#but it's not like a huge deal to never know. if i have permanent brain damage i can basically do fuckall about it

[crimeronan]

the lady who called to tell me my brain MRI was cancelled because medicaid wouldnt cover it sounded like she was on the verge of tears & it probably did not help to have me slurring my entire response because i got woken up out of a dead sleep at 2:30 PM while having an autoimmune flare. sorry ma'am it's okay i promise. thank u for caring so much. my brain probably isn't That damaged. i hope

[theidiotwhowritesthings]

TAKE CARE OF YOU [3]

Sugar Daddy!Joel Miller x Female!Reader

Overall Warnings: slow burn, angst/comfort, power imbalance, age gap, possessive tendencies, eventual smut, #daddyissues, independent reader learns to let go and relax, emotionally constipated Joel Miller learns to be vulnerable; (more specific warnings to be added to individual chapters if necessary)

Chapter Word Count: 4,501

Summary: You spent your entire adult life supporting yourself and barely getting by. It's why a life of ease offered to you by a mysterious stranger sounded so foreign and unbelievable. Joel Miller, dressed in flannels that had seen better days, didn't look like the kind who could promise you the world on a plate, but he seemed desperate to help out. All he asks is that you let him take care of you. That wouldn't be so hard. Would it?

[a/n: I'm feeling Fridays for the update day, but i'm not married to that idea yet. also thank you for all the love this has seen so far!! I am so happy to know I'm not the only one that would sell my soul to have Joel Miller as my sugar daddy.]

03: YOU THINK MY VOICE IS PRETTY?

"the way his voice sounds, or the words he speaks, i can never decide what pulls me in more." -butterflies rising

‘Morning, sugar’.

You chuckled at the term of endearment and leaned back in your seat. The other people on the bus surrounding you were living their own lives as always. You recognized many of your routine bus neighbors. The woman who ate an onion bagel every single morning on her way to work, the man who still read an actual newspaper rather than use his phone, the brother and sister duo⏤only teens⏤ on their way to school. You wondered how these people classified you in their head. 

‘Morning to you too⏤’ You paused. Should you call him ‘daddy’ again? Saying it teasingly was one thing, but typing it somehow made it seem more permanent. Which was a stupid thought to have, but it was the one that plagued you nonetheless. You deleted your words and started again. ‘Morning! How⏤’ Again, you froze. Was the exclamation mark too much for this early in the morning? It was only yesterday that you made this deal with him and it would be sad for you to annoy him so early in the deal. Delete. Repeat. ‘Joel⏤’ Way too formal. Okay. You were officially over thinking this.

‘Hey! How’s your morning going?’

The moment you hit send that dumb little anxiety riddled voice at the back of your head tried to criticize your choice of words and you had to wrestle it back down. Almost immediately you saw the text bubble of dots pop up as he typed.

‘Great. First meeting got canceled. You?’

It was marginally funny to you that the man who owned this huge company seemed so dead set on avoiding meetings. Plus, it was kind of cute that he was more comfortable in flannel than suits.

‘Just on the bus heading to work!’

The text bubble popped up immediately, then disappeared, then came back, then disappeared once more. As you waited for it to return, his name filled the entire screen as he called you. Your eyes widened in surprise. After getting past your shock, you answered, “Uh, hi.”

“Sorry, repeat that for me.” Joel’s voice was nearly drowned out by a bunch of noise that you’d have to guess dealt with some kind of construction. “You’re on the ‘what’ heading ‘where’?”

“Bus? Work?” You replied in confusion.

Joel cleared his throat and he must have been moving since the noise simmered down. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you said, darlin’. Can I ask why?” The sound that left your mouth was a good representation of your broken brain. “Because I’m pretty sure you and I made a deal yesterday. Didn’t we?”

“We did.” You said slowly. “But⏤”

“Darlin’⏤”

“In my defense, I can’t just quit work. I respect Henry too much. I have to at least give him a two weeks notice so he can find a replacement.” You argued. Even if Henry wasn’t someone you considered family you’d still feel obliged to quit the correct way. Still, maybe that was something you should’ve mentioned yesterday before the two of you parted ways. “Sorry, Joel.”

He let out a small sigh. “There’s no need to be sorry. I understand. You’re too responsible for your own good.” You chuckled. “But the bus? The bus?”

You had to resist the urge to laugh at how insulted he was at the prospect of you on public transportation. You glanced over your shoulder out the window to see how far from work you were. “Well, ubers and taxis are so expensive from my house to the bakery. Plus, I have a bus card!”

“Bus card?” Joel repeated. His incredulous voice took an amused tone. “Sugar, you got daddy’s credit card.” Your eyes widened and you felt your entire face burn as heat filled your cheeks. As if somebody would be listening in, you glanced around at the people sitting near you. Joel chuckled, the sound low and deep, “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

“I, uh, I⏤ That’s a good point.” You cleared your throat. “It felt silly using the card for something like an Uber or taxi though. You know?”

“Nothin’ is too silly. I want you to use that card. All the time. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“I understand…” Joel repeated with enunciation at the end. Waiting for something. Waiting for…

“I’m on the bus.” You whispered into the phone, in shock, while covering your mouth.

Joel hummed. “Oh, I know. Now. I understand…”

You chewed on your lower lip, glanced around, then whispered into the phone quickly, “I understand, daddy.”

“Sorry, sugar. Couldn’t quite hear you there. Must be because of how loud and hectic that bus is.”

Your lips curled up into a broad grin as your face continued to burn. He cleared his throat to urge you on, and you shook your head with a slight chuckle. You blew out an amused breath and repeated yourself. “Yes. I understand, daddy.” 

An older woman sitting to your left shot you a curious glance and you sunk in your seat, and turned toward the window to laugh. You could hear Joel’s breathy laugh over the line as well. Joel spoke up, “That’s better. As for this transport problem,” You rolled your eyes still grinning, “Can you drive?”

“Well, yeah.” You replied and the smile fell as a thought occurred to you. “That is not a reason to buy me a car.”

“Wow, you really think I’d buy you a car right out the gate like that?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I⏤” You paused then shook your head. “Wait, no, actually I do. I do think you’d do that.”

“You’re right. I would. You got a preference, sugar?”

“Please do not buy me a car.” You blurted. “I… I really don’t like driving around this city. Last time I even got behind a wheel was over two years ago.”

“Fine. No car. I’m gettin’ you a driver then.”

“That still feels excessive.” You replied hesitantly.

“Do it for me then? I’d feel more comfortable knowin’ you’re not ridin’ around with strangers.”

The words were spoken with kindness, actual concern, and a part of you wondered if he was saying what he was because it was expected of him? The deal was for him to take care of you and keeping you safe could arguably fall under that umbrella of responsibilities. You just found it hard to believe he’d care out of the goodness of his heart considering how little time you had spent with one another thus far. It wasn’t a criticism of him at all. Maybe he was just that kind deep down, maybe he did have a bleeding heart. It was the process of trying to apply that thought, those concerns, to yourself that felt silly. At the end of the day, that voice of anxiety just couldn’t fathom a near stranger actually worrying over your well being with no ulterior motive of their own.

Joel said your name over the line, snapping you out of your line of thought, and you forced your smile to return. It wasn’t hard to find. “Alright. For you.”

“Good.” He blew out a breath of what almost sounded like relief. “What time does your shift end?”

“It’s Sunday so I usually close up the shop around 5:30, then pack away all the leftovers to take to the shelter a few blocks away.” You replied. Anytime the shop had any leftovers, which was happening more and more, Henry would donate the goods to the local shelters and kitchens rather than toss it. 

“I’ll have my guy there around 5 then. I don’t want you waitin’ on him.”

“Yeah, but now he’ll have to wait on me.”

“I know. That’s the point, darlin’.”

You couldn’t decide which you liked more. Joel calling you ‘sugar’ or ‘darlin’. Then again the sound of your name was equally as intoxicating. Honestly, it wasn’t fair how good his voice sounded in general. The bus peeled off to the side to come to a stop and you hiked your bag up your shoulder to get off.

“I’m at my stop.”

“Say good-bye to the bus. You ain’t ridin’ on it again as far as I’m concerned.” You chuckled and as you walked off you couldn’t help but glanced back at the familiar people you had gotten used to seeing so often. You mentally wished them a farewell. It was cheesy, but it nearly felt like the end of an era. Joel spoke again as you stepped onto the busy sidewalk. “And remember, my guy is pickin’ you up today. No ubers. No taxis. No buses.”

“I know, I know. I promise I won’t make a run for it.”

“Good girl.” Joel chuckled and your face immediately went warm once more. A habit you were beginning to pick up around this man. Joel said quick good-byes, saying he needed to help someone out on site and promised to text you later. You echoed his sentiments and tucked the phone away after hanging up. Wow, okay, it seemed hearing him call you ‘good girl’ won in a fucking landslide.

As it turned out, Henry had come in early to bake for the day, but left it open for you to set out as he hadn’t been feeling well and had to leave before you even got the shop fully open. It was incredibly poor timing because you planned to announce your two week’s notice to him and that seemed like a dick move to do while he was sick. Tomorrow. You’d try again tomorrow. No big deal. What would a one day difference make? 

The bakery always had it’s busiest days on Sunday, weirdly, but still it was nowhere near the kind of traffic this place truly needed. Usually days where it ended up being you alone were even more painfully boring, but today had been, well, fun. Joel continued to text you through the day and the conversation was a decent distraction from the dichotomy of doing nothing between customers. Plus, without Henry there, you didn’t even have to pretend like you weren’t playing on your phone the entire time. 

The last hour of your shift had gone by without Joel as a distraction because of a meeting. One he had grumbled about twenty minutes prior to it. You were in the process of packing items away when you noticed a black SUV sitting outside on the side of the road. Pausing in your work, you ran your hand down your apron and made your way out of the shop and toward it. You had just planned to tap on the window to get his attention, but you were barely halfway to the SUV when the man behind the driver’s seat jumped out and hurried around with a nod.

“Ma’am.”

“Hi.” You gave a small wave. “I’m⏤”

The blond man blurted your name out with a nod. Of course he knew who you were. “Is there anything I can do to help you, Miss?”

“No, no. I wanted to invite you in! It’ll be a minute before I’m done.”

“It’s alright⏤”

“I insist.” You said firmly. He hesitated once more before going to turn the car off. He was older than you, if you had to guess, and he wore a clean, black suit and a pair of dark aviators over his eyes. If he had a little radio in his ear you’d have him pegged as some kind of secret service guard. “What’s your name?”

“Riley Talbot, ma’am.”

You motioned for him to take a seat at one of the tables with a smile. “Well, Mr. Talbot, you have a muffin preference?”

“Just Riley is fine, and you don’t have to⏤”

“Either you tell me your muffin preference or I’m gonna pick at random, Riley.” You replied then ran through the options you had today. Riley hesitantly told you his preference for the banana nut option and you brought it over for him on a small plate. The man took his sunglasses off, tucking them into his inner suit pocket, and you took note of his very blue eyes. “How long have you worked for, Joel?”

Riley shrugged. “I’ve been working for Mr. Miller for the last five years.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. Five years as a driver for Joel? You couldn’t imagine Joel using a driver. The man who preferred flannels over suits seemed like the kind who was adamant about driving himself. Plus, this wasn’t the person who had picked you up yesterday. How many did he have?

“Well, give me a second here and we can head out. I just gotta finish packing up today’s leftovers.”

“Please, take your time.” Riley nodded then motioned to the muffin. “And thank you.”

You left him to enjoy his snack in peace so you could go back to cleaning out the display stand. It was repetitive, simple work that you had gotten very used to doing mindlessly over the years. You were on the last row of cookies when your phone buzzed in your back pocket. Pulling it out you saw it was a text from Joel.

‘Did Riley show up?’

‘Yupp. He’s in the bakery eating a muffin right now.’

‘You didn’t need to feed him, sugar.’

‘Too late. Besides, that’s one less muffin for me to carry now.’

‘Put it on my tab.’

You rolled your eyes, as if a singular banana nut muffin was of significant cost, ‘Shouldn’t you be focusing on your meeting?’

There was a longer pause before you got a response.

‘Touche’

You chuckled under your breath and tucked the phone away once more. After stacking a few of the boxes on top of one another, you shrugged out of your apron to hang it back up on the wall. Riley had risen from his seat and you took the plate from him before he could argue otherwise. You gave it a quick wash before setting it away to dry for the night and when you returned Riley was still standing by the boxes of baked goods.

“I’m almost done. I’m gonna carry these down to the shelter.”

“I’ll help.” Riley replied.

“You don’t have to do that⏤”

Riley gave you a friendly smile. “It’s my pleasure. Mr. Miller was adamant about me helping out where I could.”

Knowing arguing was only going to stretch this process out you nodded and he took half the boxes. At least this would save you a second trip. As the two of you made your way down the street you learned that he was older than you, in his mid thirties, and he had been in the Marines before picking up work with Joel. It was actually through Riley that you learned Joel had a brother who had also been in the military as well. You’d have to ask him about that.

“I’ve been saving to buy a ring.” Riley shrugged as you both got onto the topic of relationships while on your way back from dropping off the boxes.

“If your girlfriend is as sweet as you claim I’m sure she’d be charmed by anything you got her.” You argued. “And how long have the two of you been dating?”

“Three years next month.”

“Aw, congrats!” You chirped. 

Riley continued to gush about his girlfriend and how she worked as a kindergarten teacher. The way his voice held so much love for the woman he bragged about to you made your heart ache. You had always thought this was how your last relationship would look like. You and your ex-boyfriend had been on a similar path after all. When he broke up with you six months ago, the two of you had been weeks away from your three year anniversary. For the longest time, he had been the one you thought you’d be marrying.

And here you were today with a sugar daddy on speed dial.

Funny how life worked.

“Let me grab my stuff and lock up and I’ll be right back out.” You said and Riley agreed with a nod before heading to the SUV himself. Maybe you’d text Nima and see if she was busy tonight. It had been a long time since you thought about your ex and letting him slip back into your head had been a dumb move on your part.

Once out, Riley held the back door of the SUV open for you to slide into. He asked for your address which you provided before settling back in your seat. The radio played a soft tune, you couldn’t hear the roaring of the roads outside, the air smelled clean, and you had ample space to stretch out. This was a far cry from the bus. Nima texted you back, answering your request for drinks tonight, but she had to turn it down because she had a date. Though she did follow it up to ask if you were feeling well and that she’d bail if you needed a girls’ night. You smiled at her words, but reassured her that everything was fine.

‘Hang out with your daddy! ��’

Despite the teasing nature of her text, she may have been onto something. Riley was getting closer to your apartment complex and you leaned forward a bit. “Hey, Riley?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what time Joel usually gets off of work?”

“It depends. I think he mentioned today he was gonna be working late. That’s why he sent me instead of coming to get you himself.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. It hadn’t dawned on you that Joel wanted to be the one to pick you up and just hadn’t been able to due to his own work. Still, that shot your back up plan in the face. That was probably for the best. You didn’t want to come across as clingy. Though, maybe you were supposed to? Joel said there was no social quota for you to meet, but you doubted the validity of that.

“Thanks, Riley!” You said after exchanging numbers with him and climbing out of the SUV. 

Your apartment was nothing to write home about, but it could be worse. It was a simple one bed, one bath on the fifth floor of a complex that had technically seen better days. However, despite the age and general weariness of the building itself, the residents you lived beside were nice, the owner actually cared about the people renting from him, and security was decent. More so than the other places in this area.

After dropping your stuff down and tossing your keys into the bowl near your front door, you pulled out your phone to see you had missed a text from a few minutes ago. ‘You home?’ Quickly, you responded with a positive and thanked him again for sending Riley to pick you up. ‘Good. Don’t thank me, sugar’.

You rolled your eyes. If he really thought you were going to accept things without thanking him he was dead wrong. Hell, you were struggling with the ‘accepting things’ part which was hilarious considering you had chosen and agreed to this deal with full knowledge of what that meant. You set down your phone to clean the work day off of your skin.

A few hours had passed, where you showered, changed into home clothes, ate, and then settled on the couch with a large glass of wine. Despite it only being close to nine you were almost considering chugging the remainder of the wine in your glass and calling it a night. You had work in the morning after all. As you brought the glass to your lips, your phone buzzed off to the side. 

The text was from Joel. It was simple, and honestly hilarious to see.

‘You up?’

Your cheeks warmed and you wondered if he knew the connotations of texting a woman that message with no warning at night. 

‘Yes lol I am up’

‘Can I call?’

Your eyes widened in surprise at the request. You took another rather large sip of your wine before setting it down on your coffee table and responding to him. The affirmative text hadn’t been sent longer than a few seconds when his name flashed across your screen. You had gotten used to mostly texting the people in your life rather than phone calls. This would take some getting used to. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, sugar.” Joel breathed. “Sorry for calling late.”

“It’s hardly late.” You glanced at your clock on the wall. 9:07. “Are you just getting home from work? Riley said you’d be stuck there late.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately. Every once in a while I’m stuck in the office all day like this. At least I got to be on site this mornin’.” He groaned.

It sounded like he was pouring something on his end of the line. You commented on it, “Are you making yourself a drink?”

“Mhmm.” Joel took a sip of whatever it was he had poured, you could hear him swallow and made your throat dry up. “That alright?”

“Hey, I’m on my second glass of wine so I can hardly judge.”

“Second? You have a long day, sugar?” He asked in concern. Again, the sound of it caught you off guard. You could count on one hand the number of people who showed you genuine concern in the last two years. “Everythin’ okay?”

You forced out a chuckle and nodded despite him not being able to see it. “I’m fine.” It was probably a little early to be flooding him with your problems and the history of your ex. Instead, you jumped over it entirely. “I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to get dinner or drinks, but when I asked Riley what time you got off he said you’d be working late.”

“What?” Joel asked in surprise. He grumbled under his breath before speaking up. “Don’t ever let that stop you, darlin’. I always got time for you. Honestly, it would've been a nice surprise and a good excuse to leave early.”

You let out a soft laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

“You better.” Joel grunted as he dropped down into a seat. Another tired sigh left his lips and you opened your mouth to suggest that he get some rest, but he beat you to speaking. “Tell me about your day, sugar.”

“It was pretty boring.” You replied. “You’ve seen how empty the bakery tends to get.”

“So? I still wanna hear. Talk about somethin’ at least. Lemme hear that pretty voice.”

You grinned to yourself. “You think my voice is pretty?”

“I think everythin’ about you is pretty. Now, no more stallin’. Hit me with it.”

If he wanted to hear about your boring day you’d be more than happy to indulge him. His words still caught you off guard though. He liked your voice? It was extra funny considering how much you liked his voice personally. You talked about the few customers you did have today, how thankful the shelter had been for Henry’s leftovers, and getting to know Riley.

“Yeah, Riley is a good guy.” Joel agreed. “Figured the two of you would get along. Plus,” He took another sip of the whiskey he had told you he chose as his drink earlier, “I know he’s head over heels for that girl of his so I didn’ have to worry about him makin’ a move on you.” You laughed at the sentiment and Joel let out a small chuckle himself. “I ain’t kiddin’, sugar. I only just got you to agree to put up with me. I ain’t plannin’ on losing you quite yet.”

 “Put up with you.” You scoffed. “As if I don’t equally enjoy talking to you.”

Joel chuckled in response then cleared his throat. “How’d it go with your boss? How’d he take the news?” Your smile turned sheepish and rather than answer you picked up your wine glass, now at the end of your third, and took a long sip. Joel sighed. “Sugar?”

“Okay, so, hold on.” You blurted. “He was sick today. Henry left like right after coming in to help me open and I didn’t wanna spring the news on him when he already felt so terrible.” You set the wine glass down then buried yourself into the couch under your blanket. “I’m already worried I’m gonna break his heart.” Joel blew out a sigh and you winced. “Sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t.” Joel responded, but it wasn’t sharp or demanding. He just didn’t want to hear you apologize. “I want you to stop workin’ because I think you’d be happier out of that place, but I’m not tryin’ to shove you into quittin’ if you ain’t comfortable with it yet, darlin’. If…” Joel paused. “If you think you need to stay there a little while longer then I’m not gonna guilt you otherwise.”

His words made your lips curl up into a small, soft smile. It wasn’t that you loved your work there by any means, but you did love Henry. He was family. Plus, that small voice of anxiety was still nagging loud enough that you couldn’t quite fully ignore it. This was still so new. What if Joel got to the end of this week and decided you were more annoying than entertaining. You couldn’t just tear up your roots with no guarantee that this life was fully concrete. 

You didn’t know if Joel understood that from the same angle you did, but you did appreciate that he was willing to bend on that topic. “Yeah.” You said quietly then added in a teasing inflection added, “Thanks, daddy.”

Joel chuckled in response, “You’re gonna be the death of me, sugar.”

You remembered a topic you had planned on asking him earlier in the day, and maybe it was the three glasses of wine that had loosened your tongue, but you blurted it out without thinking. “So, hey, I hear you have a brother?” Joel was quiet for a beat and it was only then that sober logic regained control. “I mean, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to blurt it out like that. Riley mentioned he was in the military and that you had a brother who was too. I didn't mean to pick at a sore topic if⏤”

“No, sugar.” Joel chuckled. “Not a sore topic. Just caught me off guard is all. But, yeah, I got a baby brother. Tommy.” Tommy Miller. You tucked the information away in the folder of facts you were learning about Joel. “He was in the Army for a while, but left a long time ago. He actually works with me now at the company. Was with me when we went from small time contractors to whatever the hell we are now.”

“Big deals.” You joked. “If your fancy building is anything to go by.”

“Guess so by someone’s definition.” Joel snorted. You liked that he still felt so grounded and to the earth. It had been part of the reason his proposition caught you off guard because after meeting him you never would’ve suspected him to be the kind who owned a large and very rich company.

“You’re not mad that Riley told me that, are you?” You asked. “Because if you are, I'll admit to wrestling the information out of him.” 

Joel laughed. “I ain’t mad, darlin’. Like I said, I’m glad the two of you get along. You’re stuck with him now.” You hummed in confusion and Joel added. “He’s your driver. Anywhere you need to go, any time, just call him.”

“Wait, seriously?” You cried.

“I told you I ain’t letting you get on a bus again.” Joel replied like he was still appalled you had done so this morning. “And since you won’t let me buy you a car…”

“Fine, fine, fine.” You blurted and he let out a soft laugh. A beat of silence stretched between the two of you, but it was a comfortable one. The kind where you just enjoyed knowing he was on the other end of the call even if he wasn’t actively speaking. 

You accidentally let out a small yawn and Joel hummed. “You need to get to bed.”

“Nuh uh.” You replied. “It’s only…” You found the clock and your eyes widened. 12:01. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. I’ve kept you up long enough, sugar.”

“I’m not even tired.” You whined and rose to your feet. The stiff movements made you realize how close you had been to just passing out on the couch. 

“Sure, you ain’t.”

You meandered to your bedroom, flipping out lights as you went, and shut your bedroom door. “Will we talk again tomorrow?”

“You mean later today?” Joel joked.

You chuckled. “Yes.” It didn’t even matter to you that you may have sounded needy. Being on the phone had not only been fun, but it had been just what you needed to settle the turmoil you had accidentally scourged up earlier. “So?”

“Course, sugar. I’ll text you on your way to work. Riley’ll be there at 6:30 to pick you up.”

“Alright. Night, Joel.” You replied sincerely. “Thanks for talking to me.”

Joel hummed and you could hear him moving around on his end as well. “Should be thanking you.” He added quickly, a tinge or nervousness seeping into his voice. “Hey, do you wanna, uh, you wanna plan for dinner?” Your eyes widened marginally but your lips spread out into another warm and wide grin. “I got a few more busy days, but this Wednesday I’ll be free all evening. Wanna make a night of it?”

“Yes!” You answered much faster than you had initially planned. There went being cool and collected. Joel chuckled. “I mean, yeah. That would be⏤ That would be fun.”

“Good. Get some sleep, sugar.” Joel replied. You wished him well before the call ended and you were left standing in your bedroom feeling like you were on cloud nine.

taglist:

@weddingfairy @bfences @jasminedragon @biwitchy @huffle-punk @shelbyteller @anoverwhelmingdin @aheadfullofsteverogers @stagerightlauren @basicoccult @rinnfey @boofy1998 @farintonorth @thepascalofus @amatis-gray @casa-boiardi @northernbluess @jettia

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✨J.M. Masterlist✨

[flippinpancakes64]

Could you do one where the Cullens leave for the safety of their partner? (Just like Edward did) With the difference that they don't leave for months, they see each other for seven or eight years, but when they return they realize that their (now ex-partner) She has made her life, when they see her after returning and go looking for her, they see her with a man who is carrying a little boy of approximately two years old and that she is next to him with a pregnant belly waiting for her second baby (and very happy, his happiness can be seen from thousands of miles away, just like that of his current partner)

What would their reactions be like? Anger, maybe sadness, repentance?jealousy, would they come closer? Will he watch her from afar to take care of her and her family? Or would he try to be with her again? There are too many reactions that could have.

Would they say something like "I should be in his place" or not?

How would they deal with that?

Does it also occur to me that in her second birth Carlisle will be the one to attend to her? I don't know, it sounds good, it would be a big shock. Also let it be seen that her new partner loves her and takes care of her

I don't know if you understand, English is not my first language and I tried to explain as best as possible, I'm sorry if there are any errors

The Cullens with a Fem! Reader who has moved on

Wow this ask is so huge. And very specific. I think I understand what you're asking for so hopefully I brought this topic justice.

Summary is that the Cullens (individually) leave their human partner so that they can be safe, and when they end up coming back after they realize that they can't live without them, the reader has already moved on. Like a husband, a baby, is pregnant, the whole nine yards.

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edward:

He's been through this before

He's a monster, he's no good, blah blah blah

So he leaves

Only this time he intends for it to be permanent

He thinks about you every day, but he knows that you're better off without him

But there's a part of his brain that thinks that you're still there

Bella couldn't even leave her room she was so depressed

So when the Cullens move back to your city, he fully expects the same from you

He goes through every stage of grief when he sees you

So human, older now, no longer the teenager he once knew

Your stomach is just as round as Bella's once was, only this time you're lively, glowing

And he knows it's because it's not his

There's a beautiful little boy by your side and a handsome man with a matching ring on his finger

You're perfect

This is what you were made for

The human life, the life of tradition, of happiness

The life he can't give you

He receded after that

He moves to South America, somewhere far away

When you see that the Cullens are back, you ask about Edward, but he's long gone

You never see him again

Alice:

Her choice to stay around you, her family's choice to stay, was putting you in constant danger

It was a constant thing

The changing and unchanging future was warping right before her eyes

Every possible danger that was coming for the Cullens was coming for you too

So she had to leave

She made everyone pack up and leave

She didn't leave a note, no indication of anything

Only she fully intended to come back when the danger was gone

But as weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, she saw you change

As attuned as she was to you, she kept tabs

She saw you go on a couple of dates

Eventually she saw your wedding

She saw the birth of your first baby boy

And she knows that now you are pregnant again

She doesn't come back to your town

She knows that you are happy and better off where you are, without her

But she still wishes that she had stayed

That maybe she should have changed you, and that you would be with her now

The only time she ever reunites with you is at your funeral, where she wishes she could have changed something

Jasper:

He almost killed you

It was something super small, a pimple that you popped that started bleeding a little

You didn't even think about it

But Jasper pounced, Emmett and Edward had to pry him off of you

He left that same night, the Cullens packing up and moving not too long after in the hopes that he would come back if you were nowhere near

His guilt was eating him alive

Even years later

But the Cullens had made their rounds moving from place to place and were finally back within state lines of where you were

His curiosity got the best of him

He made Emmett come with him in case he couldn't control himself

He stalked around on the streets of your town until he eventually spotted you

You were radiant, glowing and gorgeous, a sharp contrast from how you looked the last time he saw you

A handsome man by your side, a beautiful kid at your feet, and glowing smiles all around

And then on the side of your neck was a huge, teeth-shaped scar

A splash of dark ink on a beautiful white canvas

That was all he needed to see

Seeing how happy you were, how perfect your life was without him, and then seeing how what happened all of those years ago is still present

He knows he could never do that for you

Never be that perfect man, give you that perfect life

And you never hear from Jasper or the Cullens ever again

Rosalie:

It would take a lot for her to leave

If you're a human and she loves you, chances are that she is not leaving you

But eventually she gets in her own head about it, and she decides that you need the chance to live a normal life

She wants you to be human, and even though she loves you, she wants you to have the life she never had

So she leaves

But she can't stop thinking about you

She yearns for you every day

In her mind, you're waiting for her, you can't stop thinking about her either

So she comes back

Independent from everyone else, she flies back to where you are

She imagines you in your room, unchanged from the teenager you were when she left, depressed and sulking, waiting for her

What she gets is much different

Your childhood home is empty

Your parents are graying, and your room is nothing more than a relic

She finds you in the American dream

A white house with a white picket fence, a dog running around in your backyard

Inside, she can see a little boy, no older than two, running around and playing with some toys

A man sits on the couch, smiling ear to ear as he watches the little boy, even participating in his games from time to time

And then you

Glowing, older now, you filled out so beautifully

You're standing in the doorway, looking upon your beautiful scene, a hand rests around your pregnant belly

She has to leave

She's caught between anger, happiness, sadness, and everything in between

That should have been her

That should have been her life, you should have been hers

She doesn't know if she wants to be you or be with you

Both, preferably

The last time you ever hear from Rosalie is when a package shows up at your front door, easily a million dollars, with a note that says "Take care of your babies"

Emmett:

His reason for leaving is a bit more simple

The Cullens have spent all of their years in your town, they can't stay there any more

And, simply, you can't come with them

You have a life, you're human, and not one of them intends on turning you

It's a hard decision for him to leave you

He loves you so much

But you deserve to live a human life

One day, a couple of years later, Alice gets a vision about you

Not necessarily about you, but you're in the background

She tells Emmett instantly

He doesn't even care that you're not the one primarily in danger, he has to go to you

So he books a plane ticket and away he goes

It doesn't take him long to find you

But what he sees is shocking

You're so happy

Married, a mom, a beautiful house, the perfect life

He doesn't want to disturb your bubble of peace, but he has to talk to you, he needs it like air

He's so scared when he knocks on your door

And you are shocked to say the least

The Cullens felt like a fever dream from your teenage years, and yet here he is, the man you loved so long ago

He comes in and tells you about Alice's vision, telling you to be careful

He intends to leave after that, but he can't

He asks you one last time if you want to come with him

It's selfish, he knows, but he needs to know

When you say no, that's it

Esme:

She knew from the beginning that you didn't belong in their lives

It would always be too dangerous for you

You would never be safe

You can't have both sides

Either you're human and stay far away from vampires, or you're a vampire too

She would never turn you, so the answer was obvious

The Cullens left without so much as a warning, and you were heartbroken

You tried to call, email, text, hunt them down, anything you could do

But it was all pointless

Years passed by, and Esme still thought of you every day

Finally, her curiosity got the better of her

She flew out to see you, to visit a little, chat a bit, have some closure

But when she sees you with a husband and a baby, her plans deflate

She can't bring herself to see you

She's caught between all kinds of emotions

Anger that she left, sadness that you have moved on, but happiness that you are happy

She does meet with you, she finally texts you back after so many years, asking to go get some coffee

If she can't be with you, then she would at least like to be your friend

Carlisle:

He was never supposed to fall for you in the first place

But he did

He knew he couldn't take you with him

And he has already been so selfish the past

He turned Edward because he was lonely and wanted a companion, he turned Esme because he loved her, and he turned Rosalie because he wanted Edward to have someone too

He couldn't turn you too

So he tried his best to break it off with you

But you weren't having it

So he left

But now he's back

Not in your town, but a couple of towns over

He tries his best not to think about you, to not wonder what you're doing, if you miss him too

One night he gets a call from the hospital in your town, their normal doctor is gone on vacation and they have no one else who is qualified to deliver a baby

So of course he packs his stuff immediately and is on the way

Imagine his shock when he gets there and sees you

Your husband by your side, a small boy in his arms crying out for his mama, a nurse next to you holding your hand and trying to calm you down

From the look in your eyes, you recognize him too

But now's not the time

He gets to work, trying to only think about delivering this baby safely, not about whose baby this is

Only after it's all over and you're holding your beautiful baby girl, does he truly take in the scene in front of him

He wishes so much that this could be him

That he was the man holding your hand and soothing your older baby

That he was the one who was stroking your hair and telling you how well you did

He wishes he was the one you would go home with later

But he's not

He mutters a small congratulations and leaves

And that's the last time you ever see him

Vampire! Bella:

She always thought Edward was dramatic

Yeah, she was clumsy, but she wasn't in any serious danger when he was around

In fact, she was safer when he was around

But now she gets it

Yes, you are safer when she's around

But none of these threats would even be posed to you if she had never been around at all

She apologizes to Edward afterward

And she asks the Cullens to leave

She wants you to be safe, first and foremost

She sits you down and tells you why before she leaves

It's not easy, but she knows she would have preferred a conversation from Edward rather than him just leaving

You cry, you scream, but she leaves anyway

When she comes back years later she expects you to be the same as she was

Young, sad, waiting

Only you're not her

You never were

When she sees you, your husband's arm wrapped around you as you both watch your son play on the playground, it finally sets in

What she wanted to happen actually did

You moved on

You made a better life for yourself

Without her

Despite everything telling her not to, she goes to you

You both talk for a while, you're upset, rightfully so

But the more you talk about your life now, one that's always changing and evolving, she finds herself yearning for humanity

Wishing she could turn back the clock, if only to be with you

The subtle lines on your face, your growing figure, she wishes she could evolve with you

But she can't

She leaves after that

Unknown to you, she keeps tabs, watching as you grow from afar, wishing that she could be there with you

[bougiebutchbitch]

listen I just think [nsft under cut]

trans croc should fuck buggy using his own cock as a strap, all while forcing him to call himself croc's naughty little girl <3

buggy should warm croc's dick while he's doing paperwork because that's all he's good for, and croc pretends to be getting annoyed that he's so squirmy and hungry for stimulation but he's actually getting off on it

mihawk's first time with buggy should be fraught with mihawk asking himself (and buggy) 'what did shanks see in you?', and buggy returning the favour. it was bittersweet and a bit brutal. mihawk actually felt a bit bad after.

mihawk should be in an established relationship with croc that's built on mutual respect, if not love, and appreciation of each other's skill & rep <3 they're steady, mature, and sensible about it. they have a genuine, deep connection that they never expected to find in each other, but now it's there, it would take a lot to break.

he and croc are very relaxed and kinda gentle and versatile and switchy with each other? But then they both see buggy and internally say 'I want to obliterate him'

It takes quite a while for mihawk and croc to admit this to each other though. When they finally do, it's a big relief - they just... shake hands, exchange a nod, and get to work

To start with, they really don't give a shit about buggy at all, they just wanna fuck him. but he's... kinda adorably flustered and fun and responsive and... hm. He's a worthless little worm. But when they tell him that, he tearfully agrees and gets hard? Cute.

mihawk is suuuuper quiet but buggy and croc both find any vocalisation they get him to make a HUGE turn-on

mihawk has cold-dom'd buggy to tears

croc has rough-dom'd buggy to tears

both of them have death-threat'd him to begging and tears mid-sex, but he never safewords because he's soooo stupidly horny about the danger and degradation

buggy just ugly-cries a lot okay

mihawk is surprisingly good at aftercare, even if he approaches it in a very regimented, methodical autistic af way. He's the most invested in the future of the Cross Guild, and somewhere deep within that mysterious brain he's planned their throuple marriage. Even though he still despises buggy and croc alike on some days.

croc is kinda standoffish and leery about showing affection at first (to anything but his bananawani). With mihawk it wasn't a big deal - but buggy is absolutely, 5000% a snuggler. Not to mention a terribly rough, mobile sleeper. And though he always bitches, croc can't imagine waking up without a foot wedged under his chin or a disembodied arm hooked over his knee. He doesn't know when he got used to having these two idiots as semi-permanant fixtures in his life, but he's kinda pissed that he doesn't want them gone.

buggy is still 90% terrified, 10% horny, but that's better than 99% terrified, right? He still thinks of himself as an intruder - a business-only investment who's only alive because he's a useful scapegoat + fucktoy. Of course they don't actually like or respect him. Who would? He's out for himself, like he always has been. Ready to split if the water gets too hot or a better opportunity comes along.

...but his followers love him.......and the sex is good (even if it inevitably leaves him a shaking, whimpering wreck).........and he might actually have a chance at snatching the One Piece if he has two awesome powerhouses in his pocket.................... and.... and look, the sex is really good, okay?

........and maybe he likes how mihawk is quietly thoughtful, showing care through little actions rather than words (fixing little things Buggy's complained about, always somehow knowing which part of his back to rub)

...............and how croc only cares about money and power, but still sometimes gets this strange, soft look in his eyes when it's a quiet evening and the three of them are sitting together sharing space, but all doing their own thing. he always looks oddly scared about it, like he doesn't quite know what to do with whatever he's feeling, and buggy has this stupid urge to cuddle up beside him and rest his cheek on his big shoulder and just share his warmth

but he doesn't because he doesn't want to get punched into next week

.........until one night he does and croc just looks down at him with those unfathomable eyes and smiles

and across the room, mihawk's deep in his book, feet curled up under him in the chair, but he's smiling too

and now Buggy's the one getting all choked up, though he doesn't know why

This is all to say that Buggy is the last one to catch feels. One day he busts into The Meeting Room (sex dungeon) in the middle of an actual meeting and shrieks 'ARE WE DATING????' to which croc and mihawk blankly stare and reply buggy. buggy we have been in a dedicated polyamorous relationship for five years

[sea-salted-wolverine]

Do you ever have a moment where a passing recollection from childhood flutters through your brain, and you almost don't consider it until you realized that it was actually really fucking strange? And then you call your mom, and hesitatingly because you don't really trust your six-year-old imagination and memory, describe your version of events and ask for the perspective of someone who was an adult at the time, only to have her offer clarification that is perhaps a dozen times more bat shit than what you thought happened?

I was 6. I might have been 5. Maybe 7. I dont really know. It's not important. My brother is 4 years younger than me and he could walk and had teeth at the time. That is important.

We were regularly going to service at my grandmother's church. There was a children's area/playground/daycare thing that was offered as an alternative for sermons so no one had to deal with the loud fidgety babies. I think, like I said, I don't super trust my recollection.

There was a disagreement. I made someone cry. There was no hitting. We were asked to leave and then only showed up to church again after that on Easters and Christmas.

That's what I remember. Which isn't a huge deal until you think about how badly things had to go for an entire family to get kicked church. Semi permanently. So I asked about it several decades later.

Let it be said that I am an atheist not because I had some grand dramatic break up with God, but because there just was no religion at all in my life, certainly nothing that's stuck. This is why. It is also worth noting that this happened within like a month.

So first, the pastor/the reverend/someone in charge was embezzling money. How? Is that even possible? Fuck if I know. My grandmother did not go to church for the reverence or the religion, she went for the politics. She's the kind of woman who enjoys holding power over other people. She and Pop-pop were at elders at the church and had opinions about the misappropriation of funds. It gives me joy to conceptualize this in the tones of some gritty mafia movie so that's how it's gonna be. There was a titanic covert power struggle over the fiscal health of this suburban community church.

Dad actually did have a dramatic break up with the bad boyfriend that is God. How and where exactly this happened in the timeline is unclear.

Mom and Granny were both in the bell's choir. Singing and music and fun times. Also quite a bit of homophobia. This was the nineties and a different church down the road had announced they were open to having gay weddings. This resulted a fervor of gossip and unchristian remarks about awful degenerates burning in hell. Mom did not appreciate this and managed to create a schism throughout the choir, starting a cold war of dirty looks and sneers. Evidently the music took a turn for the shitty as well. To be clear, This was not a case of activism or allyship. This was a group of people who believed themselves to be superior for not being gay versus a group of people who believed themselves superior for not gossiping.

The day care thing, turned out to be a series of separate incidences. The first being when baby me having hyperfixated on Greek myths decided to info dump on my sister and inform her that the Greek gods were just stories and fake, just like jesus and the Christian God. This also resulted in some consternation from the adult who is supposed to be watching us and in theory guiding us towards a more godly life. Supposedly there was a serious talk with my parents after the fact. However there have been so many serious talks with my parents about my behavior and the things that come out of my mouth that they have in fact blurred together and even my mom has no idea what I did. It is worth noting that this probably did not help my dads Spiritual Questioning.

There were several other incidences but the culminating moment, the one that wound up with us walking out mid service to never return, started when my mother's 17 year old cat died fighting something in the Bush.

This cat was an outdoor cat and as a result kill a lot of things. Baby me had a very good idea of what dead animals looked like and everything that entailed. Baby me had also not really been formally introduced to the concept of heaven, which seems like an oversight on the part of some adult.

So at the day care thing we are all sitting in a circle, going around, and talking about sad things that have happened to this group of slightly older than toddlers so we will have something to pray about. There is another little girl whose cat has died.

I would like to think that the adult version of me would have handled this better.

The long and the short of it is, I informed everyone that heaven wasn't real, dead things stay dead forever, there isn't really such thing as a soul, especially not for cats. Just imagine the worst tone-deaf atheist asshole you know, except 6.

So, she started bawling. The adult that is meant to be in charge is just staring at me in horror. No one told him that he would have to explain the afterlife today. And they really didn't mention that he would be cross-examined by a critical six-year-old while another one sobs.

The conversation that followed had to be hilarious, but due to the foibles of my brain and the intervening decades, I do not remember it at all. A great loss for us all.

Remember how I said it was important that my baby brother has teeth at this point? While I am engaged in theological debate with an increasingly desperate Day care worker, my wonderful loving and loyal baby brother is told that I am a mean person. While this is arguably true, he also loves me. Significantly more than he loves common sense. Or manners. Or Jesus for that matter. His big sister is the best person in the world, actually.

Queue the fighting for my honor.

Yes, he started biting.

My sister is an empathetic cryer and is now also sobbing.

The poor daycare man has not convinced me that heaven exists, but he's now wondering if this is the threshold of hell. Someone goes to get mom or dad or granny or anyone who can do anything about the tiny heathens unleashed on the kiddy hour.

So, yeah. We never went back. Only my sister ever missed it. Next Sunday, Mom told us to go explore the abandoned gravel pit for an hour or so.

[msfcatlover]

AT LAST! THE ZOMBIE TIMELINE!!!

Huge thanks to @666imgoingtohell, whose suggestions finally gave the creative side of my brain the kick it needed to work out Steph’s timeline! Here’s what I’ve got so far.

(Warnings for all things Joker, implied torture & experimentation, disease, death, suicide, eye trauma, asphyxiation, overdose, isolation, depression, drinking, self-sacrifice… fuck, I am definitely missing a few, but that’s all I can think of for now.)

(…yeah, they all come from dark, depressing futures where everyone they cared about died, but Steph’s is definitely the most fucked up.)

.

The Joker captures both Tim & Damian. Joker thinks it’ll be extra funny if he can make a Robin corrupt themself, so Damian is used as leverage. (Damian hates it, hates every second of it, but especially hates the guilty way Tim glances at Damian before acquiescing to Joker’s orders. Make this, do that, eat this, take a deep breath off this inhaler we all know is horribly poisoned while Joker cackles like it’s the funniest shit he’s ever seen. Every free moment, Tim looks for an escape. Every chance Tim gets, he works in some sort of message or sabotage to whatever he’s made. Even as Tim’s face sets in a permanent smile, even as he becomes increasingly bright & cheerful about following orders, Tim keeps at it. Even as the orders switch to using Dami as a guinea pig—Tim blinks rapidly, cheeks twitching, and says with a sort of happy confusion, “That wasn’t the deal.” Joker says the other option is Robin dies right now. Damian can see the horror in Tim’s eyes when the first needle slides in; Tim’s twisted lips form a silent “sorry” in the moment Joker can’t see it.—even then, Tim keeps antidotes and medical supplies as close as he can, scrambling to fix whatever he’s done in the aftermath.)

(Once, after Tim started to change but before the deal changed to match, Joker had to go fight Batman and left both of them handcuffed to the same pipe overnight. “Robin,” Tim whispered into the dark, “I need you to promise me something.” “What is it?” “Joker’s not curable, everyone knows that. If I become like that—” “No!” “It’s already happening.” Tim giggled. “I can feel it.” “Absolutely not! How dare you, ask me to—” “It doesn’t have to be you. But I need you to make sure.” “No,” Damian says again. It’s a little less forceful, a little more desperate. “I know what happens when I go bad, Dami.” Tim sounded almost giddy, though his words were grim. “That’s without Joker-fication. I—we can’t let that happen, okay?” “Stop being an idiot.” “No.” Tim laughed, but it was quickly muffled, like he was biting down on something to bottle it up. “Contingencies, baby bat! They’re important. If I go bad, I need you to make sure I can never hurt anyone again.” A pause. “We both know locking me up won’t be enough.” “It’s doing an impressive job so far.” Damian yanked his own handcuffs, so they rattled against the pipe. “If something as pathetic as this can hold you, you really think you stand a chance with Arkham?” “Arkham doesn’t have my baby brother in a death collar.” Tim’s voice went soft and distant-dreamy. It was the most serious he’d sounded in a long time. Damian swallowed. “I won’t let you hurt anyone. I promise.” “That’s the spirit!” The giggles were back as quickly as they’d left. It was awful.)

It took 2 months to find them. Damian was rescued, but the Joker just barely escaped, dragging a breathless Tim behind him. Damian had to be sedated, he was fighting so hard to go after them.

.

People started getting sick, seemingly at random. What started as lightheadedness bordering on dizziness turned to giddiness, and things escalated from there. Damian knew about Tim’s little rebellions and told everyone; the micro-doses of Joker venom worked to burn the virus out of their systems, but more victims just kept popping up.

(The fact it was so obviously Tim’s handiwork left the whole family shaken.)

The Bats kept searching for Tim.

.

They found him alone in a lab, Joker’s body laid out on the floor and left to rot. It was obvious Tim had been dipped since they last saw him, his skin bleached by the chemicals that first made the Joker. During the fight, one of the tables got overturned and Tim’s mysterious science setup got smashed.

“It’s out,” Tim whispered, almost reverently, before bursting into laughter. “It’s out! You can’t put it back, I can’t stop it anymore, because you let it out!”

(The fight ends with gas in the air and Steph’s hands around Tim’s throat, a too-wide smile creeping onto her face, before Damian drags her off, snapping at her that she’s not herself, and giving her an extra dose of antidote. Tim scrabbles back to the wall, one hand at his throat. The hoarseness from the choking almost drops Tim’s voice back to its normal register. “You promised. Dami, you promised.” Damian shakes his head. “It’s not too late—” “It is!” The cackle was just a horrible, rasping cough. Tim’s voice takes on a sing-song cadence once he gets his breath back. “Can’t come back from where I’ve gone, can’t fix what I’ve done! Red Robin’s gone, long gone. Make it stop.” The giggle is nearly silent, more of a shudder. “Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop!” Tim’s voice cracks back to laughter, like he’s telling a joke so good he can’t get out the punchline, and tears run down his cheeks.)

(It goes further, but the point is: Steph watches Damian drive a scalpel from the table into Tim’s eye, watches him twist until the twitching stops. Tim’s hands come up on instinct to grab Damian’s in the first moment, but Tim doesn’t fight it; he just holds on. Damian stumbles back and sits down hard on the floor.)

.

When Batman asks what happened, Steph speaks up before Damian can. “He killed himself.” Damian looks at her incredulously, but Steph plows forwards without hesitation. “It looked like he had a moment of lucidity. Tim asked us to kill him—his exact words were ‘make it stop’—” Her voice cracks, but she keeps going. “—and when Robin said we wouldn’t, he…” Steph swallows, and mimes jabbing herself in the eye. “Da— Robin tried to stop him, but Tim was… he was laughing, but he seemed really upset.”

Batman looks at Damian, who’s staring down at his blood-stained gloves (less blood-stained than Tim’s hands, which all but covered Damian’s.) “I promised,” Damian whispers, “that I wouldn’t let him hurt anyone. When we were both prisoners, I promised.” He looks up at Bruce, eyes full of tears. “I was going to break it! But he—”

Bruce places a hand on Damian’s head. “It’s alright, son. It’s not your fault.” (Damian doesn’t say anything else, just bursts into tears in his father’s arms. Steph wonders how long the can maintain the lie.)

(It’ll turn out she shouldn’t have worried; they’ll have much bigger problems soon, and you know what people say about keeping secrets.)

.

Here’s what they don’t realize: the Joker virus couldn’t survive outside of the human body or near-lab conditions. Transmission was near-impossible, and all victims up until this point had either been part of one of Joker’s schemes or subtly injected in crowded spaces; almost nobody caught it from anyone else.

Tim’s new strain (which he had been fighting with himself not to release, getting into a perfectionist loop as a distraction from the urge to just let it loose) as it turns out, is highly contagious. It can survive for a good few hours in open air, and rapidly colonizers any surface it lands on.  Tables. Floors. Clothes. Skin. Hair.

Steph & Damian rode back to the Batcave and underwent thorough decontamination of themselves, their gear, and the car alone. They took their shots just in case of exposure, and played cards while waiting out the hyperactive high a micro-dose of Joker Venom causes. Bruce came back, decontaminated, and sat down to run tests (because otherwise he’ll have to face the fact his son died tonight, and he’s not ready for that. Tim’s not dead until Bruce processes it, and you can’t make him.) 

Bruce did not realize he needed to take the shot too.

.

(Gonna be completely open right now: we are NOT going Batman-Who-Laughs. Mainly because he relies on several of my least favorite interpretations of Bruce’s character to make anything resembling sense, but if you need a different reason… Tim’s strain is much less about re-creating the Joker a million times over, and more about twisting how people emotionally react to the world around them; everything makes the happy-chemicals, and the stronger the emotional reaction ought to be, the higher that rush. While not inherently a degenerative condition, the ever escalating self-destructive behavior this leads to means it might as well be. For example, some of the infected are probably going to seek out fear toxin just to get that high, but just because their happy chemicals are going nuts doesn’t mean the fear isn’t under it, and doesn’t mean they’re safe from heart attacks.)

(It’s just not funny if everyone is telling the same jokes, is it? If everyone has the exact same sense of humor? Wouldn’t that get boring after a while? Obviously. Big J was just too self-absorbed to realize Timmy’s joke was better.)

.

The early symptoms can be easily mistaken for sleep deprivation & too much caffeine. The secondary ones can be chalked up to grief. It takes a little over a week for the infection to become obvious. The incubation period is only a couple of days.

Wayne Manor: compromised.

The Batcave: compromised.

Literally everywhere Bruce went before he realized what was going on: compromised.

(Wayne Enterprises, city hall, the public funeral, the Watchtower: all compromised.)

(Bruce locks himself in quarantine as soon as he realizes, but here is another problem: the micro-doses of Joker Venom are not a vaccine. They burn through the bloodstream like a secondary immune system, wiping out the J-virus specifically, but they do nothing to build up immunity. Re-exposure is always a concern. Bruce is perpetually contaminating everything in the room, and no sooner has the Joker Venom left his system than the infection sets in again. His blood work is never clean for more than a few hours.)

Heroes infected. Allies lost. No matter how hard they try, there’s not enough Joker Venom to go around, but oh, oh do they try.

.

The family falls apart.

Alfred’s heart can’t handle the treatments. 

Babs goes into complete lockdown. 

Damian feels so guilty, he throws himself into helping as many people as he can, taking only the bare minimum of shots so that there’s more for other heroes & civilians; when Damian gets sick, those borderline suicidal tendencies mesh with the J-virus in truly horrifying ways. 

Cass is the one who finds Damian’s body, barely managing to choke out her message to the other Bats as the gasses start to take effect. She manages to drag Damian almost to the window before she just can’t do it anymore, gasping laughter over the coms as her lungs give out, with backup still several minutes away. 

Jason (not yet reintegrated into the family) goes from a not entirely trustworthy, usually distant maybe-ally who would at least reliably back them up in an emergency to a usually hostile, paranoid mess, spiraling even deeper into his own depressive tendencies & terrible coping mechanisms as the virus spread, the shelters fell, and his trauma compounded on itself by the day.

(Once, Steph found a stash of liquor while searching for survivors. She, Jason, Dick, and Cass (who wasn’t dead yet) proceeded to get absolutely plastered that night, each talking about how they’d want to go out and making promises about what they’d do if the others died. It was the closest thing to relaxed any of them got since Tim & Damian first disappeared, and it would be the last they had together ever.)

(Here is why Jason is unrecognizable to Steph: he’s been a hostile loner for as long as she’s known him, pushing others away to protect himself, never abandoning them but never lingering any longer than he had to. He made it very clear he was helping because he “had” to, not because he wanted to, and even when they became closer after the world had fallen apart, Jason was still gruff & distant even at the best of times; even when they got along & liked eachother, the paranoia of never knowing if one of them might actually be sick was a constant wedge keeping them from getting too close. A Jason who doesn’t just occasionally let people stick around but seeks them out, whose insults are more affectionate than razor-edged, who grabs on and says, “This person is one of My People(TM), and anything that wants to mess with them has to do it over my dead body,” is an alien concept to her.)

Dick died evacuating some survivors from a 3rd floor apartment. Purely reflexively, he tried to give them a reassuring smile. Purely reflexively, they shot him in the face. (Steph, on the building just across the street keeping lookout, heard the shot and saw Dick fall. Whether he would’ve survived the gunshot is irrelevant when hitting the pavement practically head-first.)

One rescue mission was almost a clean success. They got the survivors all the way to the escape vehicle before realizing there was a kid still in the building. Jason’s jaw set, and Steph barely had time to scream for him not to go, don’t do this, don’t leave her like this, before he was running back in. (The kid made it out. Jason did not.)

Steph broke every promise she’d made about not giving up, about fighting to the end, about going out in a blaze of glory, after being cornered by a swarm. She chose to go out on her terms, though, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her pain or of her becoming one of them. All Steph’s cures would be unusable by the time help came, either smashed or tampered with by the Joker-zombies, but she had enough for the Joker Venom to do its original job.  She took all of them, and died laughing at her own ultimate failure.

.

.

.

(And then she wakes up.)

[rianafying]

hello diary i’m back idk what is happening or why i ever feel what i feel, but here goes nothing

i’ve been feeling very creative today, had a terrible morning woke up insanely dehydrated, could barely move, my arthritis and psoriasis had flared up as well, i had to cancel my gig but they’re fine, they had other people on board. i don’t really feel like i missed out because i literally couldn’t have gone and needed to stay home and rehydrate, plus it’s like 37 degrees outside, i’ll stay home thanks. anyway, so i got some much needed rest and i ate and drank loads of water and i feel replenished now and i feel hopeful and creative and i wish i could’ve just started something, a project or whatever. but i have no many chores standing firmly between me and what i actually want to do. will is a terribly difficult thing to conjure. i had a telehealth appointment to get diagnosed w adhd in melbourne so i can access the necessary treatment, but they’re telling me it’ll be at least $800 and at least 4 sessions to just get diagnosed. and that to me is a huge undertaking. i told them ill think about it but what is there to think of, i know fully well i cant afford it. i wish i had an ipad to draw on. ive been wanting to draw something for ages and i could draw on my physical sketch book but i just haven’t? i just cant? its the guilt from all the chores i haven’t done. there’s a proper inspection due in 4 days and i just know it’s going to cripple me with anxiety as the date comes closer. there’s so much stuff that i want to do. and yet i do nothing. i’m not doing even 1% of everything i want to do, because im stuck doing 100% of the things i hate but have to do. when im older, i hope i get permanent residency in australia or any other first world country, i wish i have a safe and permanent place to live, regardless of size or quality. i wish i have someone who can help me with the tasks i struggle with and i can help them with tasks they struggle with and if we both struggle at the same things, we’ll understand each other, we can struggle and learn together. hopefully this will not be a romantic partner because i don’t think my brain is hardwired to deal with matters of the heart in a stable way. i hope that by the time i feel safe, the children of gaza feel safe too. i hope we win. i thought of them when i got dehydrated and worried that ill get a uti, i thought about how much worse they have it. i think of them all the time but especially when im suffering and im reminded that they have it many folds worse. i try to derive hope, strength, and gratitude from that instead of helplessness, and powerlessness.

i haven’t been able to take out the trash and get rid of my dead plants and they’re starting to attract bugs and i really need to do that today, i’ve been saying that everyday, it’ll just take seconds. i also am very close to having $0 in my account because i had to buy some meds and i found some vitamins for half price and decided to buy a whole buttload of them #forhealthiguess also its SO HOT. and im trying to avoid turning on my air conditioner because my electricity bill last month was $140??? like why? it’s a crazy world out here. crazy expensive. for the millionth time, i really should get a real job soon. or try to. i doubt i’ll ever have enough to be independent. i fear i’ll always be at the mercy of my parents. i fear i’ll heal too slow to keep up with the damage.

all day i did nothing. that’s not true, i went grocery shopping and i made meatballs, and spaghetti and it turned out great. the one thing i always cook successfully is any kind of pasta, never fails. i feel 50% guilty for not doing anything important today. such as taking out the trash, cleaning my room, etc. it’s the one thing i hate doing: house chores. makes me wanna scream, cry and throw up. i made a mistake, last night i accidentally left my earphones on the couch at reception downstairs and hadn’t even realised until earlier today when i was leaving the building and saw it on the couch. i feel so relieved that i live in a place where nobody stole it all day. part of me feels like i don’t deserve to live so well. because for nearly a year, i have been living wonderfully, everything’s going so well, and all my demons are inside of my own head. this is new for me. there’s no actual threat, i think. still feels like there is. i’m less overwhelmed than usual, but still pretty overwhelmed. there’s always too many ideas and not enough ability to implement them. how do i feel chaos and clarity simultaneously. i just need a break from this mental torment. i think getting my apartment clean will definitely help with that. but it’s such a big task, even thinking about it makes me fall to my bed and start to rot. suddenly i find that my body won’t move. adhd sounds like it’s so quirky and funny until you’re surrounded with piles of garbage and flying insects and there is a mysterious sticky brown patch underneath the fridge that just will not move. until there’s no space to walk from one end of the room to the other without stepping on and crushing things underneath my feet. it feels as if my brain has acquired an endless supply of shame and guilt. i will probably not feel focused until my room is actually clean. clean enough to be inspected. clean enough to maybe even have visitors. i get anxious just thinking about the prospect.

[laundrybiscuits]

Director's Commentary: what will today's adventure be

Wrote this on the bus even though absolutely nobody asked for or needed it! Posting because why not. It's 1300 words of commentary for a 3100 word story. WHY NOT.

I've had the vague idea of Erica running a MLP game for a while, but seeing her little speech in Hellfire absolutely locked in her potential as a DM for me. I jotted this down in my ST scratchpad a few weeks back:

I desperately want Erica Sinclair running a MLP GURPS game. Dustin and Eddie are 10000% on board and wildly delighted. Mike is a massive dick about it the entire time. Lucas is in agony between acknowledging that it’s a pretty fucking well-designed game and he’s kind of proud of her but also HIS LITTLE SISTER HAS INFILTRATED HIS NERD GROUP WITH HER GIRLY CARTOON PONY SHIT. If Will’s around, he’s a little skeptical but quickly gets into it; it’s not his genre/style, but he can have fun trying something new. It’s ruthless, and clever, and slightly unbalanced because she hasn’t figured out how to calibrate on the fly for dumbass player decisions yet. She’ll get there. She’s got the taste for it now. The campaign ends when the party ends up luring the innocent Sea Ponies into a blood sacrifice to defeat the demon lord through necromancy and take over his dark reign. Steve shows up for the last fifteen minutes to drive the kids home, just in time to hear Erica describe the incredibly gory showdown, and tries to telepathically communicate to Eddie that this is NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN; Eddie just grins back like hell yeah, baby, you got that right.

Obviously it has changed a bit since that initial thought, but not a huge amount, dynamic-wise. I was somewhat hampered by the fact that I remembered absolutely nothing about my brief stint with GURPS a billion years ago, and also the fact that I have literally never consumed any MLP media whatsoever. No, not even Friendship is Magic, although I was on tumblr during that initial era so I picked up a thing or two via cultural osmosis. To write this ficlet, I ended up spending a very instructive hour or two on YT watching old clips and commercials, and now the G1 theme song is permanently lodged in my brain.

This has more or less been my first time writing Erica, so I tried to put a lot of thought and care into it. In fact, I based her primarily on what my own little sister was like at that age—my sister was a regular player in my D&D games growing up, but she also went on to be a wildly popular homecoming queen, and is a very politically active adult. She's the coolest person I know, and it was an honor to be lovingly bullied by her all throughout our childhoods.

One thing I really hope I get across in this fic is that this Erica is the type to double down when she's uncertain. She's smart and funny enough to get away with it most of the time, and it's actually a big part of what makes me so sure she'll be a great DM; that's definitely a core DM skill, spinning up some off-the-cuff bullshit with the kind of authoritative tone that makes it sound like you've been masterminding this twist for months.

I wanted her to be somewhat uncertain and insecure in this fic, because running a game for the first time, in a (VERY dense) system you've never played before, is kind of a big deal! I've done something similar myself when I wasn't that much older than Erica is in this fic, and you absolutely need nerves of steel to pull it off.

I also wanted her to be fully resolved not to let that uncertainty show, because Erica strikes me as the kind of person who haaaaates being vulnerable. Given her vocab (i.e. probable reading level) and practical inclinations, I think she'd probably deal with it all by over-prepping, which experienced DM Eddie obviously clocks.

She wouldn't have gone to Eddie for advice or help. That's not how she rolls. She'd rather work through the difficult stuff on her own and show up triumphant and already perfect. It's probably something she's going to have to unpack in therapy later in life, but it is also actually a pretty solid DM instinct. Smoke and mirrors, baby.

So anything Erica says can and should be taken with a grain of salt. She's working very hard to have her audience believe she's in charge and absolutely correct about all things. (I also just thought it was pretty funny to include that bit about GURPS being the future of TTRPGs, given the wild ascendancy of DnD and the relatively low profile of GURPS nowadays, but in retrospect I'm not sure that came across.)

By the way: I know it can get confusing when actual kid-acquisition is sort of a trope, but I hope everyone knows that this Eddie's not being serious/literal when he makes the internal comment about adopting Erica! He just loves her a lot and wants to be in her life in a permanent kind of way, and he's a dramatic dork. If he had to pin down a specific extant familial role he literally wanted with Erica, it would probably be "weird gay uncle." The Sinclair fam seems relatively stable/healthy which is a rarity for these kids, but family can always expand, and Eddie is definitely angling to be another part of Erica's familial-type support network. That's just way too awkward and serious a thing to say, hence: joke about adoption.

I actually didn't mean for the Steddie part to come on so strong, but I put them in Steve's house because I thought it'd be funny to have a bit about Dustin casually breaking in to all their houses, and then it became instantly clear when Steve opened the door that the whole setup would be some kind of wild domestic fantasy for him. Like, in his head Eddie is already 100% wifed up. (Not that I think that would be a particularly comfortable dynamic for Eddie, but Steve's allowed to have his little fantasies.)

And then I just wanted to write a little bit about them being really comfortable with each other and being a team, taking care of each other as they deal with the minor inconveniences of everyday life, working together to look out for kids who are their friends but not quite their peers.

I don't think I got too deep into that particular dynamic, but it's one I'm pretty invested in; they're really only a few years older than the kids, but they're also responsible for the kids' care, and it's a very nuanced thing. I've been on both sides of that, and it's an absolutely incredible gift either way. Having friends who are a little further along their paths than you is amazing; having friends who you can provide for and support is amazing. It gives you so much perspective. I don't think of my mentees (for lack of a better word) as anything like my children, and I don't think Steve and Eddie think of the Party that way either. It's a very specific dynamic that I might need to spend more time on in a later fic.

As for the ending...normally I go hard on the pining, as y'all know by now, but this just felt like a very different thing was happening. Also, one time a girl did pull that "talk about what? lol jk come here" thing on me IRL and it was very cute.

Finally, just because I did in fact come up with them, here are the Party names and pony types:

Dustin: Jester the Pegasus Pony

Lucas: Nettle the Pegasus Pony

Mike: Skullcrusher the Earth Pony

Will: Glint the Unicorn

Eddie: Belladonna the Flutter Pony

[kanna-banana]

Ok, serious talk, I know nobody wants to read this but I'll feel better posting somewhere as opposed to vomiting my feelings all over my friends again, they've had enough, please feel free to ignore this and I'll be back to being silly in no time

Ok so, I know my blog is uncomfortable to read, I understand that my negativity and constant venting is at best annoying and at worst upsetting, i am aware of that but I also know that bottling up is worse to me and i feel like a liar if i just pretend everything is fine and just post silly stuff here.

My friends keep telling me I'm not a horrible person and am pretty funny actually and I think that is because they've know me for years and I was like that but things have not been going well im the last few years.

Yes I am not a bad person and I can be funny sometimes, but all of that gets overshadowed by the numerous mental issues I have and cannot cope with properly.

English is not my first language language so this gets a bit confusing because this nuance is pretty tricky in the language but as you all know is that "i am" can mean either "i am like this at the moment" (example "I'm cold" or "I'm hungry", those are not things that are inherent to you, they are temporary states) or "i am like this PERIOD" (example "I'm human" or "I'm Brazilian", they are permanent states about yourself)

Now

I know I AM (inherent) creative, funny sometimes, alright at drawing, and a bunch of other nice things people say about me when I'm crying, but you have to understand that i also am (temporary) completely fucked up mentally and emotionally, I'm not saying I'm going to be "cured" from being autistic btw, I'm counting not being able to handle my issues "being a bad temporary thing", like, i will never stop having ADHD symptoms (cannot afford a diagnosis so I'll just call them symptoms for now, or signs if you thing the word 'symptom' is a bit tone deaf) but i know i can learn how to live with it and function, even if my functioning looks very different from what's expected from a neurotypical person.

I am, at the moment, NOT DEALING WITH MY SHIT PROPERLY, and THAT is the issue I believe can be fixed. I will never have a good knee again, even after the surgery I just feel less pain, but i can learn how to adapt to my limitations, you know?

So, I am not, inherently, a failure, i know I'm not stupid or ugly or boring, but I'm so full of debuffs that basically I'm a piece of shit right now.

Yes, I did quit my job and tried to become a web developer and it went catastrophically bad, but I can't even count that as a failure because i NEEDED to quit that job either way (it was destroying my mental health) and if you're gonna quit going to live with a friend so dear to you she's basically a sister for a while and learning a skill you always wanted to at least start learning, isn't it worthy?

Yeah I "failed", but the happiness i felt along the way was worth even if it didn't work out in the end.

I know that, my mind knows that, but my feelings are absolute chaos and I sometimes fall into a deep self hatred spiral that makes me believe lies about everything around me, it even makes me believe everyone secretly hates me, which is OBJECTIVELY not true, if there's one thing I am in this world is loved.

I know it's sad, annoying, or even upsetting to see my posts and I'm not going to pretend they're inevitable, I CAN stop myself and I should have better restraint, I'm failing at that and I apologize for all the negative feelings I might have caused.

I know it's a pretty hard goal considering how my life is a huge mess right now, but my goal in life is to be the trans person i needed to meet when I was in the closet.

I want to be the type of happy, mature and intelligent person that my friends were when I met them 6? 7 years ago?

The people that completely shattered an entire lifetime of prejudice and fear that was forced into my brain since i was a toddler, the type of people that made me look at transphobic posts and go "that's not true, I've met trans people and they're some of the best people i know", the type of people who made me realize living as who you really are is both possible and achievable.

I want to be that person, someone who, just by being themselves, can melt away prejudice or at least be that kink in the armor of an angry reactionary that one day will help shatter the barrier of lies they protect themselves with and help them see that this hate was manufactured to use them as paws in a stupid made up culture war.

I got out of this horrible place with the help of wonderful people i will never be able to thank enough, and my dream is to help others out too.

I'm not saying i want to "trans" others, obviously, just to show that we are not the weird monsters thet so many out there want you to believe we are. To destroy the prejudice with the power of a honest, happy existence.

I want to be the person I needed when I was younger, lost, depressed, considering suicide, and constantly angry at anyone the liars and grifters who I trusted told me to hate.

I want to become the person who would have saved me back them.

I know it's going to take a lot of work, I have many barriers ahead of me, some inside of myself, some external, but neither way I have a LOT of work to do, and if there's one thing i can never do is give up.

I don't even know what "giving up" means at this point, I have to keep going, not only for myself but for those I might help in the future.

I can't change the past. I can't erase the harm my bigoted ignorant words caused, but I can grow into a person who heals as much as i used to hurt.

I know I'm a handful right now, and I am trying to control my words until i have the means to work on myself and improve as a person. Just, please be patient with me. If my posts upset you in the past please for your own sake unfollow/block me, I'm sorry I hurt you while trying to hurt myself, but unfortunately it will probably happen again, and there's nothing wrong with distancing yourself from someone that hurts you, even if they didnt INTEND to hurt you.

I am NOT (inherent) a failure

I am (temporary) failing

But I will get better.

I don't know how, I don't really have a plan, but I will figure it out somehow.

Life is not a game. I am not in a "doomed run", I can and I WILL live and be the best person I can be.

Thank you.

[demcnsinmymind]

More talk about Lance's relationship with Azathoth

especially in his mid post!canon interactions and the TVDU verse I have with a couple of lovely people on here

obviously messed up and trigger heavy since it's not healthy at all

I've already talked about the "biology" and physicality behind their bond, aka that Azathoth's mere presence inside his mind keeps him from slipping into the severe effects of brain trauma he's suffered from his lobotomy. It's basically like a pacemaker that's keeps him functioning and mentally alive and thus, it being in there is a necessity. I've also made a clear distinction between it and Friedkin, and established that it never physically harmed him and doesn't ever want to, but that it's using his mental health problems as its main food supply and wants him completely to itself and isolated.

I've also talked about the fact that he's trauma bonded to Azathoth and has severe stockholm syndrome which I cannot understate enough, and which plays a huge roll in this headcanon and 99% of all post canon interactions as well.

Anyway, something I have already written out in the TVDU verse with @sanguinelupus is the fact that at some point after being turned into a vamp, they manage to actually bind Azathoth and shut it up inside his mind - basically just locking it up inside. Thus insuring that it's keeping him from slipping into utter insanity and brain trauma, while at the same time just making it 'disappear' more or less, since it cannot take over anymore, cannot talk to him anymore, is basically what any other human would suffer through during a 'normal' possession, locked away in the body. It's basically like a cure from possession and making him 'normal' again.

Let me tell you my dudes.

This did not go well.

He broke the binding spell to bring it back.

The thing is that Lance is not just physically depended on it staying there, but also mentally. He's aware what it's doing to his psyche and people he cares about. He's aware that it's like a dark cloud sucking all joy and color out of things with all its feeding and needing him to feel miserable. But the thing is that post canon, he himself feels likes he needs to feel miserable and like this, and he cannot bear being without it.

He has severe survivor's guilt even if he doesn't admit it to himself out loud. Just because it's so paradoxical to him. He's fought hard to stay alive and get out of there. His perseverance and strength and optimism is very important to him. He feels like he deserved to make it and go home. That he's earned still being alive. He wants to be alive and he's scared as shit of dying and getting hurt.

Yet at the same time, he feels terrible about being the only survivor. That none of the others made it. He blames himself for the deaths of his entire team. He thinks they'd still be alive if it weren't for him. He won't ever permanently kill himself because he's fought too hard and is too proud, but he feels like he needs to be miserable to pay for what happened in canon.

And thus, he's keeping Azathoth around. And he needs it around, because he thinks that it's his only friend. Also, he associates losing Azathoth with losing his team and friends. It is the last thing he has from what happened in canon. The only thing that was there and knows what it was like. And he feels like if it were gone too, then he would have nothing and no one from his past. And he can't deal with that.

That's why he got it back in that verse, and that's why he doesn't want to get rid of it and why he'll never get rid of it, even if there was a way to do it without fearing total insanity and brain trauma.

He's also too used to its powers and being supernatural. Without it, he'd feel like less than normal. He'd feel worse than insignificant. He'd feel like an utter failure. So it stays. And it keeps feeding into that 'relationship' and 'friendship' by riding right on that train and telling him that it's the only thing he truly needs.

The thing is that in a fucked up way, the attachment and obsession is mutual. They care in both directions, but of course, it's utterly messed up, toxic and unhealthy. But that's exactly why I think that without any other friends, human and good people in his life, he'll drift off into full blown symbiosis with it. He thinks he deserves it and that it's the only way and the most reasonable option. Neither a hero who beat the devil at the end of the book and went home (just like I said, because he thinks he doesn't deserve it), but not a villain either since neither him nor Azathoth are truly evil.

Neither of them want to end anyone or even kill people unless they have to, unlike the cult that's after them. They just want to survive and vibe at all cost and they know their best chance is to achieve that together. But...yeah. It's super entangled and messed up and so not pretty. But in their book, there is no other option or outcome. They're a package deal. For better or worse.

[lavenoon]

Sending this because I think you'd find it entertaining!

Currently writing a drabble prompt for more New Horizons, and I came across a part where I was gonna have Eclipse mention his brothers... Then I realized, I have no clue if they live in the same city or not. Using some information from the angst I gathered that he A.) Could not walk there due to battery charge B.) Could get a car, but it would be uncomfortable due to size and C.) Took a train as the next best option. So I posed the question to friends I was currently in a discord call with. One brought up the fact a human (this is including resting) could walk roughly 32km a day, so that meant without resting an Animatronic could easily walk 64km a day. So if his brothers were living far enough that a walk wasn't possible with 64km a day (assuming his charge lasts 3 whole days before it's completely out.) Then there was a possibility it wasn't the same city. HOWEVER! Then we thought up sister cities/districts/counties and etc. Sometimes those cities become HUGE and driving through them can take all day/hours at a time, and typically also had train systems to move about them. Some cities like Atlanta are about 147km wide.

So for New Horizons now we've all agreed that Sun and Moon by technicality live in the same city, but it's only because they're connected via Sister Cities and are on opposite ends of them.

ENJOY THE RAMBLE!

Hi I just woke up and need to cope with the realization of object permanence and that you talk about AU with other people like hi yes my ideas exist where I am not there to immediately observe them AND it's important enough to talk about in a discord call? just casually? idk if sleepy brain is making a big deal out of something mundane but it feels big to me gfhdjsk

I absolutely love this analysis bc it means you guys thought about it more than I did - whole ass math over here FGHDJSK

I'm a rural ass kid, live in a town that everyone sees and goes "that's not a town, that's a village". Biggest I ever lived in was 10K citizens which is still much too small as a stage for AU. So I'm going to be fully honest and say sister cities was not even in my awareness before this ask because it's SO out of what I need to know usually fhdjs

I love that idea though! For AU canon, I've imagined them in different cities, not connected at all, but I also know that our train system here for long distance train rides is different (biggest complaint "haha they're never on time" vs uhhh I never hear any American talk about trains, actually. AU vaguely set in a sorta fictional big English speaking country because I know American action movies best FGDHSJ) so honestly, sister cities is a neat way to handle it!

I am also now terrified of Atlanta.

[bonesandthebees]

There’s also the fact that they (Tommy more so than Wilbur) are reliving their trauma. Both of them mentioned feeling like they are back in the crawlspace. They have been betrayed again and no they are hiding (that they know) and trying not to be found (out). Everyone they knew (and sorta trusted) has been turned into an enemy (once again). No one can be trusted and all they have is each other.

And while both of them know they won’t just get killed, the fight or flight reflex is overriding that logic somewhat. Wilbur and Tommy feel like they are back in that crawlspace and they can’t see an easy way out. And it’s Tommy’s idea to run, just like he saw a day of still wind the first time. They chose to run because that’s was they did last time (and it worked). Somewhere subconsciously their brains have decided that it’s the same situation and thus the same plan will work because it’z the only solution they see. Flee to get the pressure of their back and try to negotiate once they feel safe again.

And it’s such an interesting decision because it makes sense from their pov. We can see why they think this is a good solution, but we also know it’s such a stupid idea. They have nowhere to go, they know this, but they are doing it anyway because it’s two animals backed into a corner clawing a hole through the wall to get out. And I’m interested to see how far they will get. Because they are repeating the same plan while lacking their main advantage last time: being on their home truff.

They could solve that by using the Voice to make someone tell them, but that would cost them time. Guards shouldn’t be a problem either for the same reason. They do have the element of surprise. But there’s some different obstacles too. Mainly the fact that the shuttles are probably different and far away. I’m also curious to see where or not the train outside the palace is a permanent thing or if it was just there for the occasion. Also I feel like the fact that Phil can fly might become relevant.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be a chaotic mess. Also I’m terrified to find out what your definition of a long chapter is.

(2/2)

-🎄

:) yep, it's a trauma response. they've both been betrayed again, so their minds are flashing back to the last time they were betrayed, throwing them into the emotions they felt at that moment. it's the result of neither of them properly resolving or dealing with their trauma, which admittedly they wouldn't have even been able to do in an effective way since that kind of thing takes years to recover from. but yeah, their minds are flashing back to their last traumatic experience and because of that, they are both being kicked into fight or flight. again, tommy is experiencing this a bit more strongly than wilbur mostly because wilbur's literally been hopping in and out of this panic state for most of the fic so he's a bit more used to managing it.

it's a stupid idea, but with what they've been through, it feels like the only option. if they stay on zephys iv, they're going to be forced into joining the empire. they both know this now. and after the betrayal, neither one is sure if that's what they want to do anymore. they're panicked and aren't sure who they can trust, so more than anything they don't want to be forced into making a huge decision they aren't sure about. so, they have to leave.

the thing with the Voice is that once that cat is out of the bag, it's never going back in. a siren's Voice isn't all powerful. they can't make someone forget the Voice was used on them. if they use it on anyone in the palace, word WILL get back to phil and techno, and the only card they have up their sleeves will be gone.

it's going to be a chaotic mess for sure :)

[bottomless-pit-of-whining]

I haven't had a journal where I can just dump whatever and not agonize over what people will think about it for ages. I don't know if that's actually how this works but I'm going to try it out.

Presumably nobody is going to read this thing (why would you) but I like shouting into the void so that suits me.

Anyway, I will start by saying

brain bad

And go from there. I have been hoping that I'll get better and be stable and mature and healthy and not having breakdowns or be a huge mess emotionally, if I just keep working at it I'll recover and I'll achieve stability and life will be good, but lately I've realized that maybe I've never actually been stable or emotionally healthy in my life, and maybe I never will be, no matter how much I work at it. Maybe I'm seeking the impossible.

Which is really fucking depressing. Am I just doomed to be in a permanent state of emotional fucked-uppery for the rest of my life? For fuck's sake. I'm 40 years old. I'm supposed to be an adult by now. I'm supposed to have my shit figured out.

They diagnosed me with bipolar II disorder for many years. Then they added borderline personality but gave the caveat that I didn't fit a bunch of the diagnostic criteria and I wasn't nearly as badly off as pretty much anyone who had that diagnosis, it just provided some useful tools to identify and work on my issues.

But then they took away the bipolar diagnosis and any BPD diagnosis and gave me an ADHD diagnosis instead. I took this to mean all the really hard work I'd done on my BPD-resembling issues had actually fixed them. I allowed myself to think maybe I'd put myself into "remission" for BPD and I was proud of myself for it. But maybe I never had either bipolar or BPD. Maybe I've just made incremental progress working on personal issues that don't fit those diagnoses at all, and it was just a mistake.

Over the past year or two I've had an increasing number of people ask me if I've considered that I might be autistic. And I don't fucking know. There's things that autistic people have to deal with that haven't been an issue for me. Some of the issues (sensory issues, social issues, masking) seem very familiar, but I come across as super socially capable a lot of the time and I don't have a number of the traits that autistic people seem to share. I figured it's just the ADHD/autism similarities, no more than that, but I don't really know.

Every single diagnosis I've ever had has been like "you have it less bad than the majority of people with this issue, it's mild and not severe at all" which leaves me feeling like I shouldn't complain about any of it. But it adds up, and at the end of the day, I'm struggling. Maybe it's just that I'm weak and I give up easily, so I am struggling with what another person would be able to live with. I don't know.

I've gotten used to hating myself, so much so that even though I had tried to work on it and I even made a lot of progress in the past, it still continued in insidious ways and continues to haunt me. I've gotten used to struggling. I'm trying, I'm always trying to do better, but I wish I could just exist and not have it hurt all the time, you know?

There's no "you" here. Nobody's going to read this. But I like to talk, so let's pretend I'm addressing an audience.

[aeskairo]

It bothers me that it's just so taken for granted that sugimoto can have anything happen to him and recover fully like nothing ever happened. In a more likely scenario he's still alive, but maybe is a vegetable, or has lost the use of the language center and has trouble forming words now, or he needs 18 months of physical therapy to relearn how to walk. Like the lack of consequences for sugimoto is such a huge turn off for his character.

Maybe it's because I come from an anatomy technical background, but Sugimoto and his lack of consequences makes him utterly unrelatable. In the beginning it was not a big deal, but we start to see him getting shot repeatedly all the time, and the people around him who get shot would be killed, but he would walk off unscathed.

He doesn't have lasting chronic pain from the accumulation of injuries. He has no accumulation of scar tissue that starts to inhibit his movement and function. He takes a bayonet through the side of the face and it would have severed facial nerves and made it difficult for him to taste, swallow and speak for an extended amount of time, if not permanently.

He has ptsd, but only from killing other people. But not from all of these injuries, no matter how severe.

For a series that has so much accurate information about the history of hokkaido, the geography, the botany, the ecology, the culture of the Ainu, and the obsession with getting accurate details on period specific weaponry and the uniforms, the whole way that injuries are treated is difficult to tolerate.

He's just a Superman character and nobody can hurt him and there are zero consequences for him getting into dangerous situations. Noda said that he decided early on he could never die, so you know he's going to reach the ending having never been physically impacted by any of these things.

Ogata on the other hand progressively becomes a much more realistic and relatable character. You find out more and more about the lingering effects of a childhood neglect and abandonment, and how they contribute to his decisions as an adult, and his behaviors and mannerisms.

Ogata faces consequences. He kills his mother out of a childish belief and he is haunted by guilt for the rest of his life, same with his brother.

He makes some poor decisions and loses an eye for it. He has to go through a lengthy recovery period and relearn how to function after the loss of his eye. He gets a glass eye to replace his missing eye and it never looks the same. he permanently has mismatched eyes.

Like, If this happened to Sugimoto, he would have simply recovered, not lost his eye, and gone on as normal. Like when he had an open hole in his skull that was draining cerebrospinal fluid while he's walking around and nothing happened. It just made him mad for like 15 minutes. And then they talked him down and he never experienced any sign of brain damage ever again.

Sugimoto just feels unrelatable because there are no stakes for him. You don't worry if he's ever going injured or have something happen to him because nothing ever will. There are no cliffhangers. You are never wondering if things will turn out okay because, of course they will. It just gets so old after so many chapters.

This is probably why Ogata who was meant to be a side character has literally become the most popular character in this series.

If you search Fan works on Pixiv, Ogata has 13k fanworks. Sugimoto has 6k, Koito 3k. When they release character fan goods in japan, Ogata related products are consistently the ones that sell the most.

[colby-k]

Medical Anomaly

In previous posts, I talked about my epilepsy and some of its downsides for me. Well, there's more.

My seizures are normally convulsive, tonic-clonic seizures. They are like the ones you see people having on TV. They are rough sometimes. I've injured myself plenty of times, including a black eye, a purple tongue from biting it so hard, a huge goose egg on my forehead, and many others. I have permanent bite marks on my tongue from biting it. One time, after a seizure, I bit the tip of my tongue so hard it was numb for three days.

Besides my injuries from my seizures, I also get very bad headaches afterward. Once I wake up from one, I'm very disoriented and not coherent. I don't remember much after I wake up from one because (1) I'm disoriented and don't know my lefts and rights, and (2) I just usually take a nap after to reset my system.

I also have focal seizures. For me, it's when my head (usually) and my eyes start seizing, but I can't move or talk. I'm aware during these and they usually only give me a headache, nothing else.

My seizure patterns are very sporadic, too. At 12 years old, when I first started having them, they only happened once a year. Then, they gradually became more frequent. Recently, they've been almost once a week.

Along with my seizures, I have what's called an essential tremor. This is basically just me shaking a lot. I can barely write. I cannot draw a straight line. I can barely type sometimes. It's quite frustrating. It also happens in varying degrees. Some days are better than others. Sometimes I can write very well, other days I can't even hold the pen to the paper.

In the mornings, around 9:00 (give or take), I get dizzy, too. Like the tremors, the dizziness is worse on some days than on others. On the bad days, I will lie down and take a solid nap. That usually helps. On the good days I just wait it out.

Unfortunately, it does come with side effects. Usually, but not always, I'll get motion sick and vomit. I know that's gross, I'm sorry. I'll also get a bad headache that sometimes evolves into a borderline migraine.

This is all very annoying to me. I've been experiencing seizures for the last 11 years. They have been sporadic, they've been close together. I even had four seizures in one day before they gave me Ativan at the hospital to stop them. That was a frightening day.

My dizziness happens just about every morning, and I can never tell to which degree it will go. Usually, I cannot read, write, or type. I can barely walk. It's a mess. I'm a mess.

My neurologists and epileptologists (epilepsy specialists) have been trying to figure out my seizures, tremors, and dizziness for at least a year or two with no luck.

However, this past week I had an appointment with my neurologist. We are trying a new medication and lowering one of my current medications. We are also taking one at a different time to prevent my brain from overloading with so much medication. Hopefully, that will help my dizziness without affecting my seizures.

Another thing to look forward to is a new epileptologist at the beginning of the year. My neurologist told me that I will be one of his first patients in the clinic. I was happy about this because I will receive a new set of eyes.

I'm also a candidate for surgery to fix my seizures. I'm happy but nervous about it. Having brain surgery is a very risky thing, as you can imagine.

Along with my physical health problems, I have a few mental issues, too. To start, let's talk about my anxiety. I've been dealing with some type of anxiety for as long as I can remember. I kept it inside of me, though. I didn't know how to describe the feeling, and I didn't think anyone would listen to me because I was a child.

As I got older, I started learning about mental health and realized that anxiety is what I've been experiencing. I still kept it to myself, though.

It's something that is still in my mind, trying to control the uncontrolled.

I also have depression. It's not as bad as it could be, which is good. But, it's still debilitating sometimes. This started to rise while I was in high school, around my junior year. At that time, I was going through familial troubles. My mother's significant other (I refuse to call him my stepdad) is abusive and ignorant. After I was threatened to be murdered by him, I moved out of my mother's place and moved into my father's home. It was something traumatic that added to my already trauma-filled life.

I was also diagnosed with bipolar depression with psychotic features. This wasn't much of a surprise for me because I'd been hearing voices for about 4 years prior to my diagnosis. they scared me with what they were saying. "Just do it. You know you want to." "Go hurt yourself." Bad things like those.

I finally piped up when I was in high school. My dad, surprisingly, got me a therapist when I asked for one. She was a youth/child therapist, but she didn't really understand teenagers' brains. That's what it felt like to me, so I stopped meeting with her and decided to wait to get a new one.

I waited until college to take advantage of the free counseling services at my university. My therapist was one of the best therapists I've had and one of the best people I've ever met. She gave me "assignments" to do to work on my new skills. These helped so much. I felt myself getting better, better than I was, at least. But, progress is progress, and I will take it.

Now I have a new therapist since the one I was with had to leave due to pregnancy. My new one is amazing. She knows exactly how to deal with my problems, gives me assignments, and did EMDR (eye movement desensitization redirection). It has all helped me so much that I could never express my gratitude.

I have also started taking medication for my mental health. They have also helped me a lot. I feel like my mood has been getting brighter, and my thoughts have been less intruding. I'm getting better, and I'm okay with that.

[juwon-ah-moved]

reading other people with bpd’s experiences with lack of emotional permanence and ........ wow