#I'm having a fucker of a day so hopefully this isn't complete shit

[drdemonprince]

autistic anon here again, thanks for fielding my question, you're a real one for not all toxic positivity on it. i guess i should've formulated things better, because i didn't mean to imply being completely wrapped up in decision paralysis to the point of doing nothing. that's a mental hurdle i've cleared a long time ago, so shit gets done. i have a few emails sitting in my inbox of fundraisers i helped with that closed out, and it;s making me emotional just thinking about it.

there's a weird disconnect between knowing that you're just one person (and that's something i actually like, i'm no-one special, that's a very freeing thought), and fully feeling it. because somewhere there's always a nagging worry i could do more. as true as it is, reminding yourself you're doing what you can feels like a convenient self-soothing lie when you're in the pit of a bad night. probably the calvinist whispering poisons in your ear. (being afraid of falling in the trap of slacktivism or just reposting everything as a signal boost and patting myself on the back for a job well done, amongst them. which is BS, but knowing isn't believing.)

i mentioned the autistic part for a reason, because community is something i've never quite experienced and only understand in the abstract. like those fundraisers i helped with many, many other people, that's a community effort and i'm proud i could contribute my little bit. translating that to in-person efforts has been a big ??? though. it's not very parseable or approachable to me.

i hadn't quite grokked this as all being part of shame, i have your book sitting here and have read it a while, probably should reread it.

Hey, thanks for writing back! I hear from people of all levels of engagement, from having never done anything to like dedicated black bloc hard core mother fuckers so it's hard to gauge from a single message what someone's particular situation is.

It sounds like you are already doing a ton, choosing actions to take, following through on them, reflecting on the impact of your tactics, and then regrouping to do more and to try things differently where you can. Yet you still feel like shit sometimes and as if you're not doing enough. What to do about those feelings?

Well. Consider those feelings aren't a problem you have to fix. They're just a thing that will happen. Because of cultural conditioning and endless exposure to alarming messages and imagery online they're just gonna come up. Those feelings can just exist while you keep doing the damn thing.

You've already got your behavior on lock. You're doing what you can and not succumbing to choice paralysis. You're hopefully not burning yourself out. It doesn't sound like anything needs to change, maybe other than you not consuming too much online bullshit that's making you feel even more guilty needlessly.

You say: "there's a weird disconnect between knowing that you're just one person (and that's something i actually like, i'm no-one special, that's a very freeing thought), and fully feeling it."

Yeah, you might not ever fully feel it. As long as you keep acting like it's true, you're good imo.

i feel like the most evil selfish unlovable human being alive most days. it doesn't really matter that i do. it sucks, but that's just a fact of how my life has been. i can keep picking myself up and doing what i have decided is right for me to do anyway. i do what i can to avoid triggers that make that feeling worse, so that it doesn't become a barrier to action, but otherwise i just... keep on living, with terrible emotions and terrible thoughts. and i focus on my actions.

As for the community piece, I hear you, it's really fucking hard. I think it's very humbling work that is so worth doing though. Often it involves showing up to the work that a group is doing and living with the fact that you won't know what the fuck is going on and looking inept for a while. it's a necessary distress tolerance building exercise, getting more comfortable with just being there and rearranging the chairs and setting up the food and feeling like a dumbass who has nothing to contribute.

being able to sit with those feelings and keep showing up and not having an ego about it is enough to earn a lot of trust and foster deeper connections, I find. so many people fail to be able to even do that in most organizing/activist/volunteering spaces. I understand it feels mortifying but it is another one of those situations of getting over oneself in a way that's ultimately so freeing and beautiful. when you can accept that people want you around even if you never have anything to say and do nothing but bring paper cups and take out the trash. it's a real object lesson in how not being all that important can be a wonderful thing and make it possible for us to find love and acceptance.

[inkandblade]

04: Glamor

Stiles stepped back out of the waiter’s way and slipped behind one of the standing tables lined up close to the wall of the club. It wasn’t much darker than the rest of the place, but it would keep him hidden. The amulet was powerful enough to deflect attention and give the impression of someone who looked very different to him. It wasn’t enough to make him look like another person completely if he was focused on. It would do. Derek wouldn’t be expecting to see him, so he wouldn’t be looking. If Derek caught sight of the tanned, blond man nursing a beer in the corner, he wouldn’t look twice.

Derek didn’t seem to pay much attention to blonds, though he did like watching men.

There’d been nine weekends where Derek had waved all the other Pack members off for their not-work activities and told them he’d be going camping. Stiles had never been one to take a statement at face value, though, and it hadn’t taken much for him to doubt Derek’s story.

The first weekend of the summer was the wettest, and Derek’s four-wheel-drive had definitely not been on any kind of muddy trail in that time. It hadn’t been washed since the Friday either, as four-year-old Michaela McCall’s slushie accident was still evident on the Toyota’s rear bumper. Stiles had let himself ignore it, however, figuring that Derek had been using the phrase ‘camping’ to just mean ‘getting away from you lot for a while’. Stiles would begrudge no one their mental-health breaks, especially when the whole Pack was back in town for the first time in years. Derek had probably gotten used to more solitude than they were giving him.

When the second weekend came around and Stiles found himself helping Boyd load Derek’s tent and things into the back of the car, though, well. He knew he shouldn’t pry, but he’d done it anyway. Derek’s duffel definitely did not contain the kinds of things one wore while communing with the great outdoors. A quick glimpse had uncovered Alexander McQueen and Comme des Garçons labels. Stiles hadn’t really grown out of jeans and t-shirts himself, but he’d had a couple of things with guys over the last few years who’d worn labels like that. Definitely not for the great outdoors.

The third weekend Stiles had made sure he’d followed far enough behind that Derek didn’t notice he was being tailed all the way into San Francisco. Tonight was Stiles’ seventh time following Derek, his fifth where he’d done more than just get a vague idea of where Derek was hanging out. He had a room in the same hotel. He needed to make sure Derek was okay.

Stiles told himself he was doing this for the Pack. He wasn’t exactly a full witch, but he could wield ash and create warding runes and power things like the amulet he had in his pocket. There hadn’t been any big-bads for a while, and he was making sure he was still in practice. That, and, fancy clothes meant Derek was getting dressed up. Dressing up meant going out or trying to impress someone, or both. Derek’s track record with relationships was even worse than Stiles’ though. And while Stiles always ended up with bad-boys that proved just why they were called that very quickly, Derek’s romantic failures had ended in flames, blood, and gunfire. Stiles was spying on Derek for his own good. And for the good of the Pack, of course.

Derek wasn’t coming into the city to meet a certain person, though. He wasn’t meeting anyone in particular, or at all. Stiles had watched him leave six different bars and go back to six different hotel rooms all alone. He’d drink a little, flirt a little, and a few times he’d even danced a while. Derek never said yes to what were, even from a distance and out of hearing range, obviously propositions. He favored lean, but muscular men. He preferred them a little taller than himself, a little younger but not too much. He all but ignored blonds and seemed to like it more if a guy had dark eyes. He danced with men off all colors, but would step closer to those with skin paler than his own librarian-like pallor.

Derek was talking to one now, leaning in close and smiling, but never once flashing the blue of his wolf eyes or flaring his nostrils. Stiles had wondered just how Derek’s wolf senses could take the noise and the smells and the constant contact with others, but he didn’t seem to notice them. The guy Derek was with was tall and lean and wearing very sexy glasses. He leaned back and laughed, stretching his neck in what would have been a blatant fuck-me-now statement if the guy knew he was talking to a wolf. Derek laughed back.

Stiles had to hear. He didn’t know what Derek was looking for in the crowds, but just watching was probably not going to get him any information he hadn’t already collected. He moved closer. He nodded and handed over cash as he was offered an overpriced and over fancy bottle of beer from an ice bucket carried between two burly waiters. One of them winked at him, and Stiles played the game and licked his lips back at the guy, then ducked to the side so the guy wouldn’t focus on him too much. It would be hard to explain how he’d morphed from surfer-dude to clean-cut, soon-to-be teacher to someone who wasn’t supernatural. It would be harder to explain if the guy was supernatural and Stiles was somehow violating some kind of Pack or Pod or Coven boundary line by being here.

The bucket of beer moving across the room made it easier for Stiles to end up a lot closer to Derek and his bespectacled friend. It took another ten or fifteen minutes before they were within listening range, but Stiles got there without finishing, or spilling, his beer.

“It’s a tempting offer, Spencer, believe me, but I’m not here to find a date or playmate or anything else.”

The guy, Spencer, ran his eyes up and down Derek’s face, then over his chest and down further before finally looking back up. His smile was real. “What’s his name, and how is not having fun with someone else going to help you get over him? Like I said, I’ve seen you a couple of times in the last week or two, and every time you’ve been dressed like you are out to score, hard.”

Stiles couldn’t tell in the club lights, but he’d bet a dozen cover-charges to this joint that Derek was blushing.

“He’s, he’s special, and I don’t really want to get over him. He’s just come back home after being away at college and I need to give him space.” Derek glanced out over the dance floor and gestured at the throng of men. “Clubs are a,” he searched for the word, “pungent distraction.”

Just back from college? Stiles’ heart flipped. It could be anyone from his high school class that had done a Master’s degree. It could be anyone a year or two younger who’d done a four-year stint.

Spencer just smiled a little wider. “I can understand saving yourself for a guy, I was there once myself. But how much space are you going to give him? None of us deserve to wait forever for something that might not happen.”

Derek had mellowed, a lot, in the last year or two, but it was hard to imagine him having this kind of discussion with someone inside the Pack. Unburdening to a stranger had its own appeals, certainly, and Derek was apparently happy to share.

“He’ll be starting a new job soon. He doesn’t need any other stress on top of that.”

Spencer nodded. “And what if he makes a move first? There has to be some kind of something between you or you wouldn’t be waiting at all. If he waltzed up to you right here, right now, would you let him make his own decision on whether he could take that stress? Would you kiss him back?”

Derek’s face went blank a moment, and then Stiles watched his chest rise and fall. “I might fall off my chair, but yeah, I’d let him make that call. And I’d kiss him back.” He turned and looked over the dance floor again. “I’d kiss him for days.”

Spencer looked up, straight at Stiles. The guy’s eyes filled to black, glowed silver for a few moments and then went back to dark brown and human looking again. Shit. Spencer spoke again, but it was in Stiles’ head.

Well, come and get him then, Spark. I can see your brain trying to figure me out, but don’t bother. I’m somewhere between what you call a vampire and an incubus. I feed on groups like the crowd in here, not single people. Derek here was just an interesting conversation while dinner went on around me.

Stiles blinked and, huh. He’d be looking it up anyway, but okay.

Come, turn off that trinket you have in your pocket and do what you want to do. The bond between you is already strong. Seal it with that kiss he just offered and feel how much stronger it becomes. I won’t enjoy it as much as you two will, but it will be a fine end to my meal.

Stiles reached down and touched the amulet and then let it drop back into his jeans’ pocket. Spencer, the whatever-he-was, smiled wider than looked quite natural, and stepped back. Derek turned back at the movement and then snapped his head around, nostrils flaring.

“Stiles?”

“Hey, big guy.”

♠

Glamor: [n] the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, especially by a combination of charm and good looks;  magic or enchantment; spell; witchery

July CampNaNoWrimo - my prompt table and ‘rules’ are here.

[elusive---ivory]

Little Clown pt 1

Yes, yes, yes oh, boy. Here we are!! The Sequel to TWIV. It took me a while to finish this first part, hopefully y'all enjoy it 💖💖

PAIRING: Arthur Fleck x Oc/Joker x Oc

WARNING: Unrequited Love, Child Endangerment

Part 1

Taglist:

@gloomyladyy @princessgeekface @memory-mortis (ps I apologize if I left some people out. Just message me again if I forgot)

"Mommy, I don't want a clown at my birthday party." A little girl said, troubled.

"I know, sweetheart, but clowns aren't so scary. Could you please try for me?" Her mother said, holding her hand.

It was 1993 in Gotham City. It had been 12 years since the incarceration of The Joker. Chaos was still rapid in Gotham, but the police didn't seem to care.

Sandy Fleck was one of Gotham's notorious villains, who rose to the top in popularity. Half her popularity came from followers of The Joker, hoping to seek guidance from her. The other half came from the angry mob of Gotham City, who were still hurt by the damage. For those who knew her on the streets, She was known as Dolly. She had the city tight around her finger. The only thing she was missing was Arthur.

Her daughter looked up at her. "I'm not afraid of clowns, Mommy. I just don't like them. The news doesn't like them, so why should I?" The little girl frowned. Her green emerald eyes were staring into Sandy.

"Ruthie, not everything on the news is trustworthy. Besides, I'm pretty sure your will love it." Sandy said.

"What friends, Mommy?" Ruth replied, monotonous.

Ruth Quinn Fleck wasn't like most kids her age. She was very smart, but not so sociable young girl. From the age of 5, Ruth was diagnosed by a medical professional that she had Asperger's Syndrome. Her doctors were still confused about Ruth's behavior, hoping that maybe by the time she was 8, Ruth could grow out of it. Ruth was nearing the age of 10, with her birthday being a couple days away.

The two crossed the crowded street. Ruth held onto her mother closely, as they walked into their small, yet, comfortable apartment complex.

Sandy didn't move from the old apartment complex. After all that happened, she decided that the best place for her little girl was the complex. Sure, it was an awful complex, but there was something about it that felt so warm and familiar.

As they walked up to their apartment, Sandy walked past a certain apartment door, flooding memories of someone she missed.

Sandy unlocked her apartment door, placing the groceries on the kitchen counter.

Ruth took a small juice box from the fridge, and darted for the living room. Ruth turned the TV on, and switched it to the news.

Sandy giggled to herself. "Why do you only watch the news?"

"I dunno. I like the news. It's interesting." Ruth sipped on her juice box.

Sandy smiled, washing her hands in the kitchen sink and preparing dinner.

"Twelve years ago to this day, Thomas Wayne was killed outside the Monarch Theater. In remembrance of him, we've gathered here at the theater with the young Bruce Wayne, Boy Billionaire over night."

Sandy rolled her eyes. "Ruthie, don't watch this crap. All they talk about is Bruce Wayne."

"Not all the time. They also talk about Joker." Ruth replied.

Dishes clanked in the sink, causing Sandy to break a mug, cutting her finger.

"Ruth. We don't talk about Joker, okay?" Sandy said through her teeth.

"Why not?" Ruth inquired.

"Because," Sandy rose her voice, then closed her eyes before calming down. "Because, I said so." Sandy spoke softly.

Ruth looked down at the floor. "I didn't mean to upset you, Mommy."

Sandy rubbed her temples in frustration. "I know, baby. I know."

The telephone rang on the kitchen counter. Sandy rushed over to get it.

"Hello?" Sandy answered.

"Hey, Dolly. We got ourselves another client. Do ya think you can meet us downtown at 5 o'clock?" A gruff voice said over the phone.

"I'll see, Rudy. Where is the meeting at?" Sandy turned towards her daughter, who was focused on the TV.

"Roxy's Cabaret. Our client also said he wanted to met Joker in person." Rudy explained.

"Well, he's gonna be surprised. Joker is still incarcerated, remember?" Sandy replied.

"Dolly, my hands are tied here. It was the only fib I could use to get him to see us. Anyway, do you wanna take the job or not?" Rudy said, impatiently.

"You haven't even told me the job, yet." Sandy scoffed.

"Look, I don't got time for this, Dolly. Just be here by 5 o'clock." Rudy hung up the phone.

"Who does that lowlife fucker think he is?" Sandy grumbled to herself.

As it was nearing 5, Sandy did her makeup in a small vanity mirror.

"Mommy, do you really have to go?" Ruth said, standing in the doorway of her mother's bedroom.

Sandy sighed, putting on a strapless dress. "Yes, sweetheart."

Ruth looked up at her mother, disappointed, but her lack of emotion on her face couldn't show it.

"Sugar, I know you're upset, but I swear I'll be home by 11. Please don't do what you did with the last babysitter." Sandy finished the rest of her clown like makeup.

Ruth still kept her disappointed eyes on Sandy.

She heard a knock on the door. "Could you get that, sweetheart?"

Ruth huffed nodding.

A tall blonde woman in her twenties appeared that the door. "Hiya! Is ya mommy home?" The woman smiled, cheerfully.

Ruth glared and nodded.

"Well, aren't ya gonna invite me in?" The woman asked.

"I don't like you." Ruth said, still glaring at the woman.

The women's cheerful demeanor disappeared completely. "Maybe I don't like you either."

Sandy headed towards the door. "Hi. Thank you so much for coming. I was worried that I was going to have to leave her alone." She sighed in relief.

The woman brought up her false happy demeanor again. "No problem. I'm Harley. Very nice to meet ya."

"Sandy. It's a pleasure. Emergency contacts are on the fridge. She needs to be in bed before 8." Sandy kneeled down to Ruth's level. "Promise me, you'll be good."

"I promise, Mommy." Ruth kissed her mother on her forehead.

"I love you. I'll be back." Sandy walked out the door, putting on her coat, heading to the elevator.

Ruth turned on the TV, turning up the news.

"Does ya mother always looks like a circus act or does she have some type of gig?" Harley asked, rummaging through the fridge.

Ruth didn't answer her eyes were glued to the TV.

"Breaking news: Just a few minutes ago all of Arkham's electricity turned off, then back on again, but 10 inmates were reported escaped from the facility, including the most infamous clown, Joker. One female inmate was also released from the scene, most known as Harleen Quinzel. The police have speculated that the two were working together, and helped each other escape. In further new-" Harley unplugged the TV.

Ruth looked up at her, confused.

"That's enough of that. You're mommy's gonna be quite surprised when she gets here. Mr J has been dying to see her again. It's a shame that she's had you, isn't it? Mr. J isn't gonna be so thrilled to see you up and about." Harley sneered.

Ruth turned towards her. "I hate you. You're mean."

Harley stuck her tongue out. "That makes two of us. Now, Mr. J told me to call him once I got her and I said I would so, beat it."

Ruth grabbed Harley by waist and tackled her to the ground.

"Get the hell off me, twerp." Harley yelled, throwing Ruth around.

Harley threw Ruth to the ground. "Now, listen here, you little shit. I told Joker I wouldn't hurt you, but I'm sure he'll make an exception." Harley pulled a small dagger out of her pocket. She hovered over Ruth, about to lay the knife on her.

A man in a red suit and clown makeup walked through the door. He pulled Harley off of Ruth.

"Mr. J, I'm sorry. She wasn't cooperating with me, so I did what I had to do." Harley said, feigning her innocence.

The man glared at her. "Leave, Harley."

"What?" Harley spoke quietly.

"I said, Leave. I don't need you anymore. I found what I've been looking for." The man said, looking over at the little girl who had no expression on her face.

"But, Mr. J, I thought we-" Harley was cut off by a laugh.

"We what? What did you possibly think we were? I told you our deal was simple. I helped you out of Arkham, then you were to help me find Sandy. You helped me, and I helped you. I've had enough of your services." The man turned over to Ruth.

Harley glared at Joker, then bolted out of the apartment.

Ruth got up and looked up at the man. "You're the Joker, aren't you?"

The man chuckled. "I wasn't always called Joker. My real name is Arthur."

"My name is Ruth." Her emerald eyes were the same as Arthur's as they stared at each other.

"That's a nice name. Who's your dad?" Arthur asked, kneeling down to her level.

"I never had a daddy. My mommy says that my daddy was a kind man, until he changed." Ruth looked away from him.

Arthur frowned. "I understand how you feel. I never knew my dad. My mother lied to me for all my life. Your mother taught me things I could never forget. Where is your mother now?"

"She's at work." Ruth yawned, rubbing her eyes.

Arthur smiled slightly. "Someone's tired." He picked Ruth up in his arms, and carried her to her bedroom.

"I like you, Joker, unlike the news." Ruth said, half asleep.

Arthur smiled, placing the small girl in her bed.