#anyway he's NOT lazy he's just clinically depressed

[realest-nilou-kinnie]

and while i'm on the subject, Leona is actually NOT lazy or arrogant or selfish at all but some of yall are not ready for that conversation lol

[geniusteamofficial]

GENIUS TEAM NEWS #002

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Hello @everyone, It's GeniusTeam!

We are presenting you the concept of our character!

- Name: Sunny Skellington Age: 21 Height: 5,3ft AU: The Aftermath (Unannounced; Ereizerteam) -

Sprites by @ereizer_star

Hello people, it's Sunny! - Hi! My name is Sunny, Skellington. Age 21. I'm the sister of Jay, Darkie, Drowsy and Distie! He-he, I'm really proud of my little brother, he is a big hero!… Ahem, anyways.. About me, huh? Well, I'm just a girl who wants to get her boy. I'm the volunteer in veterinary clinic, a doctor. I'm trying to draw my own artworks but meh… I don't think I can earn much from this. I love running and always take my doggie on a walk. Hah, I can't even stand on the ground when he starts runnin'! Yes Sparky? Oww, you're big, big noisy bone doggie, aww… Don't be scared, he doesn't bite, well… Until I'll say.)

Why the skeleton girl? - Agh, are you kidding? What you haven't seen before? You don't like my breasts, my breech or you just don't like I'm actually a sightly skeleton girl and I'm looking like Sans? What are you lookin' at now?! The fact that I'm a skeleton does not mean that I can't be just a beautiful girl! What?.. cringe?.. Screw you! What a lustful and rude person you are…

What does she like? - Ooh! There is a LOT of things I like! I like pets, peonies, videogames, movies (especially something really epic like the Pirates of the Caribbean), cool clothes, jazz, rock, metal, blues, classic, electronics, anime, strawberries, watermelons, mango, art, chocolate, cute boys with beard and muscles when they are talkin' to their little fluffy lazy pets oww… AND! The most important. I love my big family! My four brothers, my two cute nieces, and my coolest friends.

Her family? - Oh! There are four brothers and me in the Skellington family. Yeah, the most of them are Sanses, who cares. It was a long time ago and we don't actually care about it. Papsie is really cool with his heroic history, his girlfriend, Chara, always helps me in every trifle, but he always gets depressed when something goes really wrong. I can understand him, he's workin' with The Guardians, it tires even him. Jay is mean, agh… I can't hate him, he's my older brother, but sometimes he pisses me off. I can't say this about the oldest brother, Darkie. Heh, his daughter is cute and she is so shy… Drowsy is a Rainthenn, his daughter is such a princess I must say. How old are they?.. 18 years. Why are you lookin' at me like this? They're adopted, no one hides this fact. I don't see anything wrong here. Seriously, stop. They're good dads, come on. I don't care they're adopted, they're still my nieces.

[trying2cope]

I had gotten a letter in the mail scheduling this visit actually.

It told me that my social worker had been changed from the one who had actually unannounced visited my house to another one. And that I needed to be at the house at a certain date and time (my daughter's birthday) with all members of the household to discuss my case.

I'd shown the letter to the cleaner when she had been there helping me clean. "Oh, this is normal," she told me. "And he's not bad. A bit lazy actually, he is unlikely to go upstairs, he has a bad back."

"How long will the visit take?" I asked.

"Half an hour?" she guessed.

She was right.

I was prepared. I'd maintained the clean floor in the living and dining room and had cleared off the dining room table and couch. I had cleaned the kitchen floor the same way the cleaner and I had tackled the front rooms, but the kitchen table and counters weren't great. I had cleaned the kid's bedroom completely. I'd done some work in the futon room and bathroom, but they weren't great. I'd left my bedroom messy. Because the cleaner had told me point blank, "they don't care about the parent's rooms. They care about the kid's bedroom and common areas only."

And again, she was right.

He did not go upstairs at all. In fact, he walked through the living room and sat down at the dining room table and asked me to sit. I sat. I had papers with me, detailing everything I had done and had not yet done.

I broke it down into four segments. One for each of the three allegations my ex had sent them in with, and then medical.

So for lice obviously I reinstated that THERE WAS NO LICE. That the original social worker hadn't believed me, but the cleaner would back me up. She'd looked at the kid's heads at that initial meeting, not just the scalp but even looked at the long strands of my daughter's hair and said "oh yeah, it's been gone a while, there's no trace of them." Because even dead eggs stick around a while, it takes time for there to be no trace after an infestation. So it was clear there never was any lice during the time I was under investigation.

As for the house cleaning, I told him I'd been cleaning on my own and had had ONE cleaning visit with the cleaner. I emphasized that because the rest of the work that had been done I'd done on my own. He looked around, impressed.

"Yeah, I don't see a problem. How's the upstairs?" I told him the kid's room was clean and I was working on the rest, except my room, which the cleaner had told me they didn't care about.

"That's true," he'd chuckled. "We don't."

For education, I had paperwork showing we'd finished the school year. Summer vacation had started.

And lastly for medical, I showed him we'd done the pediatrician appointment, the vision doctor (and my daughter showed him her glasses) and I had gone to my doctor too, and was now on medication for my ADHD, anxiety and depression. For dental, I'd called the dentist and they couldn't get them an appointment until DECEMBER.

His eyebrows rose.

"But!" I said triumphantly, "I saw that there is a dental clinic at the YMCA and I got them an appointment!" Which was in June so I also kept the December appointment because kids are supposed to go to the dentist every six months anyway. So they'd do the clinic now and then the regular dentist in six months.

He told me to get some evidence of going to the dental clinic. For the rest I'd had to sign HIPAA releases so CPS was actually hearing straight from the doctors offices if I was going. But for a dental clinic that wasn't going to happen, so I needed evidence.

"This is good!" he told me. And he told me that he'd come and visit once a month while I worked with the cleaner weekly. And she was giving him reports every time (which she had me read and sign, so I knew what they said.)

"Do you want a tour?" I asked.

"No, it's fine," he said, standing up. "I've got to get going." And he told me how overworked he was and to be patient if I didn't hear back from him right away.

He wished my daughter a happy birthday and he left.

He never even went into the kitchen, let alone upstairs.

So life went on. I talked to Master everyday. Worked on the upstairs rooms and maintaining the downstairs.

Master and I were very much in love. He had the high libido I highly valued, so we sexted or video called a lot. But we also talked about EVERYTHING. We were becoming best friends. And I never wanted to be without him in my life ever again.

And there was no reason to think I would be.

We made plans for the summer. We wanted to take the kids camping. Take the kids to an amusement park.

He implied if we were still this good in August, he might propose. He'd been hinting he wanted me to move in very early on and I'd told him that while I'd decided not delay sex until marriage this time, co-habitating was another thing. "I'd prefer we were married, or at least engaged. I don't see myself moving in until we're at least engaged."

And we talked about doing the move slow. Very soon, whenever we could figure out when to schedule it, the kids and I would come up to see his place for the first time. And that's when I'd meet his ex, as he promised her, and then get to meet his daughter.

Then after I'd met his daughter (and my house was toddler proof) he'd be able to visit far more often because he could bring her with him.

We'd come up to visit at least a few more times, to acclimate my kids to it before we actually moved.

And when we moved, we'd do it slowly. My house was a fixer upper and needed work, so once we moved into his house (which was bigger, and close to his daughter and his job. Since I worked from home and my ex wasn't in the country yet, it was far easier for me to move) we'd come back to my house on weekends to DIY repairs to it. We'd fix it up and rent it out. This would mean on weekends we were visiting my place we could schedule playdates with the kids friends and go to my church, so it would be a gradual goodbye. Not a sudden, rapid change like the move from my ex's home country had been.

And since we would continue to own my house and it'd only be 3 hours away, we'd likely find reasons to visit my city even after we lived in his full time.

It was a beautiful, rosy and sensible picture of the future.

But then one day my Master told me, as he was going to work, "I need to video call with you later."

"Oh, yeah? I'm horny too."

"Nice. But I meant I have something serious to talk about. Something I want you to see my body language when I tell you about it."

My heart plummeted.

"What is it?"

"Later. I have to go to work now."

And he was gone, leaving me with my anxiety.

[specialability]

House MD S02

House MD Season 2 done. I think this is when the series was established enough that they flipped the format from the story being mostly about the patients and then the doctors or another patient is the b-plot to focusing on the doctors and the patients are just there to move along the character development. We got:

(cw for brief mention of incest / child rape / transphobia)

House buying a motorcycle in proper midlife crisis fashion

Wilson divorcing his 3rd wife and briefly moving in with House

we almost got House/Stacey and then Stacey left :(

we got Steve McQueen (a real hero)

the Cameron/Chase one night stand

House's parents and some more backstory revealed (he was an army/air force brat)

a mildly interesting narrative frame where they explored the story of the case via Chase retelling it to Stacey and a disciplinary board

House using LSD to stop a self-induced migraine (gotta try that some time)

Incestual child rape of a intersex girl whom House insists on misgendering (I'm pretty sure this ep is high on a lot of people's HateCrimes MD list)

Some really toxic lesbians lmao I gotta say I liked how this one turned out

Corrupt cop vs Foreman, not at all subtle but quite good actually. I think Omar Epps did a great job with it. Stretching out the "I think it's this!" -> patient gets worse -> "This time for sure!" -> patient gets worse cycle across two episodes is a bit much but the interpersonal bits are more entertaining.

Cuddy going on fertility treatments, House gets jealous that she (almost) hits up Wilson but not him and not-so-subtly trashes all her other sperm donor options (she does not ask him for his sperm either, which I personally think is a very correct decision)

And of course the finale, David Shore's foray into directing. It's always fun when tv and movies use editing and cuts between scenes to emulate gaps in memory or hallucinations, due to the fact that when we are watching tv and movies we just accept that he was in his ICU and then on the stairs, that's how video storytelling works. I do generally think it's a bit lazy whenever authors want to dig into a character's psyche so they chain them, literally or figuratively, to their opposite, someone who basically gives them a lecture on themselves. But this time I don't mind because in the end House was basically psychoanalysing himself. Moriarty is his own repressed doubt and self-loathing.

I'm not going to count, but I'm pretty sure every single couple that comes in to this hospital and is treated by House ends up breaking up. Except this season's lesbians. And they were going to break up. There should be like an informed consent form - if you consent to be treated by this doctor and his minions you WILL have any existing romantic relationships completely destroyed in exchange for saving your life.

I also do think it's interesting that they make up this thing about the ketamine coma curing his chronic pain... when ketamine is actually IRL found to sometimes cure depression and there are current clinical trials going on. Trials I would like to be in. Meanwhile I am waiting around to hear about a psilocybin trial... Anyway,even if it didn't cure his chronic pain it might have done something about his mood, but you have to do multiple treatments over months. That's just not dramatic enough though, we gotta get him pathetic and grumpy again ASAP because the show is riding on it

[noroi1000]

hi love! i was wondering if i could get a matchup with one of the jjk men? also! i really loved the new gojo one shot and i’m superrrr excited for the next chapter! no pressure though!

im an 18 year old asian female, 167cm, like 47kg(?), an intj-t, and a 5w6 i believe. though i doubt i’m an intj a lot, im not really that inquisitive soooo. as you can tell from my weight, your girl does not have an ass not boobs :’) but that’s alright! i have long dark brown hair, black ass eyes, and slightly tanner skin. i wear rounder glasses and don’t wear makeup yet (i’m too freaking lazy and can’t do art for the life of me).

personality wise, im pretty calm and quiet. though, i can be quite talkative and teasing depending on the people. i laugh and smile a lot and so i’m kinda worried about fine lines already :/ hahahaha. i’m also quite clingy but a bit shy about it. i initiate it pretty often with friends, holding their arms or hands. my mom’s always compared me to gum on a wall.

speaking of walls, im a rock climber and i love the outdoors! i wanna retire in a nice european country like northern italy. but i’m also a huge homebody. i like to just stay in bed and cuddle my stuffies or watch some movies.

i’m a bit of a hopeless romantic, i believe in true love. but i also believe that people grow into that. i’ve only had one boyfriend before (lasted a couple months hahaha) and he was kinda terrible when i look at it from hindsight so he did hamper that visual.

i also have a lower social battery in the sense that i can hangout with a person for a really long time but it can only be one person and i need at least a day to regain some energy. but then again, i just have low energy in general hence the homebody aspect.

nsfw:

i’m not yet sexually active hehehe. however i have an idea of what i am based on the smut i read and what i like to imagine my guy as :D i’m a sub. hahaha i tend to lean towards hard doms but i love the idea of really sweet and praise filled sex. i’ve always loved pet names and being called pretty so yeah :>

tw depression and anxiety:

i’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety. in my past, i’ve been emotionally manipulated and physically abused and so i have some sensitivities to loud noises and can have a hard time being vulnerable like most people. not entirely sure if this was necessary but maybe(?)

anyways! thank you so much for reading, your time and patience. this was long as heck! again, can’t wait for the next chapter! love you ♡

I think your Jujutsu kaisen matchup is:

Megumi is one of those quiet people. He behaves quietly and pays no attention to anyone around. He just doesn't like to worry about what doesn't concern him.

He is certainly also a wise person who does nothing recklessly. He has already known life and at some point he can say that he already knows how something can end.

He often gets pissed off when people irritate him. Even so, he is the same already. In the right company, he will smile and talk. Not every man pisses him off when he's next to him.

He is shy about being in a crowd. When something embarrassing happens, he'll blush and just feel ashamed of you for what others have done.

If there is a nice person in his life. For him or for others who accept him as he is, he will stick to you and just won't let you go at any price. He did not want to lose people who were close to him. But he'll never show it because he's just ashamed to show that cute and soft side.

However, with a very close person, he can't help but emotionally. He's pissed off, he's sad. He just can't do it in a large crowd.

If he could, he would be at home. Or in your room. He just likes to sit alone and never go out. Perhaps there is something in him that he could go for walks alone or Anywhere. But not in a large group. Even though he has friends. He's just often tired of a lot of people and would really prefer something quiet. For example, no one is dragging him everywhere in turn. Because people can be very annoying. He can only have a few friends. And certainly not those who do not like his character. It can't be the person taking his energy. Only a person who can recharge his energy.

He's been through a lot in his life. From his parents' abandonment to his sister's coma. And also the possible death of friends. His emotions are truly being put to cruel tests in his life. Nobody ever wielded it. And he is not trying to rule anyone either. But surely he would like to get rid of disputes that don't make sense. Why start something that cannot be finished. He didn't want good people to end badly. And so that no one would end up like him. No family, with the terrible feeling that it was all his fault. He wanted everyone to have their own justice. Throughout his life, he never seemed sensitive to anything. He just rejected it.

Perhaps someday he will become sensitive to people's emotions again. He would really like to smile with a loved one. Show emotions as he would like.

Headcanon:

• As everyone knows, he never pays attention to the superficial things in a person. Not the look. Nothing is important. He just cares about character. You can be whoever you want, and you may also want to be whoever you want. Look different, change. The only important thing for him is that you don't change emotionally. He doesn't care what others think. Others He just has his own type, and this is a nice person. Nothing else takes into account.

• If he's alone, you may be surprised, but he will talk. No matter what the topic. He will smile and answer your questions and say what he wants to say. What is important to him is that he is with a person who can talk to him and can also listen. And it's not explosive.

• holding a hand is something he loves. Walks in the fresh air while holding your hand. You can go ahead, talking or in silence, and look around. Focusing on what you like. Nice atmosphere. But he is a little ashamed of walking among people like that. Then he will hold your hand, but he will not pay attention to it. (Or rather, he'll pretend he doesn't care) Because he himself is clingy to love and will not let you go.

• He would like you to choose him instead of a soft toy in bed. I understand he is less soft but still very nice and pleasant to cuddle or lie down on. Plus, he'll keep you warm. So these are his reasons why he would like to be a replacement for your stuffed animal.

• Quiet gameplay like watching movies and cuddling. He loves it. But he will never refuse you to go outside. Also when you invite him for a few hours to go on a hike and climb in the mountains. He may be skinny, but he is physically fit. Besides, it's healthy.

• He would definitely like to help you get rid of ailments that you do not want. He knows such negative feelings, and would try his best to help you. To show you that you have nothing to fear and he supports you. He will keep you calm and nurtured as long as you need it. Even for eternity.

• I think he would say at first that real love doesn't exist. And then, if he gets to know you and something happens between you. Especially something strong. He would say love exists. And it's so real because he loves you so much. Even if others may laugh at his sudden change, he will be so careful and only follow the feelings that he feel.

So as not to make her think your relationship was terrible and it was also a waste of time. If he loves, it's serious.

"I love you. I know I will love you. Life with you is wonderful. Therefore, never be afraid. Nothing will ever happen to you because I will be with you."

NSFW: (Since you entered it in your request, I thought I would write it)

• If you're looking for someone Dom, they definitely are. He likes to dominate you. But he's not brutal. His domination will never be to make you feel humiliated. So being submissive to him, he'll be the one in charge. However, he is more delicate. Such a delicate domination.

Even though he has a tendency to be tough, he will try to keep you from feeling worse. He is a sweeter person who, despite his domination, will praise you and call you sweet names. He himself likes to come closer and kiss you more.

[cake-writes]

making the beast beautiful (one)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (cheating); Steve x Reader (married)

Story Warnings: Mental Illness, Borderline Personality Disorder, Splitting, Clinical Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Low Self-Esteem, Cheating, Angst, Drug Addiction / Abuse (Cigarettes, later Alcohol & Pills), Recovery, idk it’s gonna get depressing but we’ll have a happy ending!!!, Eventual Smut, 18+

Summary: Bucky knows the struggle, the pain, the emptiness. He understands. He can relate, because he knows. And some days, he still struggles – even told you once how low he’s been. But Steve? Your sweet, loving husband of a year and a half? No, Steve doesn’t understand. He can’t, no matter how hard he tries. So one day, you finally give up and give in to your most self-destructive temptation of all: your preoccupation with his best friend.

A/N: i know this is another wip SORRY but it’s literal word vomit because ya girl just really needed to yeet these sad bitch feels into outer space lmao 🤷 

Your addiction to him starts slow, like the creep of nicotine through your veins from the cigarettes that he offers you on the rooftop.

Not often enough to do any damage, you try to tell yourself about your smoking habit – or maybe what you actually mean is the amount of time you spend with him. Bucky Barnes. Your husband’s best friend. Your former teammate. Not that it matters, because from one night to the next it’s all you can do to cling to the one good thing you have left, the one ray of light– or maybe he’s the one last shred of hope you’re willing to bind yourself to like a lifeline.

And if it snaps, you’ll fall. 

Too bad the threads are already starting to fray.

And lucky, lucky you that you fall even sooner, because your reality has shifted to one shade off from normal, and you can hardly tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. You want to prioritize yourself because you know you should – maybe be a little selfish for once, to combat the awful feelings of self-hate that plague your mind, but you don’t know if that particular affirmation is driven by self-esteem or self-destruction.

You can’t tell anymore. You don’t know who you are.

You’re a mystery, a chameleon, borderline, and the only thing you do know is that Bucky makes you feel again – too much. He makes you feel things you shouldn’t, makes you obsess and overthink and daydream and wonder about what life could be like with him instead of Steve.

Because that’s what you do when you fall in love. You turn into that. A monster. A beast. A siren hell-bent on the destruction of yourself.

So, you fall. You fall deep. You fall hard. You fall fast, but it’s the savouring of the moment that always brings out the worst in you. It brings back the worst part of you that you’ve buried under layers and layers of trauma and depression – the clinginess and neediness and desperation at the center of it all, and every layer covering up the euphoria makes you cry because you have to hide it for fear of losing yourself all over again. Losing that feeling. Losing what makes you you.

You’re happy, now. Right? So why do things you shouldn’t do?

But you just can’t help yourself.

You shouldn’t have accepted that first cigarette.

You shouldn’t have texted him asking for another.

You shouldn’t have talked to him about personal things meant for your husband.

You shouldn’t have talked to him about the most personal of things: your husband. Your relationship. Your insecurities because of your illness.

You shouldn’t have – because Bucky knows. He understands. He’s been there.

He knows the struggle, the pain, the emptiness. He understands. He can relate, because he knows. He’s been there. He’s done that. And some days, he still struggles – even told you, once, how low he’s been. 

He might have a different slew of acronyms to define his own mental state, but they all spell out the same thing: FUBAR. And so do yours.

But Steve? Your sweet, loving husband of a year and a half? The man of your dreams, the one you’d married in the gown of your dreams, in the venue of your dreams? He’s resilient. And let’s not forget your wedding, with Bucky standing right there as his best man – the same Bucky who accidentally caught the bouquet you threw in his direction, because your aim was purposefully off to make him feel like he belonged for once.

Even before you got to know him, you always had a soft spot for him. 

And now? You’re fucked. Completely and utterly smitten.

No, Steve doesn’t understand. He absolutely, fundamentally cannot, through and through. Not for a lack of trying, though, or that’s what you keep trying to convince yourself. He supports you physically: makes dinner when you’re ‘tired’, runs errands when you’re ‘busy’, gives you love and affection just like he always has. You’re his wife; it’s his obligation. He has to.

That’s how you feel, anyway.

He treats you that way out of duty, not love, because Steve always has to put the greater good before himself. He puts your happiness before his own, you think. And he tries so hard – he does. And whenever he tells you he’s happy, you just can’t believe him because you think so poorly of yourself.

Why would anyone willingly want to be around you?

And emotionally? He tries so hard with that, too, but he just doesn’t know. He doesn’t get it. He never says the right things, only well-meaning insensitive ones because he hasn’t been there, he hasn’t done that, and he thinks it’s all in your head – that you’re just not trying hard enough, that you just don’t want to get better badly enough, because if you did then you’d be up and at ‘em already. Then you’d be healed. Then you’d be out of this funk and back in the field with him.

You’re not.

You won’t be for a long time.

You’re not the same girl he fell in love with. Not that he’s ever said that directly to you, but sometimes you think it’s how he feels. He signed up for a wife, not a child. He signed up for the you from a few years ago, now, not the shell of a person you’ve become because of your illness.

Ironic, considering what he was like as a kid, Bucky likes to remind you when you start to hate on yourself because of how you’ve changed – because you’re not normal anymore. He used to be so sick all the time. Then the serum made him right as rain. Don’t take it to heart.

Steve got better because of a miracle. Hard work and determination can only get a person so far, but it was pure luck that got him to the serum. You know that. Bucky knows that. Steve probably knows that deep down, too, but he doesn’t see it that way. All he sees is his hard work.

He lies to himself. He always has.

He probably lies to himself about his love for you, too.

So it’s hard to believe he’s happy. How can he be? You don’t bring anything to your relationship but self-pity and unhappiness. And how can you not take it to heart that Steve doesn’t understand? Your husband, the one who should be supporting you and validating you and making you feel like you’re seen, thinks you’re always throwing a pity party for yourself, thinks you’re just too lazy to get up and actually do the things you want to do, thinks you’re just not trying hard enough.

Come on, doll, he says. Let’s go for a walk.

To you it just sounds like, Walk it off.

Because he’s said that before, too. A hundred times. In the field, and out.

You’re not an agent anymore. You can’t handle it anymore. You can’t handle anything anymore.

Deep down, you’re convinced that Steve thinks because it’s not physical – that because there are no scrapes or bruises or broken bones to prove that you’re in pain – that your depression isn’t real. Not really. It’s an illness, same as any other, and he just doesn’t understand it because he can’t see any physical evidence of it.

Never mind the weight you’ve lost.

Never mind the bags under your eyes.

Never mind the crying spells, the dissociation – but then, you hide those from him the best you can these days. You don’t want him to see how bad you are anymore, because he just doesn’t get it. Because it hurts so much every time for him to look at you with those soft, confused baby blues and act like it’s not a big deal, like a little bit of sunshine’s a cure-all for your woes.

Ironic is right. The boy’s been to war and he hasn’t even processed his own trauma. Hasn’t even been to a shrink despite having two best friends poking and prodding for him to go. He’s in denial.

He refuses to believe that you just couldn’t get to the laundry today because you’re too exhausted from lying in bed all day. He refuses to believe that you couldn’t eat a bite because you didn’t even think to, too busy caught up in your own pain to remember, let alone care. He refuses to believe that you don’t even feel like you deserve to do anything good for yourself, so why even get up? Why bother? Why try to do anything anymore?

Just let the darkness take you away. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. And then, maybe one day you won’t have to feel anything anymore. Maybe you’ll just disappear.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

He refuses to get it, and some part of you feels like it’s because he doesn’t want to. Because he’s afraid to acknowledge that it’s true. That if he starts therapy like you did, then this could just as easily happen to him, too.

But hey, that’s his problem, not yours. You’re still learning to prioritize yourself – to break away from co-dependency and focus on your own needs for once. You’re barely keeping your head above water; why should you have to work on him, too, when he doesn’t offer you the same consideration? You’ve done what you can, and he just turns a blind eye because he doesn’t want to understand your issues. Or his.

So, you’ve given up.

You plaster on a happy face when he’s home – a painful, never-ending reminder that you’re not okay, and you keep your troubles to yourself. You’ve stopped sharing your struggles with the man you married because he doesn’t understand, and it hurts. You try so hard to act like nothing’s wrong that sometimes you dissociate, and you don’t come back to yourself until you have a cigarette hanging between your lips, lit by a Zippo engraved with a clever, If you want to make love, smile when you hand this lighter back.

Seeing the joke on Bucky’s lighter always brings you back, because it’s ridiculous. It’s a throwback to his army days; Steve found it awhile back with Bucky’s old personal effects. Makes you wonder what he must have been like back then.

Cigarette smoke and leather and sandalwood in the dead of night – and you always make a point to smile when you hand it back to him.

Temptation incarnate, now. What a dream he would have been back then.

Sometimes you text him when you and Steve have had another fight.

Sometimes he texts you when he needs you to ground him.

Sometimes the two of you just text each other for the hell of it. It’s usually related to someone’s mental health, usually yours, but occasionally not; after all, over the last few months he’s become your partner in misery and crime. The two of you have shared things to each other that you’ve never told another person, not even Steve; and in some ways, you feel like you’ve bared your soul to him.

It’s intimate.

In other ways, you’ve kept your guard up because you know you’re playing with fire.

It’s wrong.

You know you should really tell Steve about your midnight conversations – that you probably know his best friend almost as well as he does, now, but Bucky’s become a guilty sort of pleasure that you keep near and dear to your heart. He makes you feel things that you haven’t felt in a long time, but you’re not ready to acknowledge what that means. Not yet.

And neither is Bucky, evidently, because Steve’s still none the wiser.

Eight months of this and you still want more.

Your husband trusts you. He never asks who you’re texting or what you’re up to. You’ve given him no reason to believe otherwise. He feels safe and secure in your relationship, but maybe he’s turning a blind eye to that, too.

He shouldn’t. 

You wish he didn’t.

Some small part of you wants him to catch you, and that’s what you resent the most. You’re self-destructive – ready to destroy the one good, stable thing in your life in favour of an impossibility, but you can’t deny that Bucky gives your brain the dopamine it needs, it craves, it lacks.

He’s been gone on a mission the last week and a half, but you saw the Quinjet fly in the hangar earlier in the evening, around six, and you’ve been keen to text him since. You’ve held back for a little while, not wanting to appear to eager to message him – so you’re certainly not too proud of how quickly your resolve cracks.

You, 10:33pm Please don’t tell me you came home with Lucky Strikes again.

Bucky, 10:41pm Sorry, princess. Didn’t realize I was seeing royalty tonight.

And then he sends through a photo of a slightly crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes in his hand – an invitation to come to the rooftop. Judging by the setting, he’s already there.

Despite his choice in a particularly harsh smoke, you’re more focused on the pet name that has your face burning hot. It’s something he’s started to tack on recently – ‘princess’ being most common, particularly when he’s teasing you about being spoiled in some way, but when he slips it in during a real conversation is what really makes your heart pound.

You know you should tell him to stop. You know you should, but, you don’t.

You like how it feels to feel for once.

You’re married. It’s wrong. You need to stop, but you just can’t help yourself. You’re lonely.

Steve’s still away on a mission, which doesn’t bother you nearly as much as it used to – you hope he returns safely, of course you do, but you don’t really miss him. Not like you should. That’s happened more often than not as of late, and you can feel your attention shifting the longer you keep up this dangerous game with his best friend.

If it even is a game, that is. It’s probably not. How could he possibly be attracted to you? You’re depressed. You’re boring. And, to top it all off, you’re his best friend’s wife.

Of course you’re the only participant. Bucky’s just humouring you. That’s all.

And now, as you swipe on some deodorant and attempt to make something out of the rat’s nest that is your hair, you feel a particularly awful level of disdain for yourself. The self-loathing pairs nicely with your poor appearance; you haven’t slept well in days, and you’ve barely eaten in just as long.

It’s only when Steve is here keeping you on a regular schedule that you do. Otherwise it’s a free for all anymore.

Bucky never seems to mind – just encourages you to go do what needs to be done when the conversation’s over. And somehow, you listen. 

Sometimes he texts to ask if you’re doing okay while he’s away on a mission, too – and you always lie, because he can’t prove otherwise. He sends you a couple reminders anyway, because he just knows. He understands that you’d rather not burden him with the truth.

And then, when he comes back, he calls you out on your lie. He calls you out and reminds you how valuable you are – to Steve, mostly, and to the team. You’re irreplaceable. You’re needed.

He never says how important you are to him, but you always wish he would.

It’s stupid. It’s wrong.

You’re married.

Tonight will be no different. Despite your negative beliefs about yourself, he’ll tell you otherwise, but you won’t believe him. You never do, even though you desperately want to.

You’re a mess, so a beanie it is. You pull it over your tangled hair and somehow get your bangs looking presentable, at least; then you give your clothes the sniff test, spritz a little body spray just in case, and head out the door. You had a shower yesterday because even you couldn’t stand it anymore. 

That’ll do.

Fingers tap anxiously at your feed in the quiet elevator. There’s some mild jazz playing, just like usual, but your heart pounds inside your chest – only brings more attention to your nerves.

Bucky hasn’t been gone long, but you’ve missed him.

It’s stupid. It’s wrong.

You’re married.

After exiting the elevator, a short flight of stairs takes you to the roof. Once you start to push, the fire exit door blows open of its own accord; it’s windy up here due to the change of seasons, not that you’ve even noticed it considering you haven’t been outside in over a week. The fresh air shoots straight through your hoodie and sweatpants, and you briskly rub your arms to warm up, immediately wishing you’d checked the temperature before you came outside, maybe grabbed a jacket. You hadn’t even thought of it. Your mind’s a mess.

Hadn’t thought of dinner, either. Or lunch.

That’s when a heavy leather jacket is deposited ungracefully on your shoulders, and you glance up behind you to find Bucky standing there, giving you the look. It’s the one that pre-empts the lecture. “That help?”

You nod, basking in the smell of him – sandalwood and spice. Ah. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He knows.

He can tell with just one look that you’ve been lying to him – that you haven’t been taking care of yourself like you said you were. But he doesn’t reprimand you this time, or offer you platitudes; the disapproving look is enough.

Slippers on your feet, you pad over to the two lawn chairs he set up awhile back near the edge of the eastern wing; it’s got a nice view of the landing pad, but beyond that is the lake, and the two of you have come up here long enough to catch the sunrise once or twice. It’s nice.

“Good mission?” you ask, shoving your hands into your pockets as you collapse into your chair. It’s made of a terrible green fabric, seated low enough to the ground to let you curl your knees to your chest and cry when you want to. And you do. A lot.

This time, however, you’ve got your legs extended far ahead of you. You don’t want to talk about yourself tonight. You want to focus on him.

A distraction. That’s all. That’s what you try to tell yourself.

The other chair, woven blue and white, is where Bucky comes to rest just like always. You suspect that it was the cheapest one in the store, because it creaks and groans and you always think it’s going to break when he sits in it, but it never does. It’s also taller than yours, so you call him old man every now and then for it because that’s just hilarious.

It’s not flirting. It’s not.

Not even when you’ve nearly fallen into his lap on more than one occasion thanks to drinking beforehand.

“Well,” he starts hesitantly, pausing to consider his answer, “I made it back.”

His tone is soft – distant. Not a good mission, then.

“I’m glad you made it back,” you offer, giving him what you hope is a hopeful smile. It feels fake, but the intention behind it is real.

He studies your face for a moment or two, before he averts his eyes. “You’re probably the only one. I had to do some things on the mission that I—” He cuts himself off, then, and pulls the pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket to fiddle with. A crutch. “I don’t like to use my strength when I don’t have to. Makes people nervous.”

He’s told you about it before. By ‘people’ he means ‘agents’. Other agents. The ones he was working with, no doubt. As if his arm isn’t reminder enough, sometimes if he doesn’t hold back – well, they start to treat him a little differently after that. It’s a reminder that he’s not fully human.

You can empathize. “It’s a little shocking at first,” you remind him gently, “but you do get used to it. I did. It just takes some time.”

Of course, you also married a super soldier, so there’s that. You can’t really gauge what’s ‘normal’ anymore.

That’s when he cracks open the pack  of cigarettes – half full, which means he must have been smoking on the mission, too, something he doesn’t usually do – and when he meets your eyes, the dark, anxious look there turns your stomach to knots.

“Are you?” he asks, voice low and laced with an emotion you just can’t place – or maybe you’re too afraid to acknowledge that you can, and very easily feel the same way. “I could break you in thirty ways before you could even tell me to stop.”

Your brain halts like a record scratch when the clear implication of his words sends a jolt straight to your core. Not just because it’s true, the threat, but because of the dangerous way he’s staring at you, coupled with the casual authority in his voice.

He could hurt you so easily, but you know he wouldn’t. Not you.

He could do other things, too – something a lot less violent and a lot more pleasurable – but you don’t let yourself consider that. You can’t. Even if it’s what he’s implying.

Is it what he’s implying?

You’re married. He knows that.

There’s a long pause while you try to gather your thoughts, until you finally manage as evenly as you can, “Are you trying to scare me?”

Your voice is still a little hoarse despite how much you willed it not to be. He did scare you a little – not that you’d ever admit it, because he excited you a hell of a lot more, and you hate that, too. But you love it even more.

Your question makes his shoulders slump, just slightly, just enough to let you know that that’s exactly what it was – that Bucky was lashing out, in his own way. That he’s the one who’s scared. That he’s trying to push you away.

Why?

“I’m not afraid of you, Bucky,” you reassure him, because you aren’t. You could never be. Not like that. What you’re afraid of is so much worse than that – because it involves him and you, and you can’t make yourself stop wanting more of this. More of him. More of what he threatened to do to you – the underlying meaning you hope to god you’re not imagining, but you should never, ever want.

It’s wrong.

“You should be,” he responds, quiet, rolling the cigarette he’s half pulled out of the pack in between his fingers like he’s debating whether to light it, but he’s trying his hardest not to this time. “You shouldn’t be up here with me.”

The ball drops.

The truth that the two of you have been dancing around for months finally comes out, and you laugh – you laugh, because otherwise you’ll cry. “What are you talking about?”

“Darlin’, you’re—” he starts, and then lets out a frustrated sigh and shoves the cigarette right back in, shoves the pack shut too for good measure. Blue eyes burn into yours. “You know why.”

“We’re friends, Bucky,” you emphasize, lightly, but deep within your chest you can feel the anger, the anxiety start to burn and meld together into something entirely unrecognizable. It’s the tiniest ember now, but it won’t be if this keeps up. You know you’re married. You know that. You don’t need the reminder. “We’re just talking. What’s the problem?”

“Come on, sweetheart.” He’s calm, too calm, and it bothers you. “Don’t play dumb. You’re too smart for that.”

It’s just pretend. It’s not real. You’re happily married with Steve. You’re happy.

Right?

“That’s all it is,” you argue. “I’m married. You said so yourself. Steve and I are happily married.”

Saying it out loud is just another cold, brutal reminder that you aren’t. Just like the façade you’re forced to wear. 

“Yeah? You’re happy?” Bucky asks, pulling himself to his feet – and you suddenly realize how tall he is when he’s towering over you like this. You’re not scared, no, you love it. And that makes it worse, the way he makes your heart race like this. “Then there’s gotta be a reason why you haven’t told him about our little talks.”

Because they’re more than that. That’s the reason.

“Well, why haven’t you?” you shoot back, finally getting to your feet, too, feeling your face flush with anger. “You haven’t told him either. Why’s that, huh?”

Tense silence falls over the two of you as you glare at each other, the only light illuminating your features coming from the full moon. It’s a beautiful night, clear and chilly and bright, and you originally had hopes of maybe stargazing with him like you’ve done so many times before.

Not tonight.

He’s pushing you away. He wants to push you away. You know he is, it’s obvious – he tried one approach, and when that didn’t work, he went for the thing he knew would invoke a reaction. The thing that would hurt the most.

Steve. Your marriage. Your happiness, or lack thereof.

No matter how many times you try to tell that to the rational side of your brain, you just can’t handle it. It’s another rejection from someone you cared about – someone you felt yourself growing a potentially unhealthy attachment to – and he just had to hurt you like all the rest. He wanted to hurt you. He wanted to see you suffer.

You can’t stand him.

So you shrug off his jacket and shove it at him. “Take your fucking jacket,” you bite out. “You want me gone? Well, I’m going. Hope you’re happy.”

The way he takes it from you catches you off guard, blue eyes wide with hurt and surprise – but you don’t give him another second of your time. Instead you spin around on your heel and stomp your way back to the access door.

You’re not well enough for this. You’re depressed. You’re broken. You’re lonely.

And now, the only person who understands has thrown you away – discarded you like you’re nothing. Maybe because you are. You’re worthless.

Your fingertips just brush against the handle when you’re tugged back by the wrist, and then his arms are around you, his chest pressing into your back.

He’s warm.

It’s wrong.

But it feels right, and you hate how easily you melt into his touch, into the feeling of his lips at your ear.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispers, and you’re done for.

The heat from your anger warps into something else – something that burns you up in a different way, and you swallow thickly at the feeling of his arms so snug around your waist. “What do you want, then?”

It’s barely audible, your question -- but he hears it just fine. Soft lips drag from your ear to your pulse, and you shiver, lulling your head back onto his shoulder.

“You tell me,” Bucky breathes against your skin. “I need to know what you want.”

The two of you are playing a dangerous game, and the stakes are only getting higher. You both have a lot to lose, but you’re the one taking the higher risk. Not him.

“I want—” His teeth gently nip at your neck and you can’t help yourself. “I want you—”

And then your back is pressed into the closed door, cold metal biting through your sweats but you don’t even notice, too focused on the feeling of his lips on yours. They’re soft and ever-so-slightly chapped, and his stubble scratches just a little, pleasantly, just enough to hurt in the best way.

It’s hot, too hot, god, you can’t handle the heat of his body against yours—

“Bucky,” you gasp against his lips, sliding your arms around his neck, fingers carding through his hair to pull him closer. You can taste with the barest bite of mint from his gum, along with the slightest hint of cigarette smoke, and you realize—

He must have been up here for awhile.

Overthinking. Wondering what to do. Lost in thoughts of you, perhaps.

The idea of it sends a rush of delirium through you, and you open your mouth just enough to let his tongue explore – or dominate, which you soon find you like very much when Bucky does it to you. His flesh hand cups the side of your face as he kisses the breath out of you, and his vibranium one snugly presses into your lower back – purposely, you soon find, because suddenly your knees go weak and your arms tighten around his neck to catch yourself from falling.

A breathy laugh escapes you. “Oh, wow. That’s never happened before.”

“First time for everything,” he teases, kissing your forehead as he steadies you back on both feet – and it’s then that the realness of the situation seems to sink in.

You’ve just cheated on your husband.

He’s just kissed his best friend’s wife.

There’s a prolonged silence as the two of you look at each other, watching, wondering, waiting, and then—

“We have to tell him,” you say, a little uneasily. “Just… not yet. Figure this out first.”

You can feel the desperation to see where this leads, no matter what a bad idea it is.

Bucky swallows. It’s clear that the prospect of lying to Steve bothers Bucky just as much as it bothers you, but you know he feels that same desperation when he suggests, “And if it turns out to be nothing, then…”

“Yeah. No harm, no foul.”

You won’t tell him. Because if it’s nothing, then it’s not worth worrying about. 

Even if it’s wrong.

Right?

two

and a moodboard I made because why not

[heartofsnark]

Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Eleven): I'll float through death, haunting you

Notes: This chapter had a slight impact on me emotionally, do with that what you will. Please, please listen to the content/trigger warnings. This chapter is essentially being stuck in a severely depressed, traumatized, and suicidal person's head for 16k words. If you are not in a place to handle that right now, come back another time, or give it a skip, or after you read it go frolic with puppies for a few hours. I cannot provide those puppies, but I wish you luck in finding them.

Word Count:  16232

Chapter Warnings: Depression, Trauma, Angst, Blood, Alcohol Use, Violence, Gore, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt/Aborted Suicide Attempt, Motor Vehicle Accident, Human Trafficking, Implication of Child Abduction/Abuse (possibly overt), I think that's everything.... is that everything....

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

V isn’t quite sure how long she lays on the ground, crying out the last of her tears. Then she feels the warmth of sunlight spilling through her window.  She needs to get up, needs to move, but for what? The merc wishes so much to just lay down and die, to just let it all go. She’s going to die anyway, isn’t she? She wishes it could at least be a peaceful one, to melt into the earth and never be seen again. But instead this is what she gets; a violent end for a violent life. Years of seeking control over her own existence, of searching for a place in this world; only to be taken over and replaced by another. 

Her eyes land on her window, following the warm glow of sunlight, too warm on her skin.  And her stomach clenches. Sun shining through the fractured glass, her blood staining it. A physical symbol of him, of what he did, how he hurt her. She doesn’t want to see it; doesn't want to think about it. Her body moves on instinct across the room, closing the shutters. The room feels instantly darker, only the harshness of unnatural light glowing within it. And it feels right, better. To close it all out. 

V scrambles to think of what to do next, her brain still mush. She scratches at the back of her neck, touching her chipslot where that monster hides and immediately shuts out the thought, if she thinks, she’ll cry. She knows it. She’ll climb into a pit and never climb out. Spend all her six months crying in a dark apartment. 

Her hair is greasy with blood still sticking to pieces of it, though her skin feels cleaner. The idea that Vik and Misty had to bathe her while she was out of it flickers through her mind, making her want to die. A shower may help, clean herself up something proper and feel human again, at any rate. Its something she can actually deal with, something she can take care of when everything else is out of her control. 

The merc goes to her bathroom and sets to taking off the bandages that cover her upper half. Vik knows well enough not to send her home in bandages and expect them to last. If they were still holding her together, she’d still be sitting in his clinic. She unties all the bandages, leaving blood smeared gauze across her bathroom sink. Nothing falls apart or starts gushing crimson, so she’ll take it as a win. 

There’s a fresh scar running down her right forearm. She tests her fingers and hand, spelling star names to see if her fingers move without pain. The nerves seem fine, muscles a little weak, but she can still sign easily and should still be able to wield a gun or a knife. Much more may prove difficult, maybe she can work on rebuilding the strength in it. Not that it will matter much… in the long run… 

She shakes her head, trying to displace the somber thoughts, trying to just focus on getting from A to B. And while it’s not a grand goal, right now B is just the shower. Ther merc notices some more new scars across her chest and stomach, but focuses instead on pulling off the sweatpants. 

V runs the hottest water she can stand and sits on her shower floor, pressing her back to the wall and holding her knees for a moment. Hot water pouring down on her and flushing her skin pink.  Her throat tightens and her eyes sting, the desire to cry again, but she stops herself, holds it in. This isn’t what she wants, six months of crying and choking back pills. 

She rubs at her eyes, trying to focus on cleaning herself. Feeling her scalp as she washes her hair, there’s a faint trace of scars underneath the strands, but nothing she thinks would be noticeable to the naked eye. Vik’s worked his magic, yet again, or perhaps that’s just the magic of modern medicine. Her hair was left untouched, no bald spots, or places that had to be shaved down. The average person would never know she was shot in the head and died. 

When she touches her forehead blood clings to her finger tips, where Johnny bashed her head into the window. Not far from the cut is a scar on her temple, where the bullet entered. She finishes up her shower, standing and shutting the water off. V dries off and out of admittedly laziness, she pulls on the same sweatpants Vik sent her home in, they’re still mostly clean and she doesn’t want to throw on real ones. 

The reflection in her mirror pulls up and she’s just as lucky as she thought. V as she knows herself is staring back; bleached hair and gray eyes. But they’re not her eyes now, are they? 

The one thing given to her by her father that she didn’t completely hate, they shared the same gray eyes. Yet somehow his always reminded her more of  gunmetal, colder.  She’s never seen the same chill in her own eye, despite the shared color. Not the prettiest or most interesting color, as a kid she’d pout that she didn’t have the same green eyes as her mother and sister, but she learned to appreciate them. And now they’re gone. The eyes looking back at her are not her own, corp made and manufactured. Kiroshi tech created in a plant. Not the eyes she was born with, not the eyes that last looked at her mother, not the eyes that’d squint under the Badlands sun as a child. 

She stares deep into the color, they automatically match to the user’s natural eye color, unless chosen otherwise. It may just be psychological but she finds herself scrutinizing it, a part of her thinking the color may be off.  They’re the same gray, she knows it logically. But a part of her screams they’re darker, or lighter, have more blue to them. That something is off. But maybe the only thing off is that they’re not her’s. 

They’re top of the line too. She’s lucky… really, getting high end tech she didn’t want, never has to fear her autoimmune disease will blind her.  Anyone else would feel blessed, this is just a part of life in Night City. Kids begging for optics as soon as they hit eighteen, some trying to convince their parents to install it before. Not that long ago, some story broke of a kid gouging their own eyes out just to get optics before they turned eighteen. 

She’s lucky, so lucky, she reminds herself as she presses at her eyelids and feels the metal beneath the flesh. Lucky she survived a shot to the head, that’s lucky, right? Lucky that skin grafts and synth flesh tech means she looks like herself after. Lucky that when Johnny pummeled her head in, he didn’t do any serious damage or reopen a wound. Lucky she doesn’t even have bruises on her throat from his choking. Lucky that she’s somehow the only person who walked out of this shit show. 

So fucking lucky, that she came back from the dead to die again, to go from dead to dying, to be nothing but a walking corpse with the one person who gave a shit about her dead… So lucky… 

She’s trying not to cry again. Because of course she is. She slams her hands on her bathroom counter, kicking it with a bare foot, and screams into her hands. Deep breathes as she tries to gather herself again, she needs a new B. Something to focus on, something to do. 

Close the blinds. Take a shower, what now? She needs something, anything that isn’t thinking. The pills are still scattered across her apartment floor, her chest cold without a shirt. So, those become her new B’s, for just a moment. Her focus solely on picking up pills and pressing them back into the blue bottle, popping another, just in case. Then she’s rummaging through her closet, finding a shirt. Her eyes land on Ava’s old shirt, Samurai, that fucker’s band. She crams it in the furthest corner of her closet, not wanting to think of him, but her attachment to Ava keeps her from throwing the whole thing out. V throws on a plain black top and then she needs another B, another goal, no matter how small. 

V plops herself down on the floor in front of her bed, tapping her foot to the vibrations in her apartment. The radio must be on, a rhythm and beat bouncing through the apartment. Barry is probably annoyed at her, again, It's not the loudest she’s ever had it, but she’s learned quickly that for her to feel the thrum of it, the music ends up loud. Sometimes she’s been able to swear she feels her whole apartment shaking. 

She shoves her hands in her sweatpants pockets, as she wracks her brain for something to do, anything to keep her mind off her grief. A wrapper in her pocket crinkles, these aren’t her actual pants, ones from Vik’s clinic for patients trapped there for a long recovery. They don’t even fit her properly, too long fabric pooling around her feet. She tugs it out and smiles, her first since she woke up in the clinic. 

A little sucker, synthetic honey flavored, shaped like a little bear. Candy for being a good patient, slipped into her pocket, she wouldn’t know when. She tears the wrapper off and pops it into her mouth, soft sweet taste clinging to her tongue. What she did to deserve Vik is a mystery, how he could ever deem her worthy of his kindness is… mind boggling.  Fixed her up a billion times, pieced her skull back together. Top tier Kiroshi’s, mantis blades, and a projectile arm launcher. All thousands upon thousands of dollars. Given to her for nothing. She owes him, majorly. If she’s going to die, at the very least she can settle her debts, Vik deserves at least that much. 

She’s got a new B and as expensive as cyberware is, this one may take her longer than five minutes. V needs to figure out exactly how much she owes him, Vik would lowball it and let her off cheap, and then she needs to get herself working again. And god, does she like the idea of that. To be doing something, a slice of normalcy, even if she’s solo now. 

V is on her feet and turns off her radio, tucks in her hearing aids, and then goes rummaging through her things. Her choker translator from the box of her clothes from before the heist, she goes ahead and throws it on, then gets her holophone from the bag of her stuff Vik sent with her. There are notifications across her phone; emails, texts, and missed calls. An email from her building administration catches her eye, checking it first. 

‘Dear Sir/Madam, 

Our records show we have not received this month’s rent payment for your unit in Megabuilding H10. In accordance with the tenancy agreement VD-233015722/2077, any subsequent payment delay will result in forced eviction from the property.’

She checks the date, it's September. Nearly two weeks into it, she must have been unconscious for a while, a few weeks at least. She starts sorting through texts and calls. Jake messaging about Jackie, asking her to call him, asking where she is and if she’s okay. A few missed calls from him. Cece wondering why V is ghosting her after weeks of no replies. Fixers texting her about cars. Misty and Vik missed calls from before she showed up in the clinic, a few texts. Her fingers hover a text Misty had sent, the last one, sent while V was laying in a dumpster. 

Misty:  v?! konpeki is on the news. is something wrong? jackie won’t answer my calls… 

Misty:  he’s gone… isn’t he? 

There’s a shake in V’s hand as she moves on from it, not letting herself linger, not letting herself explore the grief and pain. She needs to get a job, she quickly links her phone with her new optics, not letting herself think of how much she hates that. That finished she goes to call Regina, the local fixer, but before she can tap the contact her holo begins to buzz in her hand, light flashing as a call comes through. 

Takemura the contact tells her, the little red avatar shows a familiar face, Saburo Arasaka’s former body guard. The long haired man who pulled her from a landfill. She’s still not sure what exactly his deal is; how he went from dragging her to Yorinobu to taking her to Vik’s clinic. Or why he’d be calling her. But she answers, with a heavy feeling in her stomach. 

“Takemura here,” he says, facing showing up in her optic and on her phone, “we must meet. Come to Tom’s Diner.” 

The immediate demand takes her off guard and she doesn’t want to do that. He may have taken her to Vik’s clinic, but he also slapped and choked her. She doesn’t know how he got from one point to the other, but she knows she doesn’t trust an Arasaka corpo. He could have a billion different hidden agendas. 

“No can do, surprising as it may be, I’m not in a great place right now,” she signs in return, not directly telling him her paranoia. 

“You may recall I saved your life. I need you to return the favor.” 

“I’m serious, I haven’t managed to get my head straight yet, its all been a lot… ” 

“That will not happen anytime soon and so what? If you intend to live, you must reenter the ring. The bell has already tolled. Tom’s Diner. I’m waiting.” 

“Look, I-” he hangs up, “fucker.” 

He can wait until the cow come home, she’s not interested in whatever bullshit he’s going to try and sell her. She remembers the assasin who attacked them, reading his lips. He called Takemura a traitor. But why would a man so highly regarded by Arasaka, enough to be Saburo’s bodyguard, suddenly turn on them? At best, this is some scheme to get her to do something, acting like he can potentially help her just to use her for something or pull some shit. He’s using it as a carrot on a stick and probably plans on beating her with the stick when he gets the chance. 

Instead, she calls Regina, a few rings before the eyepatched fixer answers. But looking at the little avatar of her face, she doesn’t seem too thrilled to hear from V, which is… odd.  

“V…” 

“Hey, know it’s been a while, but rent’s due and I’m swimming in debt. So, what you got for me?” 

“For you, V? Nothing.” 

Regina always has jobs, hell every fixer does, Night City is a festering cesspool of crime and bullshit. And V has been one of Regina’s top mercs ever since she moved into Watson. The eyepatched fixer has only ever had praise for the young mercenary. 

“My hearing aids busted? No jobs on the table, seriously?” 

“Not for you.” 

“The hell is that supposed to mean? I’ve been you go to merc for fucking months, you use to have me doing five or more jobs a day. What’s the problem?” 

“Look, V, everyone’s heard what went down at Konpeki. You can’t botch a job like that and people not talk.” 

“I didn’t botch shit!”  Her lips move as she signs but she stops herself from yelling. Everything went to shit because of Yorinobu, right? Sure, she could have done more to save Jackie and Bug, sure she should have just not taken the job. But she didn’t fuck this up, just wrong place, wrong time. 

“Maybe you didn’t okay. But when you’re the only one who walks away; it doesn’t look good. Everyone’s saying you're the kiss of death, no ‘runner, merc, or fixer wants to end like Bug, Jackie, and Dex.” 

“You seriously think I’d betray you? You trust me that little, think I’d get you or anyone else killed on purpose?” 

Her throat tightens, eyes sting. Does Regina really think that little of V? Is that what the world thinks of her now? Just the merc that fucked up Konpeki and got her entire crew killed? Six months of consistent and quality merc work, thrown away because of one bungled job? 

“Of course not, V. You’re a solid merc, but what am I supposed to do? Any client finds out I put you on their job, they’ll think I lost my mind. Can’t put you on a crew, either.” 

“Client’s don’t have to know it’s me, I-” 

“They’ll know, V. Can’t do it.” 

“So, what the hell am I supposed to do!?” V signs and kicks her couch, starting to pull at her hair, the sting of her scalp reminding her of him. 

“Look, earn some rep back, show everyone Konpeki was a one off, a bad day. And then we can talk about getting you some jobs.” 

“And how am I supposed to earn rep back without jobs?” 

“Fucks sake V, want me to do your job for you?! NCPD always has scanner gigs and subcon work.” 

“So what, I’m supposed to earn a rep back by working with pigs!” 

“The streets talk, show you can do the jobs and do them well, remind people what you’re capable of. Then we can start talking about some jobs.” 

“I don’t… I don’t want to do jobs for the cops.” 

“Then don’t. Starve, go broke and lose your apartment, not my problem, V. Earn your rep back and we’ll talk gigs, until then, forget it.” 

And with that Regina hangs up and V groans, kicking her wall, its bullshit. Konpeki blew up spectacularly so and she gets that. But, she didn’t tell Yorinobu to kill his dad. She didn’t give the corpo brat daddy issues. And she doesn’t want to lower herself to police sub-contract jobs. Doing the cop’s job for them is the bottom of the fucking barrel, helping out pigs that are half the reason this fucking city is such a mess. 

Padre, she decides, he gave her a job when she just came to the city. He’s always had a soft spot for her, took a chance on her when she first got here. But, a voice in the back of her mind nags, the only thing worse than no reputation is a bad one. She hasn’t just gone back to square one, she’s in the negatives. The merc doesn’t let herself think about it for too long, calling the Heywood fixer’s number. 

His age spotted face pops up in her optics and she can feel a little dash of hope rooting itself in her chest. Surely he has work for her. Even if it’s something small, there’s got to be something.  

"V… it's been a while, my child. How have you been?"

"I, I'm here… More importantly, I could use some work."

"V…you ask me for work, to damage my own reputation for your sake, and so soon after Jackie’s passing? Have you no respect for me, yourself, or Jackie?"

The question feels like a punch in the gut. Padre knew Jackie since birth, knew Senora Welles while she was pregnant with him. He’s seen Jackie grow up and ultimately even brought the two mercs together. She knows he must be grieving, mourning, and here V is...trying to move on so soon after, trying to shut it all out. And she knows it must look bad, knows she may look heartless. But if she lets herself settle into that pit, she’ll never climb back out. 

“Padre I-” 

“Have you even spoken with his mother?” 

“No, I just-” 

“You should.  Avoiding grief is bad for the soul, yours and hers. As far as work goes, I cannot sully my hands to help you, not this time.”

“I understand…” 

“May God be with you, V.” 

He hangs up and V’s sure he must be sick of her shit, not that she can’t blame him. She knows he’s right. That she’s shutting everything out. But between Jackie’s death and her own; she doesn’t know what the fuck else to do. And facing his mom… there’s a tightness in V’s chest at the thought, looking her in eyes and knowing V couldn’t save him. Why would Mama Welles even want to see V after this? 

Maybe it's not the right or best way to deal with this, but it's all she has right now. V pulls up Dino’s contact next. He’s an alright guy, seems not to mind V at the very least. Though, he may just be trying to imagine what’s under her clothes each time they meet, probably not aware he’s already seen it. But hey, if it earns her a job, she’ll take it. She calls him. 

She gets his voicemail, hangs up without leaving a message and shoots him a text instead. Hoping he’ll read it when he gets a chance and sends some jobs her way. She tries Wakako next, the phone answers then hangs up before V can get a word out; making the Westbrook fixer’s stance clear. El Capitan the mulleted fixer of Santo Domingo sends her straight to voicemail, not even letting it finish ringing. She’s given Mr. Hand’s voicemail as well. After all the calls, she checks to see if Dino has responded to her text, groaning when she sees she’s been left on seen. Dino seeing the text but not responding. Not a single fixer is willing to work with her after Konpeki. 

V clenches her hands around her holophone, device threatening to crack under her grasp. Regina’s advice of NCPD jobs coming to mind. It’s no secret that the cops suck at doing their job, corrupted and incompetent. So much so that they’ll pay merc for intervening and taking down crime, shooting down gangers before they can shoot civilians. But it’s never something she’s wanted to do. Aligning herself with cops feels scummy.  But her rent is due and when she adds together the prices of top shelf kiroshi optics, mantis blades, and projectile arm launcher… she owes Vik around seventy-thousand eurodollars.  Savings can cover her rent with some left over, but not nearly enough to pay back Vik. 

She calls the NCPD and asks about getting set up for sub contract work, half swallowed pride in her throat as she forces herself through the conversation. The rather bored sounding officer getting her set up to do the work, fairly simple. Listen to police scanners, find crimes to intervene in, drop any evidence off at a drop box, and get paid. Evidence is a lose term, they’re most interested in anything with proof of who was involved, shards or docs. And while the officer doesn’t say she can keep any loot or stolen stuff she wants, the implication is clear that they won’t stop her. Most interested in getting violent gangers put down. 

V quickly throws on some clothes, throwing a baggy black hoodie over it all, then grabbing her mask. In rifling through the bag of her things taken from Vik, the sight of her blood stained Konpeki clothes makes her stomach churn but she finds the little beaded bracelet that Misty gave her before the heist. The blue beads now carry little flecks of blood, lapis lazuli meant for spiritual protection. She slides it on over her leather cuffed bracelet, she needs all the help she can get.  With that she puts the bag aside, not wanting to ruminate on the blood soaked clothes for any longer. 

She finds the bullet pendant still under the pillow, another good luck charm, to hear Misty. There’s something morbid in wearing the bullet that killed her. But, she likes it, and if Misty’s right… Again, she desperately needs as much luck as she can gather. The merc pulls it on. She keeps her mask in her usual bag, throwing the pill bottles from last night in there too, pops her regular med, makes sure she has her weapons, and leaves her apartment. 

It feels surreal, walking through the halls of her apartment complex again. Moving through people and seeing the lights around her. Feeling like a zombie walking amongst them. To hear the chatter again, hundreds of people in this building, moving along with their lives. While she’s stuck with a terrorist in her skull. While she’s come back from the dead. While she’s lost the most important person to her. While she can still feels his hands on her throat, though her left her with no bruises. Only the mark on her forehead and the crack in her window are a reminder of his existence. 

“Hey, V!” A voice calls out, stopping her in her tracks as she turns to see Wilson outside the Second Amendment store. 

“Hey,” she signs in turn, walking up to meet him. 

“Haven’t seen you in a good one, two… few weeks, heheh. Figured you’d skipped town.” 

“Just trouble… the usual,” she signs, hoping her face won’t give away her unease. 

“A-ha, got just the thing for you, then.” 

“I don’t know about that, I got rent to pay and debts to clean up, don’t need to be spending my money on a new toy.” 

“C’mon, V, got a beauty that practically has your name on her.” 

And despite her better judgement she finds herself following Wilson into the gun shop, she can cover rent, so maybe spending what’s left over on a gun isn’t so bad. Wilson hefts up a case and undoes it, V’s breath catches in her throat because Wilson really has her number. A beauty of a sniper rifle in a brilliant metallic blue, not too bright to keep some stealth, but still within her favorite cyan hues. It's already outfitted with a silencer and what looks to be a digital scope. 

Her desert eagle is her go to when it comes to guns, but the powerful little .50 caliber can’t fit a silencer, at least not without a lot of tricky fucking around. Her knife is silent, but distance is a struggle, her knife throwing skills only making up so much for it. The launcher is far from silent. A sniper rifle might be the perfect addition. Her father taught her how to fire them as a kid, looking down the sight, feeling the recoil as the butt slammed into her shoulder. She had decent aim, but it’s been years since she touched one. 

“.50 BMG, bolt action sniper rifle. Your color, your caliber, what more could you want?” 

“You really do know me too well, don’t you?” 

“Told ya, got your name on it.” 

“Mind if I try her out first?” 

“C’mon” 

Wilson lets her pick up the rifle, feeling the weight of it in her hands as she trails after him into the shooting range. Its a heavy made rifle, which is good, since that will help keep recoil from hitting as hard. V’s a small thing, so the bigger caliber guns she loves can kick back like a pissed off mule. Even her favorite handgun has a heavy kickback, the Desert Eagle not a gun to fuss with, but she’s learned to take the recoil over the years, shooting guns since she was a kid. 

Memories of another gun, even more powerful than her own go to, the Malorian withe Last True Friend scratched into its barrel. Wielded in silver fingers, the force of it would have shattered anyone else's arm, and would have destroyed her own. 

She shakes those memories from her head; they don’t belong to her after all. V plays with the sniper rifle in Wilson’s gun range, liking the feel of it in her hands. The accuracy of the scope. She ends up leaving with it on a holster on her back alongside her bag, paying Wilson for the new gun and some extra ammo. 

In the elevator she tunes her hearing aids to a police scanner frequency, picking up the nearest potential jobs first. And in moments she hears the chatter of Tyger Claws attacking a ripperdoc clinic, not one she knows, but they’re not far from her apartment. She takes her mask from her bag and slides it on as she leaves the megabuilding. 

She calls her car through her phone. And receives a notification that it was towed and can’t be dropped off for another day. So, she’s walking, until she finds something to steal. At least the first job isn’t far. Wandering through the Night City streets and through a tunnel, she drops a few stray Eurodollars in a man’s cup and lets him know he may want to scram. He gets the message and gets some distance from the area. 

The tunnel opens to a square yard and she can see the gangers just from the edge of it, unaware of her. V crouches and pulls her rifle from her back, taking aim at the Tyger Claws over a cement staircase. One dead with a headshot as soon as she lines up the scope and pulls a trigger. Others yell out, run to investigate, walking right into her sights. Three more dead in a moment. A fifth runs behind a green and red car for cover, she fires her first round through her projectile launcher, blowing the car to ash and dust, killing the ganger. And they’re all dead, not a shot fired off at the merc. Picks through bloody corpses, pocketing what she can. She finds the doc dead in his clinic, shard saying the Claws attacked because he was pulling chrome from dead Claws. She drops it off at a drop box and gets eight hundred eddies sent to her account. 

The scanner picks up another job, crime filled Night City streets always having something to offer. There’s a Kusanagi motorcycle, bright red with stickers across, belonging to one of the gangers. She grabs it and makes her way back through the streets. 

Four Tyger Claws on the rooftop of a building, less clean. She nearly catches a grenade, barely dodging it as memories of gunpowder and Mexico heat flash through her mind, a phantom pain in her arm and the weight of fallen friend on her back. But at the end of it, she’s the only one standing. Some fuss about an antenna and she’s another eight hundred dollars richer. 

Larger job at the corner of Drake and Cartwright, at least twelve Claws having taken over a market space. The merc takes advantage of her new rifle and the concrete jungle landscape, climbing up steps and perching herself on an air conditioner unit, shooting around the corner of the building. With time and patience, five Tygers dead from sniper bullets, brains splattered on the market stalls they were robbing.  The rest won’t enter her sight line, ther merc slinking down to meet them, picking them off with her sidearm and knife, chasing them through the lantern strewn market. A slightly surreal feeling to it, walking through blood stained market stall, corpses thrown across it, brains leaking into cracks of the cement while she grabs a Nicola and a bike with more gas in it. 

And that's what she does, not letting herself stop to think, just moving from job to job. Three Maelstrommers in a fire fight with cops after trying to klep some shit and setting off an alarm. There’s a gross feeling in her chest when the cops thank her, wondering how many skeletons hang in the officer’s closet. But her bank account is fatter and that’s all she can focus on in the moment. 

She rides past a tv screen in a building showing the news, talking about Saburo Arasaka’s death and races through traffic before she can hear anything more. That night still haunting her like a ghost, its been weeks, can’t the story be over. Can’t it be enough… 

Sniped Maelstrommers from the ledge of a building, peeking around the corner into the alley to a warehouse, finding an extra three thousand tucked away in it. Three Tyger Claws shot down after killing a snitch. It's all instinct, all muscle memory, ending lives as easily as she breathes. It’s not pretty or good work, but she’s a natural at it. 

She has to park across the street from Lizzie’s for the next one, a group of Claws, one of the main gangs in Watson. Her stomach churns and biles burn thinking of the prep work, thinking of the warning signs, thinking of why she should have turned around and left. Pushing it aside she kills a handful of Tyger Claws, before moving to the next job further up the road. 

Animals shaking someone down in an alleyway, she hands behind the table of an abandoned vendor’s table, piled high with goods. She throws a knife over it, watching the blade sink into one ganger before sniping the rest. Her stomach drops when she raises and sees the records that cover the abandoned table. 

Black and red labels; Samurai and Silverhand etched across the graphics in white. His records amongst the oldies. Its like the world is mocking her, haunting her with that man, with that night. She throws them off the table, crushing them underfoot as she goes to collect her knife and finish the job. 

The radio announcer hypes up the Arasaka health insurance plan on her way to next job and she shuts her hearing aids off for a moment, just the sound of the corps name making her want to scream. She changes the radio when she climbs off and flicks them back on before she clears a gang of Scavenger out from under an overpass. 

Five Malestrommers get killed near the Med Center, gangsters managing a deal to steal chrome off of comatose patients. She can feel the bruise her new rifle has caused, still some recoil to it, but the ache doesn’t stop her. The ache she gets just helps to keep her mind away from other things. Somehow it’s nearly four pm and she doesn’t know when that happened. 

Near Goldsmith street she’s tasked with taking out another Scavenger nest. A large messy one, armed with illegal shit stolen from Trauma Team. Spotted weaving through them, a full gun fight across the rooftops. Dodging and chasing Scavs through it, dodging behind crates and transformers. And she can nearly hear Jackie, can hear him laugh, can hear him yelling, because this is the kind of shit they did. But she knows it's just a memory; she’s alone with adrenaline in her veins, sweat on her skin, and a timebomb in her head. 

She drops the last Scav, breathing labored, a few new injuries bleeding steadily. An hour spent battling the vultures, blood heavy under her fingernails, and she picks up on the scanner another job nearby. The merc already moving to get to it, not let her body rest for a minute, because as long as it’s moving her brain slow down just a little. 

Clears out Tyger Claws from a construction site in the Northside of Watson. The sun setting just as she drives up and shoots down a cluster of Maelstrommers doing business behind a diner, having killed a drug dealer who stopped supplying. Another group of the chromed out gang taken down for attacking a shipment yard who they felt wasn’t cutting them a good enough discount. 

Cleaning up another nest of them in a shipyard full of crates, picking through Maelstrom corpses and cop bodies there before she arrived shows a commissioner sent his boys in blue to die, for poking around where he didn’t want them to, for doing their job. She can’t even pretend to be surprised. 

Northside is mostly Maelstrom territory, so it’s no shock it’s another group of the mini borgs she’s taking down as she pulls up to Offshore Street, an ad across the way promising to knock the devil out of her, she’s not sure what the ad is even for, but the message reminds her of her passenger. The proverbial devil she’d love to have knocked out. The gangoons are in a trainyard, stealing running gear from a convoy they jacked. There’s a high enough building for her to perch and take care of them easy, before dropping back in amongst their corpses to pick through for what she needs. Same thing she’s done time and time again. 

Samurai written across the back of a now dead gang member's shirt, because of course. She kicks his corpse, as if she were striking the monster in her head. Shoots an already dead body twice, tears threatening to rush out, a scream on the tip of her tongue. And she swallows it back down. 

Two more clusters of Tyger Claws are taken care of, the thanks of a plant worker held at gun point by a bridge makes her smile, even if just a little. Knowing she did manage to hopefully help someone, they were trying to klep chemical to make their newest drug; Glitter. At least he didn’t have to die for something so stupid. 

Her holophone buzzes in her pocket, missed calls and text messages across it. The first text from Bartmoss Collective, which seems to be some strange spam, talking to her about capitalism. The missed calls and other text from Senora Welles. V scratches at her face, checking the message. 

Mama Welles: V?

Mama Welles: V, we need to talk, please pick up

V chews on her lip, stomach twisted in knots. What the hell does she say, what the hell can she say? How can she even look Mama Welles in the fucking eye after this? Her fingers shake over the keys as she types the only thing she can think to send. 

V:  I’m sorry.

Sorry for Jackie, sorry for evading her, sorry for being such a coward. Sorry is all she can think to be… 

Two more jobs, both Maelstom again and she decides to head home for the night. Her body is exhausted, mind fuzzy as she drives the stolen bike down the city streets. It's nearly midnight, all she’s ran on the entire time is a honey sucker and stolen Nicola. But, that means she’s tired, worn out and may be able to find sleep easily. 

She steps into the elevator; eyes already threatening to drift shut. V pushes her mask up off her face and thumps her head back against the wall;  immediately regretting it, the gesture too similar to Johnny's, the thunking of his head against her wall. She hates this, all she wants is to shut it all out, to forget it all if only for a day and just focus on work. But it’s haunting her. 

“Night City is still in a state of mourning,” a newscaster prattles off, “following the death of Arasaka CEO, Saburo Arasaka. Flag on all city buildings are lowered to half mast and all major public events have been postponed until further notice. Daughter and heriress Hanako Arasaka arrived in the city, in the wake of the tragedy.” 

“Fuck you!” 

She screams at the screen, nearly frothing at the mouth as she puts a voice to her anger, feeling eyes on her as soon as she has. The elevator has come to a stop, someone just trying to enter it, staring at her wide eyed at having seen and heard the outburst. She pushes past them, tugging at her hair and ready to explode or cry or scream or something. Because its bullshit, it’s all bullshit and she fucking hates it. 

The world is mourning Saburo; fuck Saburo! He was a piece of shit, a corpo sleaze who’d do anything to make a dollar, to get more power. Yet the world is meant to mourn him, meant to mourn a man who did everything he could to fuck it up. A man so awful his own child would strangle him just to be free of the monster. 

Good people died that night, actually good fucking people, Bug and Jackie. And the world moves on without them. No flags fly half mast for them. No one has even contacted or spoke to her about Bug. Even she can’t bring herself to actually mourn, to take the time to feel her feelings. The world barely remembers them as soon as they’re gone. 

And she doesn’t consider herself a good person, not like them. She’s nowhere as kind or welcoming as Jackie nor as talented as Bug. But damn it, she died too. And no one cares. The world just keeps on moving. And it hurts. 

She screams when she closes her door, just screams and lets it out for a moment. V doesn’t want to cry again, is sick of crying. So, she just screams and punches her fist back against her wall. Her radio is playing music again, she notices as she starts to calm down, body leaning against the door as exhaustion settles back in her bones. She swore she turned it off, the shitty little thing must be acting up. She doesn’t have the energy to care. She haphazardly throws some of her clothes off, dropping her bag and weapons as she marches to her bed. She’ll sleep through it, sleep through the wellspring of anger and pain that’s started to burst out. 

V puts her hearing aids on the side table and lays back against her pillows, feeling the plush of it welcoming her. She closes her eyes and takes deep breaths, trying to relax her body. Trying to find some calm, trying to find that serenity she’d had in silence for so long. Letting the exhaustion of her day send the world away. 

Then she feels something pressing into the mattress beside her. The warmth of a presence looming over her, the smell of cigarettes and musk. And she’s shooting up in her bed, breath choking and clawing in her throat; heart trying to escape her rib cage.  She expects him, expects to see him, is waiting for Johnny to be there with harsh hands and a sharp tongue. 

But she’s alone. 

She sits on the edge of her bed and just breathes, running her fingers through her hair, she has no idea how this all works. No one does. At least no one she can speak to. What if he comes back in the night? He got control of her last time, what if he finds a way to do it again? What if he takes over in her sleep? God only knows what he could or would do…  She doesn’t even know how long the pills suppress him, he can flicker and control how he shows up, he could be active right now and just hiding… waiting for a moment to lash out. Waiting for her guard to fall. 

And if it’s not him, it will be his memories. 

V can’t sleep, she decides all at once, not now. Maybe never again. And she has no idea how long she’ll make it like this, but she knows she can’t give him that chance. Can’t live his memories again. Can’t deal with this. She grabs her hearing aids tucking them back in, rock music still drifting through her apartment, as she goes to her bathroom. V needs to get back out there, back to work. It's the only thing keeping her somewhat sane, though that thread gets close to snapping every second. 

She washes dirt and blood from her hands, then splashes cold water into her face, trying to wake herself up. The cold shock of it disrupts some of the exhaustion, as she looks back up at herself. Still a little dirt on her face, bags already starting to form beneath her gray eyes. She grips the edge of the sink looking at herself,  steadying her breaths, water dripping down her nose. 

 A blind man lost, in the streets

A pattern here I need to see

Keep returning, keep trying to leave

Got a bad feeling that I need to feel

 Her knuckles whiten fingers digging into the sink, blood going cold and air catching in her throat. His voice, that fucking voice, playing through a radio. A song she’d never think anything of most days, maybe she’s heard it before and wrote it off. But now her heart hammers at the sound. She’d never even know who it was, but she now knows that voice like she knows her own name. 

A black dog runs at my side

Down a road, no end in sight

The city sleeps but in my mind

Got a knot that won't unwind

 She runs from her bathroom, tripping over herself as she rushes through the apartment. Her nails digging into the plastic as she frantically shuts off the music. Shutting out that damn voice for a moment, as she tries to get her bearings. She throws it down on the floor, a spike of satisfaction in the sound of it bouncing off the linoleum. 

“Fuck!” V curses out loud, her head throbbing with the pain of it all. She holds her head in her hands for a moment before she’s moving again. 

The merc is grabbing up a thermos, gifted to her by Misty and meant for relaxing teas, V fills the bottom half with a mix of Spunky Monkey and Chromanticore. Then brews a bot of coffee in the little maker she has stacked on her microwave. There’s a nearly caustic smell as she dumps black hot coffee in with the cold energy drinks; filling the thermos with a cocktail of energy that will either keep her awake or kill her. Either way she’ll be thrilled. It all burns like acid in her throat, a cloying tar taste stuck to her tongue, but after three swigs she can feel her energy picking up. She swallows another omega blocker with the fourth one. 

Then she’s yanking her pants back on, getting all she needs to get back to work, marching back out her front door with her concoction in hand. She’s drinking it, cringing at the taste as she comes back down the stairs. 

“NCPD open up!” A loud male voice yells out and she see two police officers outside of Barry’s door, her downstairs neighbor is a cop himself. 

“Barry! We know you’re in there, we’re here to help!” The female officer yells 

“You don’t got no fucking warrant!” 

“Cut the bullshit! Just open up!” 

“We came here as colleagues- nothin’ else. Haven’t heard from you in a while, we’re worried!” 

“Noted. Now leave me alone!” 

“Congrats, Mendez,” the female officer looks at her coworker, “way to be a prick.” 

“Oh what? So I’m the bad guy? I’m not the one holed up playing the attention whore!” 

“He lost a friend, can you blame him?” 

“He’s not the first or the last. It’s called life.”

The two police officers leave Barry’s door and go to lean against the railing of the hallway, talking amongst themselves. V and Barry have made small talk a few times, he’s an alright guy, despite his job. And judging by the way his coworkers are talking, he’s been having a rough go of it. Losing a friend… she can certainly relate. She takes another swig of concoction and heads over, double checking her choker is on, mask still in her bag for now. 

“Is something wrong? I live upstairs,” she signs to the police officers, indulging her curiosity. 

“So keep on livin’ and stop minding other people’s biz.”  The burly officer huffs, annoyed that the merc has dared bother them. 

“Hold on, it’s his neighbor.” 

“Any way I could help?” 

“Maybe, you know Barry at all?” 

“We’ve talked a handful of times.” 

“He’s a friend from the precinct. Left the force not long ago. He broke down after his best friend died. We’re worried he’ll do something stupid. “

“Relax, Petrova,” Mendez scoffs, “Barry’s got nerves of steel- he’s just a spiteful old bastard” 

“Mendez, I-,” she rolls her eyes, looks back to V, “could you check in on him when he’s chilled down?” 

“Sure, not exactly far away.” 

“Thanks, just be patient. Cops fallen on rough times can be… touchy.” 

“I got you,” V signs with a nod, deciding to go ahead and test the waters. There’s something about getting herself caught up in someone else's troubles, it’s easier to worry about someone else. It’s a nice distraction. 

She knocks against his door, knuckles scrapping the metal. No response, she knocks again. Nothing, so she knocks again. 

“Hey, you home?” 

No response again, he seemed heated when he was yelling at his coworkers and he probably likes them more than he likes the stranger from upstairs. She decides to let it go for now, she’ll check back in on him later. Another drink fo her death cocktail, her head ache growing worse and her heart rate picking up, but she feels wired enough to take on the world. Mask down as she leaves the building, she tunes to the scanner. 

And each job bleeds into each other; Tyger Claws, Maelstrommers, Scavengers, Animals, and just petty criminals all blend together. All just bodies, sheep to her slaughter as she works her way through this, refusing to stop or breathe. 

Bullets sniping through the air between swigs of her concoction. Blade thrown and retrieved, an abandoned energy drink guzzled. A gangoon gutted, a half drunk coffee stolen by grubby merc hands. Omega blockers swallowed down with caffeine every couple hours, as the night bleeds into the next morning. But the sun rises above her only to fall again, unable to keep track of the seconds, minutes, hours; all just a blur. Pick up a scanner job, get there, clear it, drink something with caffeine, drop off evidence, grab a vehicle and get to the next job. Then do it again, do it again, again, again, again…. 

New bruises on her skin with every job; new cuts, new scrapes, new aches. The migraine is constant, head pounding in tune with her racing caffeine soaked heart. But she welcomes it all, the bite of physical pain to keep her mind off the emotional. 

The sun is just setting on a day other than the one she left her apartment. Maybe it’s been two, three, or more days of mindless grunt work across the city. Just stacking up her bank account and maybe, she hopes, earning a rep back across the streets. Though, what could is a rep to a dead woman walking? She can’t but wonder as she pulls up near Charter Street for the next scanner. Tyger Claws again, seen spending too much time near a shipyard behind the old buildings. 

She walks swiftly through an abandoned parking lot, seeing the standard signs of the shipyard. Stacks and stacks of shipping containers, some rusted and broken open, others sealed tight. Pallets of concrete and building supplies, she doesn’t see signs of the gangoons yet. She walks crouched through a  shipping container opened on both ends, moving closer to get a scope of the area. Peeking around the edge of it, she sees the first signs of life. 

A Tyger Claw leaning against a car, mottled red and green. She’s far away and can’t get a clear picture through the crates of who else is with him. The merc moves up, slinking into another open rusted crate. She can see more bodies, more vehicles. But the glitch of a Scavenger mask catches her eye. Claws and Scavengers together… 

With the cars around them, she opts to use her launcher, the smart aiming better than her sniping could ever be when it comes to getting around obstacles. The rocket launcher emerges from her forearm, locking onto her target, she fires off the incendiary round. It curves but can’t quite hit dead on at the angle, bursting into flames and barely catching a flame on the ganger. She curses as the boom of it gives her away. 

Scavs and Claws scream, come running towards the crate she’s in. She readies her launcher again back up in the container, as a member of each gang run before her, catching a look at the merc just before she fires, It connects easily, both dying on impact, corpses going on in flames as V continues to back up through the crate and out of it, getting distance between herself and the swarming gang members. Another shot fired at the car, setting off a boom, that kills two more. 

“This is bad, bad, bad!” A gang members yells, one of three still rushing her across the lot. He dies from another incendiary round a moment later, screaming as he’s engulfed in flames, another gang member dying with him. 

One Scavenger woman is still running forwards towards V as she walks backwards, grabbing her knife from it’s holster. And V throws it, the final gang member unable to stop in time, running right into the thrown blade. It sinks into her throat, blood spurting forward as the woman collapses. V pulls the knife back out, wiping it across already stained jeans as she marches forth to survey the area without threat. 

Tyger Claws and Scavenger now lie in burnt remains, the smell of melting flesh hot in the air. But other than cars and gangoons, nothing else is severely burned. The benefit of the smart targeting and rounds, the perfect amount of controlled chaos. She steps over corpses, collecting what she wants off of them as she moves to the hub of stacked shipping containers. The black remains of the car are still sputtering flames. 

Its a little maze of containers as she picks up anything she wants, then she hears a steady thump, something banging against the metal. She twists her head around, searching for the source. It gets more frantic, the echo to the sound telling her it’s coming from one of the dozen or more crates. 

“Is someone there?” She signs, mask translating as she tries to get an idea of which container it may be. 

“Help, please, help!”  A heavily accented and muffled voice yells out. And V finds the crate, unlocking it. 

An awful stench pours out of it as the blue rusted door slide open, a huddled crowd of five or so people. Mostly women but a few men, skin caked in filth, bruises heavy on their skin. The one at the front of the container, who was beating on the door freezes, a woman with what looks like a broken nose  stares at V wide eyed for a moment.  The merc realizes why, quickly sliding the mask up to the top of her head. 

“I’m not with them,” her choker translates and she can see the relief that flood the people, “lets get you all out of here.” 

The people slowly leave the container, on shaky legs and V’s stomach lurches. There’s blood and filth, human waste, across the container. No telling how long these people were locked in here. But that’s only partly why the stench is so foul, she realizes, when a body at the back of the cargo crate doesn’t move. V walks through the crate turned prison, taking a closer look, hoping she’s wrong. 

She isn’t. 

A girl of maybe sixteen, the mottled bruises on her skin not just injury but validity, blood no longer pumping but instead stagnant. Her corpse just on the verge of decomposition, leopard spotted jeans stained with blood and her own waste. V tentatively searches through the young girls pockets, searching for something to help ID her, finding a holophone with the teenager’s final message sent. 

Tracy: mom, i need help. 

Tracy: i think ive been kidnapped

Tracy: mom please help

And V can’t read the rest, bile churning in her gut, but candy and caffeine is all she could hope to puke up. A young girl on her way to a party, snatched up and shipped off to Night City. Final typed out words, a desperate plea for her mother to help. 

V leaves the crate before she gets sick, still five bruised and filthy people shivering in the open air. The orange glow of the burning car and setting sun settles over it all. She digs around the things the gangers left behind, finding a shard between Peter and Jotaro Shobo. 

Jotaro Shobo, a well known piece of shit in Night City, a high ranking member of the Tyger Claws who scrolls X-BD’s of himself torturing people. The Scavs were bringing in people for the slaughter, judging from the message, Peter telling Jotaro they had just arrived in the city. These folks aren’t from the area. 

“None of you are from Night City, are you?” She signs to ask, nods confirming the suspicion. And that wasn’t the only shipping container, many still around them. She hasn’t heard anymore thumping or yelling, but she still needs to check. 

“What’s going to happen to us��?” A woman asks in a broken voice, the sound a scratch in her throat. And chews her lip, she can’t get these people back home. That’s a job for the NCPD, but will they do their job is the question. She surely can’t abandon them like this. 

“I’m going to check the rest of the crates, see if there’s anyone else, and call the NCPD. Hopefully, we can get you all sorted and back home.” 

She gives the best comforting squeeze that she can to their shoulder, feeling the skin and bone beneath her hand. V is suddenly so much more thankful that the fire from her launcher didn’t get out of hand, if so she could have cooked these people alive in the crates.  

And who would have known or care? 

There’s a pang in her heart as she starts opening crates, some filled with nothing but corpses. Others with drugs and supplies for the Claws’ X-BDs. She pulls two more people from a crate, just as bloody and beaten as the others. V can’t help but think of it, that young girl just gone, dead to the world. A mother left in terror, not knowing what’d happen to her baby. People thrown out and taken from the world. And if they all were gone, the world would just keep going. 

Just like with her. Just like Jackie and Bug. And fuck, just like the people she’s killed in the past however many days. All just bodies to the rest of the world. A city that doesn’t care, that’ll forget them as soon as they’re gone. People who never really mattered to the world or had a place in it to begin with. 

She opens the last of the shipping containers, heavy metal doors creaking and amongst corpses, she sees one moving body. A young girl, maybe eight, face fleck in blood and wide eyes looking at V. Sick fucks, grabbing whatever and whoever they could. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie, you’re safe now.” V speaks, hoping the sound of a human voice will bring more comfort than her translator, even if the noise is rough. But the little girl comes walking slowly out. Her eyes welling with tears, choked half understood sobs as she asks where she is, where her mom is. 

V scoops the girl up, doing her best to comfort the child as she brings her back to the group, out of all the bodies around ten are still alive altogether. Lost and now just sitting around as they wait for what comes next. The shard between Peter and Jotaro said they’ve been here for weeks. V sits against a shipping container, child still crying into her chest as she calls the NCPD, debating for a moment, before deciding to put her translator back on. 

“Night City Police Department, how can I assist you?” A bored voice answers the line. 

“My name is V, I’m a merc who does sub contract work for the department.” 

“You forget how to shoot people?” The dispatch scoffs, like she’s wasting their time. 

“No, asshole, I’m sitting here in a shipyard near Charter Street, Scavengers were trying to traffick in fresh bodies. Got ten or more folks from overseas, been crated up for weeks, no idea where they are or how to get home. So, I thought maybe, you’d all like to come down here and do your job.” 

“Uh-understood, we’ll be dispatching someone to you right away.” 

And with that the call ends, now all V can do is wait. Her momentum stopped in it’s tracks to take care of the strangers, One of them, a woman with dyed blue hair and overgrown black roots, looks to V. 

“So, we’ll be getting out of here soon?” 

“I’d like to say yes, but I’m afraid when the NCPD says ‘right away’ they mean give them three hours, so might as well settle in.” 

“You’re… not… gonna leave, right?” 

“Don’t worry, Night City isn’t the safest of beasts even if you’re in good shape. Wouldn’t leave you all out here alone.” 

“Thank you… I… thank you.” 

“Also,” V starts to speak as an idea pops in her head, feeling how thin the girl feels in her arms, “I know this probably sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I can order like, I don’t know, pizza or something?” 

Something about it feels so strange and weird, after being kidnapped and taken abroad, a merc offering to buy you cheap pizza. But, it’s all she can think to offer in the time they’re waiting. She can’t help them get any cleaner; can’t hose them down or take them all back to her apartment for a shower. She can’t house them all, certainly. She can’t take them back home, or undo all they’ve been through. But… she can buy some pizza, help them fill their bellies after so long of going without. 

“Please…” 

And she does just that, ordering on an app through her phone, Buck-A-Slice is the cheapest and quickest option. Plus, the franchise now delivers their orders with drones, cheaper than having to pay human beings, which means she doesn’t have to explain literally any of this. A thousand times quicker than the NCPD, a drone drops off a stack of boxes with greasy cheap shitty pizza. But they tear into it like it's a feast and she finds herself eating too, not even realizing how hungry she was. Has she eaten since she started doing her little job bender?

Time ticks by as the people try to talk between eating, trying to fill the quiet night air with chatter. The little girl has fallen asleep in V’s lap, one of the merc’s hands rubbing circles on her back, the other fiddling with the bullet pendant that hangs around her neck. Stillness forced upon her, her mind starts to roam again. 

Bug fried in a chair. Jackie bleeding out in the backseat of a Delamain. And V’s brains blown out over a hotel floor. All gone, though technically she’s still here, but she doesn’t feel like it. She feels like she’s already gone and she might as well be. Thrown away into a landfill and the world still spins. Still spins after all that’s happened. The only dead man mourned in the wake of Konpeki is Saburo, the only one rich or powerful enough for the world to give a shit. 

And she’s dying again, this time, there won’t even be a body to burn. It will be like she was never here, overwritten like an unwanted file. Just a painful fade from existence as she loses herself, loses control, and is taken over. 

There’s a rumble of car wheels across the lot. Flashes of lights, a few police NCPD cars as well as two unmarked vehicles, a car and a truck. There’s a handful of uniformed cops getting out of their cars. And two men outside of uniform, detectives, she thinks. 

“We’re over here!” One of the women yells out, drawing the attention of the officers. 

“Christ that smell,” one of the men out of uniform comments, an older man with gray hair. 

But V’s eyes are drawn to the other plain-clothed man, if the clothes can really be called that. He himself stands out, around six foot five and muscular, his jacket a dark brown leather with fur across the collar. A shaved head of dark hair, one brown eye and a metal telescopic implant in place of the other. He’s attractive, a shallow little part of her notes. 

“Detective Ward,” the mountain of a man introduces himself to V, “heard a merc called, something about a group of people locked in shipping crates. We’re gonna get you home safe, but first, can you tell me what happened?” 

V has to try not to laugh. She honestly doesn’t blame him for assuming she was among the kidnapped folks. Her work has left her beaten, bruised; blood and grime on her skin. V’s clothes are still slightly damp from scanner jobs that made chase after evidence in a submerged van. She smells like sweat, murky water, and blood. 

“I’m the merc who called, actually,” V signs and sees the realization dawn on the detective’s face. 

“Sorry, I-” 

“No worries, I get it, not exactly in my Sunday best.” 

“What exactly happened here… ?” He prompts her to introduce herself. 

“V. I was doing scanner jobs, cleared out some Claws and Scavengers, found myself some refugees, called you all, and ordered some pizza. But, I think this tells the story pretty well,” she explains then hands Detective Ward the shard between Peter and Jotaro. 

He gives her a skeptical look for a moment, eye narrowed at the shard. But he seems to ultimately decide that the deaf five foot merc with a child in her lap isn’t that big of a threat. Taking it from her fingertips with metal fingers, a silver hand… And she hates how that little acknowledgement makes a cold sweat form at her hairline.  

Detective Ward pushes the shard into his chip slot, his eye glowing blue for a moment as he reads it. His expression shifts a somber and cold look across his features. 

“Jotaro fuckin’ Shobo.”

“Yep.”  

“Appreciate the help, we’ll take it from here.” 

“What’s going to happen to them?” V asks, looking down at the girl in her lap, NCPD isn’t known for going the extra mile. Who’s to say they won’t just throw these people onto the streets without any help or put them in a detention center to avoid dealing with it?

“Not your concern, merc,” the other detective, cuts in, looking down his nose at V. 

“Excuse the fuck out of me for not trusting NCPD’s finest.” 

“We’ll take care of them,” Detective Ward smooths it over, “figure out where they’re from and get ‘em back home.” 

And maybe she’s naïve, maybe she’s exhausted, or maybe she’s a sucker for a pretty face. But, when he says that she believes him. His expression earnest and soft, Regardless, she knows the NCPD can help them more she can, more resources and pull. Just a matter of if they actually choose to use them. V gently shifts the child off her lap, who looks up at her with wide sleepy eyes. 

“I gotta go now, honey, but the detectives are gonna help get you home now, okay?” 

The little girl nods, still a hint of fear in her eyes as V stands up, as much as she’d love to stay with and protect her. V’s no guardian and can’t get the girl home safe. She watches as Detective Ward stoops down to a knee, getting as close as eye level with the girl as he can, though still nowhere close. 

“Hey, kiddo, my name’s River, what’s yours?” 

“Stephanie…” 

V leaves on that, hearing the soft way the detective speaks to the child, the sound of it bringing the merc a bit of comfort. There’s another Kusanagi motorcycle, that clearly belongs to one of the now dead Tyger Claws, it has a full tank and she climbs on top of it. An old rock station blaring on it as she pulls away from the scene. 

The wind whips around her as she rides through the Night City roads, there are more scanner jobs, always are. But she doesn’t take it, thoughts pinging around her skull. Shipping containers filled with corpses, all forgotten names and people, who the world will never mourn or stop for. Mercs drop like flies everyday, her and Jackie just a part of the numbers. But life moves on without them, will move on without her. 

She guns the engine faster and faster.

A monster in her head, a psychopath who tried to put her head through a window. A timebob with a face and name. And one day, if she doesn’t stop it, she’ll be him. V… Aidan… will be nothing but a fading memory. A name that use to belong to the new body Johnny makes his fifty year comeback in. And he’ll do whatever he wants, hurt whoever he wants, because as much as Vik and Misty tell V she survived… she didn’t.  Johnny survived. because short of a bullet in her brain, he’ll actually get a second chance. She won’t. All V did was get a time extension, a chance to postpone her date with death.  

She pushes the bike to go faster, heavy on the throttle. 

And she wishes she’d just met her end. Being dead is easier than dying. She wants it done, to just be gone, to not be afraid. To not be in terror of the ghost wreaking havoc in her skull. To not spend six months questioning if a headache is caffeine induced or her memories being erased. To not be stuck in this limbo of knowing she’s going to be gone and forgotten, to just be there by now. 

She barely manages to take a curve in time, but doesn’t slow down. 

Dead people don’t have to deal with their feelings. Don’t have to grieve. Don’t have to face the family left behind after their best friend dies. Don’t have to carry this pain. Don’t have to-

 We lost everything

We had to pay the price

Yeah we lost everything

We had to pay the price

 And his voice is like a bomb going off in her head, all at once trying to stop and turn, but she’s going too fast. Gnashing metal and crushing pain, she tastes blood as she’s sent flying forward. A thud of impact as her body hits the road; gravel and asphalt grinding across her skin as momentum carries her across the ground. 

The world stops for a moment. V doesn’t know if she’s in the road, on a sidewalk. If she’ll be ran over. She doesn’t care. The merc lays there, bruised lungs aching with each breath, skin road rashed. Blood pours from her nose, iron clinging to her tongue. Her nose may be broken. She just stares up at the sky, the towering neon lights of the city buildings. And if she strains her exhaustion blurred vision, she thinks she can see a star or two pricking through the dark of night. 

‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

It’s an old quote from someone she can’t remember and she’s not even sure where she ever heard it, is she even the one who heard it? How deep are his memories embedded in her own at this point?

She can hear traffic driving by, so she’s probably landed off the road, no one concerned for her. No one stopping or checking on her, just another corpse on the streets of Night City. A forgotten nobody, all she’ll ever be and all she ever was. 

 I see your eyes, i know you see me

You're like a ghost how you're everywhere

I am your demon never leaving

 V groans, catching the sound of the stolen broken motorcycle still croaking out that asshole’s music. The lyrics of it taunting her; like over fifty years ago Johnny wrote those lyrics just as a fuck you to her right now. But something lurks in the back of her mind, the knowledge that that’s by no means true. Murky memories of a freckled blonde netrunner flickering through the merc’s mind. 

She clambers back up on her feet, taking in the lights and vending machines around her. Blood still clinging to her lips and chin as she looks around her. On the street, a Kiroshi ad shining blue light on her, some blue haired model showing off her new optics. Across the road painted across the side of an old clothing store in red and blue; the Samurai band logo. The flaming oni demon with skin ripped off to show chrome beneath; just there, mocking her. She flips off the graffiti. 

V’s out of her weird brewed concoction, even after so many times of topping it off. No more coffee or energy drinks on her. And she’s not sure she wants that anymore. Wants something stronger, that doesn’t keep her going, but just clouds her mind. The merc stumbles her way into the nearest liquor store and buys herself a bottle of bourbon. She barely catches the look of concern on the cashier’s face before she leaves with the booze in hand. 

She takes heavy swigs of it as she meanders down the city streets, swallowing the burn of it and welcoming the fuzziness it puts in her mind. Avoiding it all and throwing herself into jobs has gotten her nowhere but exhausted, so she drowns the feelings in alcohol, the taste of blood and bourbon heavy on her tongue. She wanders down neon lit streets, not even sure where she’s going or why, steadily draining the bottle as she goes. 

The lights become blurrier, a pleasant warmth buzzing under her skin as she walks, worries unable to find her through the cloud of alcohol. And she’s not sure how far she goes or where she’s ended up, stumbling down a street, bottle half drunk.

“V?!” 

She turns, nearly tripping over her own feet, when someone calls her name. And through the blur of booze and lights dancing around her vision, she sees Cece. The older woman looking at her with something between horror and concern, wide brown eyes and furrowed brows. 

“Holy shit, are you okay?” 

Cece rushes towards the bloody drunk merc. A tender hand reaches out to cup V’s face, but she stops it, wrapping her fingers around the older woman’s wrist. She doesn’t want it, the gentle comforting touch. A kind gesture better suited for someone else, not meant for someone soaked in blood with alcohol and crimson on her tongue. 

“Mmm...I, I’m fine,” V slurs her words, unable to sign with one hand on Cece and the other wrapped around her bottle. 

The older woman pulls her hand from V’s grasp, the merc not missing the traces of blood she’s left on Cece’s skin. If she cares, if she minds the filthy touch, Cece says nothing about it just looking at V for a moment, like she’s looking at a wounded animal. 

“You went quiet for a while, there’s some suit who keeps coming to the diner, asking about you, V… Did something happened? Ar-are you drunk?” She sputters for a moment when she notices the bottle in V’s hand, maybe catches a whiff of bourbon on the merc’s breath. 

“No..not your concern,” V signs now, hands slow and messy, struggling to make the words she needs. 

V turns to leave, this whole mess isn’t Cece’s problem. Cece and her barely even know each other outside of sex. The last thing V needs to do is dump trauma or bullshit on her, let alone drag her into the angry hornets nest that is Arasaka. V had only just thought of that, if Arasaka comes looking for her. She takes another swig of bourbon as she staggers across the grimey sidewalk, hoping to drown her newest anxiety. 

“V, please,” Cece turns V around, grabbing the mercs arms and forcing eye contact, “I don’t know what’s going on but you can talk to me, I wanna help.” 

Glassy gray eyes stare into gold, V just looking up at Cece for a moment. A distraction, that’s all V wants, all she’ll accept in the moment. Work, drinking, hell even helping Barry is all a grab for a distraction; anything to numb her and take her away from her pain. And maybe, her booze blurred brain suggests, Cecelia can distract V the way she always has before. Anything to not think. 

V pushes forward, standing on her toes to meet Cece’s lips. She presses in, tries to shove her clumsy tongue into the older woman’s mouth. The once honeyed tongue now tastes of bourbon and blood. V is shoved back, nearly falling over in her drunken state, Cece pushing her away to break the kiss before it could truly begin. 

The merc blinks, staring at the older woman. Cecelia’s face scrunched up in a grimace, V’s blood now on her lips, cringing at the cling of iron on her skin. The younger woman looks down, unable to meet Cecelia’s gaze now, ashamed to be so disgusting. To have left her filth and grime on another’s tongue. 

V turns away and begins to rush off again, face hot with a drunken flush and embarrassment. What the fuck is wrong with her? Why did she do that? Despite it, she can hear the click of footsteps chasing after her. Cecelia would be better off leaving the merc alone, would be better off if V had never stumbled into her life, even if only for sex. Everyone would have been better off before V stepped into their lives, the thought makes her throat tighten. 

“V, please, at least let me help you home, you can’t just stumble around drunk!” 

“Why the fuck not!?” V turns around and screams, blood coated spit flying from her mouth. Why can’t Cecelia just walk away?  

The two are left staring at each other for another moment. Cece’s eyes wide as she tries to work through her brain for a response, something to say. 

“Tonight we return with breaking news, as more information is released in regards to the death of Arasaka CEO, Saburo Arasaka.” 

A newscast catches the merc’s attention, tv screens facing out towards the street through a store front window. That stupid corporate sack of shit’s name drawing her in, a news anchor shuffles through his papers. 

“Yorinobu Arasaka has come forward with more information regarding his father’s death at Konepki Plaza. The identities of two suspected perpetrators have been confirmed to be that of mercenary Jackie Welles and a netrunner known only as T-Bug.” 

V’s breath is knocked from her lungs as the faces of her friends are flashed across the screen. Bug’s a crisp clear image of her face, expression stoic. Jackie’s is a mugshot where he has a bruised face and is grinning at the camera. The two exactly as she remembers them, her now gone crew shown on tv screen across the city, blamed for Saburo’s death. 

“The two edgerunners are believed to have been hired by a corporation to carry out the assassination, but Yorinobu has yet to disclose or point any figures regarding which of Arasaka’s enemies may have carried out this plot. Both Welles and T-Bug were confirmed dead. But, there is an unidentified third accomplice believed to have been on the scene when Saburo Arasaka was assassinated. Yorinobu has yet to release this individual's identity or footage from Konpeki, choosing for Arasaka to handle the incident internally for the time being.” 

A hand squeezes V’s shoulder, her own grip tightening around the bourbon bottle. 

“That’s… your friend, Jackie, isn’t it?” 

And she throws the bottle against the window. Unable to smash through the bulletproof glass, the bottle breaks first fragments scattering and bourbon streaking down the window. Cece instinctively jumps back, releasing V from her grasp. 

“Jesus christ, what the fuck, V?!” 

But the merc is already running down the street, slower than she’d be sober, but still faster than most. And she runs and she runs and she runs. She doesn’t know what for and to what, but she just needs to move, to go, to do something. V runs until her heart is hammering in her chest, pressing tight against her rib cage. Already bruised lungs struggling to take in steady breaths. Her feet ache, blisters forming in her boots as she finally slows down. 

And when she catches her second wind, limb still heavy with both ache and booze, she looks around. On the side of the roadway, a main stretch through The Glen, something she knows from the column of red and pink lights across from her. She knows where she is, where she wanted to go, whether she even fully knew. Where it began six months ago. 

She looks over the edge of the road way where the guard rail breaks off, overlooking the grimy little alley to Ember’s parking lot. The dumpster closed below, just like it was for her first job, stealing the high class car. V swings herself over, none too gracefully, hitting the dumpster and sliding off of it onto her back. She curses beneath her breath, blaming the alcohol, before she finally gets back up to her feet. 

A man waiting under an awning barely looks up from his phone as she stumbles past him, world still shifting around her. She walks around and to that elevator, hitting the button then stepping inside before it begins to rumble. And it’s stupid, she knows. It won’t change anything, won’t get anything back. But she just wants to be there, to stand in the place she first met him, the moment that changed so much for her. 

And the doors open before her and even after all this time, she knows the path by heart, walking down the halls to the double doors. The parking lot is empty tonight, only the glow of vending machines and the VIP parking spots. 

Her footfalls echo through the closed parking garage, making her way to the neon spot where that car was parked. And she lays down there, bathed in blue light, cold of cement biting at her skin through her clothes. 

The place where they met, where he put a gun to her head and they were forced down on the ground by police, where they broke away and took the car back to Padre. And he invited her back to his home, took her in like a stray, no concern or worry as he offered her food and shelter.  

Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d still be here. Maybe if he’d just gone ahead and blown her brains out that night, they’d all be better off. Dex wouldn’t have shelled out the job to them, Jackie would still be minor leagues but he’d be alive. Mama Welles would have her son, Misty her soulmate, and Vik his friend. Everyone happier without the merc mucking up their lives. And she wouldn’t be here either, wouldn’t be dealing with it. 

V takes out her phone, instinctively pulling up his number. She wants to talk to him, just one more time, she just wants to talk to him. It rings and rings and rings, she knows he won’t answer, knows he can’t. But… there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? 

“Hey, this is Jackie.” 

Her breath catches in her throat, his voice a shock to her system, a sound caught in her throat. Say something, say something. 

“Can’t come to the holo right now, leave me a message and I’ll catch ya later.” 

And the machine beeps, giving her the chance to leave a voicemail, because he’s gone. She knows that, she does, but she just… 

“Jackie….I… this.. Is so stupid,” she chides herself and hangs up. 

She’s half drunk in an abandoned parking lot, trying to talk to ghosts. Practically one herself. She sits for a few more moments, trying slowly to piece her mind back together, if only for a moment. It’s obviously not working, so she just gives up and stands back up. Already knowing where she plans to go back, tracing back pieces of their history, if only to find peace for a moment. 

V stumbles her way back to the alley way, though her movements are a little steadier than before. Rather than dragging her aching feet all the way to Kabuki, she finds the nearest NCART station stop, thankful for the twenty-four hour transit. 

The train car is mostly empty, a few people shooting her odd looks as she sits down, staring at the ground. Her eyelids heavy after days of constant activity and caffeine. The soft rumble of the transit starting to feel like she’s being rocked in a cradle, lulled into sleep. 

A familiar click of boots make her eyes snap open, not even realizing they closed. Brown boots shuffling in front of her vision, glitching like an old tape. She digs her nails into the back of her head, refusing to look up as the figure sits down in the seat across from her. Legs spreading wide and shamelessly as he takes up as much space as he pleases. Both in the subway train and her head.  

Heart pounding and breaths getting shorter, she tries to think through it, that the pills can’t be wearing off. When did she last take one? Might be seeing things, could be someone else, could be her mind playing tricks on her. 

“If only you were so lucky, Samurai,” her head shoots up at the sound of his voice, looking at him finally, “drunk and bloody on a train, wondering if you lost your mind, be funny if you weren’t so damn pathetic.” 

“No, no, no, no, no, fuck!” 

People are staring as she tears through her pockets, hands shaking, the words garbled in her throat. Can’t breathe, she can’t even fucking breathe as she rips the bottle of pills from her pockets. Her heart is going to explode in her chest, her lungs going to shrivel up without a strong enough breath of air, her body on fire. Shaky hands rip the cap from the bottle. 

“Wait a fuckin’ min-” 

His yell is cut off as she chokes the pill down dry, jumping up from her seat, the train rolling to its next stop and she runs out, tripping down the last of the steps. She nearly pukes as she hits her knees, but forces herself to swallow the bile, she can’t afford to puke the blockers back up. She stays there on the ground, holding herself, reminding herself to breathe, sucking in the cold city air. It's filthy with smog but at the moment it feels godsent. 

Eventually her breathing is better, her body feels cooler, the air chilling her sweaty skin, heart rate evening out. She slowly stands up, gravel and dirt still stuck in already blood stained hands. The merc finds her way to where she was going, the rockerboy in her head not ruining her goal. She needs to see it. 

She reaches the Kabuki Central stop and sucks in a breath of air when she sees the bright red neon sight, lighting the street way around the door. The No-Tell Motel, the place where they died. Or maybe she didn’t die until she hit the landfill, but she thinks it was here, when Dex blew her brains out across the carpet. Where Jackie bled out in the back of a Delamain. 

V goes around to the back gateway, where the Delamain pulled in. She sits at the top of the stairs for a moment, just looking at where the taxi had been parked. Where she lost him, next to the defaced Night City logo. All his dreams of reaching the major leagues, of having the money and street cred to keep his family safe, to be a success story who made it out of Heywood. Broken. Sent spiraling down when he got too close to the sun and the wax around his feathers melted, Icarus sent plummeting down to his end. 

And she wishes so much she could have convinced him not to do it, could have kept him from getting to this point. But a part of her knows she probably couldn’t have. A part of her knows that if he were in her shoes, sent plummeting down but somehow still able to stand, he would have climbed back on his feet and tried it all over again. But she’s not as strong as him… 

V gets back on her feet, ready to move on to the next part, where she died. Needs to see it, needs to face it. She slips into the motel and up the stairs, memories of that night flickering in her mind. Staggering through these neon lit halls and red stairs in bloody Jinguji clothes, face still wet with tears and rain, convinced she’d see her payday and live the major league life if only for Jackie. 

She walks down that long stretch of hallway and reaches the room, 204, where Dex Deshawn shot her. It’s vacant, but she hasn’t paid for the room. Remembering even just bits of what Bug taught her, V’s able to hack the door, watching it slide open. Half expecting Dex’s bodyguard to be waiting behind the beaded curtain. Of course, he isn’t. 

The room is just as she remembered, the standard sleazy No-Tell Motel room. Neon red light over a grimy bed, a dirty blanket thrown on a stained leather couch. And near the bed and bathroom, she sees it. Red now rusted and stained to a crusty brown, her blood. Where she was shot. Where she died, they haven’t even bothered to clean her blood from the floor. And that’s all she would have been. Another stain in a carpet. Another life snuffed out in Night City with no one to mourn her. 

She opens the bathroom door and doesn’t even have to step in to see the mess she left is still there. Brown formerly crimson blood stained across the broken mirror, sink marked in rusted red brown handprints. V sits down on the bed, her blood stains in view, she holds her head and she cries again. She cries for Jackie, for Bug, for herself. She sobs and she lets out just a bit more of her pain. And the sobs die down, as they always do at some point. The tears run dry and the sob become more choked. 

There’s one more place she needs to see, she decides, standing from the bed. It’s a longer way out, but she needs to see where she was left. Where her body would have rotted away with no one giving it a second thought. She leaves the hotel, no even bothering to shut the motel door behind her. 

V doesn’t bother with the NCART again, as far away as the landfill is and scared of seeing him again. She knows the train didn’t trigger it, but she just, doesn’t want it. She’s sobered up, a fair amount, maybe still a bit tipsy. Its dumb, a bad move ayway, but she busts the window out of a parked MaiMai, little blue box of a car. Clears the glass off the driver’s seat and breaks into it. 

The keys in it, she drives it and drives, careening through the traffic of Night City. Watching as the neon lights start to fade away as she hits the outskirts. Glowing billboards advertising become scarcer and scarcer, noise filtering away. Until there’s nothing but craggy rocks and stretches of desert land. 

And the distance hills become made of trash as she comes closer and closer to her destination, driving past a little gas station. She parks where the little dirt pathways through the landfill meet the road. V climbs out of the driver’s seat and starts walking, boots sloshing through the mud puddles and crushing grass underfoot as she walks through mountains of trash. 

An orange glow catches her eye as she starts to near a clearing, a trashcan fire still burning in the night. And as she reaches the clearing, she sees his body, Dex’s corpse still laid out where she shot him. Through the moonlight and the light of the fire, she can see bullet wound in his head, the purple in his skin where blood has settled. 

No one’s come to find him. No one’s collected him. He blew her brains out and left her to rot in a landfill, now here he is. Karma or something, she thinks. One of the best fixers in Night City, major leagues, rich as hell and meant to be their ticket to success. But he was thrown out and forgotten just like anyone else. 

She gently kicks his body, not even angry anymore, she’s not sure she has the energy to be. And what good would it do her, she already took the man’s life, what more can she do. He’s suffered the very fate he tried to damn her too, not even knowing what he did to her in the end. Dex was desperate, scared of what would happen if he was connected to her and the heist. He had no way of knowing the chip would do this.  

His body shifts under the push of her boot, limp and useless. But she sees a glint, his gun. A gaudy little thing of black and gold, his name emblazoned across it. She picks it up, seeing the blood on it’s barrel and wonders if her brains splattered on Dex when he shot her. 

She takes it with her as she goes to sit on a nearby rusty fridge, holding it in her hand, feeling the weight of it. V touches the bullet pendant around her neck, a bullet fired from this very gun. She wipes the crusted blood off it’s barrel, chipping it off with her fingernail. Maybe it was all fate, people aren’t meant to come back like that, not like this. 

Her mind returns to what she told Misty, about blowing her brains out. The older woman telling her she’d kill two souls, if aimed right, it’d kill Johnny too. And maybe that’s not a bad thing… He showed his colors, when he attacked her. If that’s who he is, who he chooses to be. She’s killed people for less. 

And isn’t it better than suffering? No dragging it out, no slowly losing control, no watching herself turn into him. She’d go out on her own terms, no one else's. No Arasaka’s, not Johnny’s, not her dad’s; her’s. 

A quick shot, a jolt of pain, then she’d be gone like that. Her and Johnny.  She wraps her lips around the barrel of the gun, the taste of metal and dirt on her tongue. Feels the weight of it in her mouth and clacks her teeth against it, biting down on it. Her finger on the trigger, one twitch of movement away from it all ending. From slipping away into the end and never dealing with this.

Do it.

Her finger doesn’t move. 

Do it. 

Nothing. 

Do it. 

And she’s crying, because it’s all she does, unable to make the final move. Unable to pull the trigger, she pulls the gun from her lips. And she holds her face as she cries again, she’s sick of this, sick of feeling this way. Sick of hurting, of being a nothing, of knowing she’s going to fade away and be forgotten like so many others. Of knowing she doesn’t matter and never will. That she’s going to become someone else, that she doesn’t and never will have place in this world, maybe was never meant to. 

Only when the sun rises so does she, a notification on her optics that another payment from the NCPD has come in. Still a few grand short of paying off Vik without cutting her own throat in terms of cash, maybe she’d be better off killing herself that way, she wonders… But a part of her would prefer Dex’s gun, gone the way she was meant to, meeting her fate head on. 

Head aching, foggy with exhaustion, but no longer buzzed with alcohol. She has a text about the fight in Kabuki and she still needs to get money from Wakako for the Dorsett gig; her last one with Jackie before the heist. She wipes the tears from her face and tucks Dex’s gun in her waistband, for later, meet her fate another day, she decides leaving the landfill. 

Death will wait for her, it’s done just that for years, albeit not always patiently. They got a date set, according to Vik, six months out. She’ll jump to meet the end sooner, she thinks, find it on her own terms. But for now, she’s not quite ready. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #387

“today i woke up, & i hate myself”

What common problem have you never experienced? The loss of a close family member (that doesn't include pets). Alternatively, what's an uncommon problem you have experienced? Homelessness. Do you know anyone who opposes marriage equality? I sure do. What was the last thing you got really emotional about? Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty premiering. What's the longest amount of time you've been ill for? I don't really know. I don't get sick a lot at all. Who is your closest male friend? Girt. Do you know anyone who hunts for meat? Sadly. I say "sadly" because it's not like they need it. Have you ever lived with a boyfriend/girlfriend? Yes, although I wasn't a technical resident. I was there all the time, though. What do you wash dishes with? Sponge, scrub brush, rag, something else? A sponge. Is there anything you prefer to do the old-fashioned way? There's probably something, but I can't think of anything. Do you put your glasses and mugs right side up or upside down on the cabinet shelf? Upside-down. What was the worst part of your childhood? My parents fighting. Have you ever seen a high school relationship last long-term? (like 10+yrs) Yeah. Do you know any cancer survivors? Quite a few. Leftover pizza for breakfast... yay or nay? Good shit, man. Do you personally know anyone who's a psychopath or sociopath? I don't think so. What is your most used kitchen appliance? Lately, it's been the apple slicer. I've been on a real apple slices + peanut butter kick lately. What is something that you would personally like to be remembered for? For being a caring person towards all living things. Have you ever been diagnosed as clinically depressed before? Yes. Do you like bowling? Yeah, it's fun. Do you own binoculars or nonoculars? What do you use them for? No. Do you ever wish you had a telescope on the roof or attic to stargaze? Yeah, that'd be cool. Have you ever had to deal with someone close to you going off to war? No, thankfully. Who do you feel you have the most in common with? Sara, easily. Who in your life causes you the most stress or negative feelings? My damn self lmao. Have you ever had a teacher that also taught your parents? No. My parents didn't grow up in NC. What’s one thing that people definitely CAN’T count on you for? To remember like... anything. What about something they definitely can count on you for? Someone to listen to encourage them. What’s one food that you want to try but haven’t yet? I've always thought macaroons look good. Do you have anything planned for the summer? No. Do you walk fast or slow? Slow. Would you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie? No. What is a common slang word from where you live? Plural "you" does not exist. It's "y'all," lol. What’s the scariest thing you’ve accidentally found on the internet? *shrug* Probably something as a kid, going on those sketchy websites with loads of games and stuff. Thinking of every Halloween costume you’ve had, which one was the most creative? I don't think I've had any creative costumes for Halloween. What’s one random city you want to visit? It's not exactly "random" as it's a popular location, but anyway, I would love to visit Venice. What subjects do you or did you get the worst grades in? Math. When was the last time you ate cake and what type of cake was it? That's a good question, actually. Maybe my niece's birthday in February? I don't remember what kind of cake it was. Do you have photos to go with all of the contacts in your phone? No; I don't have any. Do you like snowy winter days or do you prefer rainy days? SNOWY! Name 3 things you find most beautiful in nature: Mountains, large waterfalls, and desert dunes in the wind. If you could ask one person one questions and get a completely honest answer who would it be and what would you ask? Jason. I'd ask if he thought I was emotionally abusive. What is your favorite winter activity? Building snowmen. Who is the greatest singer who is no longer living? Freddie Mercury. What is your idea of heaven? I don't know, really... I have to ask myself IS there a heaven in eternity? Living forever just... doesn't appeal to me. "Living" is an odd word to use there, but hopefully you get it. Existing on and on and on and on seems like it'd just be a drag, but at the same time I do like the thought of feeling relentlessly happy and peaceful with my loved ones. I guess that would be my definition of it, if it does exist. What’s one of the scariest things you’ve ever done? ODed. Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through? Just once, on my 16th birthday because I was at Jason's place and all of his family was watching it. I had absolutely zero interest, but we wanted to hang with the family. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Canada. Do you watch American Horror Story? I haven't in years. It was Jason's and my first "show," and the first season was excellent. I lost interest in the second one, honestly. I'd be up for watching other seasons, though. How many relationships have you been in this year? None. What's your favorite cereal? Probably Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That's also the only cereal where I can happily drink the milk afterwards. Twitter or Facebook? Facebook. Do you like to paint your nails? No. What's the coolest place you've ever been to? Disney World, probably. Have you ever punched anyone? No. What's something you wish you knew how to do? Cook. :/ I really need to make an effort to learn. It'd be great to not rely on a microwave for the rest of my life. What's a celebrity that everyone likes but you don't? *shrug* What food do you eat the most? Probably bread in some form or another. That really needs to stop. Green or purple grapes? Either one, but they have to be firm. I cannooooooot with soft grapes. Have you ever cried over a text? Yeah. What's the background of your phone of? My lock screen is this pretty, simplistic periwinkle color with "work on you for you" written on it. It's one I plan on keeping for probably a long time because I connect to it so deeply with my stupid damn head frequently demanding I have to improve "for Jason" to prove him wrong. Which is a very unhealthy mindset to have, I know. My home screen is a cute lil Mark edit someone made with a very similar pale blue background, so my phone is just currently an #aesthetic. Do you have a Snapchat? No. What's your favorite sports team? (if you like sports)? I don't like sports, but I'm biased towards the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team because of my dad. Last thing you ate? I had Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. Do you take a lot of selfies? Definitely not. I just hate how I look so much; it takes way too much effort for me to get an "acceptable" one. Do you prefer strawberries or cherries? Strawberries. I hate cherries. How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Maybe like, three. -_- Our A/C is still out, and it was like, 87 in the house last night. It was impossible to sleep. Do you listen to music daily? Not EVERY day, but usually. Biggest insecurity? My weight. Do you play video games? Not as much as I used to. I'd probably play way more if I actually had a PS4 + the games I'm DYING to have. Do you consider yourself lazy? "Yes, but a lot of it is also health related for my lack of energy and motivation." <<<< This for me as well. What recently made you laugh? I was watching a bit of The Nanny with Mom yesterday. We love that show. Do you like gummy bears? Yep. What was the last song you listened to? I'm randomly hooked on "My Nocturnal Serenade" by YOHIO. Like, I've known the song for a long time, but NOW I'm bingeing it???? Describe your mom with one word. Selfless. What's the biggest turn-off? Probably being misogynistic. But being a cocky ass is definitely high up there, too. What fish scares you the most? Mfkng whale sharks terrify me. How do you feel about snails? They're cuties!!! What's your favorite app? Pokemon GO. Would you rather time travel into the past or future? The future, to see what's coming. I feel like you could come back with some pretty valuable information. What is the saddest song you've ever heard? I think "Terrible Things" by Mayday Parade has to come on top. What insect do you hate the most? I was reminded that stag beetles exist last night, and omfg those. Well, "hate" is the wrong word, really, I'm just terrified of them. Would you ever have a wild animal as a pet if possible? I 110% want to rescue an opossum, emphasis on "rescue." I'm not plucking one from the wild or anything like that. I would be in HEAVEN raising one of those angels. Are there any decorations that makes you happy? (lights, candles, plants..) I love those beds decorated with fairy lights, and just Christmas lights in general. Halloween and Christmas decor tend to give me sparks of happiness when I see 'em. Does race matter to you when it comes to dating? Not at all for me. When was the last time you painted something? Not since I was still in school and took a Painting course. When was the last time you really felt alive, and what were you doing? I have NO idea. What is one question you would like an answer to? Why the worst things tend to happen to good people. Name one favorite thing to do with kids while babysitting. I don't babysit, but if I was to be in charge of a kid, I'd love to teach them to play video games from my childhood. Playing Pokemon with my niece and nephew is always a blast, ahhhh. Name one flavor you like. Strawberry is pretty consistent. Name one thing you are hoping for. Venus' new terrarium soon... big sigh. I can't for the life of me find one that's a reasonable price and also adequately sized. I'm willing to put the rest of my cash into it, but Mom is helping, so I can't just buy the first one I see. Then I'd need more substrate, I seriously want a temperature gun and hygrometer, a cool hide, sticks and stuff for cover... It's going to be expensive, but I want Venus to have a truly proper environment she can thrive in. Write the name of one of your imaginary friends from when you were younger. Oddly enough, I can't remember the imaginary wolf that was my "friend." I say "oddly" because his whole idea was important to me as a weird-ass kid. Name one girl's name that starts with a "J" that you like. "Justine." Name one boy's name that starts with a "J" that you like. Maybe "Jaxson." Have you ever been kissed? Yeah. Have you ever feared that you would be killed? It's never been like, a fear I actively worry about. I just acknowledge it's always a possibility for anyone. What is the last great opportunity you missed? This was quite a while ago by now, but I'd say by dropping out of school, I really let photography opportunities slip since I became the newspaper photographer...

[kingjasnah]

actually. actually let’s talk about diversity in fantasy let’s give that a go. im mad and im gonna be that way for a while

don’t want to read all this? fair. tldr: fantasy writers who rely not only on the medieval europe model but also hide behind historical accuracy in 2020 (fuck it, from ‘95 onwards) are lazy and unimaginative and should be held accountable no matter how many white 20 year old dudes jerk off to whatever power fantasy is embedded in the plot. so lets chat about that lads. (slightly) drunk rant under the cut

now prelim shit: we know fantasy is used both as escapism and as a way to deal with various traumas via magical metaphor. staples of the genre. even if jk rowling busted out the laziest and at times offensive metaphor for ww2 and racism ive ever seen, she still adhered to time and true tropes. whatever.

so why have we, in this post game of thrones era, become insanely obsessed with realism? i can hear sixty 20-something year old men crying at me rn like oh ohh oh its based off the war of roses oh wahh all medieval fantasy fiction is based off england and the crusades anyway so women should get raped and people of color should be demonized its not racism its xenophobia and also gay people dont exist and disabled people are systematically killed off and if we stretch the magic fixes mental illness thing a LITTLE further we have straight up eugenics.

we all know where the england but myth thing came from. now the thing about tolkien is that while i will always absolutely love lotr, looking at the LAZY state of fantasy? damn i kinda wish he hadn’t revolutionized the genre. the bitch was still racist. he still didnt give a shit abt women (eowyn was just a vehicle to show how much he fucking hated macbeth anyone holding jrrt up as a feminist icon for that needs to sit the fuck down and explain to me why i can count the woman speaking roles in lotr, a story with a name and fleshed out backstory for every minor character, on one hand but thats! another post). he had something to say abt class with sam i’ll give him that but he is still 100% NOT what we need to hold our standards to in 2020. 

i dont want to talk about old school fantasy, like 80s early 90s cause theres literally no point. its sexist, racist, ableist for sure, this we know. david eddings (not even that old school tbh) can rise from the grave and explain himself to me personally and i still wont forgive him for ehlana. 

so let’s talk historical accuracy. quick question. who the FUCK gives a shit? WHO is this elusive got fan who’s out here like blehh actually??? this method of iron production is TOTALLY anachronistic of the time. ummm these vegetables in this fictional world were NOT native to english soil so how are they here? cause i know this is the classic argument but ive never actually met someone who cared about the lack of dysentery as much as they care abt the women getting raped on screen/page. 

god forbid you have to worldbuild for a second god forbid you can’t rely on the idea of fantasy readers already have in their head god forbid you have an original idea god forbid you spend more than two seconds thinking about ur setting (oh i should mention i dont....really blame GoT for its setting cause of how long ago it was og written but trust me i sure as hell blame grrm for writing a 13 yr old giving ‘consent’ to sex with a grown man within the first couple of chapters) 

If we accept the basic premise of fantasy as escapism, and i AM drunk so i will NOT be finding fuckin. quotes and shit for this but come on tolkien said it himself and as much as i’ll drag him he crafted the simplest and most powerful fantasy metaphors on the board rn. But if we know its escapism. If we know. then who is it escapism for? certainly not for me, the gay brown woman who busted through all of GoT in 10th grade. 

modern fantasy lit used as an excuse for that white male power fantasy is literally disgusting. calling historical accuracy is so fucking dumb ESPECIALLY cause we, as ppl in the 21st  century, KNOW women have been consistently written out of the story. poc ppl, gay and trans ppl, anyone with a god forbid disability has been WRITTEN out of history as we know it, INCLUDING the fucking war of the roses so HOW can we hold up testimony we know is flawed to support our FICTIONAL. STORY. just to??? support the white power fantasy?? literally noah fence but if you are a white guy who felt really empowered by every time jim butcher described a woman tell me: how do you think that’ll hold up in classic HisToRiCaL fantasy. you think thats a fucking noble pursuit? or are you grima wormtongue out here. 

(side note: jim butcher stop writing challenge i dont need to know abt every woman on page’s nipples. anyone who hides behind subgenre like that? ‘ohhh its a noir story thats why hes sexualizing everyone’ shut the fuck up an author isnt possessed by a fuckin muse and compelled to bust out 500k they have agency and they have choice and they MADE the choice to reserve said will for none of their female characters)

which brings me to point 2: target audience and BOY is the alcohol hitting me rn but WHO is this for? this isnt the fucking 80s we know poc and other marginalized folk read fantasy FOR the escapism. on god ive had a cosmere focused blog for nearly three years and. im just gonna say it im interacted with A LOT of yall and ive managed to talk to VERY few white straight ppl as compared to everyone else. 

like....who deserves to see the metaphor on homophobia or racism. joanne rowling? the bitch who literally tried to sell us happy slaves and the disgusting aids metaphor and the worst case of antisemitic stereotypes i ever saw in an nyt bestseller? yall think that was for US? or was it for the white guilt crowd. 

literally white people can find any book about them that they can relate to. but hmmm maybe theres a reason gay women care so much about stormlight archive’s jasnah kholin, a brown woman who’s heavily coded as wlw. or kaladin, the FIRST fantasy protag ive ever seen with clinical depression. hmm i wonder why a bunch of millennials are vibing all of a sudden. im not saying sanderson is perfect--but its the best ive seen from a white author tbh

maybe theres a reason a lot of poc vibe with a literary way to express trauma, and maybe thats why i specifically get so pissed when its not done well. theres a REASON books about outcasts pushing through and claiming their own lives are popular with people who arent white and straight and able bodied. Junot Diaz had a point. maybe lets STOP catering to those assholes who think theyre joseph campbell’s wet dream personified. ive lost respect SO many authors who are objectively talented. pat rothfuss can write so beautifully that ive cried to bits of name of the wind but literally i will never pick that series up again (not just because of the felurian. women in general tbh. mostly the felurian ngl) cause 1) i personally KNEW men whod jerk off to that shit and 2) there was no need for it there was no plot reason for ANY of that shit 

so like obviously thers an issue with authors of color specifically not getting recognized for fantasy and genre work but on god??????? im still mostly mad at the legions of white authors churning out the same medieval england chosen one books year after fucking year. have an original thought maybe. also im sorry that you as an author lack the basic empathy needed to examine the way that women? or any group of people that youre explicitly writing about see the world and would specifically see YOUR made up world. 

yes your fantasy should be diverse, but more than that it should be kind. if you as a writer cant respect groups of people who deserve it....what the hell are you doing in a genre that traditionally is about finding ways to express injustice through metaphor? tolkien’s hero was sam. fantasy was NEVER about the privileged. yall know who you are so stop acting so fucking entitled. peace out. 

[lloftvlly]

something i never really talk about but felt like ranting about right now.

hi, i’m may, i stan fictional villains, and i have a shitty autoimmune disease.

i don’t make a big deal of it because i don’t think it’s defining who i am but i won’t pretend it’s not a huge part of my life. 

just a little backstory. my disease started to kick in in my teens. it started very slowly and snuck up on me. the first time i noticed something was off, was when my right knee started hurting. back then i didn’t think of it as much though, just maybe i was getting hurt at the concert i was at a a few days prior (it was good charlotte, my friend is a huge fan and dragged me to their live it wasn’t bad but lol). it started to bother me when the pain in the knee didn’t go away after i kept applying some cooling gels and whatnot and my knee kept swelling up. my cousin, who’s a doctor got me some cortisone cream too and it helped a bit but you can’t use this for long. so as soon as i quit using it the pain was back just as bad, if not worse. 

i started seeing doctors and they were just confused. i got my knee punctured and liquids drained by doctor 5 times. (long-ass needle goes under your kneecap and liquid gets pulled out)  this procedure hurts like shit but it always gave me a little relief for a few days. but after that it still got progressively worse. it started to also affect my left knee and my right wrist and eventually my lower back. and at this point i was taking a lot of pain meds to at least be able to have pain-free days. in the mornings i couldn’t get out of bed, i couldn’t walk. i had to always take pain meds in bed, wait until they kick in, then force myself to get out of bed and try to walk. always stiff, always having to keep my legs moving if i don’t want them to turn stiff like rocks again...  my knees were too weak to keep me on my legs for long so whenever i was in situations i had to stand a lot, i would threaten them cos i would have to find something to lean on and that wasn’t always an option.  shitty fucking situation.

i kept seeing doctors who were not sure what it was. idk how many times i left a doctor office and then had a mental breakdown, crying cos no one could tell me what’s wrong and i just wanted it to be taken care of. like lit felt like i was left so alone with my pain and no one did anything to help me with it. i even felt like i wasn’t taken serious enough. one doctor even made some comments that it might all just be in my brain. because i am also diagnosed with GAD and clinical depression he was like “this could be part of that.” such bullshit. sometimes doctors don’t take you serious for having mental illnesses is what i learned from that. 

anyway, things were looking up a little after that. 

about 7 years into living with pain i was finally getting a diagnosis. all this time it had been psoriasis arthritis, an autoimmune illness that attacks my joints. the reason why it took doctors this long is because this condition rarely ever comes without the skin condition psoriasis. i didn’t show it on my skin, and even my blood tests seemed to not show the results doctors needed to diagnose it. the only reason doctors did find out, was because i had googled my symptoms a lot and i brought up the idea to my doctor that this would be it. plus my grandpa and my aunt have the same disease and it’s something genetic. honestly without me telling the docs i think i have psa i think i wouldn’t have a diagnosis even now. 

idk what changed on the day i got my diagnosis and why it suddenly showed in my blood tests also. but i was relieved to say the least, knowing what was rly going on with my body. but the thing is, i lived 7 years undiagnosed with it and now have to live with the consequences of that time: these being, i was always walking cautiously because of the pain in my knees, it ended up in me now having a crooked walk, i can’t stretch out my legs completely anymore, neither bend them completely. it’s now just something i have to live with, that i won’t prolly never walk normally again. i’ve ruined my posture thru that, and now have chronic back pains caused by it and i get lots of migraines that result from the back (idk how it works i aint a doctor) 

now i am on strong medication called mtx, it’s kind of a med that many ppl are critical of, because of its strong side effects and it not being rly good to the body. i have my blood checked all 6 weeks cos i gotta make sure they don’t slowly kill me lol.  but for me this med is rly saving my life like holy shit. i do physical rehab in a program whenever i can, i stayed there for weeks before and it was kind of nice. the issue with my medication, however, is that i have to pause them whenever i even have as much as a small cold. since they suppress my immune system or whatever, i can’t take them when i am sick or i won’t ever have a immune system to get me back to becoming healthy again or some sciency shit idk lol. 

either way that brings me to now. i had a fever not long ago and had to pause my meds again. mtx stays in the body for like 2 weeks or so, if you pause any longer than that, your body is set back to the state it was before you started therapy on this medication and mtx takes up to ten weeks to even take effect. meaning, when i pause it, i am set back to before i started the medication and have to wait at least 6 weeks for them to kick back in and make the pain slowly go away again. now, currently i am in one of those in between times before the meds work again. i am in quite a lot of pain,  i can barely get out of bed. not only do both my knees rly hurt but so does my back. and i am like /: well that sucks. 

it’s hard to focus when you’re in pain. as i am right now. i try really hard to focus on anything other than that but no matter what i do, my mind’s always going back to the pains in my back and knees, my wrists feel surprisingly fine and thank fuck cos i need them to write lol. point being, my focus is gone. i wanna write, i wanna create, i wanna draw but it’s rly hard man. i feel whiny and like overly dramatic... nothing should keep me from writing, realistically. look, i mean, i just typed out this wholeass essay. i honestly think i am blocking myself. i’m like ‘woe is me.. i have some pain’ and somehow almost use this as an excuse, i guess, to be a lazy pos. 

someone gotta tell me “stop being a bitch and get to work” so if you read this and if you would lol. just don’t pls, for the lov of king shiggy , don’t feel bad for me or say anything to pity me. that’s not what i want /at all/. i’m a badass for living with this pain, lemme feel like one at least lol.  if you can sympathize that’s nice but i didn’t write this to make anyone feel bad for me i promise. i don’t feel bad for myself either, i honestly think i am lucky in many ways that i get to live in a country with free health care, get to work from home, get to be a lazy pos when i am in this type of situation without having to worry about anything rly. 

i’m also writing this rant to kind of push myself. get out of this stupid slump DO SOMETHING. 

anyway, that’s all. 

also: if anyone got stories to share about their own experiences and they want me to hear it, please do. ithink we all have things we struggle with. 

[knit-wear-it]

Abnormal Psychology II

Joan Leland’s Two Greatest Disappointments

PhD student!Crane, Undergrad!Harley, Narrator!Joan Leland / Writing exercise to help me work through backstories. Which includes rewriting the first part of this. Because it was terrible.

Read Abnormal Psychology I Here

**Reminder: Harley killed her college boyfriend.

Abnormal Psychology II

2. Joan Leland's Two Greatest Failures

Eight years before Harley meets the Joker.

Joan Leland had been teaching Psychology at Gotham University for over twenty-five years, the tenured head of the department for nearly ten. During those years, she’d seen many precocious PhD candidates, but few of them stood out like Jonathan Crane.

She first met Jonathan when he was twenty-two years old, freshly graduated from a southern university known for its football team rather than its academics. With a bachelor’s in clinical psychology, and a minor in chemistry, his grades had been excellent, and his tutors called him ‘brilliant’ in their referrals. He was an obvious choice for an interview. 

The young man Joan met had been caustic, bordering on rude, and she immediately suspected he was either on the spectrum or suffering some other mental health ailment. That wasn’t a mark against him - so many students of psychology were drawn to the field because of their own struggles. But Crane had a unique interest - obsession if the intensity in his pale eyes was any indication - in fear that hinted at PTSD more than intellectual curiosity. Still, despite Joan’s reservations, Crane was invited to join that year’s group of post-graduate students.

He hadn’t fit in, making numerous enemies amongst his cohort, fellow twenty-somethings who submitted complaints about his rudeness and inflexibility. Then there were Crane’s complaints - of which there had been many - accusing his peers of being lazy and holding him back. In the end, Crane spent the collaborative early years of his PhD working alone. 

It was in Crane’s third year that Joan became well acquainted with him. As head of the department, she had the final say in allocating budgets to research projects. Predictably, Jonathan believed his doctorate thesis to be of paramount importance above his fellow graduate students, and he spent an increasing amount of time lobbying Joan for more money, and issuing empty threats about going to the dean if she didn’t agree. 

“Twenty-thousand dollars?” Joan asked warily, raising her eyebrows at Crane over the top of the proposal he’d just handed her. He was a skinny, pale young man at twenty-five, with an untidy flop of black hair and striking pale blue eyes. His clothes were always neat and tidy, his preference for gray slacks, black oxfords, and ties beneath wool vests separating him from his peers, who tended towards more childish versions of professional dressing. He might have been handsome if it weren’t for the way he carried himself - arrogant, impatient, full of disdain.  

Joan felt sorry for him. 

“I require a larger pool of test subjects,” Crane explained stiffly, his top lip curling. “The volunteers aren’t good enough.”

“Why aren’t they enough?” Joan frowned as she removed her spectacles. “Your peers have no problem with the volunteers.”

Crane closed his eyes and inhaled sharply like he was rallying his patience, or maybe he found being asked to explain himself deeply offensive. 

“I require a certain kind of subject,” he forced a bitter smile that made Joan’s eyes widen. “I need to vet them myself. It’s essential to my research.”

“I understand, Jonathan,” Joan offered him a sympathetic smile and set his proposal aside. “I’m afraid twenty-thousand is out of the question. I may be able to free up five for you.”

“Ten,” Crane insisted sourly. “Dr Leland, I’m sure you’re aware that it would be generous to call the department’s psychopharmacology resources lacking.”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan, this isn’t a negotiation,” Joan sighed as she got to her feet, adjusting her pastel suit jacket. “You’ll have to make do with five-thousand. Now, please excuse me, I have a meeting.” 

She gestured to the door when an idea occurred to her - perhaps a creative solution. Crane isolated himself from his peers, and he never spoke about friends or family. He was missing empathy in his life, with no one to care for, and no one to show him compassion in return.

“Actually,” Joan’s smile brightened. “Have you thought about signing up for the free therapy program the student union set up?”

Crane’s pale eyes widened incredulously. 

“Dr Leland… are you suggesting I need therapy?” he demanded indignantly.

“Well, no,” Joan admitted, though it was abundantly clear Crane needed to talk to someone about his past. “You are a licensed therapist, Jonathan. I’m suggesting you volunteer your time to help these students. It would be good for you to practice outside of your research.”

Crane squinted at her owlishly for a moment, then quite abruptly, he snorted out a laugh.

“I don’t think so,” he said smugly. “Children with eating disorders don’t interest me.”

“Most of them are there for depression or anxiety, or trauma they need to work through,” Joan pointed out, feeling a swell of pity for him. “Psychology isn’t just research and test subjects. We’re here to help people too.”

“Mm,” he sneered, disagreeing but apparently not feeling the need to make his case. He wasn’t holding himself back because he held an unpopular opinion - Joan had heard plenty of complaints about his outright disdain for patient welfare. But this time it seemed he didn’t feel it was an argument worth having. An argument that was beneath him as he found so many things to be. 

“How are you finding the lectures?” Joan asked hesitantly, shouldering her bag as she followed him out of her office. 

“Most of them are morons,” he shot her a withering look that could have stripped paint off the wall. “I’ll also be lobbying the dean to remove the teaching requirement for students in their fourth year,” he informed Joan crisply. “Some of us have more important work to be doing.”

Then he turned on his heel and stomped down the hallway without a word of farewell. 

Joan sighed, feeling another surge of pity for Jonathan Crane as she locked her office door and headed in the opposite direction. 

Gotham University’s campus was covered in snow, a treat for students returning from their Christmas breaks. Joan smiled at colleagues and a few students she knew or recognized as she walked toward the student union building, struggling with the question of how she might help Jonathan Crane.

The student union was a modern building painted yellow and red, and it hadn’t aged well since it was constructed in the late seventies. Joan took the lift to the third floor, where she’d been given a small office to assess the students assigned to her. Four or five other members of staff from the psychology department volunteered their free time there too, with patients dolled out to them in a kind of raffle. Students wanting therapy would be added to a waitlist and scheduled with whoever was available whenever they were available. It wasn’t ideal but it was better than nothing. 

“Hi, Dr Leland,” the volunteer behind a receptionist’s desk greeted Joan brightly, handing her a file. 

“Hi Sarah,” Joan smiled back at her. “How is everything?”

“It’s pretty dead,” Sarah observed affably. “I guess the kids are feeling pretty good after the break. No finals to stress them out.”

“Sure,” Joan agreed politely, inwardly thinking that many of these young people would likely be in need of more therapy after the holidays, not less. “Who am I seeing today?” she opened the file, her eyes widening when she found a police report inside. 

“Ah, she’s kind of a special case,” Sarah sighed. “Her boyfriend was Guy Kopski, you know, the boy who committed suicide before the holidays?” She cringed, which made Joan frown, deeming a cringe to be a particularly inappropriate response from someone working closely with students requiring support and compassion. “Anyway, the financial aid office insisted she either take time off from school or get some form of therapy. She’s waiting in your office.”

“The FA office is involved? That seems heavy-handed,” Joan mused, scanning the police report before she turned the page. “Oh,” she nodded, understanding. 

Harleen Quinzel was on a full-ride scholarship, and she was an orphan. The financial aid office wanted to make sure their investment paid off. 

Sad stories were something you got used to working in psychology. It was important to empathize with your patients, and that never got easier or less painful, but the longer you did the job, the more you accepted those stories as part of life. Joan would never feel numb toward the people she helped, but their stories did become less shocking to her. Including Guy Kopski’s violent suicide.

To jump off a building, one truly had to want to die.  

Joan knocked on her office door before pushing it open, her lips curving into a patient smile, which came naturally to her after years and years of listening to sad stories. 

“Harleen?” she asked the girl waiting for her, keeping her voice soft. 

Harleen Quinzel sat at one end of a pale green corduroy couch, looking out the window. She had long, honey blonde hair that fell in soft, messy waves around her shoulders, and she wore the typical GU-girl winter uniform of leggings, a collegiate sweatshirt, and snow boots. She turned her head when Joan said her name, her sober expression inspiring an almost painful pang of sympathy in Joan. Harleen looked strained and pale, her blue eyes overly-large like she’d lost a lot of weight quickly, with bruise-like smudges beneath. It had been about three weeks since Guy Kopski’s suicide, and Joan realized that Harleen probably hadn’t had anyone to talk to about how she was feeling in that span of time. 

In fact, if she had no family to speak of, she would have spent most of that time alone in Gotham while her friends went back to their family’s homes.

“Dr Leland,” Harleen greeted Joan warily. 

Joan lowered herself onto the other end of the couch; she should have taken the chair, but Harleen was so… alone, it seemed more natural to sit beside her. To be closer to her.

“I’ve been filled in about Guy and the financial aid office,” Joan explained kindly while Harleen nodded. “This may be a very general way to open, but would you like to tell me how you’re feeling today?”

Harleen took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, her eyes on one of the many ferns populating the room. 

“Numb,” she said eventually, not looking away from the fern. “Like it didn’t happen.”

 “Acceptance is the final stage of grief,” Joan replied kindly. “It’s only been three weeks. It makes sense that you haven’t fully processed Guy's death.”

“No,” Harleen caught Joan’s eye. Her eyes were glacial, like an icy arctic sea. “I’ve accepted that he’s gone,” she said softly. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it.”

“There isn’t one way you should feel about it,” Joan said patiently. “It’s not about what you decide you should feel - you’ll feel whatever you feel. That’s one of the things we’re here to talk about so you can understand and cope with those feelings.”

“I know that. I meant I don’t know what I’m feeling, or if I’m even feeling anything at all,” Harleen explained, her gaze shifting back to the fern. She blinked at it a few times, her face placid as she searched her feelings, trying to understand them. “It’s like it didn’t happen to me, but someone else…” she murmured to herself.

Joan was about to jump in, not wanting to push her too hard in the first five minutes when Harleen spoke up again. 

“Everyone knows green is a soothing color,” she observed, running her hand over the corduroy couch cushion. “Doesn’t it seem a little patronizing to use it so liberally?”

“I’m not sure everyone knows that,” Joan offered her a wry smile. “You’re a psych major, aren’t you?”

“You’re the head of the psychology department, aren’t you?” Harleen countered tartly, imitating Joan’s tone perfectly. Then she shifted back into moroseness, almost more intensely than she had been before, and she took a deep breath like she was bracing herself. 

Joan felt a startling thread of dread roll through her gut - some sixth sense waving a flag that there was something wrong with this young woman. The way she flipped on a dime, from depressed to… whatever that was, and back again. It made Joan wonder if there wasn’t something ingenuine about her grief.

But, Joan reminded herself, there was nothing wrong with anyone. No matter what their pathology, no matter what their circumstances. There was a diagnosis to contend with, but no human being could be wrong. 

Aside from, perhaps, some of the most vicious psychopaths.

What made a person human if not empathy? 

“I’m hoping to get into the PhD program after I graduate,” Harleen said, giving Joan a hopeful smile that looked forced. 

“That’s wonderful,” Joan beamed at her, shrugging off her unease. “There’s pretty stiff competition, but you’ve certainly got the grades for it. What are you interested in?”

Harleen licked her lips, eyeing the fern thoughtfully as she considered Joan’s question. Or, perhaps she was considering how to answer Joan’s question. The longer the silence stretched on, the more Joan came to feel she was trying to craft an answer for Joan’s sake, rather than telling the truth. But that was ludicrous, there was nothing she could say that Joan would judge her for. 

Then Harleen looked at Joan, and there was a faint gleam in her eyes, something dark that sent an uneasy shiver rolling over Joan’s shoulders. 

“Psychopaths,” Harleen announced grimly, the word seeming to hang in the air between them. “I want to understand the way they feel,” she added, sounding more subdued.  

Joan raised her eyebrows. Psychopaths were frequent favorites for the younger students, no doubt because they were one of the more exciting pathologies. Not to mention the many movies featuring glamorized versions of them - Hannibal Lector, Patrick Batement, Frank Booth, and nearly every other villain created by Hollywood. 

But there was something… certain about Harleen's words. 

Something personal. 

“Psychopaths don’t feel very much,” Joan pointed out cautiously, watching Harleen turn her attention to the corduroy couch, stroking the ribbed fabric slowly. “They have almost zero emotional intelligence. Everything they do is driven by impulse, trying to feed the pleasure center of their brain for immediate gratification.”

“Really?” Harleen frowned as she looked up at Joan. “All of them?”

“Generally speaking,” Joan said hesitantly, holding Harleen’s gaze, which was intense and made her feel somehow… exposed. 

Harleen sighed and looked down at the pale green couch cushion.

“I wonder if psychopaths find green soothing,” she mused, sounding genuinely curious.

That brought a smile to Joan’s lips. Curiosity was one of her most prized qualities in a student.

After that first meeting, Joan met Harleen every other week for the rest of the semester, getting to know her sad story and her curious mind. There was something about her that made Joan feel protective of her, almost like she owed it to Harleen to give her what she needed to succeed. 

There was also something about Harleen that reminded Joan of Jonathan Crane. Something a shade too ambitious, something a fraction too disinterested in the people around her. They both had sad stories, but while Jonathan’s seemed to drag him down, Harleen seemed to exist separately from hers, as if none of it had really happened to her.

Joan was dismayed but not surprised when the world found out what Jonathan Crane turned Arkham Asylum into. His fear toxin, torturing his patients, working with the mob, the Scarecrow moniker, all of it seemed like an inevitable conclusion.  

But she could have never predicted how Harleen’s story panned out. 

Joan had always worried about the way Harleen monitored herself in front of other people. Over the years that followed their first meeting, she could never understand why her most talented student felt the need to hide her thoughts and feelings, and there was always something decidedly… clenched about how she carried herself. As if there was a weight on her shoulders she couldn’t shake off, something constantly holding her back from being herself, something she was constantly fighting against. 

It wasn’t until the world was introduced to Harley Quinn that Joan understood what that something was.

And all it had taken was the Joker to unlock it.

A/N: Again, just a little writing exercise with some throwbacks to the Harlequin, but nothing revolutionary or spoilery.

Now time to write what I’m supposed to be writing...

[magdalcne]

{ BELLA HADID / CISFEMALE / SHE/HER } whoa, whoa, you see that person over there ? that's ( TWENTY-THREE ) year-old ( MARIE HAKIMI ) . someone told me they were part of the london 47’s , apparently involved in some shit with the ( STOLEN ) crew as a ( MEMBER ) . their leader just died too ,  so they must be feeling ( HEARTBROKEN ) .  but i also heard about ( REDACTED ) , which i’m not sure the group knows about . i mean, it sort of explains why they’re the ( THE HIDDEN HEART OF GOLD ) of the group and why they’re so ( RELIABLE & METHODICAL ) and ( SARCASTIC & STRONG-WILLED ) . i feel like when i look at them, though, they sort of feel like ( VILLANELLE OF KILLING EVE, RED SLIP DRESSES, CHAMPAGNE FOR EVERY OCCASION, FRENCH KISSING, FUCK THE PAIN AWAY BY PEACHES ) - if that makes sense ? anyway , i’d stay away regardless .

statistics —

FULL NAME:  marie NICKNAME(S): don’t call her nicknames AGE: twenty - three GENDER + PRONOUNS:  cis  female + she/her ORIENTATION:  bisexual ( prefers women though ) ZODIAC:  scorpio sun,  she doesn’t know the rest BIRTHDAY: november 22nd, 1996 PLACE OF BIRTH: ��paris, france DRINKING / DRUGS / SMOKING:  yes / sometimes / yes LABEL:  the hidden heart of gold / she has a soul i promise CREW: stolen STATUS: member SINCE: late 2015

backstory —

MARIE HAKIMI was born to an 19-year-old ÉLOÏSE DURAND and 21-year-old ERIC HAKIMI in PARIS, FRANCE, who played a large role in organized crime in paris. her parents were dating at the time of conception and lasted only two more years before parting ways and leaving éloïse to be a single mother. 

leaving éloïse to take care of a two-year-old all on her own, she quickly realized her financial safety net from the mob was over and began fending for herself however she can. her mother bounced from sex work to managing various fast food establishments and finally settled on doing housework for the upper class, living in her own quarters. as she was finally able to get herself and marie to be financially stable enough, the fatigue and trauma from the past ten years began to quickly catch up to her. by the time marie was twelve, her mom was diagnosed with clinical depression and by thirteen, her condition became severe. the rich family they were staying with let them go - which left them to lose both their source of income and shelter - and her and marie were back at shady places. 

at fourteen, marie’s mother began receiving disability checks and continued to stay in bed - eventually not even leaving to see her psychiatrist. and marie during all of this? she was fed up; all of this frustrated her. she was pissed at her mom for making them lose their income, just as she was getting comfortable. she was pissed at her for refusing to get up, seeing her as pitifully lazy. and it was then that she realized she was going to need to support herself. after talking to a few kids at her school and getting close to the teen drug dealers there, she began selling herself. but unlike her competition at school, she was highly determined and hungry to make a living from this, especially seeing the kind of money she could eventually make from this. 

and she was quite skilled at it all, too. she used her persuasion to con high school kids out of more and more money from a gram, which impressed the dealer she would buy from very much and earned her many referrals that helped move her higher up the ranks. this allowed her to be able to make enough money and move out early at sixteen. leaving her mother behind, she felt as though she could finally breathe and the gratification of being able to support herself at a young age did wonders to boost her ego and confidence.

this eventually got the attention of a group of criminals, eventually known to be les requins, who heard about just how quickly she was moving up the drug dealing ranks, she was interested and fearless. however, she was not anticipating them to tell her just how much they knew about her and weirdly enough, how much they knew about her father. which is also when she found out her father had died just three years prior. les requins, noticing her potential and also wanting to honor the memory of her father, decided to take her under their wing.

they started with the small, familiar tasks. while her clientele was more often than not foolish teenagers, they had her set her sights on their parents — pushing cocaine and ketamine rather than overpriced marijuana. and as she excelled in achieving that, and grew older and out of high school, they focused her tasks on entrapping men in order to steal from them. it started with the little things, like watches or electronics, but before she knew it, they trusted her enough to steal the big things too like, cars and guns.

and eventually, stealing and heists became not only marie’s thing, but the entire group’s thing. they basked in the negative publicity they received across paris media, and kept trying to one-up each of their heists or thieving rampages. but this overload of attention on them, truthfully, is something marie never wanted for herself. she knew this would only lead down one path — arrests and life in prison. and then she was approached with the most outrageous task next: killing the leader of london 47′s, jamie singh.

which she knew would be a suicide mission. but at the same time, there was a part of her who wanted the satisfaction and ego boost of assassinating the most high-profile figure in the underground crime industry. she wanted the clout. it was very superficial, but she wanted the power, and it motivated her to travel to london. she had a plan, she got close to that plan, and then his security caught her, last minute. 

at that point, she made peace with dying right then. the risks were apparent and her heightened ego got the best of her, despite her tactics being as careful as they were. but in a turn of events, jamie had security release her. he gave her an ultimatum: she tells him what she knows about les requins, give up allegiance to them, and allow him to get to know her and try to understand her. or, he would kill her himself. the former felt painstakingly embarrassing, but her ego already failed her once, so she decided to do just that. 

jamie understood her childhood struggles, his being similar, and the woman somehow deeply intrigued him. he then proposed a test to her: she had to stay in london, join the 47′s, and not tell anyone back in paris. if she failed, her life would once again be on the line, as second chances were rare for him. she knew this was a test of trust, and honestly, she was looking for a way out — les requins have gotten too reckless and at least there was a better blanket of security and structure in the 47′s.

and so ever since that moment when jamie showed remorse towards her four years ago, she had been working to pay him back. he was the mentor she always needed in her life and the bond they eventually grew, along with the rest of the group, gave marie a renewed sense of purpose. but with his death... it devastated her. she lost the one person she couldn’t stand to lose, who also happened to be the anchor of her found family. now, all she wants is the group to get back on track, worried about their reputation in the crime world. after all, if there’s anyone who knows that other groups could take advantage of this publicized vulnerability, it’s her.

personality —

BASED ON: Villanelle (Killing Eve), Amy Dunne (Gone Girl), Tony Soprano (The Sopranos)

+ reliable, persuasive, witty

- sarcastic, strong-willed, stoic

(scorpio, entj)

[genderdysphoriablues]

15/1/'20

Hey y'all, it's been a while. Here's a summary what happened in the past month:

I talked about my really bad dysphoria, and that mingled with a depressive episode made it difficult to update my blog, and then I just kind of got lazy. But during that time I made two very important appointments.

The first is that I planned to go see my therapist again because I was in such a bad place. I didn't get to that appointment until January (it was set from December), but that'll come up later. The second was something I'd like to say was an impulse decision, but that would be lying because it actually took weeks to plan out. I set up an appointment with an endocrinologist at an informed consent clinic.

In the meantime: Christmas and New Years. I got Christmas off this year, and took some time that day to visit and exchange gifts with Grace (she got me two books: Starsight by Brandon Sanderson, and The Joker Psychology).

I did work on New Year's, but that was my choice. I was at a house for Day Program, and I was literally almost in tears because the bunny they have there was licking and nuzzling me. I also visited Grace again.

Not too long after, I had my last day at Day Program. I'm going to take some time before I start looking at another job so I can do some theatre or combat training. Maybe both.

I auditioned for Sister Act at a local community theatre, and got callbacks for TJ (a male character, mind you). I'm stoked! I really hope I get in.

I also saw my therapist, finally. We talked about the endocrinologist appointment and if I was okay letting my bishop know why I'm meeting with a therapist. Then I went to see Jumanji 2 (I loved it) and had some Chick-fil-A.

Recently my atheist friend Silver came to church with me out of the blue, went to the library with me to check out A Satanic Bible, and then came to Study group with me to discuss atheism vs Mormonism with @closetmormon and another friend. He can be Jasper. It was a nice discussion and we all felt very enlightened afterward.

This brings us to today.

I woke up and played some Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (I finally finished the first one! Not really as fond of CoM, to be honest). Then my mom started to do stuff on the treadmill, and I left the house. Not because of that, though.

I drove an hour to an ObGyn and checked in to the appointment I had set over a month ago. I was there for a long time as they did blood tests (I didn't pass out this time!) and gave me a juice box. I waited as the doctor dealt with an emergency in another room. I filled out a blue packet that said I probably didn't have depression (I don't), and that I probably have anxiety (I do). I initialed and signed a long form detailing all of the changes that testosterone would make on my body.

The doctor finally came in and we chatted for a little bit, making sure I knew what I was getting in to, and insuring that I have a strong support system I could turn to. I do.

And then finally, finally, finally, the nurse gave me my first shot of testosterone. I have very mixed feelings about it.

I want this so badly, but this could directly interfere with my full participation in a gospel that I love so much. Of course I won't stop going to church and all, but I'm 100% sure that I won't be able to go to the temple anymore. I'm going to talk to my bishop this upcoming Sunday.

But of course, I'm finally on testosterone!!!

Anyway, I went to work (at the library) and moved movies from place to place all night (yesterday I got to destroy old magazines, which is my favourite job).

Mostly, though, I'm ecstatic that I'll finally have the body I need to.

[originlist]

im gonna copy paste todays irrelevant hot take directly from twitter bc im too lazy to retype it more coherently but still want it over here

anyways hot take, avenger salieri could class as an alter if it werent for the fact that og salieri himself doesnt class as a heroic spirit at all.

Alters arent just as the current event claims, an "alternate aspect", bc just alternate aspects manifest as class changes. Alter servants are servants from straight up alternate history, timelines that didnt happen and wishes made by other people to bring them about (e.g. salter is ‘artoria but where shes ruthless’, an aspect which artoria has originally but doesnt use, okitalter is ‘a version of okita create to fill okisaber’s wish’, jalter is ‘jeanne but angry’, and also created by gilles. All of which necessarily are versions of an extant servant warped by an outside force and/or from a timeline that is not the primary human timeline.)

Avenger Salieri is a conglomerate of specifically things that didnt happen, hes the personification of slander combined with the grey man legend and a shred of actual salieris ego, enough to let him use the name. Hes made from things that specifically arent the true human history, by definition, and clinging to the Oblivion Correction/Avenger skill to ensure he knows what timeline is the objective truth.

Which would mean he would hold the Alter title EXCEPT, as he says himself, 'the real Salieri is dead, and staying that way', meaning theres no template in the throne for his deviation to be from, so he goes from alter to just default bc there cant be an alter of something that doesnt have an 'original' saint graph to deviate from. Aside from that he has all the qualifications for being an alter, eg being from essentially inaccurate history, aware of that fact, also aware hes not the ‘original’/real salieri as it were, and also being a clinically depressed anime goth. Send tedtalk. 

[mnemehoshiko]

I Really Should Just Invest In Naps + TMI: HEALTH STUFF (x-posted DW/PF)

I'm so tired. I really need to think of a better way of starting these beyond, "hi hello. i am tired. ONCE A FUCKING GAIN."

My parents came Thursday evening to help my brother move on Friday. He's moving apartments and i'm lowkey jealous because he has

TWO ROOMS!!!

A REAL BATHROOM!!

a fucking washer and dryer in unit

all utilities covered except for internet

for fucking 950/month. T___T

The only con is that he's farther from things compared to his, now, prior apartment. Also it's carpeted which is a downside for me (and probably him). But ughhhhh.

But he did most of the movie on his own before they showed up on Friday? So they didn't have a lot left to move.

Mama brought me pillows?? Which are Nice and Lovely and I like the Color but it was also just weird to go downstairs to let them in and have the exchange of

Me: SALAAM MOM

Mother: Salaam, I have your pillows. *thrusts garbage bag filled with pillows at moi*

Me:*blinks* (thinking....when....did I....ask....for pillows??? In retrospect, it was probably one of those things I like claimed when grandma posted stuff to the family WhatsApp group?? And I probably?? Forgot???) Mother: *squints* you just woke up didn't you. Me, who got dressed in like 3 minutes immediately after she called saying they were here: *takes pillows* =__= (I had Not Just Woken Up. I had woken up and then rolled over. VAST DIFFERENCE!! ....there is no difference.) (In my defense, my period has literally Just Started and I'm like Not Happy By This. T_T) They ask if I want to come to my brother's place to move stuff and I'm like, "i'll go on the second round." (also known as attempt to clean my apartment, haahhahaha) I help with the second round of stuff and we all pile into the mini-van to go my brother's place and it's NICE and I am Not Envious but I'm Not Not Envious. =___=

He has Actual Windows. T__T (my bedroom does not. my apartment...has A Lot of Flaws but It's Walking Distance From Many Things So I'm Paying for Convenience) (is this my current mantra? MAYBE.) Anyway, afterwards we go to Costco because like That Is What I Care About. And we Costco'd up. And had minor rage that a pack of 3, clinical strength "lady" deodorants were 12.99 vs 10.99 for 5 pack of "men" clinical deodorant. My brother concurred and has like also read up on the "pink tax" before and like if he ends up marrying a lady, I'M JUST LIKE??? CONGRATS?? WE HAVE TRAINED SOME SEMBLANCE OF A WOKE BLACK MALE. PLEASE DIRECT PRAISE TO MY MOTHER AND MY SISTERS. (no really, he can cook, clean, grocery shop, basically function as a decent human being and like LISTENS WHEN WOMEN TALK IN A THOUGHTFUL MANNER. He also is willing to openly weep during movies, so like congrats.) Anyway, then we went to Sprouts?? Which is like the Large Hippie Grocery Store in Durham and I uhhhh had never been there properly and now I understand why little brother sometimes grocery shops there. There were So Many Types of Almond Milk I Was In Heaven. (update: have discovered that Sprouts....instacarts to my area......as does Sur la Table. This Is Dangerous Information.) Then we went to the hardware store to acquire somethings for little bro's apartment and then we popped back to my place and my mother was like LET ME HELP YOU WITH THINGS. Me, aware my apartment is still disastrous: "That's....not....necessary." Narrator: The mother was undeterred. She did not have a conniption but she did go into Deep Maternal Worry Mode with Bonus Overbearing and Meddling Steamrolling. Internal Me: She means well. She means well. She feels guilty that she's not Around More Often Even Though I Made The Choice To Move Down South. Mother: are you okay? I know you have the anxiety and depression but has anything else happened?? You know?? You'd feel better if this place was cleaner. Me: *pained nods* Mother: Has anything else happened that you haven't told us??? I know you have the health things but anything else? Me: ...no??? (Beyond health and like my inability to like sleep properly, nothing else has happened but stress of my grad life. =_=_ Mother: LETS TAKE JUST 5 MINUTES AND TIDY THINGS UP A LITTLE

Me, who's hungry and still Has Not Eaten In Spite of It Being 5pm: mother Mother, with broom and dustpan and trashbag: COME ALONG. Internal Me: She means Well. At Least She Is Here And Alive. Appreciate The Time You Have With Her. She Means Well. *grits teeth* We clean. WE ALMOST THROW AWAY ONE OF MY ROTHYS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T LOOK INSIDE  BOXES BEFORE THROW SHIT OUT!!! And then we go to the restaurant for dinner....where the kitchen messes up my little brother's order and has chapati on the plate and he has a severe wheat allergy. So he takes Benadryl and my mother....goes into....deep worry mode Again. SHOULD WE LEAVE HIM AT HIS APARTMENT BY HIMSELF???? SHOULD WE TAKE HIM TO THEIR HOTEL??

my mother, once again, making plans without idk ASKING EITHER PARTY INVOLVED: MNEME, YOU SHOULD STAY AT HIS PLACE OVERNIGHT!! HE HAS A WASHER AND DRYER SO YOU CAN DO YOUR LAUNDRY THERE FOR FREE!!! me, a known cheap but is fucking exhausted and trying desperately to Not Snap At My Mother Because That Is Not Respectful But Also Looking Forward to Flopping on Her Fucking Couch and Maybe Even Getting A Waterbottle for my tummy: ....yes mother. =___= My dad upon seeing my mother and I exiting the apartment complex with my laundry: ???? Me, wordlessly pleading for salvation: o__o My mother, once we get to my brother's apartment: ....you know I probably should have asked before making this plan... My brother and I having Just Accepted Our Fate: *crickets* I give my brother the air mattress to blow up until he gets a Real Bed, (the place came unfurnished--which is the other reason I haven't moved because i'd need to like Get Furniture And At This Stage of My PhD, It's Just Not Worth It--so he has No Furniture At All). I sleep on the floor instead of telling my brother to just scoot over and let me ALSO SLEEP on the mattress which is a Queen-sized mattress. Nor does it occur to him to offer it to me. *stares into the void at my back* (In her defense, she did message us apologizing and I know she wasn't doing it maliciously and she's over zealous at times because she feels bad that like I'm a few hundred miles away. Alone. By myself. Single and thus don't have like anyone who's there for emotional support which like does suck but also I AM DOING... Not Amazing But Not As Bad As Undergrad? So...yeah.) I do all my laundry except for like One set that I do in the morning because my father is slow as molasses for Anything and I Know That While My Mother Wants To Leave Early they will not be here early and I have accepted this reality. Mother: WE'RE GOING TO BE THERE By 7:30 AT THE LATEST Narrator: They arrived around 10ish. We still managed to get to the farmers markets though? WHICH IS WHAT I WANTED HER TO EXPERIENCE. NC may not have Many Good Things but The Farmer Markets are So So Nice?? And big??? I have also realized if you wear a shirt that says "Ask me, I'm a scientist!" Shockingly, people read it and like ASK. Me, who slept in this shirt and threw a cardigan on because I was Too Lazy To Put On A Real Adult Shirt: ????? ! oooohhhhh... i do science. yes. yes, i do. Also got my brother to change his address because the voter registration folks were there and like IT'S EASIER TO DO IT THERE then like Figure Out Where To Go, so like We Did Our Civic Duty Today. *finger guns* Got some loaves of GF bread from the bread seller that sells Actual Edible GF bread. Sadly, they were out of raisin because it was 11am and like they open at 7am. T___T

Then we grabbed my dad, who went to the coffee shop....to work. It's been almost a full year since his open-heart surgery and he's back to being a Workaholic. =___=

Then we went to Lowes because he needed something and my parents FAILED TO COMMUNICATE PLANS and he was like...."oh I thought we were going to do it on the way back to MD??". Either way, I now have an adapter to make a three pronged plug into a two pronged one? So yay?

Then we took me, and my laundry, back to my place. My mother gave yet more instructions. I just smiled and nodded and reminded that she meant well.

And then ran back to the car because SHE WAS SO INSISTENT ON LIKE MOVING MY LAUNDRY BASKETS THAT SHE ALMOST LEFT HER MEDS BEHIND!! Me, ....this...is why....i said.... i could do it.......

But they are now back safely in MD, along with my brother because he has an orhto appointment. I was debating going back with them but I uh can't because I have a meeting with my PI on wednesday. And thus, I stay here. But I have a lot of article revisions and analyses to do so it sadly makes sense.

Maybe I'll try to go NY in Aug or mid-July?

IN FUN HEALTH THINGS, new game that I hate; "is this blood from my period or from my ass?" Spoiler: It's both~~~." Which now makes me regretting uh telling the gastro office that "no, I don't have symptoms so I don't think the steroid is necessary??" But in my defense, I DIDN'T HAVE SYMPTOMS ON WEDNESDAY WHEN THEY CALLED. Also they uh, usually are 3-6 months apart not 1.5 months...apart. So that was an unpleasant surprise which led to me pass out in bed when my parents left because ahhahahaha blood loss is v v exhausting and I forgot to pack my iron pills last night.

-____-

So, my mother is coming down again in July to take me to my sigmoidscopy. In which, they'll see things. Or they won't. I hope they see something? Anything? I don't want UC but I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

- why i've been constantly inflamed since 2015?

- i know what hemorrhoidal bleeding looks like and uhhhhh i'm sorry but I shouldn't be dropping Actual Clots Out Of My Ass

*lies down*

i just want to not be tired and my intestines to not hate me as much. =_=

Okay, I am Going To Actually Sleep After I Knock Back Some Licorice Tea for my throat. (it's....super sore for some reason which is Not Great since I have D&D tomorrow most likely.)

[norcalbruja]

Hey fam, I am shook right now

So while I was working at the dental clinic, we found out a patient’s wife was a palm-reader and she was offering discount readings for $20.

I keep a distance from palm-readers, despite my lazy love of Tarot cards--the last palm-reader I talked to DID have genuine intuition, but she was also asking me for more and more money, so I’m like “well, twenty bucks isn’t that bad. Let’s try this palm-reading thing again. Hopefully she’ll be talented WITHOUT trying to bankrupt me.”

HOLY CRAP, BRUH.

LIKE

THIS WOMAN. SHE KNEW STUFF I DIDN’T TELL HER, AND STUFF THAT SHE COULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN FROM COLD-READING.

And, like... I GOT GOOD NEWS. Not the generic kind of good news, either.

You know how I post all this depressing/angry decolonization poetry about the Filipino gods, and my loneliness about being a pagan girl surrounded by Catholics and Christians and otherwise monotheistic worshipers? That is the tip of an iceberg of spiritual stuff, and some of it is more literal than y'all think.

Especially the stuff about Haik, the Tagalog sea-god who modern-day Tagalogs barely remember, who I’m constantly writing depressing urban-fantasy love poetry about, and also a huge-ass novel called “The Crocodile God,” where a FIl-American woman discovers she is his reincarnated wife.

So Haik and a Spirit-Dude have been hanging out and saying we’re gonna meet up (relatively) soon. I don’t believe them for two reasons: Haik said he brought Spirit-Dude over because 1) he wants me to be happy because he’s one of my ancestral gods, plus nobody likes seeing one of their community constantly depressed and struggling, and 2) he loves that I’m writing all these new poems and stories about him after five hundred years of colonization, so it’s like “HEY GIRL, YOU ARE CONSTANTLY DOING ME A SOLID AND I’MMA GET YOU A BOYFRIEND FOR THAT.”

I don’t believe Spirit-Dude either, when he says he’s coming over to California in time. See, Spirit-Dude looks like a living person, and that is reaaaaaaally shaky grounds for my sanity. Before now, I only listened to him about nice, safe, not-potential-delusions topics.

But then the palm-reader started telling me about my future and relationships, and how everything was finally gonna work out and I’d be okay soon (just not as soon as I want, which is the frustrating part).

And Spirit-Dude and Haik laughed their asses off and went, “BAHAHAHA WE TOLD YOU ALL THIS ALREADY, BABE. IT’S OKAY THOUGH. YOU NEED TO HEAR IT FROM A PERSON SOMETIMES.”

Like, I have been shook ALL DAMN DAY. I’m just wandering around trying to remember how to feel about, you know, GOOD NEWS.

I’ve been depressed and stuck in a rut for most of my adult life, so when people say things like “It’s all gonna work out” or “keep going with your art,” I just figure it’s not gonna get WORSE. Like, I’ll still have a basic-necessities-covered life, but my ass is still gonna be stuck living at my mom’s place, forever trying to save up while I beg people to read my writing SO I CAN EARN MONEY THROUGH ART, but only getting 1% of a response.

My patron goddess, the Morrigan, is the Irish goddess of sovereignty, war, and prophesy (also infamous as the goddess of VENGEANCE AND WAR-FRENZY AND NO ONE REALLY GETS HER). While she is scary, I trust her with my life, seeing as she yelled at me to get therapy during my rock-bottom point in high school. She also frequently motivates me to keep on trucking with my art, even if it’s from anger, spite, or “my soul will die if I don’t do art.”

Dionysus is the Greek god of art, prophesy, wine/drugs, and mental illness (he, like the Morrigan, has a mythical track record of Bad Stuff because of the last two). He considers himself my husband, and I accepted it after initial hesitance because THIS MAN GETS ME. He is constantly checking in with me about whether I’ve finally gone insane (the answer is usually “No, you’re weird and depressed and a shaman, and society hates all of that.”).

And at the behest of Haik, these two teamed up and got the client with his palm-reader wife over to the clinic.

Brighid (Irish healer-goddess, and a much more moderate artist than Dionysus) came up while I was eating dinner and she went, “Honey, I know you got a lot of big news today and you never believe the nice things anymore, so if you feel overwhelmed, just talk to me, okay?”

Meanwhile: Haik is upset that I can’t take good news very well. I mean, I'm relieved to hear it, but I also don’t know what to DO with that relief. I have no idea if I want to cry or laugh, or cry AND laugh. So yeah, lots of hugs from him.

Spirit-Dude is just hanging out like usual, and giving me more hugs and telling me that YES, RELIEF IS GOOD. JUST BREATHE, HONEY.

Last week, Spirit-Dude told me: “Babe, if you don’t believe in yourself, at least believe in what you do.” And it stuck with me how he knows I’m depressed and sometimes I literally can’t think positive about things, but he figured out a way to make me feel better anyway.

My therapist has actually noted that YES, the spirits are incredibly supportive and they give me a lot of emotional breathing-room, which is 1) not a common sign in the mental illnesses where you hear voices, and 2) very different from the authoritative Western view of deity/spirit.

And I figured after the past few months that even if Spirit-Dude isn’t the specific person he looks/acts like, he’s a very pretty and Soft Boy, and I would love it if I met his real self soon. (Spirit-Dude has countered that he isn’t using a fake identity because he’s not a liar, and that’s a crap way to start a relationship.)

It's 2AM and now I keep reminding myself that the palm-reading was YESTERDAY, so it’s a good thing I work tomorrow instead. I might do a Part 2 for this, in case I need to word-vomit again.