#but unless I sleep 12 or more hours I feel like shit

[headknight-oh]

I have a sleep study tonight (bc my sleep is fucked up because of some hellish combination of dsps, adhd, depression, and unemployment) but also because my doctor thinks I might have sleep apnea. But that also means I can’t nap today like I want to. My brain doesn’t have enough juice to stay awake, much less do anything useful. What do I do??? For the next like 7 hours? Lay here and try not to sleep?

[stellocchia]

I love the headcanon of Killer having ADHD, but I never see it explored much despite it being so popular. So here's a list of how ADHD may affect him based on my own experience:

- He remembers he's said something, but doesn't remember to who and just assumes it was everyone who needed to know. It was not.

Imagine the amount of times he's noticed a detail and told the Chara in his mind to not forget only to then forget they're the only one he spoke to about it. Sure, this is gonna be a problem while living under Chara or Nightmare if they find out (I say 'if' because Killer may play the part of the fool with them to lower their guard and him not noticing shit would fit right in), but it's also gonna be troublesome when he's already living with Color.

Imagine he scheduled his next therapy appointment and the only person he told that to is the voice in his head, like, that's bound to end up in a few skipped sessions.

- Remembers only one task at a time unless he writes them down.

I don't doubt that Chara and Nightmare both tried to beat some memory into him, but, surprise surprise, abuse doesn't cure ADHD. For some reason, they're both shocked to find this out.

Killer may develop the strategy of just repeating the list of tasks in his head with the exact cadence and rhythm they were told to him in over and over again as he's doing them to keep them in mind if he doesn't have access to a way to write the orders down. It works pretty well as long as he never stops doing it. As soon as he stops, anything but the task he was currently focusing on disappears.

- Inability to focus on only one thing at a time as it's too understimulating.

I know this one feels like a contradiction to the last one, but imagine it more as 'can't focus on reading unless you're also listening to something or fidgeting with your hands, or walking in circles'. More than one sense has to be stimulated at all times unless you wanna dissociate.

And, to be fair, Killer probably spent most of his time under Chara and Nightmare dissociating anyway, so it's possible that he discovered this neat little trick only after leaving with Color, most likely after starting therapy. Because, while Color of course tries his best to help, he also doesn't have all the knowledge and experience necessary to always know how.

- Irregular sleeping patterns.

This guy probably barely sleeps most of the time under Chara and Nightmare, both because they only allow him to as a reward if he's been good, and because it's such a vulnerable position to be in that it isn't worth it.

But, even once he's settled in with Color, my guy is still gonna swing between sleeping 3 hours and 12 hours straight depending on the day. He may lay down for a nap in the afternoon only for him to wake up the next day. Especially if he's kinda bored. Buddy's sleeping schedule is gonna give Color a heart attack.

- Frequent bouts of depression.

Depression and ADHD are linked together heavily, if he has ADHD it's highly likely that he suffers from depression too.

I mentioned it before, but I think his coping mechanism for that is locking himself in Stage 2, although he's not doing so consciously. Stage 2 is just the most likely one to be able to handle the increased anxiety/paranoia and apathy that come with it. He's also the least likely to change his behavior, so outsiders may miss the fact that they're in a vulnerable position. This, however, is a double edged sword because that guy is shit at taking care of the body and himself and may just go without eating and sleeping until he collapses, all while dissociating the whole time.

- All-consuming bouts of hyperfixation that leave him feeling empty once they fade.

The hyperfixation could be related to specfic AUs, characters within them (he doesn't consider anyone real anyway) or even tasks, weapons, animals, specific people.

For as long as the hyperfixation lasts, he struggles thinking of anything else and/or being happy/interested/focused while thinking about anything else. Of course, every time he thinks that maybe this is the interest that's gonna stick only for it to eventually fade and leave him feeling empty, maybe even kick-starting another bout of depression. There are ways to cope with that (pushing yourself to explore interests outside of you hyperfixation and establishing a healthy routine outside of it helps), however I think he'd only start exploring those once he's with Color and in therapy because mental health under Nightmare and Chara isn't really a thing. He's too busy trying to remain functional with them for that shit.

-

Of course, there's more to it, but those are the things I personally love to give Killer the most. That and the fact that he's easy to distract with something colorful and that is one of the reasons why he likes Color so much (same). Though that one's just funny tbh.

[samyanggs]

Hi, how about Buddha and Loki with an S/O who copes with their shit mental health via energy drinks, coffee and escapism?They’re always reading and listening to music and daydreaming almost 24/7. They drink water, like, once every 2 weeks (if they feel like self-care) and they rarely ever actually eat or sleep because they feel like they actually have control for once in their life. They also have periods where they drop everyone and it’s near impossible to get ahold of them unless you into their room. q(❂‿❂)p

Hihii that’s a really good idea Ty for requesting! I’m sick(?) and haven’t gotten much sleep so sorry if this isn’t how you want it to be I’ll write headcanons since my motivation to write disappeared (I’ll write the stories later once I found the motivation to write haha)

“Except you.. you can stay..”

Warnings: none that I know of

My first time writing loki slight ooc I nearly fell asleep writing this, don’t be afraid to reach out to me for any reason, take care of yourselves <3

Buddha

Has to drag you out of your room if he wants you to spend time with him (with promises that he’ll get you more energy drinks, coffee and others much to his distaste)

Makes you sleep with him when he’s tired knowing that you didn’t sleep much

Sometimes joins you while you’re reading bringing snacks and drinks for you (most of them are water but you only drink the soda)

Often tries to help you with your mental health and offering comfort to which you allow but you argue that you still have your coping habits to go too (“those aren’t good coping mechanisms” “says who?” “Me. Buddha. A god.” “… no”)

Sometimes forces you to drink water by deceiving you into thinking that it was a soda. You always end up spitting it out at him once you realise

Whenever you’re on your period he comes over with some soda, snacks and necessities for you the only time he’ll allow you to drink soda is during this time because he knows how moody you can get

Doesn’t force you to go out with him because he’d rather be with you alone than outside with lots of people which you are happy with

Sometimes he has to lower down your music in your headphones because he can hear it loudly and he’s scared that you’re damaging your eardrums

He watches you as you daydream. About what? He’s still trying to figure it out. Often pulls you back to reality to remind you that you need to drink something because you end up daydreaming for close to an hour

He’s super happy whenever you drink water willingly and he helps you whenever you’re feeling like doing self care. A massage? You got it. A cuddle session? Of course! Anything you want when you’re feeling like self care

Loki

Loki reads with you when you feel like reading well more like he does whatever while you read keeping you close to him

Definitely tells you to drink some water when he notices it’s your 4th cup of coffee of the day and it hadn’t reached 12 pm yet

Holds you close while you listen to music and daydream because he likes holding you close to him

Reminds you to drink water at least once everyday and doesn’t force you to drink water (he puts water in some of your energy drinks and covers it so you won’t notice the difference because you’re too tired)

Pops over to your room every once in a while to drag you out because you haven’t seen the outside in weeks

He tries to argue with you about your coping mechanisms but always let you win because you’re too stubborn and he can’t get mad at you (“those aren’t good coping mechanisms” “are too” “are not” are too!” “Are not” “yes they are” “fine. But this isn’t over”)

You’re on your period? He’s staying locked in your room with you, he knows how mad and moody you can get when you’re on your period. He brings snacks and drinks for you as well as some necessities that he had to ask Aphrodite for help with because he’s a good partner.

Will lay down with you and help you through your moodiness by playing games with you and entertaining you

You finally decide to drink water? This man becomes your butler for the entire time you feel like self care he will do (almost) anything for you (almost because he’s a god and he still has some dignity)

[quietblueriver]

Another prompt!

On the edge of consciousness

Quick thing #5.

In which Bea suffers a minor injury and Ava has some trouble dealing. All fluff. Very silly. Thanks for the prompt! :)

-

Ava’s exhausted by the time the van rolls back into Cat’s Cradle. She and Dora had taken six of the newly-official sisters to follow up on reports of some strange behavior in a town in rural France. Ava was hoping they’d find a whole lot of nothing and more than a little wine. What they actually found was eight wraiths and one fun new demon who had hurled himself through one of the cracks that had started appearing after Ava left, apparently a side effect of Adriel yanking Reya into this world, even though she only stayed for like 5 minutes.

It was quite an initiation for the newbies, who did really well all things considered. The whole deal is to make sure they can do this kind of shit without her, because Ava wants to be able to step away from demon-slaying every once in a while to travel the world with her curious, hot, polyglot girlfriend. She’s a teacher now, or whatever, so she didn’t just let loose with the halo when she got annoyed. Instead, she stood there and called out instructions and warnings and made sure none of the babies got maimed or worse and that they didn’t maim or worse any of the possessed. Quite a few halo interventions in the end, but they’re learning.

And the wraiths would have been enough, but of course there was the demon, a real asshole who at one point started sprouting and flinging weird spikes from his back. Ava did a lot of shield throwing and yelling and worked very hard not to intervene unless absolutely necessary. They got him down, in the end, and she finished the job. She’s physically fine but she’s mentally done—she needs sleep and Beatrice. Beatrice, mostly.

They haven’t spoken in three days, which isn’t unusual, unfortunately, but she always hates it. Occasional texts are sometimes the best they can do and she’d sent a few while Dora was driving but hadn’t heard back. Again, not unusual. Bea hates her phone even if she loves Ava (and she does, which she makes clear all the time to everyone and which Ava feels incredibly smug about, thanks) and she’s busy right now with training newbies.

Ava is looking forward to hunting her down in the yard, engaging in only a moderate amount of PDA because “I need them to be able to look me in the eye, Ava, please," and then sleeping for at least 12 hours.

Ava’s hauling her duffel from the back, the rest of the team shuffling inside, when she notices Cam, waiting nearby and fidgeting with her hands, her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Cam?”

Camila…flinches? at Ava’s voice and Ava doesn’t like that one bit. She swings the duffel over her shoulder and walks toward her, frowning.

“Hi, Ava. Welcome home.”

Her voice isn’t peak happy Cam but she’s not upset. Still. “What’s wrong?”

Camila sighs, meets Ava’s eyes. “Okay, most importantly, everyone is fine.” Ava’s heart rate spikes immediately, the halo humming to life. “There was a bit of an accident.”

Ava stares expectantly at her, heart pounding and halo charged, and Camila winces.

“Beatrice was involved.” Seeing Ava’s face, she says again, loudly, “She’s fine! She will be fine! She is in the infirmary and everything is…”

Ava’s off before Camila can finish, dropping her duffel and phasing through the first of the walls between her and the infirmary doors. She has the layout of Cat’s Cradle memorized at this point, after eight months of living here and training here and wandering the hallways when she has nightmares and manages to sneak out without waking Bea, so she has a pretty good idea of where she’s going—straight back and to the right.

She’s barely bothering to let her body fully constitute again, catches two sisters in one of the hallways by surprise and hears a “Holy Father!” before she bleeds through a storage room and turns right down another hall to find herself, finally, at the infirmary doors.

She sees Beatrice propped up in the second bed, privacy curtains mostly open, holding a well-worn copy of The Oresteia, because of course she is, a bandage where an IV line would be on the back of her hand. Her other arm is in a sling, a wrap peeking out from the neckline of the loose gray sweater she’s wearing. She’s awake. She’s sitting up. She has a book. Ava is so relieved she nearly cries.

Beatrice startles obviously when Ava phases through the last door between them, and Ava knows she must be incredibly tired or incredibly stoned or both, maybe, to react that obviously. When she turns her head to face Ava fully, Ava’s jaw clenches tight and she starts forward immediately. The left side of Bea’s face is battered, covered in scrapes and rubbed raw in spots.

Bea seems unbothered, smiling dopily and letting the book fall closed and into her lap so that she can wave excitedly, moving her whole upper body in concert with her hand. She stops the motion quickly, flinching and staring down at her torso like it had broken a promise, brow furrowed in disappointment.

Yeah, so. Stoned it is.

Bea brings her attention back to Ava and the frown disappears as she reaches out, her motion still uncoordinated but less violent. Her palm is up, fingers wiggling expectantly. It’s adorable, but Ava can’t really enjoy it right now.

“Ava! I missed you!”

Ava smiles at her, grabs the wiggling fingers gently between her own and sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over for a chaste kiss. Beatrice, uninhibited and unashamed, hums into it and sighs when they break apart, eyes fluttering and body swaying in a full Disney Princess-esque swoon. The instinct to coo at her like the precious baby duck she is fights with the ongoing panic in her chest and results in what she’s sure is a super fucking weird expression but Bea doesn’t notice or care; she’s all big brown eyes and open adoration.

“Hi, baby. I missed you, too.” She smooths a hand over Beatrice’s hair, newly shorn on the sides (a development that nearly broke Ava in the very best way), the length on top messier than Bea ever lets it be when she’s conscious and outside of their bed. Bea leans into her. “What happened here?”

She frowns, her forehead wrinkling, and Ava smooths the patch of unmarred skin with the tips of her fingers as Bea says guiltily, “Sorry I didn’t call. I didn’t want to make you worried. Just a little accident this morning.”

Ava will deal with that later. She’s not trying to get into it with sweet, stoned Beatrice about when to call. (Always, is the answer, Bea. Always fucking call. There is literally nothing more important.)

Before she can ask about what happened again, though, a flustered Camila hustles through the doors. She hovers uncertainly and then offers, weakly, “She’s okay?” The inflection lets Ava know Camila is aware of what a stupid fucking thing that is to say, but she glares at her anyway, and Camila blanches.

Ava turns back to her girlfriend and asks, resting her hand over Bea’s good one, the IV bandage tacky on her palm, “What kind of accident, gorgeous?”

Beatrice blushes, flips her hand so that she can play with Ava’s fingers, and says, incredibly nonchalantly, “We were practicing an extraction and I got hit by a car.”

Ava’s whole body tenses. The halo hums lowly.

“You got hit by a car.”

Beatrice hums, distracted by Ava’s hand, and then frowns, maybe realizing exactly how fucking awful that sounds. She looks up and adds, as though it will help, “Only a little!”

Camila sighs loudly but keeps her mouth shut.

“You got hit by a car a little.”

Ava works very hard not to lose her shit. She doesn’t want to upset Bea, and the real target for her anger, whoever hit her girlfriend with a car, isn’t in the room right now. She breathes deeply. The halo pulses the littlest bit under her skin in sympathy, still humming quietly enough that only Ava can hear it.

Beatrice offers, as if it might help, “A tap, really.”

“A tap? Beatrice.”

“No big deal. See?” She frees her good hand and uses it to wave up and down her body, flinches when the motion requires her to bend slightly and she’s definitely not making the point she wants to make. Ava catches her hand and holds it still.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine.”

The halo hums louder and Ava feels energy start to build under her skin, hot and itchy.

“She should recover quickly. She’s been hurt a lot worse.”

Ava snaps her head back to look at Camila, both eyebrows up and mouth open a little disbelievingly. Because yes, Bea is going to be fine, but this nonchalance? About getting hit by a car? Nope. Nope. Nope. How is Ava supposed to leave, like, ever if this is how her girlfriend and her best friend approach what looks like one step down from vehicular manslaughter? Fine. Jesus Christ.

“Gee, thanks, Cam. Have you been taking bedside manner lessons from Lilith?”

Camila blushes but Ava’s attention is quickly drawn back to Beatrice, who is nodding in agreement with Camila, or trying to. The drugs aren’t doing her any favors on that front, so the movement gets away from her, less decisive and more drowsy and drunken. The effect is something between a puppy trying to keep itself awake and Mother Superion on the rare occasions she stays for game night (or, once and memorably, karaoke) and indulges in one glass of wine too many. Like both a puppy and Superion, Bea begins to sway, eyes closing, and Ava puts a steadying hand on her uninjured shoulder. She gets a grateful smile when Beatrice settles back into the pillow.

As if sensing that she’s about to start again with her questions—which, despite what the two idiots in the room with her apparently think, are absolutely reasonable and pretty fucking chill relative to the information she has—Beatrice says, voice a slightly slurred and incredibly exaggerated mimic of the one she uses when training recruits or doing serious OCS things, “It could’ve been much worse. She wasn’t even going that fast.”

Camila groans and the halo thrums and Ava adjusts on the bed, gentle but unable to stay still any longer.

“It could’ve…” Ava splutters. “She wasn’t…she wasn’t even going that fast?”

Ava hates the word shrill. It’s misogynist as fuck and used to invalidate women’s feelings and police their tone. Bullshit. But she won’t deny that the pitch of her voice is rising higher and higher with each piece of information. She reaches for a metaphor Bea would appreciate. She’s a tea kettle about to go full whistle. She’s a tea kettle about to explode.

She takes a deep breath, counts, exhales. Does it again. Okay. Okay. It’s not helpful for her to blow up. She’s been too hard on Camila. She needs to know what happened and what Bea needs. That’s what matters.

Bea’s clearly working to keep her eyes open. New strategy. She takes the deepest breath yet, presses a very soft kiss to Beatrice’s uninjured knuckles, Bea humming and closing her eyes fully.

“Sleep, baby. I’m just going to talk to Cam. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” Sleepy brown eyes blink open at her and she’s nearly pouting and Ava’s got a whole lot of feelings right now, but love pushes to the top easy, easy, easy when she looks at Bea.

“Promise.”

Her voice is calm even if it is still much higher than normal as she looks to Cam and asks, “What happened?”

Camila steps closer, hesitant, and Ava consciously works to relax her shoulders. She says, standing and reaching to pull Camila into a hug, “Sorry I was a bitch. I’m,” she glances at Beatrice, whose eyes are closed again, “I had to take care of all of the baby nuns and I’m a little exhausted and it’s Bea and I just…”

Cam hugs her tighter and wipes a tear from Ava’s cheek. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. She’s fucking tired.

“I understand. It’s okay.”

Beatrice makes a soft noise, and Cam smiles at her fondly. “They gave her more medicine just before you got back. I’m honestly surprised she’s still awake.”

“Mmm.” Ava steps back a little and shakes it out, folds her shoulders back.

“It really was an accident. Beatrice was helping a novice in a drill with a moving extraction, and the driver was a little overeager, and, well, Beatrice got knocked back with some force. She dislocated her shoulder and has some nasty road rash, but, as you can see, they’ve given her medication, and she should recover relatively quickly.” Camila bites her lip for a moment. “I promise she’s okay, Ava. I would’ve called you immediately if anything serious had happened. I’ll always call, even if Beatrice won’t.”

She uncoils a bit more. She knows it’s true. There’s no way that Cam wouldn’t call her or send Lilith to come get her, if things got really bad.

A tiny, sleepy noise escapes Beatrice, and Ava blows out a breath, smiles at Camila. Beatrice is fine. Beatrice will be fine.

She eyes the sling and wonders how long she’ll need to wear it. Bea’s going to hate being on the bench. The newbies are going to hate it, too.

Underneath the totally reasonable anger, she feels almost bad for whoever it was who hit Bea. She’s pretty beloved, even if she won’t admit it, and it’s no secret that Ava can be a little, uh, overprotective. The kid’s probably having a rough time.

“I know we’re avoiding another Yasmine situation, but clearly there’s some work left to do on teaching the novices left to drive.”

Camila frowns and begins to respond, but they’re interrupted by the familiar hiss of Lilith’s arrival, the black wings folding behind her a ridiculous contrast with the bulging M&S bag in her hand, the top of a green Colin the Caterpillar box peeking out of the top. Ava bites back a smile. What a fucking softie.

She lets go of the glamour that she wears in public, her skin mottling with scales as she removes her sunglasses. She reels back slightly when she catches sight of Ava but recovers quickly, thrusting the bag out in front of her without a word. Ava takes it, catches sight of candy and biscuits and a tin of fancy tea.

“Thanks, Lil. She’ll be excited about these.”

Her eyes turn to her shoes, black boots identical to Bea’s favorites, says gruffly, “How’s she doing?”

“She’ll be fine.”

Camila smiles at her and Ava lifts a shoulder, moves to unload the bag on the table next to Bea’s bed. Beatrice, apparently still awake enough to notice Ava’s presence, reaches a hand out and rests it on Ava’s thigh, whispers something that Ava is almost totally sure is nonsense. She doesn’t try to decipher, kisses her cheek before before going back to her mission, rifling though the considerable stash Lilith brought and beginning to pull things out.

“You’re being much calmer about this than I anticipated.”

Ava snorts and looks up at Lilith, whose eyes are focused on the injured side of Beatrice’s face.

“Yeah, no. I lost my shit for a bit there. Cam took the brunt of it.” She turns her eyes to Camila. “Sorry again.”

There’s not enough room on the table for everything—Lilith really wasn’t fucking around—so Ava prioritizes Bea’s favorites.

“Like, I’m obviously not delighted and I’m definitely going to have a talk with Bea about when to call me, say, for example, when she gets hit by a car, but she’ll be okay.” She tucks what won’t fit on the table into the little drawer below and brushes some of Bea’s hair back. “Also, stoned Beatrice is super cute.”

Lilith’s shadow falls across Bea’s body, and Ava turns to see the sharp line of her jaw clenched, her eyes scanning Bea’s body and lingering on her shoulder.

“It really was an accident.”

It’s said absently, her voice soft as she leans even further forward to tuck a corner of Bea’s blanket a little tighter around her. Ava’s stomach swoops with fondness, and she reaches her own hand out to squeeze at Lilith’s bicep, black scales and warm skin a strange contrast on her palm.

“Yeah, Cam told me. It’s fine. I mean, someone’s getting a talk from me, because what the fuck, but…”

Ava halts at a hum from the bed. Beatrice is clearly just on the edge of consciousness, eyes straining open before fluttering closed again, words barely coherent. Barely coherent, but coherent enough.

“Don’t be mad, love. Lilith is usually a very good driver.”

[noxexistant]

ai-less whumptober; day twelve

@ailesswhumptober 12 — isolation, sensory deprivation, “Can you feel me? I’m right here.” ↳ the farm, circa 1889 word count; 1.4k

cw; abuse, claustrophobia, mentions of death

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It's cold. So damn cold. Hellishly, endlessly cold.

Oscar is numb. It's dark all around him, pitch blackness, and the cold has sank into his bones to weigh him down like water, stiffened his joints like death does to the animals. He'd long ago lost track of what time it is, and through the stone walls around him has no idea if the sun is still up. If anyone might still be awake.

If anyone still remembers him out here at all.

He'd been asking for it, really. He'd known it was coming. There was nothing else to expect. But Da had started on Mo for something stupid, and Oscar can never stop himself from getting involved when it's his wee brother on the wrong end of Da's anger. Mo's only tiny, and Da is so huge, so cruel.

So Oscar had thrown himself in between them and shouted and protested — and after Da had belted him bloody for his troubles, he'd dragged him out the back door with a big calloused hand around his arm. Kicking and screaming and pleading. Over the hill and to the old shed by the fields; a stout, damp stone structure with no windows and a solid wooden door that bolts on the outside, so small inside that Oscar can just about sit but can't lay down, surrounded on every side with old tools and machinery. Rusted monuments of his father.

And though Oscar had known, had expected, exactly where he'd end up — where he always ends up — he'd still started screaming louder.

"Please!" Oscar had wailed, digging his bare heels desperately into the damp dirt to try and slow the walk. It hadn't worked. His father is a big man. Strong. A farmer. "Please, please, Da, I'll—I swear to God I'll be good, I'll be quiet, you can lock me up inside 'til—'til you need me, I'll clean, I'll look after the babby—"

He knows it's no use to beg Da, not when the man's made his mind up — not ever. But it's an instinct to fight. Perhaps Oscar's only instinct.

All the fight's left him now.

For hours he had screamed, even after the bolt was slid into place with the sickeningly familiar sound of grating metal. He had begged and hammered his fists on the door until his knuckles split, the blood the only warmth available to him, but it's long cooled and gone thick and tacky since. He'd wailed for his father, and then wailed for Ma. Wailed for his grandfather despite every knowledge that he's dead. Pleaded for anyone to come and let him out, come save him, come protect him from the stone walls that seem to be closing in on him from every side despite the fact he can't see them. Can't even feel them with touch, for when he reaches out or moves too far, the metal edges of tools find him first. Too blunt and rusted to be much more than a warning, but what a warning they are.

At least they keep him conscious. Prevent him from tilting too far from either side, even in moments his consciousness tries to leave him, worn thin from exhaustion. Hunger.

On the one hand, it feels as if it would be a blessing to fall asleep, pass the time he's imprisoned here to suffer his penance, but Oscar is all too aware of the risks of not waking up. Perhaps being asleep when Da is finally close enough again for Oscar to make a noise and remind him he's here, and miss his chance entirely. He doesn't want to die in here.

Alone and forgotten. As fitting as it seems for him.

Perhaps half of it is fear for his own mortality, but the rest —

Who would look after Mo?

Da and Ma are both shit at it, probably haven't even fed the kid tonight. Had they put him to bed? Mo ain't good at sleeping on his own, he won't stay in their bedroom unless Oscar is there to keep him there, and then he'll wander off God knows where. He's gone missing countless times before, been found wandering the field or hiding somewhere in the farmhouse or curled up with the animals in one of the barns. Oscar can only wonder where he is now.

He supposes he has the answer to his question when he hears quiet footsteps approaching.

They aren't the heavy stomps of Da's boots, nor the delicate steps of Ma's bare feet. They're bare, but they're clumsy. Young.

"Os?" Morris says.

Oscar swallows hard to stifle a sob.

He'd thought his tears had all dried up with how he'd wailed, but suddenly they've found him again, and they've wound themselves tight around his throat, tighter than even the cold had bound him. He's struck with the desire to hold his little brother, clutch him tight to his chest. For his own comfort or Morris.

"Mo," he chokes out. "You ain't s'pose to be out here."

He wonders what Morris is wearing. Pictures him in his threadbare undershirt and drawers he wears to bed, pictures him freezing in the cold late fall air. Pictures his tiny clumsy feet against the cold, wet dirt.

"Wan'ed you," Morris mumbles. "Can't sleep. M'back hurts, Os."

Oscar's hurts too.

"He hit you?" he asks quietly.

"Uh-huh."

"Fuck. 'm'sorry, Mo."

He hears movement as Morris shuffles closer and must sink down, and the door rattles slightly in its frame.

"Can you feel me?" Morris asks, with all the innocence of a little kid. "'m'right here. Got my—my hand on the door. So 's'almos' like bein' together."

Oscar has to swallow again. Shuffles closer and presses his own palm to the door, where he guesses Morris' might be.

"I can feel you, Mo."

He can't. All he can feel is the door between them and the walls all around him, but it's nice to pretend. For a moment, it almost makes it easier to breathe. But then he thinks a little more, about the fact that Morris is here, and his chest gets tight again. The walls squeeze in.

"Mo," he says, edged with urgency, "You gotta get back inside."

Morris whines. "I don' wanna."

"I know, I know you don't, but you gotta. 'f'Da catches you out here—"

"I don' wanna go inside, Daidí was bein' scary—"

"I know. I know, Mo. But he'll be scarier if he finds you, yeah?"

It's as if he can hear Morris swallow in the beat of silence that follows.

"Yeah," he whispers. "He'll be. Be real mad."

"Yeah. Good. Good kid. So you jus' gotta. Head back inside an' head to bed, alright. Wrap yourself up. 's'cold, ain't it?"

"Are you cold?" Morris asks suddenly, rather than answer.

Oscar can't feel his hands at all anymore. Can't feel his feet, the sensation crawling up his legs like he's sinking into something. His knees are aching like they've been turned to stone, and he feels as if maybe he'll never be able to move them again.

"'m'fine," he lies, and Morris believes him, because what else can the kid do?

"Okay," he says quietly. And then pats his palm in a soft rhythm against the door, a clumsy little game to amuse himself, until Oscar starts patting back. The two of them continue, locked in an out-of-sync sort of rattling of sound, until finally Oscar catches on to Morris' rhythm, and Morris bursts out giggling quietly as they're suddenly tapping in perfect sync to his own made-up music.

Oscar, despite everything, can't help but feel himself smile too.

"Get inside," he tells Morris gently. "Curl up on my side of the bed, 'f you gotta. Okay? Try get some sleep."

"I will," Mo says. Like the good kid he is. "I will. Love you, Os."

God. Oscar swallows hard.

"Love you too, Mo."

Morris' footsteps race away, and the silence that follows is deafening. So all-consuming that Oscar takes to tapping again, just to prove to himself that all sound hasn't emptied from the world, hasn't left him behind like everybody else.

It's cold. It's so fucking cold. And, without Morris, the fear begins to drown him again, but he meets it with a new determination — to stay awake, to survive. Because his baby brother needs him.

And Oscar's not a kid anymore.

[astravv]

prompts pt 2 - requests OPEN

a/n : hello I got a bit of writer’s block so to keep this stream of fanfics going so here’s some prompts! angst, smut, and fluff. females included this time..

not all prompts were made by me!

smut prompts

1. “you look so pretty like this”

2. “i’m not wearing any underwear right now”

3. “i want to spend all night learning every sound you make”

4. “i think about you when i touch myself”

5. “open your mouth for me”

6. “shut up and cover your mouth. do you want to get caught?”

7. “lie back, let me take care of you”

8. “do you want to take this somewhere more.. private?”

9. “is this okay or do you want me to stop?”

10. “i’ve always wanted to do this with you”

11. “i want to watch you take off your clothes”

12. “you want to do this right now, even though we could get caught?”

13. “lay back and touch yourself, i want to watch”

14. “show me where you like to be touched”

15. “let’s fulfill that fantasy you have”

16. “friends? friends don’t know the way you taste”

17. “i know you think about me in the shower”

18. “you’re only calling me because you’re desperate”

19. “don’t make this something it isn’t, i’m not your girlfriend / boyfriend. i just want some company”

20. “i can fuck you better”

21. “when i touch myself, i think of you. when i’m with them, i still think of you”

22. “you should probably take me off the speaker phone, unless you want to share”

23. “you know how i like it when there’s people around”

24. “are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”

25. “how about you ride me?”

26. “does your ass hurt?”

27. “you like the thought of someone walking in on us, huh?”

28. “i’m sorry, you don’t enjoy being teased?”

29. “who gets to touch you like this?”

30. “you’re really good at that”

31. “i can’t wait to be inside you”

32. “sex is not all i think about”

33. “tits are meant to be played with and sucked on”

34. “tonight, you’re mine”

35. “i’ve had sex with you a lot in my head”

36. “hey, wanna fuck?”

37. “oh, so you’re a virgin?”

38. “do i make you nervous?”

39. “is that how you want it? rough?”

40. “is there any way i could repay you?”

fluff prompts

1. “hey why are you staring? is there something on my face?”

2. “you’re so oblivious aren’t you?”

3. “are you sure about this?”

4. “stay with me tonight”

5. “i’ll keep you warm”

6. “kiss me”

7. “you’re my favorite person”

8. “i’d follow you to the end of the earth”

9. “i think you’re probably the only one who understands how i feel”

10. “to me, you are perfect”

11. “just hold me”

12. “just one more kiss, please?”

13. “you look gorgeous”

14. “you’re all that matters to me”

15. “i am so proud of you”

16. “we should run away together”

17. “you bought me flowers?”

18. “you are the only thing that makes sense to me”

19. “you can stay for as long as you want”

20. “dance with me”

21. “i’m falling in love with you”

22. “everyday, i fall deeper in love with you”

23. “we will never be able to get to sleep if you keep fidgeting like that!”

24. “i’d never turn down a kiss from you”

25. “you are so addicting, my love”

26. “are you wearing my hoodie?”

27. “you’re such a flirt” — “only with you”

28. “break the rules with me”

29. “i love hearing you laugh”

30. “you make me smile on the darkest of days”

angst prompts

1. “i loved you”

2. “was it worth it?”

3. “that was the one thing i asked you not to do”

4. “you weren’t there, you were always with her / him.”

5. “you left me alone”

6. “we don’t work together”

7. “you’re too late”

8. “you were my everything”

9. “why do you go out of your way to hurt me?”

10. “we could’ve had everything, but no, you had to throw it all away”

11. “who are you anymore?”

12. “you’ve broke my heart too many times”

13. “i would’ve never done this to you”

14. “i’ve waited hours to tell you how i feel, but it seems that you don’t give a shit”

15. “i will never forgive you”

16. “let me go”

17. “please don’t make me go, i want to stay”

18. “i loved you, and you used me”

19. “i want you, why can’t you want me?”

20. “i can’t keep doing this anymore”

characters

mondstadt : kaeya , diluc , albedo

liyue : zhongli , ganyu , keqing , yelan , xiao , baizhu

inazuma : ei , yae miko , kokomi , itto , ayato, kazuha

sumeru : alhaitham , cyno

fontaine : neuvillette , furina , wriothesley

sneznhaya : childe , dottore , pantalone , arlecchino

how to request

please put which character you would like in the fic (max 1), which prompt you would like, if you want you can add a little context, and either female or gender neutral y/n.

[problematicfactive]

New intro Post

New intro post! How exciting! This is my celebration for reaching 25 followers so fast! Thank you all for your overwhelming support in this journey, it really has been a lot.

If you're new here, my boyfriend and I are both introjected from extremely problematic medias revolving around a very bad person that lived in real life. We are both from fictional medias, bit the person of which we introjected is very much real, and We've gotten a LOT of shit for it.

Spaces that claim to be safe spaces for systems-- or God forbid, safe spaces for *problematic* introjects and alters, tend to be rude or spiteful towards individuals who are factives from problematic sources.

I firmly believe this hateful stance comes from a place of not understanding, so I've created this blog to give people who don't understand a chance to talk and speak to us without losing their cool as we also stay anonymous on this blog. They're always nice until they find out who you are /hj . Since it's creation, the blog has since turned into a big place for problematic factives to just feel safe and seen. I'm beyond happy about this, and glad my blog can serve both purposes. More under the cut!

We post a lot of everything!

We answer asks from people who have questions about us or about being problematic factives, we make positivity posts for problematic factives, problematic factive culture is... posts, and lots of other things you could think of. Feel free to vent in our askbox or message us for a chat! We'd love to have a friend.

Some things off the top of my head that I can't do on this blog (but if you end up making a blog for these things and need a mod, totally hmu!)

Stimboards/Moodboards etc. - I would literally love to do these but the problem is I know like nothing about anyone. Of you were to ask me for a Donald Trump moodboard I honestly do not know what I would do my mind would just blank. That being said, in decently good at making them so if there were a person I knew well enough to do a stimboard on, I definitely could

Icon edits - This is somthing I'm capable of doing, but it isn't something where I would want this entire blog to just turn into requests. If you're making a blog specifically for these creative requests things totally hmu

Art - I cannot draw but my hope is that that changes in the future.

-

Meet us!

My last intro post didn't really have any information on us as people let's try and fix that.

I can't tell you my name, but you can call me Anxiety. I'm the main mod and significantly less source connected/more source ashamed. I go by he/Anxiety with Anxiety being able to work in place of either a name or a pronoun. Unless the host is helping out with something, anything that isn't labeled comes from me. I'm the only one out of the two of us with the physical ability to type so when he posts something, it's a little special occasion and deserves a label.

My boyfriend doesn't have a name option other than a source one. On the blog he has only been referred to as my boyfriend, but if you need a name for him, call him NPC. He uses he/him pronouns and will sign off any post that he thinks up all on his own with -NPC and tagged with # npc posts

Tagging

Here is some of the tagging we use on this blog

# problematic factive culture = Problematic factive culture is.. posts

# kindness and positivity = Kind and Positive asks we've received

# good thoughtful questions = Good questions we received as asks

# positivity post = Positivity posts

# problematicfactive blog things = things that ate moreso related to one of the mods or running the blog than they are about problematic factives

# rainy day drafts = drafts that could be super old because I made them and them left them in the drafts so I could post when I don't have anything else to post

# queued because I am asleep 😊 / queued because hopefully I'm sleeping = posts that I queue to be 5-ish hours away from the last post. I often post somthing at 12 am Eastern Time regardless of the last something was posted, so those early morning positivity posts tend to also be queued with the tag

If you come across us and like what we do, consider boosting or realigning this post! I'd love for as many people to find out we exist as possible

# askers experience = Asks sent in where an asker tells me about their life

# npc posts = posts my npc wrote as a mod on this blog (does not apply to posts where "my boyfriend's answer" is me paraphrasing or trying to speak for him)

[elvenbeard]

It's 8:42 in the morning, I didn't sleep, I finished Phantom Liberty.

MAN. OH MAN.

I have so so so many emotions, I'm so... HHHH.

Big big big big big spoilers below the cut.

I only played through one of the expansion endings so far (siding with Songbird), and I played the new main game ending... and I'm such a fucking puddle of feels now hhhh.

What I can say is that... I still love the Sun ending a lot for Vince, and that won't ever change. But this new one now... I don't even know where to start MAAAnnn...

I started my 12 hour gaming session yesterday briefly before shit went down like... Feels like it was all in a different life (HAH). I really liked the whole prep-work for taking on Hansen, tracking down the rental car, the convo with Songbird about her past, and man, I said that before, the lil scene with Alex had me bawling. The little human moments of connection in the face of all the horrors Cyberpunk does so well that get me everytime. Vince getting up to dance with her was so fucking cute, and internally both me and him and Alex probably too knew that that would be the last moment of peace - and potentially (and he ended up being right) the last night they'd play on the same team.

Like... Even after the convo with Song, me, the player, was pretty sure I'd end up siding with Reed. He and Vince had a lot in common with their backgrounds, principles, etc etc. and Songbird seemed out of control, in a way, like Reed had said. But that whole sentiment he kept repeating ("she doesn't know what's best for her", "I gotta save her" etc etc) was beginning to creep into Vince's head and rubbing him the wrong way (having grown up with an over-bearing, controlling parent, the whole control-shit at Arasaka, etc etc) - subconsciously at first, but it got to a point where he could no longer rationalize it away.

AND THEN. FUCKING FUCK. The faceplate. I had been dreading that shit so fucking much, I knew it was coming but yeah... I think Vince would rather die than having that done on him out of his own free will. Like... the tech is insanely cool for a spy ngl. But Vince is not a spy. Not really. With his background and opinions of cyberware and everything... getting your face replaced is a step too far, a step he wouldn't wanna take, ever, unless like, he got his face melted off in a horrible accident or something like that. Not for a one-off mission, more or less, for people he didn't even fully trust. Both he and me were hoping that somehow there would be a way around it. Like you can talk your way out of taking the oath and so many other things. But no, this thing is forced on you (for plot reasons, obviously, and again, I fucking love the concept of it and the options it offers for gameplay. I'm really just speaking for my V's personal experience here XD)

That whole situation felt so fucking invasive to begin with, and I'm not even speaking about the cyberware. There was so much pressure, from Reed and the Ripper, zero explanation as to what exactly the Ripper was gonna do, just how invasive the procedure is (that it's not reversible just like that, for example). V was never shown the thing beforehand, never got an explanation what it's made of, how it works, how to maintain it. There way not a single friendly word, nocalming him down. Worst doctor expereience ever, and that's quite the achievement with Vince's trackrecord of dealing with horrible doctors in the past. The whole thing was traumatizing as hell for him, the whole experience, just being knocked out without much of a warning, then not even fully and HHHHHH.

And then he stumbles back out of there, desperately clinging onto the hope and trying to tell himself that it's all gonna be worth it, all the trauma, the pain, questioning his identity even more than he already does. But the show must go on. And so he goes on to kidnap the Frenchies, and for some reason he wants to believe these two nobodies will make it out of this mess alive somehow, against all odds. Yeah. No. But not just *that* they died, but *how* they died was the final straw. So fucking cold and brutal. Vince was shocked how Alex was suddenly so cold and brutal, although not quite as much as Reed. And then when Vince gets rightfully upset about the situation, how it was handled, how inhumane... Like, he had to kill a lot of people working for Arasaka, and as a merc, but he would always wanna make it quick, painless, if it was really necessary to kill someone to begin with. Unbekownst to the victim, bullet to the head, precise and quick. Especially if it was supposed to be an execution, not something that happens in combat. But these two kids were scared shitless, dragged out of the car and not executed but butchered, brutally. And when Vince gets upset, complains, is enraged about how unprofessional these two alleged spys are, Reed says "they were just some criminals, why would you care?" - you know, to the lowly criminal standing in front of him. That was the line that shattered the fragile trust V had left in Reed for good. Like... he didn't trust So Mi either, but she had just as many reasons to distrust Reed and the FIA and Myers as V, and he would've rather taken his chances with her instead after this final display of something he could absolutely not stand behind any longer.

Damn. I loved the whole sequence with Kurt, the convo, pretending to be Aymeric (from a player standpoint it was amazing, I also cackled later when I played Run this Town and got to use the disguise in a different context xD but honestly, Vince was hating every second of the meeting, also knowing he was just about to betray the people that hat brought him there.

Kurt's death was... maaan. Epic and a letdown at the same time. He would've deserved so much more screentime and a bigger part in all of it. I would've loved the option to side with him xD but then the DLC wouldve been even larger and even more complicated. Loved it as is though, still but yeah. Needs more Kurt!!!

Vince had no regrets about betraying Reed and putting his trust in Songbird until the very end... even when she ended up betraying him one final time with her revelation of the cure only working once. I fucking loved the confrontation with Reed on the bridge at the spaceport, I had been crossing my fingers so so hard for it to come to a showdown like that. I was so tempted for the dialogue choice of "take her, and I don't want anything for it in return". Cause like... despite everything, Vince had no desire to kill Reed. It wouldn't have changed a thing. Too many people had already died on his behalf anyway, and his hope for a cure was lost either way. So he ended up surrendering So Mi. I picked the option "deal", because I absolutely wanted to see the new main game ending, and I'm not sure if maybe with the "I dont want anything" choice you lock yourself out of it, but I will definitely test that out next time around.

The whole stuff that happened at the spaceport in general... I'm still trying to process it. And of fucking course Mr Blue-Eyes has his disgusting creepy fingers in all of it (or one of his associates) by helping So Mi, offering her this way out. I hate it (I love it). But that whole sequence of getting her to the spacecraft, I loved it so so much. Like all the boss fights and main missions, it was so nicely paced and structured, I had so much fun and I'm speaking as someone who is not good at fighting in video games.

So Mi's betrayal hurt, but letting her down in the end hurt even more. URGH. UUUURGH. But like... in that moment Vince was also like "okay... no cure. fine. But I'm not without leads, I'm just so done with all this spy crap. I should've never agreed to help her in the first place." If anything, he was sorry for things not turning out good for any of them really, but when do they do in NC.

He was glad to talk things out with Reed in the end to a degree, say his farewells. Still not getting his hopes up too high about him, still not really trusting him all that much. In a way still sympathizing, but at that point he'd be certain that he's done with the corporate world and anything like it for good. Revenge and hard feelings were pointless, Reed suffering from his decisions was punishment enough for Vince in that case.

I'm not sure if Vince would end up asking the FIA for help realistically. Like I said, I love the Sun ending for him a lot from a narrative standpoint. And Johnny's whole "please, don't do it", and him getting wiped as the price for it for good... that was at the same time not as bad as I had pictured it, but simultaneously it was awful. So yeah... I really don't know if, with all the choices present, the FIA would be number one. Realistically he'd wanna hear out Hanako first, and I think with how time-sensitive everything else is beyond that, the FIA is propbably off the table. Either way though... I wanted to see the ending.

I was bawling my eyes out during the AV ride, V and Johnny making up, talking a final time... and Johnny calling him Vincent in the end fucking destroyed me asödhjfasfasdf ;______; Doctor detected heightened emotions not just on V but on me as well that was so... HHHHHH. My feels ;__;

And then... the new main game ending. God. Like... ever since those new holocall icons of Kerry and Judy appearing a while ago, with Kerry's 2079 world tour promo... We had to get a timeskip. And I feared the cure would be tied to working for the FIA long term or some shit like that, something that would drive a wedge between V and his loved ones for good. The cure being tied to all sorts of horrible things I kept imagining...

And then the reality was so much more gentle and in a way so so fucking happy if that makes sense? Like... fuck, two years have passed. And fucking Reed and no one else in fucking Langley apparently considered even telling anyone back in NC about the complications of V's operation and all. Y'know, keep his loved ones in the loop after even telling him "tell your friends you'll be gone for a bit, a month tops". And that's the worst betrayal of the whole expansion for me cause like... it was so pointless. Did no one tell anyone cause they had no hope? Cause they wanted to sever V's ties on purpose? Was it Reed's decision, someone else's? Was it intended as punishment? Or was it downright laziness and uncaringness for V as a person, and he maybe just an interesting yet complicated experiment. That one really really hurt. And Vince could not blame Kerry or any of the others for being hurt by that and having moved on with their lives. He would've in their spot, for sure. And no, Reed, he absolutely fucking will not work for the FIA, fuck off. And then Vince fucked out of there as quickly as possible and never looked back.

The whole "your body can't tolerate implants anymore" thing... Did not really hit him that hard. Like... yeah. Netrunning, hacking, which he was always so fucking good at, is not gonna be a thing anymore in this timeline. And that he'll miss sorely. Feeling really really fucking capable about something he built a big part of his life around. That was a central part of his life for all his life, really.

But apart from that... he was always low on chrome. He wouldnt miss it nearly as much as other Vs I think. I think what he struggles with more is just recovering from the coma physically, how weak he is for sure for a while, the fact he probably will never be as fit as he used to be. But still... there's hope in that. Cause he gets to live. He never wanted to be a merc, he would make a damn good fixer for sure... but he'll find something else, something less dangerous. He won't be happy being just a nobody in the crowd, but he's also fallen from high places before and climbed back up, coming out on top every time, every time more himself, seizing new opportunities and making his way. He can make it out of that hole. Like, yeah, the timing sucks... But Kerry wants to see him again, and they can rekindle things. I'm sure they will. I'm so happy Kerry got to play at the Crystal Palace, he's so on top of his game, given how low he was when he and V first met. You know... he says he was hit hard by V's disappearance and potential death, but he's out there rocking the world. He's doing good, he didn't fall back into a spiral of depression and despair. And that makes me so happy. And Vince is gonna hold on to that thought of a future together not just not being off the table, but being so much more certain than before now.

Vince is upset about Panam being so upset, but he can understand her well. He wouldn't feel much different than her. He is sad about River not wanting to see him, but he hopes he can change his mind, somewhere down the line. He is so excited to meet Judy's wife, he is so happy she found peace and love. Hell, Vince would happily just be Kerry's useless trophy husband, if I'm being completely honest, and it's possible now. With no obligations in Night City left, no reputation to upkeep, they can do whatever they want. Rogue promises he wont be forgotten, he will be a legend of the Afterlife forever - one that actually gets to live a full life. Who can forget about all the horrors. He's gonna adapt and find his new thing and like, you know...

This little scene, and the farewell scene with Misty hit me so hard cause... remember this?

I actually... had something very very very similar planned for Vince in the long run that we get with PL now. I'm feeling extremely validated with my headcanons and ideas and concepts and just... Yeah. Not that that's absolutely necessary for fanfiction to be valid or anything, but I'm just... so happy.

I said it in a prev post, PL is the gift that gives on giving by granting me all my little wishes and confirming so many tiny random headcanons. But I didn't think it would also get me pretty much the ending I'd been working on already in the background, the one that he'd deserve. So yeah... idk. Cyberpunk can have happy (or at least bittersweet) endings, it does for me 100% now. V gets to live and survive, if you choose to, canonically.

[dickbaggins]

genuinely asking. are you insane. Ive just read The Stakes last night and it changed the chemistry of my brain in a ways that I can't comprehend. i couldn't sleep last night so i am now taking suburban train, eyes blood shot and thoughts racing in my scull like bugs or vampires in the forest searching for someone to bite. I don't even have much to say about the smut except that it was one of the best that i read ever in my life and i found out fanfiction exists when i was like 12 so i read. A Lot. but ... the. the state of their relationship??? jdbdjkdjdjd how do i call it. the way they are insane about each other and Gale ohhhhhh GALE. What The Fuck Gale. What The Fuck DickBaggins. who will take responsibility for all this i am genuinely asking. who will pay for my therapy AFTER THIS. I can't like describe the state of my mind when Astarion left Gale's apartment, taking a train and looking at Waterdeep, the City that took... from him. Feeling like this. Yooooo

now it wasn't surprise that you could capture the nature of Astarion's inner mind very well since i am a fan of your other bg3 works but to do it in an au like this?????????? to extract his utmost self and insert it in what looks like silly hockey au just for it to actually be very complicated world where Gale did such a big mistake when he was younger he's going to pay for it gods above and belong only know how long???? maybe forever??? maybe he'll never wake up feeling Astarion's arms wrapped around him???? And Astarion as an elf he. he relives his memories while he trance yes???? idk if you keep this funky little detail in your au but to think about. It. Losing my mind tbh

what i am trying to tell you. this au brought tears to my eyes and i expected something smutty and juicy and maybe funny and silly and instead you just submerged me in a tragedy so gut wrenching and raw (HA). I am not even exasperating. Wtf.

so. Thank you i guess. I am going to think about it for 30 business days at least :)

That was. Phew. I need to dive in Mithridatism's Gale's weed collection after this because i can't legally find it in my country

Hope you are well, friend

elves are so fucked up. they've just gotta lay there and contemplate all the shit that's ever happened in their lives? this isn't restorative? this is a defect!! and it has to mess them up

and everyone else gets to relax and snore their way through some nonsense dreams every night without the horrible shadow of their past looming over them in razor-sharp, unbidden memories for eight hours straight??

what a raw fucking deal

(and for me canonical vampire spawn astarion doesn't sleep or meditate or any of that stuff UNLESS it's with someone else. otherwise he's up all night prowling and doing his hair and oiling his hand crossbows)

hey I'm glad to have ruined your life a little bit over my hockey au! even though it's uuuh heavy?? it was a lot of fun to write. kinda want to keep finding new aus to throw them into now? there's just so many more situations I want to put them in

[saintsofwarding]

EMBRYO

Chapter 12: Monster Box

Someone brought her a cup of tea. Rose sat with her hands around it, playing with the teabag, not drinking it. She didn't trust her hands not to shake and spill it everywhere upon lifting it to her mouth.

The room was bland, walls beige, the furniture comfortable but waiting-room featureless. Rose hunched on an armchair, dressed in BSAA sweats, her cuts and bruises bandaged. A stream of people had handled her before she'd been left in here- medics to tend her injuries and take a sample of her blood in case the Embryo's venom had affected her too, someone with paperwork for her to sign, a team in HAZMAT suits checking her over for biohazards, ushering her into a freezing-cold disinfectant shower, taking her soaked, bloodied clothes and bundling them off to parts unknown.

Someone else brought her a sandwich. It looked a little wilted, but looking at it had made her realize just how hungry she was, and she attacked it like a starving dog.

Now, she was clean and dry and dosed up on ibuprofen, but that hardly made her feel any better. She could hear the murmur of voices and footsteps from the hallway outside, though she was alone in the room, its door locked, its walls windowless.

There was a mirror, but Rose figured that was there purely for observational purposes. Without a clock or her phone, she couldn't tell how much time had passed- it might have been minutes or hours since Chris had left her in here with an assurance he'd be back as soon as he could, he just needed to make some calls.

He didn't tell her to not worry. Somewhere, past the anxiety chewing holes in her guts, Rose appreciated that.

She tried to sip at the tea, giving it a cautious sniff first. As far as she could tell there wasn't anything in it besides leaves and water. No sedatives or anything. The heat helped bring a little feeling back into her body, helped clear the haze in her head. She was exhausted, but she didn't want to sleep in case there was news.

In case...

"In case you wake up to someone shaking your shoulder, telling you your second daddy is dead," whispered a voice in Rose's ear. "What's the quote again? To lose one father is a tragedy...to lose both looks like carelessness..."

Rose lifted her eyes. Eveline stood on the far side of the room. The light flickered and hummed overhead, throwing the other girl's face into flashes of shadow, her eyes hooded in darkness so all Rose could see of them was a bright bird gleam.

"Go away," Rose told her. "You're not real."

"Just a voice in your head? A whisper in your dreams?" Eveline slunk back and forth, a grin curling over her small, pointed face. "I'm more than that, Rosemary-rue. I'm a part of you that's never ever gonna go away..."

"Okay, fine, you're a completely real manifestation of my past trauma. Our past trauma. Whatever. I'm still figuring all that gestalt shit out." She took a swig of her tea, hoping its caffeine would kick in soon.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Eveline said. "Heisey protected you all those years, but it could have been worse. So much worse. All the monsters out there, and the worst ones of all are right at your door."

Rose rubbed her forehead. "Leave me alone."

"You'll never get it." She could hear Eveline growing closer, closer, the room darkening around them as her mold spread over the walls, the floor, the lights, spores winking like stars in the muggy light. "You'll never be free. Not really. Not unless everyone's dead. Papa Heisey. Chris. Your mommy." She cackled. "Mommy, mommy, mommy. Looking for her lost little girl, deep in the forest, but she was stolen away by the monsters in the end..."

"Go away-"

"What will you do then, I wonder? How do you think this is gonna end if you don't take control of the situation now? You could do it now. The BSAA...Chris and all his toy soldiers...they're nothing to you. Not really. You could crawl inside them. Tell them what to do. Just like I did. Then nothing would stand in your way. Nothing could."

Closer, closer. Rose's hands tightened into fists on her knees.

"Even Heisenberg," Eveline whispered. "You did it before, so many years ago, stealing his powers away when he was being a bad boy. With him under your command...all that power...all that...mm...brawn..."

She gave a theatrical swoon, her hand trailing over her forehead. "Oooh, he's a splendid specimen, all right...what do you think he could do if he really cut loose? We could see, y'know. We could make him."

Her voice was right by Rose's ear, right inside her head. Rose sprang to her feet, flinging aside her tea.

"Go away!" she screamed, the sound raw and brutal, scraping real pain from deep inside her throat. "Go away! Get out!"

She stood, panting. Eveline was gone. The mold was gone, the fluorescents unobscured. Had it ever been there in the first place?

An echo of childlike laughter, then nothing at all.

The door opened. Rose spun with a gasp, lifting her hands on reflex, but it was just Chris. His brows were drawn together, his expression somber.

The world spun into stillness around Rose.

"No," she whispered. "Is-"

"He's fine," Chris said, quickly. Rose swayed where she stood as relief crashed over her, hard enough she barely caught his next words. "Relatively speaking. Whatever's in that thing's venom should have killed him five times over, but seems Karl Heisenberg is tougher than even we gave him credit for."

"That's right." Rose crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. Mistake. She'd look fidgety. But Chris wasn't looking at her with any kind of pity, just a heavy, searching intensity that made her more than a little uncomfortable.

"And so am I," she went on.

A worn smile crossed Chris's face. "Yeah, I know," he said. "You take after your dad."

He didn't mean Heisenberg. Rose felt her lower lip tremble. She looked down at the ground, then back up at him.

"Is Sam okay?" she asked.

"Sam?"

"The...the girl in our apartment." She blushed. "She was, um, tied to a chair."

Chris nodded. "Yeah, that was pretty memorable. Last I saw Samantha Torres was being taken with a protection detail to a hospital. She's okay. Freaked, but okay."

"Good," Rose said.

She chewed her lip, took a breath, stopped.

"Can I-" she began. No. The time for being a scared kid was over. "I want to see Heisenberg," she went on, strengthening her tone. "Take me to him. Now."

She wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Chris Redfield. Still, that surprising gentleness lingered. It should have looked out of place on a guy built and battered like him, but it didn't. It stayed as he nodded.

"Okay," he told her. "But after that- we need to talk."

***

The temporary BSAA facility looked like an ordinary warehouse building save for the guards posted at the doors, the rooms of computer monitors and spills of cables strung down narrow, dimly-lit industrial corridors. Chris walked her through the facility with his hand on her shoulder; guards shifted at their posts as she passed them by.

One commando in body armor reached out for Chris, his eyes cold on Rose, his other hand on his sidearm.

"Without a collar or cuffs, Redfield?" he muttered. "You got a death wish or something?"

"Guess so," Chris said, shouldering past him, pushing Rose lightly onward.

They took an elevator down, down, down, into a deeper sublevel buzzing with greenish light. Rose smelled chemicals down here, burning in her nose. The doors were windowless, and she and Chris passed by a lot before he at last stopped at a pair at the end of the hallway.

He swiped a keycard. The doors went chunk.

The room beyond was cold as a deep-freeze, a shadowy span of girdered ceiling and concrete pillars. In the center, on a dais, was a massive, circular glass tank, its interior lit to a blinding glare. Inside was a cot, now torn to pieces and mangled into a new, thrilling shape.

In the middle of the detritus, fiddling with the bits of plastic that had fastened the cot together, sat Heisenberg.

His coat was slung over one of the cot legs that stuck into the air; he'd been stripped to the waist, his beefy torso so heavily bandaged he looked like a mummy from one of the Hammer horror movies they'd rented every Halloween, to watch until the sun came up while getting sick on shitty dollar-store candy. The color was still drained from his skin, but he was alive. Alive, not a crystal sculpture.

Joy burst in Rose's chest, lightning coursing down her veins. She stopped before the glass, her heart pounding, staring in at him as he looked back at her.

"Hey, kid," Heisenberg said.

"I hope you didn't try to escape or anything."

"Nah." He tipped his head to the side to show another collar strapped around his neck, an auto-injector aimed for his jugular. Wires trailed down to a sensor taped to one hairy, scarred-up pec. "The nice lady in the white coat was kind enough to explain that this thing measures my Cadou's energy output. It goes too high..." He clicked his fingers. "Night-night."

"Inconvenient."

"Sure fuckin' is." He nodded at her. "You all right?"

"You're not mad at me?"

"'Course I am. You're grounded for a year. No allowance. And don't even think about asking for another fuckin' pony."

Rose snorted. "I didn't even ask you for the first pony."

She glanced back. Chris hung back at a distance, his arms crossed, his head down. He was giving them a moment, Rose realized.

She crept closer to the glass. Warmth pushed at her eyes; she felt the little tremble down in the pit of her stomach that meant she might lose it again, like on the riverbank. She swallowed back her tears and pressed her hand to the glass.

"How about you? Are you okay?" she whispered.

"Thanks to you."

"How did they-"

"Stuck me with some purple shit in a syringe." He waved his hand dismissively. "Figure it was some kind of mutagen accelerant, kick-started the Cadou's regenerative abilities, stopped my calcification in its tracks. Feel like a pit of corpses, but at least I'm not one of them."

He gave a raspy laugh as he levered, slowly, shakily, to his feet and limped over. "Hosed me down pretty good, too. Chemicals everywhere. Burns like a bitch. Reminds me of the time I fell into the factory runoff. Now that was interesting. I thought my face would melt off."

Rose reached up to swipe tears from her eyes before he could notice. "You almost died, you bastard," she spat.

He noticed. Of course he did. And, of course, he was gonna be an asshole about it. "Aww, and you're gonna cry about it?"

"What you were saying by the riverbank-"

"Not now." He cut her off. A beat, then he pressed his own hand to the glass, just over hers. Without his gloves on his hands looked strangely bare; he hardly ever went without them outside of the apartment, in front of anyone that wasn't her.

She wasn't sure why; she'd never asked. She'd never asked so much. Now, maybe- maybe- if they got through this- they could begin to talk. Not just evenings in front of the TV, sinking their attention in arguments and jabs and weird experiments and jovial evasions. No more of that. She wanted to know everything, not culled from his half-forgotten memories, but in his own words. About the village, about the other Lords. Everything Miranda had tried to take from them all.

His scarred fingers curled, as if to enclose hers in his grip.

"Not now," he repeated, his voice as close to gentle as she'd ever heard it. "Don't make me say it again."

Rose nodded. She sniffed. "Okay," she said. "Fine. But I'm not leaving just because you're shit with emotions and you're getting all uncomfortable."

"Fuck you-"

"You're gonna have to buy me more than a pony if you want me to ever be nice to you again."

"You got me tongue-fucked by a monster, you little-"

"You're gonna have to buy me a car," Rose said. "To start. And a nicer phone. And I want to go shopping and you're footing the bill. For everything-"

"Bold, kid! I'd admire your demands if I cared at all about them."

"If you say no I won't love you anymore."

"Hah!" Heisenberg roared. "No!"

Rose could barely stay on her feet as they argued back and forth. Love, she thought, like grief, was a dark room full of monsters. Years she could wander blindly, never meeting tooth nor claw, until all at once she was in their grip, their jaws locked in her flesh, never letting go.

She still didn't forgive him. She still wanted to sit him down, tie him to a chair if she had to, and have a long and uncomfortable conversation with him until he admitted, by force, everything he'd pigheadedly never say in other circumstances. She wanted to know. Everything. Everything. For now, though, she was just grateful he was here at all.

Maybe it would be better for her to never forgive Heisenberg, leave him to the mercy of the BSAA. Maybe they would be safer apart in the long run.

She didn't much care about what would be better, what would be safer. She'd take all the monsters in the world so long as he was one of them.

***

"What is this place, anyway?" she asked Chris as she retreated, at last, from the glass. Heisenberg stayed there, watching them both with glinting eyes. "You just happened to have a perfectly-sized box to put him in?"

"No." Chris let out a long breath. "This whole place was built to contain an entirely different bioweapon. The Embryo. Provided, of course, we got one alive."

"So it's really not yours."

He shook his head. "My squad's been tracking those things for weeks. Each one gets bigger. More powerful. Like with each incarnation it's learning."

"Yeah, I figured that out, too."

Chris gave a dry laugh. "You sure did."

They were heading down another green-lit corridor. Rose glanced behind her as more commandos fell into step behind them, anonymous in full black tactical suits and face visors, automatic rifles at a casual ready. One of them gave her a little salute. Rose frowned, then faced front again.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked. She thought they'd go to an interrogation room or something.

"It'll be easier to show you."

"You're not gonna lock me up, like Heisenberg?"

Chris's gait slowed.

"Rose," he said. "I was friends with your parents for more than three years. I first saw you right out of the hospital, saw the way Ethan and Mia looked at you. Like you were the only thing in the world that mattered to them. They were...good people. Your father was one of the best I ever knew. And now- to find you- after so many years..."

He gave his head another little shake.

"No, I'm not gonna lock you up," he said.

He picked up his pace again, pushing open a door and heading into a long, echoing stairwell. "BSAA's turning up the heat on me and my squad, as I'm sure you can tell from the warm welcome they gave you upstairs. They gave me seventy-two hours in Regent City to get this thing done and get you and Heisenberg in the bag."

Rose hurried after him. "So you know something about the Embryo?"

"Yeah."

"Who sent it? It and the-" She took a short breath. "The thing that looks like me."

"It's an Embryo, too." He held out his hand. In his palm gleamed a metal disc like the one she'd fished out of the blackened remains in the subway. "I found this in the wreckage at the hall of mirrors."

"How can...how can that thing become me?"

"Hm. Good question," Chris said. "Part one of my theory is there are two varieties. The scout and the hunter. Come on. Through here."

He shoved through a door with a pushbar and into a long, echoing space beyond. Rows of computers were set up on makeshift desks, servers whirring at the damp, cold air. This place must be underwater; Rose smelled a faint salinous tang in the air, heard a faint churning boom, like the impact of waves. Another smell hit her, too, a moment later. Something burnt, like charcoal briquettes, overlaying the sting of acid.

Chris flicked a switch. Fluorescent lights powered on with a hum, illuminating the transparent tent set up over a table in the middle of the room. On it, arrayed like an autopsy, was the corpse of the Embryo Rose had hit with the subway train.

"Here," he told Rose, thrusting a full-body orange HAZMAT suit and pair of booties at her. "The acid can still burn your eyes real bad, and we're still studying the effects of its ash on human lungs."

She began struggling into the too-big suit. "It's not still alive, is it?"

"No cell regeneration. Seems the combination of electricity and train was enough to cook this one golden-brown." He'd suited up faster than her and helped her do up the back zipper, securing the velcro tabs around the helmet with deft movements. He unzipped the tent and held the flap open for Rose to duck through.

They emerged into the tent proper. Rose's breathing hissed, reflected back at her. She approached the table, examining with wide eyes the charred, glutinous flesh, the remnants of a cartilaginous internal structure, the half-decomposed mouth tentacles, pale and limp, like ropes of overcooked spaghetti. It looked even bigger here than it had in the subway, a gorilla-like body structure armored with plates of crystalline bone, the gelatinous sac that had once hung down from its belly now burst and deflated.

She thought of Mara in the bathroom, her relief when Rose had come back to save her. If only she'd been faster.

If only she'd gotten this thing before it got to her, Mara might still be alive.

"You know who made this thing, don't you?" she asked, quietly.

Chris nodded behind the clear visor of his suit. "They call themselves Ouroboros. The snake that eats its own tail, and lives again, and again. They've been a shadow in my radar, a reoccurring name in the books of dozens of bioterrorists I've taken down over the last ten years. They make monsters, bioweapons sold to the highest bidder to unleash as they see fit. Worse, they're smart. They never leave traces, never stay too long in one place. I've raided labs I know were theirs only to find empty rooms scrubbed clean. They never let their monsters out in the open. Until now."

"What changed?" Rose said.

Chris turned and met her eyes.

"You," he said. "I had the blood tested that we drew from you a couple hours ago and compared it to the Embryo. Rose..."

She stared at him in turn. "Tell me."

"It was a match, Rose. These things- all of them- are made from a base of your DNA." He paused. "It was no accident they started going after you. No accident one showed up with your face. Are you okay?"

She'd put out a hand against the table. Little shocks of white burst in her eyes, in time with her heartbeat. The filtered air tasted bitter as she tried to steady her breathing.

Of course, she thought.

Of course.

There were no coincidences, not being her. Heisenberg, for all his efforts in carting her around, running her from place to place always one step ahead of the BSAA, hadn't accounted for one thing- that they weren't the only ones with their eyes on her.

That there had never been any chance of peace. Not for them.

"How?" she heard herself say. "How did Ouroboros get my DNA? How do they even know about my powers?"

Chris paused for a microsecond. "I don't know. Not entirely. I suspect there was some kind of data breach after me and the Hound Wolf Squad evacuated the village, someone listening in after catching wind of Miranda's plans. She wasn't exactly subtle about them."

She turned to face him. "Okay, fine. Doesn't matter. How do we take them down?"

"I'm working on that. Like I said, they're smart, but they've stuck their necks out sending the Embryo tests into Regent City. They can't just release them kilometers out, expect them to wander into town. They've got to be within the city limits. Close to where all the attacks have taken place. Somewhere they can contain more than half a dozen huge-ass monsters without raising notice."

"That could be a lot of places."

"I know." He leaned against the table, staring into the charred depths of the dead Embryo, his eyes half-lidded and lightless.

Rose was silent for a moment.

"You said you were friends with my dad," she said quietly.

Chris inclined his head.

"What would he do if he was here?"

Chris gave a low laugh. "Latch onto the smallest lead and worry it to the bone. Hunt it down no matter how stupid it was to even try."

He glanced sideways at her. "You know what he did to save your mom? After years of radio silence, he gets one email from her. One. And he spends the night battling through the hordes of hell in the Louisiana bayou to get her back alive. Crazy bastard."

He shook his head. "Took on Miranda and her family freakshow with a pistol and a prayer. I thought it was all for nothing after Heisenberg escaped from the Hungarian facility with you in tow, but when you popped up, years later, just a glimpse of you through a Glaswegian CCTV camera...it was nothing short of a miracle. I think I'd almost given up on those."

"I'm not a miracle," Rose said.

Chris looked at her.

"I'm not some kind of symbol," she went on. "Or savior. Miranda wanted to make me into a vessel for her own dead kid, nothing more than an empty shell to use as an excuse to murder, manipulate, and destroy. I'm never gonna be that again. Not for anyone. Ever."

"Rose, it's safer-"

She grabbed him by the front of his HAZMAT suit and wrenched him closer. He outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds, towered over her by more than a head, and yet he stumbled under her strength.

Her power surged; mold unfurled from the orange material of her suit, a splayed halo of writhing tentacles that glistened like oil in the fluorescent light.

"Ever," she said again. "Get it?"

She released him. Chris rocked back onto his heels. "Loud and clear," he said, a little smile hooking the corner of his mouth.

"Good," Rose told him. "'Cause I can get way meaner than that."

Chris held up his hand; the rest of the squad that had followed him- the Hound Wolf Squad, Rose guessed- lowered their weapons.

"All right, boss?" one said in a distinctly Afrikaans accent.

"I assume you won't take my suggestion of staying out of the action," Chris said, giving his guy a thumbs up.

"Not on your life."

"You're a kid, Rose."

"A kid who inherited crazy powers from a god. You want me on your side." She paused. "Also, I'm literally the only person on this continent that Karl Heisenberg might listen to."

"Might?"

"We're kind of on the rocks."

"Yeah, I got that as well." Chris paused. "He's dangerous, Rose. I know you know that, but you should hear it again. Ethan trusted him, and Ethan died. Don't let yourself suffer the same fate because of some misplaced loyalty to him."

"He's the reason I made it past seven months," Rose said. "My loyalty is not misplaced."

Chris held her gaze for a long moment, his forehead deeply lined, his brows drawn together in a contemplative frown. Years he'd fought bioweapons like her, years he'd spent putting mutants in the dirt. Not listening to them, sympathizing with them. Not granting them mercy. That was how he kept people safe, how he kept the world from descending into undeath and chaos: doing what needed to be done, and doing it well.

Now he seemed to be giving her a chance. Rose wasn't about to waste it.

"Then what do you propose we do?" Chris asked- half-mocking, half-serious.

Take the lead and worry it to the bone. She was her father's daughter, after all.

"I have a plan," Rose said. "But there's one catch."

"Yeah?"

"You need," Rose went on, "to let out Heisenberg."

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

Ok so i'll give my opnion on some things and you tell me how you feel:

1) i think selling tickets for the tour behind the stage, it's pure greed. If u want more people in the show, make a stage in the middle of the stadium 360⁰

2) Im so tired of swifities saying 'wow taylor works SO MUCH" cause like she gets paid enough for those hours, i'm sure we (not famous people) work the same if not more hours a week and like i dont have a million. I actually think she is one the few celebs that are worth million dollars and work that amount

3) Midnights sounds so boring to me. The sounds are so..... empty (very much Jack style). I listen to the album, just dont LOVE it, yk?

Plus: i find a lot of the lyrics cringe. Some exemples-

- vigilant shit (the whole thing)

- i'm mastermind and now you're mine cause i'm a mastermind

- paris (the whole thing)

- sweet like justice, karma is a queen

- sexy baby

Anyway i"m taylor fan, just some things are weird to me

Welcome to my thoughts (3am edition) because I cannot sleep lmao.

Tickets: I think selling tickets behind the stage is fine so long as it's marked as such. Like so long as the customer knows what they're getting and can make a fully consenting choice, I think it's fine, especially in a venue where there's screens that can be watched because more people in those seats would be watching the screens a lot during the show anyway. Where it gets shady is in cases like what Ticketmaster did for Eras where some of the seats weren't marked as being behind the stage/obscured until after the purchase. In saying that, most "obscure" views actually aren't in my experience. Like a few years ago I had "obscured" tickets for Bruno Mars and it was just a side view and arguably one of the best views I've had of a stage lmao.

Taylor's Work Hours: I both agree and disagree with this. In general celebs get paid too much so I agree with that part. Likewise, I've always found the idea that she's "so brave" for continuing on with tour atm to be weird because like all of us do that in our day to day lives with our jobs and other commitments (unless we physically can't for whatever reason). In saying that, every job is more difficult in some ways and less in others. Tbh this debate reminds me of the fact my mother always thinks my jobs aren't "real" because my brother is a blue collar worker and when I've worked I've been a pink/white collar worker and while yes, his job (bartender) is more physical than mine (admin positions) will most likely ever be, my last job (receptionist at a psychological medical centre during a pandemic) was far more emotionally draining because I spent 7 - 12 hours a day listening and responding to trauma non stop. Like as someone who has done both blue and pink/white collar jobs, I can honestly say that on the most part, blue was less exhausting and a lot of my friends (both who have done both and who saw me do both) agree. And in many ways Taylor deals with both of these. Like to promote her album she kinda has to bare her soul constantly, especially because she's built her brand off of being relatable. And then with tour she's gotta be fitter than I ever will be and maintain that lmao. There's also a lot of work that celebs (and especially ones like Taylor that manages most of her career, only allowing a small team to help with certain stuff) do that we don't see. Like even if she's not working on TS11/the rerecordings atm (which I'd wager she is working on both), Taylor is not only working 9 hours a week at the moment. She's likely working as many hours as a regular person. Obviously she has the benefit of flexibility that most of us don't both in terms of hours and not having to work at all if she so chose, but yeah I'd argue that even if there was some way to prove that she doesn't work as hard, it would still be a closer call than most people think.

Midnights: So there's two parts to this. In general I agree that Midnights is not my favourite work from her, especially sonically and especially the standard edition (which is what Jack primarily worked on with the 3am songs being a mix of him and Aaron with some others). Like it reminds me of 1989 in that way. However, I don't think any of it is cringey. To be honest, I'm going to assume that you are younger than Taylor and I because in my experience the cringey vs not seems to be a gen z (people born 1996 - now) vs millennial or older (born 1995 or before) thing. Vigilante Shit is peak millennial tbh and while I cannot go into it (for legal reasons) as someone going through a situation where that song resonates, it hit from the first listen lmao. The line from Mastermind you used just sounds like something a villain would say and given she made it clear that that's the vibe she was going for (at least sonically) with the chorus, I think it fits really well. Tbh I don't understand why people find Paris cringey at all. Like it's just a cute love song, no different than Sweet Nothing or Call It What You Want. Same with that Karma line. Like she's just saying that Karma will decree the ruling that it sees fit and its word is final/there's no escaping it which is the theme of the song as a whole but especially the bridge. So the sexy baby line is not cringey but clunky to me. Like it's trying to say so much at once, and again, uses millennial references that went over a lot of people's head at first (even ones like me because I never watched 30 Rock lmao). Like I just don't think there was ever going to be a way to say all that which flowed well in my honest opinion.

But ultimately it's fine that you find stuff weird as a fan. I couldn't tell you anyone in a fandom space that doesn't find at least something weird about that particular fandom.

[blazingstar24]

I present to you: Ludigoth ship questions answers that no one asked for~ (because the fic has reached 7 kudos and that’s seven more than I thought it would get lmao) *compliant with my fic and incredibly far removed from canon 😂*

Who is more affectionate?

-Ira, by a mile, it’s Ira. Both aren’t exactly highly affectionate people but Ludinus is definitely more emotionally closed off. Ira’s just a tactile person in general, leading people by hand and whatnot. It also depends on where they are. On the Material Plane? Ira’s not as touchy. In the Feywilds? Ira’s always got either a hand on Ludi’s shoulder, arm around waist, or leading him by hand. This is more as a warning to any other fey looking to encroach on what Ira deems as his. (Ludinus find it amusing)

Sleeping arrangements?

-Sleeping is tricky with them. Ludinus is an elf so there’s like 4 hours max where he’s “sleeping”. The other part is Ira rarely stays long enough (at least in the more recent centuries) and both are fucking workaholics. However if on the very rare occasion, Ira stays over; Ludinus trances for the 4 hours and lets Ira be in the bed if he wishes. But also Ira is fucking 12-13ft tall so it really just becomes Ira’s whole space.

The bedding situation is that Ludinus definitely has a bunch of pillows. He used to only have one throw but Ira’s a fucking blanket hog and now he’s got several blankets because of him. (Despite the fact that it’s rare Ira’s sleeping over)

PDA? Who initiates kisses?

-PDA is very much not either of their styles, unless they are deliberately trying to fuck with people. Or each other. Not to mention, their relationship isn’t exactly public knowledge either. However the one way to tell if they have been together recently is if Ludinus has a braid in his hair. Ira likes to play with his hair and will sneakily weave a small braid. Ludinus acts annoyed but the fact that he keeps it for a while says a lot.

-Ira initiates slightly more but it’s pretty much an even tie.

Love Language?

Ludinus: Very much an acts of service type of person. He’s not going to say he loves Ira but you can tell by the things he does for him.

However, funnily enough, the thing that signals love to him is quality time. (Upcoming backstory elements will explain why I chose this) Ira has a spotty record with this but for the most part tries.

Ira: Physical touch definitely but also gifts. Kinda like a crow and makes up for the long periods of absence by leaving gifts for Ludinus. (Although the gifts range from aww my bird gave me shiny jewelry to oh my cat left a dead mouse on my porch)

The thing that signals love to Ira is acts of service, so Ludinus is kinda a perfect fit (if he follows through on the shit he says he’s gonna do). Ira’s a fey and doesn’t need the flowery bullshit of words. He likes to see you prove it with actions.

Who gets jealous more?

-Also a somewhat even split but leaning more towards Ludinus. Both of them are quite possessive. Ira’s had more “exes” so Ludinus has more to be jealous of, (see Morrigan) but Ira is also beginning to get pretty touchy about the whole Predathos business. It truly only leans towards Ludinus because Ira’s the one leaving and disappearing all the time so he’s the less secure one.

-Ira is the type to lash out and be more of an ass versus Ludinus who just become incredibly petty, hits him with the “No, everything’s fine.” Considering the insanely long grudge Ludinus holds, he’s more of the tiny resentments build up sort of person.

Who fell first?

-Tricky question as neither would admit that this is love or that they are in love. For Ira, his interests are fleeting and bounce from one thing to the next, but Ludinus caught his attention in a way few things had before. For Ludinus, part of it is the attention Ira turns his way, but there’s also a level of understanding that no one else had been willing to connect with. For them, it’s the feeling of being known and unafraid of the truth of the other.

[catherinekal]

So this got me thinking about my average work day and how I manage all this shit. I work retail, usually 8-4 unless I get fucked with my schedule. I get up about a hour and half before. Mainly to get a shower in and eat. I don't do oats, but I do just eat greek yogurt mixed with peanut butter, fruit, and a slice of cheese. Simple, not to hard to make, and very little dishes to wash later. The rest of the time is for waking up and lately getting to my car early to defrost it. I don't work to far so my commute is small so that's nice. My job is mostly walking all day doing curbside pickup. Can be fucking brutally busy or not much at all. If I need groceries I just shop after work, one advantage of being in retail. I get home and I either spend a fucking hour making a large batch of lentil stew in my instant pot. Gives me 3 hearty meals. On days I don't have to do that I heat it up and exercise after. Usually takes a hour to do that as I just do some basic full body home exercises. Usually around 6:20ish or so I'm done. I try to exercise 3 times a week and never cook stew on the same day I work out because fuck that would take to long. Then I either hand out with my lovely friend online and play games/watch anime. until sometime between 8-9. Or I just watching shit on youtube or play games myself. Then I try to get some German studying in there though that's been hard to make a habit still. No matter what I try and get at least a hours worth of time writing at night. I should be sleeping by 10:30 on work nights, but it's usually close to 12 by the time I'm in bed. I do lose sleep and legit haven't had a night of more then 6 hours of sleep in so long. But I make do and its important to write. On days I don't work I can sometimes get more sleep. I save general chores for those days like laundry, taking out trash, and shit like that. Therapy to is on off days if the schedule fits, it doesn't always. Once it gets warmer I'll be adding photography to my off days, but fuck trying to take pics in the cold. I also cook breakfast on off days to. I used to cook more in general, but lentil stew has not gotten old and is pretty cheap for how much I can get out of it and it's just a hour twice a week for 6 meals. Be shorter with some proper knives, but fuck spending more money on shit. The way I see it my life is about slow progress until I can hopefully get the hell our of the U.S. I could drop writing or german for more games time or quit working out, but fuck that. I've spent most of my life doing fuck all and now I'm 31 unhappy in a shit state with not much reason to stay. The repeated days can be draining, but honestly my friend helps so goddamn much and having a goal in life feels nice. I've just accepted video games don't get hours each day like they used to and that's ok.

[roughkatanaplay]

You. Child. Reginald, my rotten soldier. Why are you on here. At such a young age, with.. such.. god fucking awful takes. I'm not trying to hate but you're quite literally defending some of the worst characters in Homestuck (plus Jake,) but like, they better be good defences and not the typical misogynistic regurgitated garbage I keep seeing. You are thirteen years of age. There are far better things you could be doing with your life than wasting it on fucking Homestuck.. good lord, do you get bullied at school?

Yes my good Anon, for what other reason would I be into Homestuck the webcomic by Andrew Hussie. It's 12 AM and I just woke up from 3 hours of trying to sleep so I'll try to keep my opinions here as professional as my brain can manage in these conditions. I'm not exactly 100 percent sure on what you meant by "typical misogynistic regurgitated garbage" but hopefully my defenses aren't THAT bad/atrocious. But I'm going to be completely honest, people like JojoFunkMclovin and Mivnol would be able to better word this topic with tact. With having god fucking awful takes I assume you mean me defending Eridan, Gamzee, Dirk, and Jake. For me I guess, and not for some, it's not exactly some hard theory I've worked into a lather as a reason to defend these characters, you wouldn't find me citing things in comic if I were to extensively write a tumblr post on anyone besides Dirk, even then I don't feel like I have enough evidence or right to have my opinion to myself to write on any of it. It's not my area of expertise unless if someone were to ever come any close to asking me about why I defend them, and this is maybe the best opportunity I can come to yapping on about my controversial opinions (even though they're just kind of bland and normal?).

To set one thing straight, empathy and sympathy is a large weakness of mine and some others as well, and I'm looking through most of these characters through the lenses of kinning them, since I do (Dirk Strider more like I am him then really kinning, though that's a conversation reserved to only a specific individual). I like a special other few people will peer into a character and see a self in the other. Or at least a reason to understand why they ended up this way, the main 4 in this sense all have their reasons, to sort of dash through the list, Eridan and his lonely upbringing as a troll on Alternia who vibe and feeling wise I just find more pathetic and pitiable then a truly bad person who is capable of committing the atrocities he goes on about: for truly I believe it is nothing but meaningless shit talk and half of the things he does is just to ultimately sabotage whether it's through copious loathsome amounts of self pity or threats of terrorism on his friends race, self pity and self loathing of this kind, I believe in some way it exposes some kind of weakness, weakness of this flavor, some who recognize it in themself are naturally inclined to reject the weakness of Eridan, to not fall into the same traps and patterns he has realizing he (like many characters in any fiction really) and his mistakes are to be learned from and they could be better than Eridan Ampora Homestuck, or maybe they just hate themselves and also hate Eridan Ampora Homestuck as an extension of themself in some way, whatever the case may be, if a character is ultimately weak or has apprehension for their evil deeds or don't actually follow through on them or there's some alternative source like mind control forcing them to do these evil things I think that's enough for me to cut them some slack.

Segueing into Gamzee Makara it's kind of lost on me myself why I defend him. I haven't given it too much thought because what is there to really introspect into. I guess, he's just a kid like the rest of them. Them all being kids is one thing I'll always keep in mind when regarding the topic of whether or not they did wrong, but I also guess this isn't really about what they did wrong. Tallying up their sins and goods would just be telling you what they've done, and that's not really my style of writing. Homestuck leaves you with nothing but the means (something either of the two youtubers I mentioned earlier might've said first), so I guess it gives better opportunity to want to give your take and create an end to these means. And all I can say about Gamzee is, I just don't really think there's much to go on about. Yeah I feel bad for him, it's just, there isn't much there to go on about that hasn't been stated by better people and just in general. Gamzee was some fucking clown juggalo, he stopped his alien drugs which kept him docile and stoned out of his mind silly, got triggered over some kid mentioning the Insane Clown Posse to him, (those two events probably not in that order, don't quote me on that,) and then went on a rampage killing all his friends or something I guess. Didn't get his alien drugs back, became a villain, and then a minion for the bigger antagonist Lord English/Caliborn or some bullshit. If I were to say anything more, I think he was just a pawn. Like with Eridan, a wasted protagonist, wasted potential. But I personally can't stand anyone blaming him for what he's done, for whatever farcical feely-weely bullshit reasons. He didn't know any better I guess, and there was no one who could step up to teach him better, besides Karkat, though a good moiral, Gamzee would maybe need something more.. Almost like... A father figure, or something........ He also doesn't have one of those by the way, even though lusus can maybe barely be considered the same as human parents if at all. His goat dad lusus is absent from his life, it's sad. Even if his goat dad was present that wouldn't change anything either, was just kind of thrown into the story. More things out of his control, including the planet he was born on which has creatures who you're assigned to at birth instead of a older human parent of which you share a species and genetics with, chalk it up to bad luck.

(Saving Dirk Strider for last.) Second to last would be Jake English. I don't know, like the rest he can be kind of pathetic. He's also dumb, really oblivious. Some may find that obnoxious. And I can't disagree. But also the take that he's a bad person is just uneducated? I've never seen anyone say that besides a handful of individuals I can't bother remembering, but it also just falls in the category of not being taught better. He also doesn't have a parental guardian. Are you starting to see a pattern here with my kins? And he also had to burn his dead grandmothers corpse in a fire and watch. So he gets extra sympathy points for the grandma burning and all the other shit he's saddled with, Dirk being apart of that shit. And it's not something I'll go into, but my fiancé is also him, so I don't have any good reason to shit talk Jake English, nor did I have any in the first place.

And I guess I'll have to get back to you on Dirk Strider. It's personal. And again there's only one dude I know that I feel like I need to explain myself to.

-Oh and also none of them are fucking Vriska Serket: so that's always good.

[jodilin65]

I definitely don’t have as much energy as I had yesterday. I’m not horribly tired, but I’m tired. Again I got the same 83 sleep score. Slept a little less than 8 hours this time, but there was one huge spike in my oxygen level and I do remember my nose was stuffy for a minute there, and I also got up to pee and had a bit of trouble falling back to sleep. So I don’t know if there’s a connection or not.

Obviously, the vitamins aren’t helping. I looked and found I had 19 days in March that I was either tired or exhausted, and only 12 good days so that sucks. That’s way too much! Even a third of the month would be too much. A quarter of the month is kind of borderline, but 19 days is way too much because you’re talking more than half of the month and it’s like, come on already!

But after doing some serious reflecting, no doctor has ever really helped me. The silicone stuff isn’t helping. I didn’t think it would. I still wonder if it’s worth running to the GYN because no one ever seems to help solve my problems. For years, no one helped me with the anxiety that I had, and no one has helped with the fatigue. So why would anyone be able to help me with the burning down there? I really think that unless they’re missing something, the next step would be for her to recommend estrogen-based treatment and unless it was in pill form or something I could put on my fingertip, I wouldn’t be able to use the stuff. Then there would be the side effects.

Someone was blasting music earlier. I could just make out the faint beat of it in the bedroom. So I stuck an ear out the door and there was definitely music going, but I couldn’t say if it was outside the park or not. It’s one of those things where it could have been loud but far away or softer and closer. There were no lights on next door and I doubt it was the party girl or the honker.

Speaking of the honker, he shared a post about where he was eating by the river, so I said that it looked like a nice place and to have a safe trip home. Then someone else asked him when he was leaving because they wanted to get together one more time with him. I was hoping he would answer but if he did, he did it in a private message.

On Facebook, you can list yourself as going to an event or interested in an event, and he’s interested in a motorcycle expo on April 20th. So he’s likely to be here until at least mid-April and maybe even May.

Okay, now onto a couple of mysteries. Let’s start with someone I thought was following me that I now don’t know if they are. I thought that one of my New York visitors who’s listed as being in Newark was them. Whenever I clicked through to their location, even though geo-tracking is a joke and is usually 10 or more miles off, it always took me to upstate New York where I thought they lived. It puts me in the middle of a canal above Finger Lakes, actually. But then when I was looking at a map at something else, I saw that Newark is actually in the southern part of the state. I don’t remember it ever saying one town while giving me a totally different location on the map like that. Usually, the town it says they’re in is the town that’s going to come up when you run the IP, so I don’t know where they really are or if it’s who I thought it was or not.

The next mystery of the night is actually something that happened in 2013, way back when you could get anonymous comments on my-diary. I got slammed with all kinds of criticism then since apparently, the only way people feel they can really speak their minds is if they can do it anonymously. It was kind of funny and I actually got a kick out of some of the shit I would get back then. I was sorry the day that option went away. You can still comment anonymously on Blogger but that site is dead in comparison and people know Google tracks. They don’t seem to know how to disable tracking or that they can go through browsers like Tor if they want to hide. If I don’t want someone to know I’ve been around, I use Tor.

So, anyway, back then I think I had more than one person trolling me. There was a person who had an empty account who loved to critique me for being a complainer, and I am. I’ve always been very vocal and very blunt. If something goes well, I say so. If something goes bad, I say so. That much is true.

But then there was somebody who used a fake email address. You didn’t have to have an account to comment. It required an email address but as long as the end of it made sense, you could plug in whatever name you wanted.

I got comments about waiting for my dead parents’ money to buy a place and all this literature sent to me about narcissists and psychopaths. One of their little tutorials talked about how narcissistic psychopaths trick people into forgiving them so they can manipulate them again and how they believe their lies and live those lies.

I looked back and read through their messages again because sometimes, after time goes by, you see things from a different perspective. I first thought Maliheh only befriended me long enough to get me to keep her name out of my book before she ghosted me but when I later looked back on it, I came to suspect that the real reason she ghosted me was because she didn’t like that I liked her. Only she knows, though.

Being the curious person I am, I’ve always wondered who sent those messages. I studied the wording, the writing, the style of writing, and the content. There are so many names that come to mind because there are so many people who could have had that link to that diary that knew me because I was much more open about sharing with people I actually knew back then. Nowadays I try to keep an unbiased audience who don’t really know me personally.

The first name that came to mind when looking at it from a modern-day perspective was Andy. I apologized for dumping him the first time. So there’s the forgiveness aspect. Also, he’s a very paranoid individual who thinks everybody is always lying about everything. So there’s the lying part. Hell, he thought I was lying about my sleep disorder. If anything, I’ve been too honest throughout my adult life. No one has any power over me or a hold on me of any kind and therefore I don’t have to worry about not being truthful. I would rather not say anything at all than lie.

He sometimes also complained when I complained. I was told on Ask around this time that I seemed like a very negative person and was there anything that made me truly happy? Well, this totally smacks of him, even though he can be pretty negative as well.

What doesn’t smack of Andy were some of the comments defending my parents. Andy always knew how fucked up my mother was and he never took her side. Ever.

Whoever it was seemed to know me personally, possessed a deep-seated hatred of me, and desperately wanted to hide their identity. No one ever came out later on and told me it was them, so they never wanted me to know who they were.

It was too well written for termite Tammy and her bratty brood unless they changed their writing style to throw me off their scent. I doubt it, though. They weren’t that smart.

Kim and Molly wouldn’t have been nearly that intelligent to write and send articles written by doctors but I wondered about Molly’s mother.

It could even have been Aly playing some kind of strange joke on me. The possibilities are endless. But I’ll never know who it really was…just like they never wanted me to.

[alicedoessurveys]

1 - When was the last time you spent over £100 in one transaction? What did you buy?  the food shop, huzzah for cost of living crisis

2 - Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? Would you judge a grown adult for doing so? I do. I have a stuffed sloth teddy (my emotional support sloth). as a teenager I was embarrassed about it and worried people would judge but now as a 28 year old I don't give a shit.

3 - Would you describe yourself as fashion-conscious, or do you just wear whatever feels comfortable?  I mean, I care what I look like but I will always choose comfort over style.

4 - The last time you got up from where you’re sitting, where did you go and what did you do? 

5 - Would you rather read an erotic novel or watch an erotic film?  neither thank you 🙈

6 - Who taught you how to tell the time on a proper analogue clock?  primary school teachers I guess

7 - What’s your favourite way to make your home smell good? Do you spend a lot of money on making this happen?  reed diffusers and plug in air fresheners. they don't have to be expensive, I get mine from Aldi

8 - How long have you had the computer/tablet you’re currently using? Does it need replacing or upgrading?  gotta be almost 10 years now. and because its apple its starting to give up life. but I can't afford to replace it.

9 - When you’re home alone, do you make sure all your doors are kept locked? I live alone, I always keep my doors locked unless I know someone is coming round.

10 - How often do you light candles? Do you just like regular ones or do you prefer scented ones or ones that make pretty patterns when they melt?  I have SO many candles and vary rarely actually remember to light them. I like scented ones.

11 - Are you any good at taking care of plants?  it is impossible for plants to survive in my care. I don't understand it. they just die. all the plants in my home are artificial.

12 - How many surveys have you taken so far today? Will you take anymore surveys today once you’ve finished this one?  this is the second one today. I plan to play sims after this.

13 - What are the main two colours in the room you’re currently in? Did you pick these colours out yourself?  the room is mainly white/cream but the wall behind me is painted with pink, blue and grey asymmetrical triangles. I decorated it myself.

14 - What was the last hot drink you consumed? What about cold drink?  had a toffee nut latte a few hours ago. current drinking cream soda.

15 - Do you have piercings anywhere except your ears? How many and what are they?  I have no piercings.

16 - Do you prefer taking baths or showers? How come?  I like a good bath, but it always results in my kitchen flooding because there's a leak so I tend to have showers. but my shower has shit water pressure and the temperature fluctuates between too hot and too cold so I don't enjoy showers.

17 - What time do you need to wake up tomorrow morning? What is it that you have to be up for?  8.30am.. 9am at the latest. I have church in the morning and its mothers day so I have to make sure I don't forget to take her presents

18 - If you work, how often do you get paid? Would you prefer to get paid more or less often?  I get paid at the end of every month which is fine tbh, just would like to be on more than £8 an hour

19 - What does your favourite pair of pyjamas look like? Do you wear them to sleep or just to be comfy around the house?  they're Hufflepuff ones. yellow long sleeve top with the house badge on, and yellow checkered leggings. super soft, suuuuuuper comfy.

20 - How often do you wake up in the night needing a pee?  not often.

21 - What apps do you use the most on your phone?  insta, Tumblr, WhatsApp, snapchat, bible

22 - Do you prefer cats or dogs? Do you own any of either?  I like both, but I LOVE dogs cause I work with them. I don't personally own any, but my family do.

23 - Do you have one of those fridges that has an ice-maker in the front? If not, would you find one useful?  I don't but I wish I did.

24 - Do you like wearing hats? What’s your favourite style?  I do. I like beanie hats. also don't mind wearing a cap in the summer.

25 - If you live in a household with pets, who is responsible for their care - both in terms of finance and the physical tasks involved? Im a single paw-rent to a house rabbit so all responsibility falls on me.

26 - What’s your opinion on leggings as pants? literally my work uniform

27 - Have you ever driven in bare feet or do you think that’s too dangerous?  I don't think I have. I think ive driven in socks before but it was uncomfortable

28 - Have you ever walked out of a job before? What were the circumstances and did you ever go back?  I have. I worked in a primary school during the pandemic. the covid rules at the time meant each class was supposed to be its own 'bubble' and wasn't allowed to mix with other classes but this school fully ignored it and had kids from multiple classes mixing together in a small room. the kids were always coughing on each other, licking things, one kid constantly had snot running down his face. it was a germ factory and I have health anxiety. I was also stressed because my 3 year old niece was in hospital and one day it just got too much and I had a panic attack and walked out. my boss had no understanding at all, turned it round to paint herself as a victim and basically was a bitch so I quit. and thank God I did because 2 months later I got hired as a dog walker :)

29 - Do you collect anything? Are these things worth money or are they practical/sentimental items?  I collect funko pop figures and yes I take them out the box. they have sentimental meaning to me because most of them were gifts from my best friend who died last year. we would always buy them for each other at Christmas

30 - Do you have anything hanging from your ceiling apart from lights?  nope