emotions from any situation, seeing people in a raw, factual sense.

There are several moments throughout the novels where Dazai talks about people as if they’re purely resources or pawns. An example of this in Dead Apple (where Chuuya gets angry because he doesn't respect people or show enough sympathy)

The way he speaks of Atsushi, when asked what he thinks of him in a guidebook, is something like “developing as expected”. Especially in the original, it sounds extremely factual, mechanical, and cold. To me, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Atsushi, he’s just the type to compartmentalize his emotions in opposition to his thinking. This is very common for a few personality disorders and mental health conditions: the capacity to totally cut off your emotions from the equation.  Obviously, many people are capable of doing this to one extent or another, but the amount to which he does it is what makes it significant.

Lack of traditional empathy: Personally, I think everything comes down to this. Dazai's experiences with empathy are one of the main themes of his character arc. I believe one of the things that makes him feel othered is his lack of emotional empathy.

People with ASPD tend to have issues experiencing what a lot of people consider “typical” empathy – however, ASPD is also on a large spectrum, so experiences certainly vary. Keep in mind that "lack of empathy" is common for all sorts of disorders, but since ASPD seems to be one of the most popular choices for Dazai, I decided to start there.

Before we continue, there are 2 types of empathy: Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand someone’s feelings and experiences and imagine yourself in those scenarios. Emotional empathy is experiencing shared emotions with someone or feeling emotions as though the experience is your own.

People with ASPD can commonly do the first type easily, and struggle with the second one. It does not mean they cannot experience emotional empathy, it’s just rarer for them to feel it. In my opinion, Dazai heavily relies on Cognitive empathy compared to Emotional empathy.

You can see often that he seems to not entirely understand “why” something is wrong on a personal level, but he can logically see it. This is a running theme, and you can commonly see that Dazai doesn’t fully understand “normal”.

“15” Asagiri seems to be writing Dazai as someone who has gone “beyond the human dimension” in his skills and intelligence, so other people can’t fully understand him, but I think this goes both ways. Dazai has lost touch with what’s the standard human experience.

One of the times Chuuya specifically calls out Dazai for not "acting human-like" is when he's not expressing empathy and respect. It is clear that Dazai's lack of empathy is one of the aspects which make others see him as "inhuman".

There is another situation with Kunikida  during the Azure Messenger arc where Dazai seems to apologize for not getting something “is normal”, it slips by you very easily. It is framed as a joke, and it can be read as him making fun of Kuni, but Kunikida asks himself why Dazai apologized. It does read a bit unusually.

To me it seems like Dazai doesn’t fully emotionally understand other people, so when his mask slips you can see that he struggles a ton with getting what’s exactly “typical”.

Because Dazai is extremely intelligent, he masks in order to fit into society, and he does it successfully since he can intellectually understand most social and emotional functions and processes. However, he slips up like everyone does. This is why he got along with Oda well – since Oda just let him act like himself without having ulterior motives. Dazai didn’t have to “mask”. He didn't see Dazai as "just anyone", but he also realized Dazai was human. Basically, to Oda Dazai was a kid that had empathy issues, but he was struggling much like everyone else.

Personally, I feel like Dazai doesn’t feel entirely “human” because he doesn’t feel “emotional empathy” on the same level as other people, and this is one of the key issues of the character (as it's clearly stated in the Dead Apple manga, where Dazai does seem a bit upset by Chuuya's reaction)

. The reason he felt “seen” by Oda is because Oda fully recognized this and still believed Dazai could do “good”. In our society, it is common for people to think that "empathy" and "sympathy" are conditions for being a good person, but it isn't so simple. The possible complexity of Dazai's moral state is why I find the character so interesting - a person without traditional empathy choosing to be good is really fascinating. (more on this later).

Boredom and general emptiness: “Boredom” is an extremely common complaint for people with ASPD – in fact, intense, non-standard boredom, along with other symptoms such as atypical experience with empathy, is one of the easiest ways to recognize ASPD. A “numbed” emotional state is common for people with ASPD, and due to their different emotional range and inability to connect with others in a more typical fashion, they are prone to “boredom” and seeking out extreme experiences.

Alcoholism/Substance abuse is common for people with ASPD, and it’s pretty much canon Dazai drinks a lot (alcohol is even in his likes). Aside from that, Dazai often cites boredom as one of the main reasons he wants to die, and I remember so many instances where he complains about it in bizarre circumstances. This is common for people with ASPD: depression/suicidality is comorbid, and I have heard people with ASPD mention they wanted their life to end once they no longer have enough stimulation. Dazai is often stated to be “bored”, or look bored even when extremely horrifying things are happening (people dying around him/telling their life stories..).  An example with Mori where he talks about wishing to die (from 15):

Another really funny thing, a lot of people with ASPD I have seen tend to dislike “dogs”. Obviously, this hatred comes from the real life Dazai being scared of them and thinking they can attack at any moment, but it’s a funny coincidence. They tend to dislike dogs for an entirely different reason than Dazai does, to be fair.

How Dazai seems to see himself and morals in general

Generally, to me it seems like Dazai is not entirely happy with his nature. He admires Oda and doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t use his talents to rise up in ranks within the Mafia, simply because that is logical to Dazai – perhaps it is that difference between them that he enjoys so much. He is frequently attracted to displays of empathy:

Examples: 1. Ango documenting the deaths of people within the mafia even if it’s “just a waste of money” 2. Almost everything Atsushi and Oda do

He often describes altruism as “interesting”. I am also under the impression that Dazai has a tendency to project his nature onto others, which we can gather from his “Evil expects evil from others” quote to Mori. Furthermore, he sadly remarks in Dark Era that he is “a man despised by righteousness”. so I feel like there is something up here, some sort of guilt, distaste or shame.

This tells me:

a)Dazai sees himself as “evil”

b)He is constantly assuming the worst in others or is prepared for the worst

Another thing this tells me is that Dazai is someone who is likely extremely wary of people’s intentions. This is a ubiquitous theme all across BSD, especially when we see him as a kid. Osamu tends to be skeptical of everyone and everything, as if he’s waiting for people to betray or fuck him over at any corner. In TDIPUD, he keeps getting upset that he can't figure out Oda, since it makes no sense for him to be so charitable for absolutely no reason. Oda said “good and evil are the same to you” – personally I interpret this as Dazai being largely amoral rather than immoral.  Whether Dazai can be described as “good”, “evil” or “neutral” largely depends on your view of ethics. Just because someone lacks traditional empathy, it doesn't mean they are necessarily sadistic or bad at all. Immoral and Amoral are two words that sound similar but have different meanings. Immoral is an adjective that describes “something against pre-established morals, ethics, or standard societal practices.” Amoral, on the other hand, is an adjective that describes “something or someone completely lacking morals.” In common society, if you’re not “good”, you are often automatically “evil”. Basically, a person who has "no morals" is just as bad as a person who has cruel beliefs, but those two fundamentally differ. However, in a technical, utilitarian fashion – this is often seen to be true. More or less, “good” is the neutral state, and the more you step away from it, the more “evil” you are perceived to be. The more moral conventions you break, the more "evil" you are, regardless of your intentions. The results of the actions matter more than the source and motivations. In the end, a person is dead, regardless of why you killed them or how you felt about it. The reasons why people do conventionally moral things can be all over the place too - people aren't always kind because they have sympathy. When I hear “evil and good are the same to you”, it sounds like Dazai has no need for either, meaning, yes, he has no inherent need to do good, but no need for bad, he is simply not opposed to either of them. Regardless of what he's doing, he feels the same way. They're both tools to satisfy particular needs. Many people read this and say "aha, so if he sees no difference between the two, that means he is evil", but I think the truth is in the middle. I always say that to estimate Dazai's moral framework, you need to judge him outside of normal conventions. Basically, his starting point in making decisions is different. He begins his process likely by thinking "what will this bring me?" Most of his “evil” is not out of pure sadism, it’s just that he feels no need to stop himself due to moral conventions, he mostly cares about practical results. This is opposed to Kunikida who cares about ideals and morals in a vacuum and pursues them in their most idealized version (and it's well known Asagiri writes duos as opposites). Entrance exam as a novel was about how idealism can lead people to ruin when it's unrealistic.

He’s naturally immune to socialized pressure that forms the moral frameworks of most people on an emotional level. All of this is very common for ASPD, and a few other conditions. The more I see Dazai talk about how he sees the concept of personality, murder, morality – the more I am convinced his ethical framework is focused on results rather than the inherent morality of said actions. Example: He's going to lie to you to make you happy, even though "lying is bad". There is no inherent value in staying honest if it makes an individual miserable in the long run, even though society sees frankness as a virtue. That way, most actions are “open” for Dazai to undertake, he has no qualms most people have against them, since he doesn’t have socialized morals. A lot of the time, we only see certain things as "unconditionally bad" because we've been socialized to see them that way, even if it's not necessarily logical. He simply lacks socialized morals, leading to a tendency to be amoral. Everything is a means to an end, every action is alright if it's a tool that has more pros than cons. Oda's death was a useful character arc, since it led Dazai to taking Oda's moral framework as his own. He doesn't believe he is better than others, nor does he enjoy hurting random people, he doesn't kill or rob randos to get something and believes he is justified in it. Things of that type would make him “immoral”. Most of Dazai’s evil actions seem utilitarian, rather than committed for the pure act of pleasure or cruelty. When I say “amoral”, I mean this from Dazai’s point of view. Since he has no “moral boundaries”, all actions are open for him to undertake. He can go as far as he wants to any extreme largely depending on his subjective worldview and feelings (as seen in Beast, where he breaks all sorts of ethical codes of being "a good man" so Oda could get a decent life). However, since he is aware that there is a fight between good and bad in every person, and that evil tends to win out compared to the good, under enough pressure, he admires people who selflessly continue to be kind. That is why Oda, a highly moral person even beyond what is logical (his insistence to not kill even if it harms him) is the opposite that pushed him to change. Ulterior motives tend to be something Dazai is worried about in people, perhaps because he is possibly projecting all he is, or can be, on others. He describes Oda specifically as:

"a man who has no ulterior motive". Oda is obviously being a good person partially out of self-interest ("people live to save themselves"), but this self-interest is not destructive. I think for Dazai, it was difficult to find people who didn't have an ulterior motive that was ultimately hurtful, and he projected that onto everyone. Oda acting in his self-interest was ultimately beneficial to everyone. All in all, while Dazai does admire Oda's morals - I think a lot of this appreciation comes from an intimate and subjective place, where he feels comforted someone like Oda even existed. Continuing Oda's work is likely an extension of this as well. Keep in mind, any person has the right to see Dazai's actions as bad, as they often are. I am more speaking of Dazai's internal mental framework. Conclusion: Dazai has no inherent need to do good or bad, for the most part. He just goes as far as he needs to to satisfy his emotional needs.

Oda saved Dazai’s life in the day I picked up Dazai, and listened to him, but expected nothing in return. I feel that Oda saw this struggle within Dazai, and the way “good and evil don’t mean much to him” due to his disorder, but recognized that Dazai perhaps didn’t want to be this way.

Since Oda saw Dazai’s “irregular” nature, and still believed he could be a good person, Dazai was touched and decided to change his life. I believe Dazai had some distaste for himself, regardless of his lack of empathy, he could recognize what he was doing was not entirely right. As Asagiri mentioned, Oda told him exactly what he needed to hear, and the fact that these words were so life-changing to Dazai tells us a lot about what he had on his mind.  In my opinion, to see who Dazai is, you need to follow exactly which words got to him.

In my opinion, it likely meant a lot that a person he actually admired wanted to be in his life, especially a person he considered so kind like Oda. He often says that Oda is “the most interesting person he knows”. Imo, this is because “empathy” is one of the things Dazai doesn’t fully understand. He had to learn it. Since he understands human nature so well, cognitive empathy comes easy to him, but he still fucks up sometimes.

Here, I also feel like he is talking about himself – he sees himself in Kyouka. It doesn’t come naturally to Dazai to be “good”, but he is trying his best, that is his ideal now. (Asagiri said this was one of Dazai's rare human moments). For that reason, I think Dazai admires empathetic people and tends to dislike those who are naturally violent, or even choose to be violent out of sadism.

On the BSD exhibit, Asagiri said Atsushi was "an empathy user", and how that is the key to his character. During one interview, the author mentioned that Dazai keeps testing Kunikida's ideals, but Osamu secretly hopes that Doppo will prove to be right, and Dazai wrong. This to me paints a picture of someone who hopes that "good" is worth it, at least from an intellectual point of view. When talking with Fyodor, he seems to admire people who live emotionally, thinking god doesn't prefer perfection, logic and harmony.

"The ones who actually make the world run Are those who scream in the storm of uncertainty and run with flowing blood"

Dazai seems to reject the idea that him and Fyodor and better because they are more calculating and cold - like I mentioned earlier in this god-forsaken post, this to me says Dazai believes empathetic and emotional people are better than him.

"I've come to see it many times, his gimmicks are the accidental and illogical that's a weakness two of us have in common" He suffers because he is not like them, and that contributes to him feeling "othered".

Negative emotions and Akutagawa

My guess is that one of the reasons Dazai has so many issues with Akutagawa is because he is projecting his own issues with his lack of empathy onto him. This makes him relate to Akutagawa, but also dislike him beyond how he usually treats people. Akutagawa questions why Dazai's acts of violence are justified, while Osamu is judging Akutagawa: to me it sounds that Dazai sees his actions as at least partly justified because they are "logical" and utilitarian. He puts a difference between him and Aku, as if Dazai's natural instinct is not to mindlessly hurt others. However, it's interesting he needs to draw this line.

I believe Dazai sees a lot of the hurt he enacts on others as either "justified" or subconsciously defensive. "If I don't hurt others, they will hurt me", and he uses this against all kinds of people to keep them in control. In the Dark Era novel, Dazai speaks of Akutagawa like this:

“When I first saw him over in the slums, I was horrified. His talents are extraordinary, and his skill is extremely destructive. Plus, he’s stubborn. If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.” Interestingly, Dazai was "horrified" at what Akutagawa was capable of, where most things don't seem to exactly phase him. I think something about Aku's capacity for violence even scares him, and he "lashes" out in response to control him.

Later on Oda calls out Dazai's thinking indirectly in Beast, saying that hurting Aku is still bad no matter why he did it. (more on this in the next section) However, it’s very clear he cares for Akutagawa in “Chopsticks and a Spoon”, so I do feel like he’s likely aware of it. In fact, that story contains one of the gentlest expressions Dazai has pointed at anyone, so I think he partially sees Akutagawa as "innocent" in nature, and more like a wounded animal. I'll likely write a post about it. Since Dazai has expressed some lament or even shame regarding him being a person "hated by righteousness", I do think he is a bit ashamed of who he is. This part is a theory: When talking about "No Longer Human", Asagiri mentioned that he felt the book was about "embarrassment". Since Dazai is canonically famously based on Yozo to some extent, I feel that we can guess that Osamu likely does feel some shame - the question is about what. The rare times we see BSD Dazai express something similar to shame is when talking about his moral nature (when he beat up Akutagawa in Dark Era), but it's a "blink and you'll miss it" type of thing. Yozo and RL Dazai's relationship with his father was one of the cornerstones of his work (NLH even ends with him mentioning how he would have been alright if he had a better relationship with his father). Within the book, Yozo feels all sorts of things which make him feel "inhuman", but he is terrified about being open about it due to his strict father who sees him as somewhat strange. Since the theme of "fatherhood" was lightly touched upon when Atsushi's orphanage director died, I do think this is potentially a sore spot for BSD Dazai too. My guess is that Dazai likely had a poor relationship with his father figure, who saw him as "strange" or "inhuman" due to the way he acted: leading BSD Dazai to feel shame over his nature. Perhaps one of the things that made his father see Dazai as inhuman was his lack of typical ethics and empathy. Osamu internalized this - and ended up becoming a criminal at a very young age, perhaps in an attempt to confirm what hurt him, seeing himself as someone who could mostly do bad (which could be one of the reasons he wanted to die so young). Perhaps Oda making a way for him to "act good" was life-changing because of that too - it targeted a specific wound. All of this is speculation, but Dazai did mention that "self-pity leads you to living a life that is an endless nightmare". My guess is he was talking about himself there: and his own experiences with shame. To extend this: I think one of the reasons Dazai is so harsh on Akutagawa is because he is possibly projecting his relationship with his father onto Aku. Akutagawa is violent and troubled, and Dazai was shamed for the same thing. (but it would take a lot of time to work through this theory, so moving on..)

Dazai exhibiting empathy However, Dazai does show empathy for Oda, and a lot of it. I’d go as far as to say that he over-empathizes with Oda, while he underempathizes with everyone else. His relationships with the people closest to him tend to be why some people think he may have BPD. Especially due to devaluation and the "favorite person" concept. For someone with this type of BPD relationship, a “favorite person” is someone they rely on for comfort, happiness, and validation. A FP is a person who someone with BPD relies heavily on for emotional support, seeks attention and validation from, and looks up to or idealizes. For Dazai, this is Oda. On the other hand, In the context of BPD, “devaluation” refers to a psychological defense mechanism or coping strategy that individuals with BPD may employ in their interpersonal relationships. Devaluation involves a shift in the person’s perception of others, where they view someone they previously idealized or held in high regard as unworthy, flawed, or worthless. They become unworthy of their affection and praise. The person with BPD may engage in behaviors such as intense criticism, verbal attacks, withdrawal, or even cutting off contact with the person they have devalued. These actions are often driven by the individual’s fear of rejection, abandonment, or a desire to protect themselves from potential hurt or disappointment. For Dazai, the clearest example of this is Ango. However, a person can exhibit the "favorite person" and project the phenomenon of devaluation without having BPD. In my opinion, Dazai does show heightened polarity in his feelings toward others, but I am not sure if BPD would be my choice for him. It's very difficult to say, as many conditions mask as BPD, and Dazai's expression of empathy is unique.

Dazai idealizes Oda, and deeply sees his pain as his own, while he always frames Akutagawa in a negative light, even though he is likely one of the people Dazai cares about the most (next to Oda, Chuuya, Ango, Atsushi, especially according to Beast). Another example of his heightened negative emotions are Ango, and Chuuya to a much lesser extent. My guess is that Dazai doesn’t deal with caring about people well, especially when they are any sort of “threat”: which is why he tries to “bully” them down. The reason he goes easier on Chuuya than Akutagawa is because he feels Chuuya is in his nature more sympathetic.

In my opinion, the moment Dazai warmed up to Chuuya was when he realized that The Sheep were pushing Chuuya around: he was no “King of the sheep”, he was acting out of empathy and care. Since Chuuya is so powerful, it was likely admirable to Dazai that he didn’t abuse his abilities for self-gain. This is when he decided to isolate Chuuya from the Sheep: and I think the reason above is specifically why

I'd say Dazai is likely "spikey" to anyone he cares about but has less confidence they won't hurt him. There are two camps of people: 1. Atsushi, Oda, Kunikida, Sigma (generally upright, meek, moral at the end of the day) 2. Chuuya, Akutagawa, and lastly Ango (people who are aggressive, challenging, and need to be put down in Dazai's eyes).

He cares about both camps (Sigma is debatable, I spoke of the type of personality Dazai seems to deal with easily in his case), but he likely feels "less safe" with the second type. Mori could potentially go into the second camp - there is some respect and resentment there at the same time. He even talks about this with Kunikida in Entrance exam.

"“I guess. But you, Kunikida, I’ve got a good idea of who you are now, so nothing you do will ever surprise me. I mean, compared with me, you’re just a simple man with a simple mind, after all.”

See? You wear your heart on your sleeve. You don’t hide how you’re really feeling. It’s nice. You know what else is nice? Just knowing that you’re going to be worrying later to yourself, ‘Am I really that simple?’”

“Why, you—”

But I refrain from arguing. Whatever my response, he’s just going to end up telling me, “I knew you’d say that.”

I suppose that being around Kunikida comforts him since he is predictable, yet kind. On the other hand, someone like Chuuya excites him, because he is wild and challenging enough, but is still a good person when it comes down to it. Basically, Dazai is hypervigilant of pain.

Akutagawa is “off the chain” in comparison to all of them. I am under the impression that Dazai can care about people without treating them well at all, and 2 of the people who are at the top of his list (Chuuya and Aku) are people he “seems” to dislike (In Chuuya’s case rather openly in his profile).

It appears that the more “intense” and “unpolished” parts of Dazai’s personality are strictly reserved for people he cares about, but he is extremely selective about who he shows emotional empathy to as it’s such a rare experience for him. He may capable of "cutting off" empathy to protect himself emotionally. It is quite clear some aspects of empathy miss him broadly in Beast, when he appears shocked that Oda would react so strongly to endangering Akutagawa since “it’s all supposed to end well if he survives”. That sentence itself is totally tone-deaf, yet Dazai is acting as if Oda is supposed to take that normally. It’s quite clear that Dazai doesn’t treat Atsushi all that well in Beast either, as he exploits his fears for Atsushi to be totally obedient to him.

I really like this moment, because it demonstrates that even if Dazai does have some point regarding Akutagawa and the way he goes about things, the way he has treated him is still too much – and Dazai can’t exactly convince Oda, a decent person, why this is ever justifiable under any circumstances. There is an aspect of regular empathy that misses Dazai – it doesn’t cross his mind why his actions are inherently bad. Perhaps it is possible that Dazai was treated with little to no empathy growing up, so he accepted that as a model for acceptable behavior. A lot of the time, cruel actions don't seem to even register to him as bad, in an almost innocent way. It's like it doesn't cross his mind that stuff is out of the ordinary. When talking to Oda about this, he was described as "childlike".

However, Dazai shows a lot of extreme emotional empathy for Oda, which tends to be rare for people with ASPD (obviously, all traits of it are on a spectrum).

Dazai clearly feels as if he himself is being beaten when Oda suffers. Furthermore, “Beast” shows that he is willing to endanger multiple people he cares about so Oda could live and write his book. In his words “the me from other worlds doesn’t care about the world” – showing that even though he may “care” about people, it’s really hard for him to fully emotionally connect with others.

This leads him to severe feelings of loneliness and isolation, but it’s quite clear Oda is the exception to this.

Dazai has multiple anxiety attacks when meeting with Oda in Beast and TIPUD:

“I see.” Oda says after he gives it a moment of thought. “I’ll do so then. That is very kind of you. You are a good guy.”

Dazai’s expression becomes distorted.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again, as if he can no longer breathe.

If he tells him everything now, maybe things will go back to how they were. The two of them will go to the bar together and have a toast. Just like that night.

“Odasa…”

Just as Dazai is about to say that name, a train passes by. The express train passing through that station cuts through the silence of the night, right next to where Dazai and Oda is."

and obviously the whole showdown at the bar. Earlier, Oda mentions that Dazai looks like he is about to cry:

 An interesting part here is that Dazai gets shocked that Oda would even consider that Dazai could hurt him:

It almost sounds absurd that Dazai, who is known for scheming even against people he likes, would be that surprised someone would expect this from him. This, to me, shows that Dazai does have that underdeveloped, childish emotional side to himself, where he doesn’t understand everything he does. It’s quite logical why Oda, or anyone else, would be consistently doubtful of Dazai, yet he is so used to not caring about anyone, that when he does feel things he is remarkably unpolished and just as illogical as anyone else. I’d say his heart is like a knife that went blunt from lack of use. Since he has no experience dealing with people he feels strongly about, it always comes across very messy – and Asagiri himself often describes him as childish at his most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song for Beast have these words to say: “Loving you to death won’t kill me Because I don’t love this world enough” And in the Beast novel, he mentions all he has to give to the world is love. I think we can certainly see that Dazai is not emotionless.

To me it seems like Dazai is capable of selective emotional empathy. I feel like one of the reasons Oda was “the one” Dazai attached himself to the most, is because Oda was a struggling man who was also depressed (rather clear the more you read), but he was empathetic and accepted Dazai for who he was.

Him and Dazai had difficulties in common (the guy was a killer as a kid too), yet Oda did his best to be a good person – that is one of the reasons, as Asagiri mentions, why he had an “outburst” when Kyouka implied former killers can’t be good people. Oda was a good person in his eyes, and his role model of “empathy”: someone he wished to emulate. I am pretty sure that Oda became the blueprint for the moral compass he strives towards.

Most importantly, Oda didn’t really judge Dazai when he showed his lack of empathy, while he remained firm in what he believed in.

“Odasaku is the type of person who will never lecture anyone. Because he does not consider himself a superior person who can teach and guide others. However, it doesn’t mean that he has nothing he wants to say. The sentiments that he couldn’t convey in these two scenes were finally delivered to Dazai in the last scene through the words “Become a good person.” Very meaningful scenes when read as a set.”

is how Asagiri described Oda during the exhibit. As Asagiri says, one of the reasons he didn’t tell Dazai anything when he provoked the sniper was his modesty. Since Oda didn’t look down on him, yet showed concern and fully understood Dazai wasn’t just a struggling depressed kid, but someone with serious issues who also happened to be a child – Dazai grew to deeply care for him. Oda didn't shame him, likely avoiding Dazai's hypervigilant sensor for pain.

Selective empathy is common for many disorders – and Dazai, after not feeling “seen” his whole life, ended up making a true connection with Oda. I guess, in that sense – Oda was the one who really reached Dazai’s heart, and since he was the only one who came that close, all of Dazai’s emotional empathy is reserved for him.

In my opinion, the reason Dazai was so difficult to “get to” was that even people who had good intentions toward him never truly saw him.

To see Dazai as a depressed woobie who just needs to be saved is to idealize him – which wouldn’t exactly help him. They’re talking about a version of him that doesn’t exist. If the only way he could be seen as worthwhile was someone seeing him as more “traditionally good” than he truly is, it’s not going to work. He needs to be seen for exactly who he is, and still given a chance to be better.

Likewise, it had to be someone who wasn’t helping him in order to get something from him. I would say that one of the main reasons why Dazai got so attached to Oda was because his friend had no reason to save him, he gave him space, and didn’t even force himself into Dazai’s life.

It was purely altruistic, and for Dazai, who expects the worst from others and seems to fear people’s intentions, this was perfect. One of the main aspects of Dazai's character is his anxious-avoidant attachment style, where he is likely so afraid of potential pain, he pushes others away, or punishes anyone he cares about who might hurt him preemptively. A lot of this is not impulsive, but calculated, which is why he feels a natural resistance to Akutagawa (but relates to him and cares all the more because of it). He understands the self-destructive nature of Akutagawa.

"If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.”" I believe Dazai likely allows himself to fully empathize with Oda because he feels only Oda is "safe" in this world. The fact that Oda is dead and gone perhaps makes caring for him even safer, as his image of Oda will never change.

Conclusion: I'd say Dazai is someone who is probably extremely traumatized, with a specific emotional profile that doesn't allow him to experience empathy like normal people do - and this is one of the defining traits of the character for me. He is able to isolate himself from normal social pressures and boundaries - and because of this and his extreme intellect, he feels like an alien in this world. A lot of his struggle likely deals with the fact that he dislikes the hurtful person he is, but has difficulty seeing why he should be better - all while he has a distaste for sadism, cruelty and senseless violence in others. In my opinion, a lot of his own cruelty is "reactive": he acts "evil" because he expects the same from others ("evil expects evil from others), and decides he wants to beat them to the punch. He is comforted when he is in the presence of altruistic and empathetic people, because he doesn't have to be what he dislikes (as "enemy" evil will always make him react since he is threatened). In the end, he rationally sees that cruelty is negative, but he still feels it is an effective tool. If Dazai weren't this way, he wouldn't consistently choose empathetic people for his company throughout the story, while acting callous himself most of the time.

A lot of things Dazai does to me feel like he is avoiding hurt, or attempting to "control the pain" he gets in his life. Notably, Dazai mostly lets himself get "bullied" by people he sees as innocent and simple like Kunikida, since "Kunikida will never surprise him" - he knows that Doppo won't cross the line. Ironically, he famously says he "dislikes physical pain", but often gets himself into physically dangerous scenarios.

It's like he doesn't mind pain if he's the one in control (when Fyodor let the sniper shoot him, when that dude from Mimic shot him point blank). Avoidance of pain and control are other keys to Dazai's character. In that sense, I think Dazai was possibly traumatized and learned to almost completely disassociate from empathy early in his life. There are so many theories I could think of here that we'd get nowhere.

It is clear that Dazai is capable of extreme emotional empathy due to his relationship with Oda, and it's possible he doesn't allow himself to feel it in most scenarios due to his avoidant nature regarding pain. However, whatever the reason behind it, it is clear he doesn't feel a ton of emotional empathy in his day-to-day life, and this disassociation from empathy has crafted him into a person who doesn't fully understand "normal humans".

That is why he sees them as fascinating after Oda dies - he reaches Dazai's heart and opens him up to the idea that not all people are unempathetic and cruel - meaning Dazai doesn't always have to be on guard. Does Dazai have ASPD, or is his lack of empathy a result of other things: PTSD, CPTSD, is he perhaps autistic? I can't say for sure, as it could be so many things. Personally, anyone could make an argument for any of these in my eyes. Above, I mostly analyzed his displays of empathy and tried to study which emotional patterns he appears to follow. I think Dazai's character arc has a lot of worth specifically because we see someone for whom emotional empathy may not be natural trying to be good. It's a unique ethical dilemma, and that's one of the reasons I feel in love with the series. Since it isn't natural for him, his efforts mean a lot, and the struggle feels real and genuine.

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far <3 I've taken a lot of posts and translations I've gathered over the years, and I am sure I won't be able to thank everyone, but, I'd like to show appreciation for popopretty, aja154ever and many others for sharing info from exhibitions, databooks and so. Have a nice day !

[aliensupastar]

i wouldn’t ask you

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Carmy Berzatto/GN!Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: You try to break your promise. Carmy won’t let you. Follow-up to “shouldn’t feel like a crime”

Part I Part II

Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, depiction of an eating disorder, food issues, heart-to hearts, arguments, swearing

A/N: once again, thank y'all so much for the love on parts one and two of this fic, it brings me so much joy!! also, im terribly sorry for how long it took to write this. school happened and i think it got away from me a little bit, i did a lot of rewrites, and it's shorter than i'd like it to be but it’s something i’m finally satisfied with, and i hope you guys enjoy it! to anyone who’s sent me asks, left comments or replies telling me they connected with this fic, i hope it continues to bring you comfort as it has for me. i can’t express to you enough how much all your responses have meant to me. this will be the last part for this lil series, but im grateful to anyone who’s read n supported it. title insp by "i wouldn’t ask you" by clairo, gif by riickgrimes <3

Logically, you know that healing — if that’s what you could call what you were trying to do — isn’t linear. You’ve heard it a thousand times, and on some level, you know it’s true. Knowing it doesn’t stop the shame you feel when you start skipping the train, opting instead to walk, or on shittier days, run to work. 

At first you thought you’d been able to escape the anxiety that came with eating anything you didn’t know the exact calorie count of, that you’d been able to eat Carmy’s spaghetti without complication. In retrospect, it had merely been delayed, the calm and warmth afforded to you by Carmy’s presence wearing off as soon as you’d gotten into bed that night; you’d laid awake for another hour, paralyzed by your own panic. 

The only solution you found fit was to force yourself into physical activity, making your travel to and from work ten times more miserable, waking up an hour and a half earlier than usual just to get to the restaurant on time and still have ten minutes to freshen up and change into your uniform. You at least managed to make the change in your routine go unnoticed, still looking presentable once it was time to open for service, or at least you thought so. 

“Did you run here?” Sydney asks one morning, spotting you right as you clocked in and rushed to your locker to pull out your uniform. 

“Uh, yeah, I did.” You’re a little too breathless to come up with an excuse, to properly deflect her concern and surprise. 

“Okay…” She watches as you shove your other belongings into the locker space haphazardly. “Does that, like, happen often, or-“

“No,” You say, too quickly, shaking your head. “Just, uh, don’t tell Carmy?” 

You look up at her, eyes pleading, hoping she accepts this one request without question, hoping she can disregard something just this one time. 

“Tell Carmy what?” Hearing your boss’s voice makes you jump in shock, as he comes around the corner and spots you, hair messy and sweat still dripping down your temple. 

Your skill for being unnoticeable is escaping you, that much is clear. You’re essentially caught red-handed, a deer in headlights, eyes bouncing between Sydney and Carmy as you struggle to come up with something, anything to respond with. But Sydney swoops in just seconds after you freeze, granting you mercy, this one time. 

“Tell you to mind your own business, chef,” She says, her tone light-hearted so that you know to force out a laugh, and Carmy takes it. He gives a half-smile and shakes his head, heading over to his prep station and as soon as he’s out of sight, you look back at Sydney. 

“Thank you,” You whisper as you head for the bathroom, uniform in hand, and she nods, still looking concerned but thankfully, dropping it. 

Carmy’s the one who won’t drop it. It stays on his mind all day, even after you’ve changed clothes and fixed your hair and erased any trace of the mess you looked that morning; every free moment he has, he spends thinking of you. 

He wants to believe that you’d simply missed your train. An innocent, easy mistake. But the way you avoid meeting his eyes during service hours, no matter how many times he tries to get your attention, or get you to just look at him and confirm that you’re okay, tells him it’s more than that. 

He rushes through closing duties that night, just to make sure he’s good to leave before you finish closing up the front with Richie. He waits, sits in his office chair pretending to be busy until he sees you heading for the lockers, ready to clock out, and then moves to lean as casually as possible against the doorway. 

“You want a ride home?” He asks, interrupting you as you pull clothes out from the locker; the clothes you were wearing this morning, he realizes, a sweatshirt and biker shorts. Like you expect to break a sweat on the way home, too. 

“Nope. Thank you, chef, I’m good.” You barely even look over at him as you say it, and Carmy has to stop himself from making a face, making his displeasure visible. 

“I really don’t mind,” He tries again, but you just close your locker door and shake your head, ready — and desperate — to change out of your uniform in the bathroom before it’s time to lock up. You put on what you hope is an easy smile, but it comes off tense.

“I’m okay, Carm, really. It’s not like it’s raining-“

“Chef,” He interrupts you, suddenly stern. “C’mon.” 

He nods his head motioning for you to follow him, and it’s clear from his tone that there will be no room to argue. 

You trail behind him while he locks up, and on the way out to his car, you can feel that frustration building up inside you again. The same resentment and irritation you felt in the hospital, when he wouldn’t take your bullshit excuses in the same way that nurse or your other coworkers would, it rises and rises till you’re gripping your backpack strap a little too tight and shutting the car door a little too hard. 

You’re grateful, at the very least, that he says nothing when tears start to spill out and down your face as he drives you home. 

You sit in silence for a minute when Carmy pulls into your building’s parking lot. You can’t bring yourself to leave at first, part of you still craving to savor his presence for as long as you can, even if the other part of you is too angry to even look at him. 

“You wanna talk?” He asks quietly. 

“Nope.” His question is enough to set you off, pushing the car door open and furiously wiping away your tears as you haul yourself out. 

Logically, Carmy knows it might be best to leave you alone for tonight. Let you calm down and attempt reconciliation tomorrow morning. Knowing it doesn’t stop the feeling that he can’t just leave you alone, and let you walk away upset. 

“Hey,” He calls out, opening his own door and moving to follow you. “C’mon-“

“Fuck you, Carmen.” You spit out. 

He’s undeterred, even if you don’t turn back to face him once, refusing to acknowledge him tailing you the entire way up to your apartment. 

You don’t tell him to leave you alone, to stop following you, to fuck off. You don’t even slam your front door in his face like he half-expects you to. Instead it hangs open as you storm into your living room, a silent invitation. An invitation Carmy doesn’t hesitate to accept, stepping through your door and carefully closing it behind him. 

He’s still wracking his brain on what to say, clueless on how to stop the tears flowing down your face as you toss your backpack down and meekly lower yourself to sit on the floor between your couch and the coffee table, knees pulled into your chest. 

“Will you just fuckin’ talk to me?” He finds himself pleading with you again after a minute, but his helplessness in the face of your distress makes his words come out callous, and you just scoff. 

“Don’t be a dickhead, Carmy.”

“I’m a dickhead? I-I’m the dickhead, for giving a fuck?” You lift your head to glare at him, and you can see that he wants to match your anger; all the tell-tale signs of an upcoming screaming match appearing in his features, scrunching up his face as he repeats your words back to you, and you know you’re not being fair. You promised him you’d let him in, allow him to help stop you from going off the deep end again, and yet you’re the one resisting him. You wish he’d let the frustration on his face overtake him, walk out your door and leave you alone with your mind. 

He doesn’t, no matter how much you will him to. His eyes meet your own, filled with misplaced ire, and all he does is lean his head back and sigh, running a hand over his face and forcing himself to curtail the urge to give in to your bait. 

“You don’t wanna talk, I’ll talk,” He starts tentatively, before saying maybe the last thing you’d expect: “I’m sorry.” 

Your narrowed eyes widen, the contempt in them turning to pure shock, but he barely notices. 

“I didn’t mean to- if I went too far, the other day, with the spaghetti. I didn’t mean to set you off like that. I’m sorry.” The absolute sincerity in his voice as he apologizes for something you know isn’t on him — it’s too much. 

You’d love to pass the blame off on somebody else. If you could find a single other person to hold accountable for causing the near-constant state of discomfort that you’ve been stuck in for weeks, the distress of living in your own body, you think you’d jump at the chance. But you can’t bring yourself to do it to the one person who’s offered to take the fault away from you, because even now, after you’ve lashed out at him, he’s deliberately gentle with you. 

You can see Carmy is ready to move towards your front door, you’ve sat here for too long without giving him a response, weeping silently. And maybe that would be the right thing to do after breaking your promise, letting him worry over you till he thinks he’s the one who owes you an apology. But selfishly, you reach up and grasp his arm before he can even turn to leave, gently tugging him down to sit with you, and he lets you. 

“I’m sorry,” You start once he’s settled next to you, your voice still thick with tears. “I know what we talked about in the hospital. I haven’t been- I fucked all that up, I know, I’m sorry.” He’s shaking his head, looking like he wants to refute you, but you continue on.

“I just… I’m so fucking scared,” You nearly choke on your words, but it’s a relief to get them out, and suddenly you can’t stop the rest from spilling from your mouth. “I’m scared of getting better. I can’t stand the thought of it, I don’t even- I don’t know what I’d be for, if I wasn’t like this all the time. And it’s fucking embarrassing. That’s all I feel, all the time, just- constant fear, and shame. I can’t fucking stop myself.” 

You take a pause, doing your best to breathe deep and avoid Carmy’s intent gaze, so you don’t lose your nerve.

“We were good, for a bit, and I wasn’t so… out of control. But then I fucked it, and I-I couldn’t just, tell you. Felt like, for once there was someone who understood, and I just wanted to keep the rest of it out of sight, I guess.” 

It’s the most you’ve expressed to anyone about this. You think maybe you’ve gone too far, that maybe now you’ll have alienated the one person you’ve been honest with in years. But when you finally look up at Carmy, he’s nodding thoughtfully, no trace of judgment or pity in his expression. 

“I don’t.” He says carefully. “I don’t really understand. I-I don’t think I could, uh-” He pauses, clasping one hand over the other tightly, like it pains him to force his words out, too. “I guess, growin’ up, food was basically a love language. It was how I bonded with Mikey, it’s why I wanted to do this job in the first place. So, to avoid food… I don’t think I can imagine what that’s like.” 

All you can do is nod. You shouldn’t have made him listen to you vent your emotions, you should’ve let him walk out your door-

“But, I’d like to try. If that’s what you want.” He says, interrupting your spiral. “I just need to know you’re safe. Shutting me out like this – it’s bullshit. I’m not gonna just- stop caring. Even if it’s ugly. Just don’t shut me out.” 

His earnestness practically shoots you in the chest, filling you with that warm, familiar feeling that usually comes with his presence. You want to push against it, you haven’t earned it back, it’s too damn much.

“Even if I… end up in the hospital again?” You say, trying to keep your tone light, but you can’t keep the pleading out of your voice. 

“I’d drive you to the hospital a hundred times.” Carmy replies, completely genuine, and now you can’t push back against the urge to throw your arms around him, burying your face in his chest. 

You don’t know how long you sit there, on the hard floors of your living room, arms tight around each other, breathing together. All you know is that you don’t want him to leave; he makes no move to go. 

a few people asked to be tagged on this part, so here you go! @rexorangecouny @moonlight-sonata99 @kpopgirlbtssvt

[moonstruckme]

Hi! I am absolutely in love with your writing! The way you portray our boys is just *chefs kiss*

Anywho, I was wondering if I could request poly!marauders x plus size reader? Maybe she is very confident until somebody picks on her and she starts becoming obsessed with dieting and stuff. (I'm struggling a lot with that rn) just a bunch of worry and comfort from our boys.

If you don't feel comfortable writing this or just the prompt I gave it's okay. Ily!♡

Hi, thanks for requesting my love! I'm really sorry you're struggling right now, I know how hard it can be and hope you're doing your best to take good care of yourself. You're beautiful just as you are <33

cw: size insecurity, behavior that hints at disordered eating

poly!marauders x plus size!reader ♡ 1.2k words

The worst part is, you know they weren’t even really trying to insult you. 

You smiled as best you could, said your thanks politely, and moved on. Moved on outwardly, that is. Inside, the words play over and over in your head, like a song on the radio that gets worse each time you listen to it. It wasn’t that they were vicious, or particularly clever, or even wrong. It’s just, you’re not used to people commenting on your body like that. 

You know you’re not skinny. So does everyone else. Neither of you typically feel the need to confer about it. Every now and again, some cruel busybody will say something, but that’s fairly easy to brush off. They’re insecure about their own looks, they have nothing better to do than fixate on strangers’ appearances, they’ve probably been on diet pills since they were twelve. You wish them well and mostly forget about it. But what’s worse is when someone comes to you with good intentions. The idea of being perceived as pitiful or wrong—really, having your physical form perceived at all—by someone who seems to want the best for you is what really hurts. That’s what makes you want to hide, to shrink yourself down until they can’t see you anymore. To become the invisible status quo. 

It’s why, over the last few days, anything skintight or remotely showy has been relegated to the back of your closet in favor of things that hide your figure. Why you’ve stopped drawing attention to yourself with colorful makeup and instead started focusing on your health. Well, your health as it presents itself externally. 

“Anyone else fancy a dessert?” Sirius muses as you sit reading on the couch, Remus reading the next book in the series beside you. 

“Um, no,” James says, holding up a hand of cards from the game he and Sirius have been playing, “you only want to go so you don’t have to stick around and lose.” 

“Whatever my other, subconscious motives may be,” Sirius says guilelessly, “I really feel like something chocolate. Don’t you, Moons?”

That’s always a safe bet. Remus looks up from his book, intrigued. “I could go for some chocolate.” 

Sirius grins. “What about you, gorgeous?”

That’s usually a safe bet too. But you shouldn’t. “Thanks, but I’m still full from dinner.” 

Sirius looks cheated, and Remus cocks his head at you. “Really? Didn’t seem like you ate much.” He’s not wrong. Remus had made the most incredible feta pasta, it was borderline heartbreaking to leave any on your plate. But you’re trying to practice restraint, and thankfully, James had happily taken care of your leftovers for you. “Did you have a late lunch or something?”

“Mhm.” 

James looks up, eyebrows furrow bemusedly behind his glasses. “No you didn’t, angel. You said you didn’t feel like lunch after we had breakfast together, remember?”

“Oh.” You nod. So what? You’d had a late breakfast, and a decently sized dinner, and why do you really need more than two meals anyway? Who made that rule? You’re a bit hungry, but your body just needs time to adjust to your new routine. It’s used to overindulging. And nothing about today means you deserve dessert. “Right.” 

Sirius wraps his fingers delicately around your ankle, smoothing a path up your shin with his palm. “Darling,” he says, and he looks distracted as he runs his fingers over the old scars on your knee, but you know him well enough to recognize when he’s keyed in, “did you eat anything today, other than breakfast and that little bit of dinner? Any snacks or anything?” 

You can’t help the little rush of pride that goes through you. “No.” 

Sirius doesn’t look proud. In fact, he’s frowning, as are Remus and James. You change tactics. “I’m not really hungry, though.” 

“No?” Sirius' voice is unsettlingly gentle. “Why don’t you want to have dessert tonight, pretty girl?”

“Because,” you say, beginning to feel defensive (though you’re not sure of what), “I don’t need it.” 

“It’s not about need, though,” James says, and why is it beginning to feel like you’re in an argument? “It’s about what you want. Do you want a little something sweet?”

“I…” Yes. The answer is yes, but do you want it more than you want to feel good about yourself? “I think what I want more is to prove to myself that I can go without it.” 

Remus’ scars shift as his face scrunches in concern. “Dove,” he says, and you can’t decide if his tone is more reprimand or pity. You don’t like either option. “Where is this coming from?” 

“I’m just…I’m trying something new,” you decide. “I want to lose a little weight, okay? Nothing crazy.” 

“But why?” James sets down his cards, looking completely befuddled. “Angel, you’re gorgeous. You can do whatever you want, but we love you just like you are.” 

“And,” Sirius adds before you can reply, “we love you most when you’re happy. I sort of thought,” he says, lowering his voice like he’s telling you a secret, “that our late-night treat runs made you happy. No?”

“They do.” You pull your legs up onto the couch, away from Sirius’ touch. “I just…I think it would make me happy to be a more normal size, too.” 

Remus looks gutted. “Honey, you…it’s your body, and you should do whatever feels right for you to be healthy, but…we love you like this,” he insists, ardent. “You’re beautiful, I mean it, and I hate the idea that you might want to change for…well, for anyone other than yourself.” 

You hesitate. You’re not actually sure who you’re doing this for. When had you become one of the people who want for you to be smaller so desperately? “You seriously don’t think I would look better if I were thinner?” You’ve never been one to put much stock into what any men think of your appearance, so you feel silly for asking, but you’re in a vulnerable state. And really, don’t all guys want a girl that looks like the love interests in the movies you all grew up with? 

James looks you in the eye, letting you see the earnestness in his as he says, “You’re absolutely lovely, right here, right now. We wouldn’t change a thing.” 

Your answering smile is oddly watery. Remus makes an awfully lovely cooing sound, leaning over to wrap an arm around your waist and paying no mind to the chub there as he pulls you into his side. “Don’t be upset, darling. You know what I bet will cheer you up?” He smiles as you look up at him questioningly, kissing between your brows. “Some chocolate. How would you feel about that?”

You let out a quiet little laugh. “Pretty good.” 

“Yes!” Sirius pumps his fist in the air, already abandoning his cards and standing up. “I knew you’d come through, gorgeous. Now I think the more pressing question is, do we want chocolate pastries or chocolate ice cream?”

“Ice cream, obviously,” James says. “Before it gets so cold out we don’t feel like it.” 

“Not all of us suffer from weather constraints,” Sirius argues. “I vote pastry.” 

“Why would you bring ice cream up if you didn’t want it? Think long and hard, Pads. Are you going to feel like a frozen dessert when you need three layers to go outside in a few weeks?”

Remus rolls his eyes at you as you follow them out the door, letting your boys continue their bickering all the way to the store.

[scientia-rex]

Hi Dr. Kristophine, do you have any advice on what kind of information doctors need for medical issues that are more nebulous than "my knees hurt"? I've been feeling Weird and Bad in a way that has me concerned, but I'm afraid to make an appointment because I don't know what to say that will get the Weird and Bad feeling across in an actionable way. Going to the doctor takes SO much energy that I don't have to waste and I don't want them to just take a blood test and say everything's fine go home (again).

The best thing you can do with medical information you're trying to prepare for your medical provider, as a lay person, is be as specific as possible.

-Location: Is it one place in particular, or everywhere? Does it stay in one place, or move around?

-Timing: When did it start? Did it come on suddenly or slowly? Does it happen continuously? Does it come and go? Is it always there to some extent, but it gets better and worse? On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being fine and 10 being the worst you can imagine, how bad is it at its best, and how bad is it at its worst? How much time does it spend really bad vs only kind of bad?

-Quality: If it's pain, is it aching, burning, stabbing, dull, electrical zap, etc.? If it's not pain, what is it? Is it discomfort? Is it weakness--i.e., you can't do that thing? Is it fatigue--like maybe you can still push through doing the thing but it feels like you're trying to wade through mud to do it? Is it a racing heart, sweating, pressure?

-Triggers: Does something in particular set it off? A time of day, a food, an action, a medication, a thought? A surprisingly common trigger for migraines is sitting still with your neck in one position. (New research suggests that necks are critical to migraine formation, to which I yelled out loud at the paper, no duh!) There may be triggers you haven't noticed; try keeping a symptom diary, where you note down when you have episodes and what you were doing beforehand, what you ate that day, menstrual phase, etc. Any detail that you can remember, whether or not it seems relevant at the time.

I cannot tell you how many times I've dug deeper into a chronic issue only to discover that the patient can, in fact, tell me what the trigger is, but because it's something important to them, they simply haven't noticed. May subconsciously even avoided noticing. Do you get migraines every time you DM? Do you need to work a stretch break into your D&D session?

There can also absolutely be multiple triggers--I know I'll get migraines if I don't sleep, if I'm sick, if I sit still for too long, if I have dental work, etc.

So bring in all the info you can. Write it down if you're afraid you'll forget. Don't hand it to the MA, too many doctors will go "oh my GOD they brought a LIST how high-maintenance" and tune out. Hang on to it but tell them about everything.

I don't expect patients to be able to tell me "I believe I've had a left radial styloid fracture" but I do expect them to tell me "I fell and tried to catch myself with my left hand and now my wrist hurts," and that's good enough. The rest of it is my job. When it's something more vague, like "I started feeling different and bad about six months ago," any other information helps. Did you start a new med around then? Are you going through menopause? Do you struggle with anxiety? Do you have first-degree relatives (parent, sibling, or child) with genetic disorders, autoimmune disorders, etc.? Do you have a history of anemia? Are you vegan? Have you started having night sweats and unexplained weight loss? Did you recently travel internationally? This can go a lot more different directions than a hurty wrist, so bring in all the info you can.

And keep in mind that modern medicine is very limited--much more so than most people think. There is an excellent chance that medicine will not be able to diagnose your condition. It may still be able to offer treatment. It may fall on your shoulders to manage it as best you can, knowing that doctors don't have answers. Nobody can tell me why I have chronic pain, and I don't mean as in "I've asked doctors and they don't know," I mean "I've personally scoured the literature and had the relevant and appropriate tests and no one can know at this phase of medical knowledge." So I deal with it, I've stopped trying to push myself past my reserves because people who can't admit to ignorance tell me to, I keep my painful body moving because that helps, I do PT, I take a multivitamin occasionally because I know my diet sucks. I manage.

There are not always right or wrong answers--I don't take gabapentin, because I don't want the sedation and kidney exposure, but patients with my exact symptoms might find it helpful and may find the risks and costs worth the benefits. My mother, who has whatever it is that I have, right down to the tricky stomach, from whom I presumably inherited it, has taken medication at different points in her life, depending on how much pain she was in and what other responsibilities she has, and that is perfectly reasonable. Autonomy matters. People have to be able to make these choices for themselves, with assistance but not paternalism from their medical professionals, because the math is different for everyone.