#give a eulogy for the man who abused him for all his childhood and then some... ->

[marc--chilton]

(mgv) it is very easy to incorrectly assume that giselle doesn't care outside of herself, particularly when she's small. kids are jerks sometimes, they think they're the only person to matter, that's just how it is and even house accepted that his kid's probably gonna get some asshole behavior from him anyway and doesn't make excuses for her. "of course she's selfish, she's three." etc

and it's not like she's particularly expressive. her default expression is analytical, she's utterly content by herself with a modest little assortment of toys she decides are Today's Toys while the rest are ignored + her little whiteboard that never leaves her side when in the diagnostics office.

then there's a bad pain day. house is at his desk, craving vicodin that he's starting to think he may always struggle with (he's an addict, obviously. but now that he has a pup, he's starting to reassess his stance on him having a problem, too) and giselle is sat at his feet, leaning against his good leg. he pages kutner to collect her -- thirteen and chase are busy doing their jobs and wilson is in a meeting -- and make him play funny babysitter so his kid doesn't have to watch one of her parents deteriorate waiting for his not-good-enough drugs to kick in.

but when kutner reaches for her, she bites him. not a corrective nip like she has before but an actual growl and bite. it's more startling than anything. and while kutner and house are both reeling, giselle scrambles to sit securely between house's legs, back straight, her little baby growls as steadfast as she can manage it, and dark eyes narrowed up at kutner in challenge. he figures out what's up with the sudden behavioral change before house does, mostly because the pain is making it hard for him to think so all he was really doing was blinking down at her in abject wonder anyway.

"i think she's...... trying to protect you."

on instinct, house trills down at her as if to ask if that's true or not, but giselle has tuned them out. now he can see, though, that in moving, she's put herself between kutner and house's bad leg. it throws his hindbrain off, too, since... he's the parent. he's supposed to protect her, not the other way around. not like he can hide the fact that he's very much physically disabled and is constantly in pain, but still he feels like he's failed her if he inspires her instincts enough to put herself in theoretical danger for him.

and kutner proves once again to be smarter than house gives him credit for, because he goes on. "that's not really a bad thing. she loves you and is still too young to realize she's not invincible so if she sees you're having a hard time, it's totally reasonable for her to fend off any perceived threat. like someone outside of the realm of 'family' or 'pack'."

"what were you doing when i paged you?" house asks after letting that perspective Sink In for a second.

"clinic duty?"

"yeah, go back to doing that."

"you sure? 'cuz i don't mind the biting, she didn't even break the skin--"

"go."

one of the hands house had been using to grasp at his thigh starts combing through giselle's curls, idly noting in the back of his mind that she's due for a trim soon. she relaxes a bit, back to silence now that kutner's gone again. he pretends the tears trying to roll down his cheeks are of relief now that his leg pain miraculously dampens to a manageable level. "protect me, huh?" she doesn't respond, only leans into his hand like a cat. "you... really are your abba's daughter, aren't you?"

[witchhazelnut]

no offense but the takes people have about kendall being worse than logan bc logan carried his guilt over his sister’s death forever but kendall is mean to his siblings or whatever like… fundamentally you have misunderstood a lot about what kind of story this is, but also the crucial element to what the rose background reveals. this show is about cyclical abuse. it’s no coincidence that conservatism and capitalism are major motifs in a show about cyclical abuse, but the business is a red herring to what’s really going on, which is, again, cyclical abuse! we’ve seen previously little glimpses into logan’s past and the abuse he suffered: the switch marks, the references to his evil uncle, etc. what the rose story reveals is not that he blamed himself for his sister’s death, we’ve known that for some time, but that it happened when he was a child and aside from the fact it wasn’t his fault, he as a child was made to shoulder that burden by the adults in his life. the whole eulogy that ewan gives peels back the curtain to reveal, not the man but the boy. they were two scared boys on a boat speaking with their eyes. he was a boy sent away and isolated at school. he was a boy with a dead sister who blamed himself for it all his life. at the root of the villainous man is a scared boy. this doesn’t negate the harm he’s done or absolve him his countless sins. but when you look at the sibs, when they are treacherous and vile in their own rights, does the narrative not point time and time again to their childhood? we start every episode with a series of images of them as children, we are reminded of that time in their lives over and over again. so rarely are we given morsels of logan’s past, let alone of his boyhood, that we might forget that he was once something before he was the ceo. I feel like the point of that perspective is to not only make him seem impenetrable as a titan, but to make the audience see him wholly as the cause while the children are merely the effect. we know of course it’s more complicated than that. really, what is less revealed and more solidified is that the origin of the pain and abuse logan inflicted on the kids existed before him, and that same force will likely live on after him. so is kendall worse than logan? short answer: absolutely not. long answer: there is no better or worse when it comes to abuse, there is only pain transfigured. logan was a conduit of pain and he created conduits in his image, if smaller.

[i-know-like-four-things]

If The World Was Ending

This was written for the lovely @4evamc. Hope you enjoy it! Anyone who leaves a comment wins my friendship forever.

Read on AO3

It had been a year, and Dean was fine. Really, he was. He did not think of Cas every time he saw a honey bee, or a hamburger, or when he listened to Zeppelin. He did not think of Cas every time he passed their favorite coffee shop, or when he went to the Roadhouse, where they had their first date. He does not think of him when he sees Charlie, or Sam. He was fine.

Or so he kept telling himself.

After a year, it's a little difficult to keep blaming his downtrodden mood on the breakup. Most people move on, and get over it. But not Dean. Cas was -- is -- the love of his life. He just doesn’t see how one could simply let go of that, and move on.

But he did. At least, he tried to. He went to work every day at Bobby’s auto shop, and after a few months of wallowing, he didn’t show Bobby how hurt he was anymore. Bobby was an old grump, and even though he loves Dean like a son, the man is only so nurturing. So Dean plastered on a smile and went about his job.

He saw Sam less after the breakup, because it was hard to keep it together around him. But, gradually, Dean was spending more time with Sam, getting back to being his big brother. It was pretty much the same with Charlie.

Considering Dean felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, he thought he was coping rather well.

Until he got the news.

Dean had never liked his father. John was an abusive, drunken asshole who never cared about either of his boys as much as he cared about his next drink. John never spared Dean from his alcoholic rage at the fact that Mary had died, and that Dean had her eyes. So Dean got himself and Sam out of that house as quickly as he possibly could.

And yet, the news of John’s death destroyed Dean.

It didn’t make any logical sense, Dean held no love for the man, but he still felt like his world was turned upside down, like he had no ground to stand on.

Dean missed work the day after the news, and ignored Bobby’s calls the day after that. On the third day, Dean decided that there were things he needed to do. Dean never managed to move out of the city where John lived, but Kansas City was big enough that he didn’t have to worry about seeing his father. So that meant that Dean had to write an obituary for the paper, get things together for the funeral, and then make arrangements for John’s cremation.

------

The funeral was set to happen a full week after John had died. Dean had everything ready. He had the obituary written, he had his suit, he had his (painfully) short eulogy written, and he was prepared to be the rock for Sam. And Dean was fine.

The night before the funeral, he let himself be not fine. He let himself drink a little too much, and wallow in his sorrows. He didn’t grieve for his father. He grieved for his lost childhood, for the scars he would always carry, and for the people his father had hurt. He grieved because Dean knew he could have been great, if he didn’t have his father’s voice in his head always telling him how fucked up he was. How could Dean move on from this?

When Dean was really feeling sorry for himself, when the doorbell rang. He was not in the mood to put himself back together to simply talk to some stranger at the door, so he ignored it. But then it rang again, and again. So Dean stomped over to the door as best he could in his drunken state, and flung the door open, ready to rip whoever was on the other side a new one.

But there stood Cas. Cas, with Dean’s favorite candy and a copy of A New Hope in his hand. Cas, wearing a sweater that Dean had given to him on his birthday years ago. Cas.

“Hey, Dean,” Cas said sadly, but without pity. “I know you probably don't want company right now, but I just wanted t--”

Dean wrapped Cas in the tightest hug he could manage, and Cas returned it with the same intensity. Cas moved Dean into his little apartment, shut the door behind them, and waddled over to the couch with Dean still in his arms. They sat down together, and Dean curled into Cas’ side, and just cried. Cas held him, and listened to him ramble, and tried to give him whatever comfort he had.

By the end of the night, Dean had apologized for not being more emotionally vulnerable while they were together. Cas had apologized for not giving him the space and time that Dean needed to do so. They hashed out a lot of their issues, sitting on Dean’s couch that night.

“Dean,” Cas eventually began, “can I kiss you?”

“Cas, baby, I never thought you’d ask.”

Dean crashed his lips into Cas’. The kiss was passionate and intense, but not fierce. It was gentle and delicate and full of all the love and longing that they hadn’t expressed in a year.

The next day, Dean showed up to the funeral with Cas’ hand in his.

[shellheadtm-a]

know your 616 tony stark - steve rogers edition

originally i was going to group these by groups but the avengers are so large i'm gonna just do...posts for everyone.  especially steve.  there's just too much between these two for me to ever keep it to a blurb, and that relationship is super different in 616 and why is also important.

this is gonna get real long.  strap in.

if you've been here a while you know this story:  so, unlike the mcu, where steve was found and thawed by shield, a newly-formed avengers (consisting of iron man, the wasp, giant man, and thor) went looking for the hulk on a rampage, and happened to stumble across a body floating in arctic waters and pulled it into their sub to have a better look at it.  they didn't expect the dude to be alive, but as he thawed, they realized he was breathing.  more than that, they realized that his clothes - old army olive drabs - had been shredded, and underneath was the red, white, and blue of the fabled wwii war hero, captain america, along with his shield.

sidenote:  tony stark considers this day (canonically) to be the best day of his life.  the day they found steve in the ice is his best memory, his little injured fanboy heart went pitter patter at the very idea of captain america being on their sub and being alive after all that time.

so, to continue our story:  steve woke up and flipped out and had to be subdued before they got him calm down and got to talking, and they decided he was more than welcome to come back to new york with them.  after some adventures of steve's own - the avengers being turned into statues, getting shot, meeting rick jones (professional hero sidekick), finding the alien who turned the avengers into stone, and fighting namor the sub-mariner - steve was made an avenger and the rest is history.

unfortunately, it's...a lot of history.  so let's look at the differences.

iron man and captain america were immediately friends.  there was no animosity there, iron man very quickly became the solid grounding force in steve's life at the time, because iron man was pretty down to earth and charming and funny for a robot (full disclosure, tony kept a secret identity and claimed iron man was his bodyguard).  it's a joke that tony and steve always touch each other unnecessarily all the time always but the reason it's a joke is because it's true.  it started literally immediately after steve got out of the ice.  tony stark gave steve a home in that not only did he open his house on 890 fifth avenue to the steve (it was the avengers' meeting place), he took him on a date tried get up him up to date with the present day.  radiohead is forever going to be an inside joke between them.  no i'm not actually going to explain that.  just know that the band radiohead definitely has a meaning for both them.

the animosity that happens between the two of them is because they both have tempers and are stubborn.  not because they don't like each other.  they love each other, this is fact.  they are literally attached at the hip when they're not swinging at each other, and them swinging at each other is super rare, actually!  tony's one of the people in steve's life that will call him out when he's being stupid about something (the captain america mythos is strong and tony's both not over it and over it - he's come to value steve a hell of a lot more than captain america and he's not afraid to let steve - his best friend - know when he's being a dumbass).  steve makes tony want to do and be better, to be someone steve can be proud of.  they're a duo.  they work best as a united pair and with being on the same page.  they're the mom and dad of the avengers and everyone knows it.  steve's the disappointed gives you a lecture parent, tony's the stand there behind steve and frown and reel steve in when he gets carried away parent.  i'm not even joking a little bit about this, this is what they do.  they're a two man show.

they communicate in looks and finish each other's thoughts and sentences.  it's part because they're part of that generation of avengers teams that were all super close like a family and literally lived together, and part just plain steve and tony.  they do this thing where there can literally be a party going on and everyone else is milling around socializing and they'll have themselves in a corner and talk to each other only, like they're the only people in the room.  they do that in front of other people in other situations.  they fill in the blanks for each other when they talk to other people together.  it's sure as shit a thing you have to witness for yourself.

the nicknames tony gives steve aren't derisive.  instead, he's a big fan of things like beloved.  captain handsome.  winghead.  he occasionally throws out an old man, but even that's affectionate instead of acerbic.  he likes to talk about how pretty steve's eyes are.  the only times he refers to steve as rogers is when things are literally going to shit between them, which, again, is less often than you think.  tony and steve are best friends.  if they're not speaking, the world is out of balance.  all of these things are part of the tony and steve displays of affection with each other, when including the fact that they are touchy.  like i could literally dig through the comics and find plenty of times where there have been shoulder squeezes, the way they'll guide each other with a hand on the back, neck squeezes.  that's just tony and steve.  it's how they are.  there's normally none of this standoffishness.  they are, in the end, physically and emotionally very close.

they love each other.  however you want to read it, that is fact.  that is canon.  whether you want to look at it as them hovering in some weird space that's more than friends and never taking that last step, as one side being unrequited on a romantic front, as it being strictly platonic, whatever.  they still love each other.  it's not some tsundere thing, literally everyone knows they care a lot about each other.  like a lot of you know, a lot of you are new, but some of you may not be aware of how during civil war, steve literally died in 616.  well.  not literally.  more like got forced through time but for all practical purposes he was dead.  and tony immediately fell the fuck apart.  couldn't even give steve's eulogy, he broke down right there at the podium.  if you've never read the confession, you should, that's about as solid of a love confession as you're ever actually gonna see, probably, of tony sitting in a room with steve's body sobbing his heart out explaining his reasoning for what he's done.  because steve's death is the one thing!  he cannot live with.  and he is a mess until he goes on his brain delete world tour.  there's a whole secret funeral with just tony, jan, and hank (well, skrull-hank but they think it's hank), the last of the original avengers still standing, where they found steve in the ice.  just...he was a mess.  and it didn't get better at all for a...super long time.  (they're in a much better place with each other again finally and it's good to see and i love my boys.)

when they fight it's usually due to hurt feelings on both sides because they are both shit at using their words.  and tony's usually the guilty party that's been lying.  lying is a defense mechanism for tony.  it's something he's trained himself to do after years of abuse.  which is kinda funny (in a sad way) because steve actually had a Not Great Childhood with an abusive alcoholic father, too, they just coped in two separate directions.  but tony likes to hide things, pretend like everything is great, everything is peachy, he can do it On His Own, and steve gets angry, every single time, because together things might have turned out differently, and also there's some jealousy occasionally mixed into that (read: finding out about the illuminati) and they just...they're very intense.  their relationship is very intense.  and they can argue and fight and disagree on all kinds of things but at the end of the day...tony still loves steve, and steve still loves tony.

steve is tony's moral rudder.  this isn't me talking shit, tony literally says so.  steve is tony's north star, the one he follows to guide him in the right direction.  what would steve rogers do is literally his mantra.  and this isn't a new thing, tony's been a cap fan from when he was very small.  he has an entire collection of captain america memorabilia that he's been gathering since before he ever became iron man.  so it definitely predates him meeting steve for real.  he decorates with steve's face (okay, and the other avengers, too, there's always plenty of artwork and photos of the teams hanging on the walls).  he keeps a picture of steve in his office the way most people do their significant others.  he just really loves and admires steve a whole lot, and it's only intensified in the time they've known each other and been friends, and steve's friendship is literally the most important thing in the world for tony, period.  even when they disagree.  especially when they disagree.  and tony would trade his life for steve's without even thinking.  has tried to.  the red zone story arc is a prime example, because tony willingly exposed himself to a biochemical agent that worked as flesh eating bacteria on steroids to give steve mouth to mouth to keep him alive, essentially thinking he was trading his own life for steve's and being fine with that decision because "captain america's more important than you."  obviously they both survived, but nothing hurts more than seeing steve cradle tony's head in his lap while tony's dying, knowing tony willingly exposed himself for steve.

tony would probably have left the avengers ages ago if not for steve.  he'd have let the dream die after avengers disassembled (which, for the unfamiliar, is when wanda destroyed the mansion and house of m happened and some of the team died and tony just didn't have the money to rebuild and keep them going).  steve basically gently bullied him into starting a team with him after the breakout at the raft (a bunch of superpowered criminals got loose).  he definitely wasn't going to join again after siege and reluctantly let steve talk him into it (even though i think a break there would have been good for him).  he built the avengers machine for steve, to center around steve, because i believe he fully intended to either not survive or to in some way no longer be a part of the avengers.  he let steve and thor talk him into starting another new team (the current one).

for tony, steve is the important part of captain america.  and it's been that way since they first became friends.  steve constantly amazes him, makes him want to try harder, live up to who steve thinks tony is.  he stumbles a lot, he's only human, but steve's opinion of him is so, so important, and when they're on the outs tony's whole world just falls apart.  but more than that, steve's not just...he's not the serum to tony.  steve could be deserumed and scrawny and have a host of health issues like he once did and it wouldn't matter a single fucking bit to tony, steve will still be steve for him, because it's not captain america that's made steve a hero, it's steve that's made captain america a beacon of hope.  that's all steve.  and tony will also do everything in his power to get steve what he needs, help him when he needs it, will drop literally everything immediately to do anything steve asks.  the rules tony may have in place with other people do not apply to steve.  the exoskeleton he built steve, when the serum was failing and steve was basically dying, broke all of tony’s rules about his tech, and he did it willingly, without a second thought, because it was for steve.  the idea of someone ever telling steve the only thing that makes him special came out of a bottle would have tony ready to fucking fight.

tony knows all the little things about steve you typically do know about your best friend.  the bagel thing always comes up, so you know.  tony absolutely knows steve's favorite bagel flavor.  they can probably recite the way they both take their coffee by heart without thinking about it.  dean harassed me with it like at some point earlier, but there's a thing samnee did that was basically the steve and tony dynamic in a nutshell.  i mean ffs, folks, tony literally.  canonically.  has stolen clothes from steve, he's absolutely got one of steve's blue with the white star tshirts.

in retrospect this all sounds way, way less than platonic but i literally cannot make this shit up.

point is:  in this case, steve is probably his most influential and important relationship.  i'm not saying at all that there aren't others that have their own extreme importance; there are.  rhodey, carol, pepper, happy, nat, clint, thor, bruce, all the people you know from the mcu are all very important to him.  but steve and tony are...intense.  very intense.  and at the same time so absolutely effortless when they're not opposed on the important things.  steve is tony's best friend, full stop.  if tony possibly feels more than that...well, you're allowed to draw your own conclusions?  but uh.  intense.  they act as one another's anchor, they're home.

[rakaboyi]

Family, a eulogy

My brother was always a better fit for my family. He was upbeat, funny, and smart. He was easygoing and excelled at everything he did. I never felt like I belonged to my family the way he did. I was slower, shy, and more introspective. I struggled to fit in, and I had to work harder than most people to get decent grades. I remember feeling beaten down and ridiculed my entire childhood for not being good enough. I felt like I didn’t belong to my high performing family. I wanted to be alone most of the time. I remember sitting at the dinner table with my family and feeling like a stranger. While my parents and my brother ate and laughed together, I sat silently trying to not take up too much space. I always felt that I should make myself imperceptible, because I felt like I was intruding on their happiness.

To this day, I hold a lot of anger and bitterness toward them. I hate them for the emotional manipulation and constant surveillance that still gives me panic attacks today. I hate them for making me feel like I was never worth anything. I hate them for pushing me into a career I never wanted, while also telling me I needed to marry a rich man to have a good life. I hate them for always commenting on my weight and appearance at every given opportunity, sending me into a never ending tailspin of destructive diet after destructive diet. Everything they have taught me has been poison I have had to suck out on my own.

I had a mental breakdown the last time I lived with them. After months of implied violence and constant verbal abuse, I cracked. I packed up all my things in a frenzy and threw them onto my front lawn. I called a friend I barely knew and begged her to pick me up. My mom tried to pin me down to prevent me from leaving, and I screamed at my dad to stay away from me otherwise I would call 911 as he approached me on the lawn. I remember the stunned look on his face when he heard my voice. I had been so quiet, so emotionally numb, until then. For the first time I retaliated.

I did not speak to them for a full year after that. I got a job in a creative field, which was what I always wanted. Gradually, we tried to repair things. But it always ended up with me leaving their house in anger or tears. My parents had mellowed out and tried to apologize for their mistakes, but I could not let go. How could I? Years of suppressed anger had been boiling inside of me, and it came out as cruelty at their every show of kindness. When my dad tried to buy me things, I lashed out. When my mother offered vulnerability, I spat hateful words at her. I loathed who I was when I was around them. But I didn’t know how else to act. How was I supposed to show love and kindness when only a few years ago, I slept by my bedroom door with a glass bottle in one hand fearing for my safety? My childhood had been full of nothing but toxic memories.

But I tried as an adult, this last time. I tried to be a good daughter. I cooked meals for them, confided in my mom, bought things for my dad. I tried to ignore the deprecatory comments about my body and my career and the fact that I was single. Things seemed ok, even though they weren’t perfect. At least I was part of something that resembled a family. But a month passed before the fighting began again. All of my efforts were thrown back in my face, and they told me how ungrateful I was. Nothing had changed.

It became clear that we would never exist as the happy family I always longed for. I left for the last time, and made it clear to them that I would never return or speak to them again. Strangely enough, my dad hugged me before I left. We should have left each other with some coldness and hostility like always. But instead, a strange feeling hit me when my dad gave me one last sad look before turning around. Despite all of the abuse I suffered from them, I finally had complete freedom, but I was alone. Utterly alone. I returned to my city and cried in bed the entire day in my apartment.

The truth is, it’s hard to be happy, even with all the freedom in the world. Happiness felt like a lot of different things in different stages of my life - leaving an abusive family, moving to a big city, having my first boyfriend, finding a job as a creative. But every time I acquired those things, I never seemed to be any happier than I was before them. I wondered if it means I’m just chronically depressed. But more than anything, I feel like I’m just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of trying to live up to people’s expectations, tired of swiping through endless apps searching for the love I never received from my parents.

I want to be happy, but all I learned growing up was dealing with emotional warfare. I’m often jealous of people who grew up in warm households - the types of girls who can just call up their mom and tell them about their day on the phone. I wished I had that. I wished I knew what it was like to be completely vulnerable around a person. To this day, I’m completely guarded around most people - friends, lovers, coworkers. I’m afraid of letting them get too close in case they try to wield some kind of emotional leverage over me. I can’t forge real relationships, and I often feel alone. When a previous boyfriend got too close, I panicked and tried to end the relationship multiple times. After the 10th time, he got fed up and ended it himself. To this day I regret my actions - there was nothing wrong with him, yet I couldn’t have a happy relationship with him. What was wrong with me?

Day by day, I’m trying to pick up the pieces of my broken childhood, to try to arrange them into some semblance of a real working living human being. Some days the facade breaks, but some days it holds. More than anything, I want to learn how to be strong. I want to get through a day without remembering one of many traumatic moments and bursting into tears on public transit. I want to have a healthy relationship without panicking and ending it prematurely. I want to learn how to trust the people around me.

Day by day, I am learning how to stop mourning the loss of something that never existed. A family.

[therealfluke]

hello hello ! wld j like to say that if ur already following me and ur like “why” it is because. this is may. i j reserved from my rph so the alias it went under was lucky. which actually,, so fitting w this theme (goes by a name that means an unlikely coincidence, last name is associated with luck, etc.). in addition, if “lucky” by britney spears immediately got stuck in ur head... that was the ultimate goal. also listen,,,, u r not the only one who hates my url. and finally! i saved the old posts on here and j made them private for posterity (obviously) and also,, my sanity.

‹ OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN, HE/HIM, CIS MAN, BISEXUAL. › levi “fluke” fisher is the twenty-seven year old from salem, massachussets / new york city, new york. when a friend asked them what they thought of the manor they said, ❝ IT FEELS LIKE I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. ❞ they claim final destination is their favorite scary movie, and if they were to die in a horror film they would form an alliance with the murderer, then annoy the murderer into killing him by asking too many questions. their fears include rats, isolation and living the rest of his life without muse d, and they don’t know we know, but… in spite of a promise he made to his family, friends and self, he has a baggie of heroin on him at all times so he can prove to himself he’s strong (which is a lie – it’s really for a ‘just in case’ situation) . hope they enjoy their stay. ‹ MUSE C from OTHERSIDE penned by, LUCKY, 20, EST. ›

QUICK FACTS:

full name: levi “fluke” james fisher

hometown: salem, ma // moved to new york city, new york at twenty-two

date of birth: march 10, 1992*

*does not perfectly reflect the below Big Three Zodiac Chart™ because that’s so much math

zodiac big three: pisces sun, scorpio moon, pisces rising (he is!! so ruled by his emotions!!)

gender & pronouns: cis man & he/him

sexual orientation: bisexual

occupation: museum night guard ( fired ) / leech off of his older siblings

mbti: infp

enneagram: 4w5

the song i listen to on repeat while i write the intro: “stars” - nina simone ( cover )

BACKGROUND INFO:

triggers: death (under mysterious circumstances, but officially dubbed murder), night terrors / hallucinations?, drug abuse / addiction ( oxy, heroin ), accidental overdose, death by overdose

it began with josephine (“jo”), levi, charlotte (“lottie”), and christopher (“chris”) – in that order. or, perhaps, that reverse order – see: chris was the oldest.

they were all born to very kind and lovely parents. the majority of levi’s memories with his parents take place in a large house they were intending to flip. given its size and the price it would sell for, they spent more than their fair share of time in there. that being said, because their parents were often busy flipping and marketing the house, they all relied on each other for fun, even in spite of the sizable age difference between himself (and jo, who i have forgotten to mention is his “younger” twin) and christopher.

the longer they spent there, however, the more uneasy they grew. i mean, it was basically its own version of the manor – it was also guillermo del toro’s wet dream. levi could’ve sworn he’d had some run-ins with spooks, but no confirmation was ever, nor could ever be, offered. so the manor feels... very normal.

anyway, when levi was eight, his mother and father met an untimely demise. a break-in gone wrong while the kids were with their grandparents, they were told. at the time, levi... was eight and, therefore, had no doubts. now, however, he mulls over the many possibilities – it was a big house, the likelihood that they really could’ve been in that wrong of a place at that wrong of a time felt very unlikely. some form of suicide? something otherworldly? they seemed about as likely. he’s pretty sure lottie and chris know the truth, but...

after that, they were sent to live with their grandparents. while not particularly ideal, they recognized that it was far better than the foster care system. however, these recurring spooks didn’t just stop when he moved. his grandparents and older siblings blamed it on childhood night terrors, jo believed him. 

as they continued into his teen years, they claimed it was sleep paralysis. he confided in jo, in secret, that they weren’t strictly at night. he knew very well that, if he shared that with his grandparents or older siblings, they would think he really needed help. maybe he did, he never truly learned.

when chris moved out to go to college, and when lottie followed just a few years after, levi found it was just jo and himself. their grandparents were beginning to go past old age and reach senility. they had bouts of forgetting. 

levi chose not to go to college, but insisted jo, who’d always wanted to go, go without him. she went to new york city, he stayed behind with his grandparents in salem up until their death when he was twenty-two. it was early in his eyes, but for, say, his brother, it was pretty record-breaking. 

when he was twenty-one, after the death of his grandparents, he left salem and all of its reminders of childhood terrors and lies. he found jo in new york and began living with her and working as a night guard at one of the many museums.

but a mere one (1) year later, jo, usually straight-edge, decided she would finally go to her first college party in celebration of being so close to graduating. yeehaw. levi was invited to go with her, but had been warned far too recently that, if he missed one more shift, he’d be fired.

on the topic of his night shifts, his terrors seemed to go away when he moved to new york. it seemed as though he’d left them all in salem, but there were definitely moments in a huge and empty museum that he could’ve sworn he’d seen something. anyway, back to the main point:

jo didn’t return until the next morning and, when she did, she expressed the excellency she had experienced the night before. she wasn’t afraid of telling him she’d tried drugs for the first time – no, that night, it’d just been weed. he’d tried weed in high school, trying to figure out if it would help with his terrors. for a hot second, it did... which is what led to his own demise.

(OK! so from here on out, i’ll be talking about the other muses in the subplot. i’m gonna do my best to leave their story and keep their drug of choice vague! anyway!)

jo began falling deeper into the drug world after meeting and beginning to date muse b and eventually fell into harder tingz™. she never tried to pressure fluke into trying anything, but he witnessed the reaction to it. between that and having looked up to his younger sister ( by, like, two minutes ) for nearly the entirety of his life, he decided to try whatever she did. 

however, unlike her, he quickly escalated to heroin.

he started out smoking it... then snorting it... then began shooting it. he liked shooting it the best – not only because he reached the high quicker, but also because it required more of a ritual. as a fan of ritualistic behavior, the lead-up was almost as enjoyable as the high itself. unfortunately, it did leave him with many trackmarks and an even higher risk of reliance and overdose.

he didn’t go out to many parties after that. he preferred shooting in the company of the few, not the many. if his sister and friends did, that was their prerogative, but it was just... more peaceful...

suddenly, he didn’t ever think about the terrors or the lies or the shadows in the museum. he was eventually fired, yes, and had to start ‘earning’ money via asking his other siblings. 

when the topic came up between himself and his little group of friends on whether or not they should quit, he had no answer. 

in 2018, at twenty-six, his usual dealer had cut him off due to the money he was no longer good for. finding a much cheaper one, he took the same dose, but the amount of other chemicals it was cut with sent him to the hospital. given plenty of naloxone, he came out of it alive and clean and, due to the nature of it all, was deemed a fluke.

he didn’t take to that at first. he was lucky, yes, but a fluke ? it couldn’t have been that unlikely... especially when he fell back into it after finding another dealer and being totally fine. however, when he heard jo had overdosed and actually died ?

yes, he was a fluke.

he was so blinded with rage at muse a at first for leading his absolute crutch to her death, he was so blinded with rage at muse b for first introducing her to a world of harder drugs, he was so blinded with rage at himself for being the one who survived when she was the one who actually could’ve done something with her life.

so he embraced the word ‘fluke’ – he acknowledged that he was one during her eulogy, he told his other siblings he’d been the fluke at her wake. when he began saying it enough times, it caught on, whether he meant for it to or not.

he’s no longer so angry at muse a  and muse b for what they did. muse b wanted to get sober, after all, and muse a , much like himself, was simply an addict. they couldn’t help not being prepared to give it up. he’s still furious at himself.

now that they've all gone clean, however, fluke is somewhat more pleased. he’s fairly certain he’ll never not be in mourning. quite frankly, he’s fairly certain he’ll eventually relapse. even worse, in spite of the group promise, he’s brought contraband with him to “prove his strength” ( see: that’s what he tells himself ).

riffing off of that, in the manor, his terrors have begun returning and he’s unable to nail if it’s because of the similarities between it and the home he remembers so well or if it’s because he’s now sober of it it’s because... it’s just the manor itself. 

he’s still certain it’s all real.

TL;DR:

basically lived in a replica of the manor when he was a kid with his loving parents and three other siblings. is pretty sure he saw some paranormal stuff goin on. parents were “murdered” but he suspects something else. moved in with grandparents and continued seeing some paranormal stuff. only his twin sister, muse d (jo), believed that it wasn’t just night terrors. jo went to college, he stayed behind. grandparents died rip. he went to nyc where jo was and eventually met muse a and muse b when they all fell into hard drug use. almost died because of poorly cut heroin. jo died some months later. hates himself. rip. alexa, play “my heart will go on” but the recorder version.

PERSONALITY INFO:

sad boi energy

if u read thru this and didn’t think “why does she keep basing her characters off of characters from thohh” then,,, u should go watch thohh bc,,, it’s so obvious (we even over here picturing victoria pedretti as jo unless someone applies for her at some point afhsljk) hlfajdsa

has a terrible tendency to find someone to feed off of – someone to be codependent off of. without jo, he’s floundering.

is very * eyes emoji * at,,, many things. the explanation for his parents’ death? * eyes emoji * the spooks that almost everyone came up with excuses for? * eyes emoji * staying sober? * eyes emoji *

didn’t mean to start going by fluke, but started using the word to describe himself so much, it just happened organically.

i have stated before. that im bad at these sections. so feel free to j consult the zodiac / mbti / enneagram above haofuwdlijk

not rly personality but lil hc is that he goes back to that huge victorian house all the time and uses a ouija board to see if he can contact ANYONE :\ the ultimate eeyore :\

another lil hc is that he’s actually a v talented pianist. his mother sort of taught him the basics and he went on to learn classical through sheet music and schooling, then songs from rock bands/artists who incorporated keys in their music. brought the 7-octave keyboard his grandparents bought him... apparently doesn’t need it because there’s a huge piano hajfdkls

if u want 2 hear abt some of my paranormal hcs lmk i wld put them here but?? some r actually creepy (and/or involve blood) which we luv for me!!

FEARS:

rats: when he was living in that big house™, there were plenty of rat infestations. he often got those mixed up with his spooks™. there were also a lot of rats at his grandparents’ house and at his and jo’s apartment. it’s more of a general fear, but. (also... rat poison? drug abuse? symbolism.)

isolation: for an introvert, he’s really bad at being alone. for one things, he gets lonely which is very detrimental to his already fragile mental state, especially considering he’s pretty sure he’ll relapse. in addition, he’s much worse at dealing with any spooks™ that come his way when he’s completely alone. when someone else is in the room, even if he isn’t actively talking to them, at least there’s the comfort of not being alone in it all. 

living the rest of his life without muse d: even if she was the one who began their drug journey, she was the only person who ever believed anything fluke said – she was the only person he ever felt actually listened to him and cared about him with no ‘if’ or ‘but’ attached. he also always found her much wiser than himself and could’ve sworn she would’ve gone to rehab after getting well with muse a one last time. she was the one who was going somewhere and she was the one who loved him unconditionally. no wonder he’s got sad boi energy :\

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

his other brother and sister! i’ll probs send in wcs for them to the main, but if you think they wld sound cool, lmk. luv that. (update!! take one of them you cowards.)

the dealer who actually dealt him quality heroin

the dealer who dealt him heroin cut with god-knows-what

someone he accidentally starts to sink with himself

exes

fwb

ons

enemies (not super great at making them, but is still able to)

the new person he’s decided to latch onto

childhood friends (if there are other salem (or at least massachussetts) characters!)

idk!! we can also look at urs and/or brainstorm!!

ok ! like this or hmu if you’d like to plot !

[imagineaworlds]

Unordinarily Ordinary

      Chapter Two. The Beginning.

summary: I was born with the curse of being ordinary in a family filled with gifted kids. Here’s my story.

pairing: none, yet.

word count: 1560

warnings: cursing. family emotional abuse. ptsd. mention of drug addiction. mention of death.

The Family History - The Beginning - The Return of 0.05 - The Adventures of Klaus and Friends - The Seance - The Fight of a Lifetime

In 1989, my father set off to travel the world with Pogo to find the forty three children he believed possessed superhero-like powers. Prior to his travels, an anomaly struck forty three different woman, who all started the day non-pregnant. At exactly noon, all of these woman gave birth.

My father made it his life’s mission to find all of these children and raise them to reach their full potential. Upon buying my brother Luther off of his real mother, I was put on the back burner, so to speak. Beforehand, it wasn’t like my father paid much attention to me, but I was his heir, so he tried to educate me the best he could. But once Luther was there, Pogo and my mother were left to raise me.

My father then traveled again to get my brother Diego. His real mother didn’t want him, found out that Dr. Hargreeves was buying these children, and decided to give Diego away. As a baby, Diego would cry and cry, never stopping until mother held him. They always shared that special connection.

As more of these powered babies came to live in our home, the less my father bothered with me. He was a cruel man in that sense. I was too little to understand, but now I know that what he did was wrong in every way. He was no parent to me.

But when my father died, I couldn’t shake this horrible feeling. I felt sad. For the first time in my life, I wished that I could see my father, that I could say goodbye, or maybe even wait to hear him say “I’m sorry”. But the news came when I was halfway around the world. Even my brother Luther, who lived on the moon for four years, made it home before me.

At first, I didn’t want to go home. I held that letter in my hand for a good two days before deciding to bite. Pogo had sent me two plane tickets along with the letter. I hadn’t told him that I was no longer with Elena. It wasn’t like he needed to know, anyhow.

So I went home for the first time in thirteen years. Everyone waited for me, including Diego, who never much cared for me. When I saw our home again, I merely broke into tears. I had never felt true sorrow like that before… never. I missed the monster who had abandoned me as a child. I missed my father.

Like every family meeting, there were fights and fights about every small thing. But unlike every family, my siblings had powers that their disposal to use in these fights for their own advantages. I always had to fight with my words, which hardly ever worked.

On the morning of my father’s funeral, I laid on my old bed in my old room. I couldn’t bear to see Vanya or Klaus. The house was the most quiet it had ever been, with no alarms ringing or my father shouting orders. It was just us kids together again, thinking about our childhoods.

“Hey, sis,” Allison said, without bothering to knock. She invited herself in and sat on my bed with me, “How are you doing?”

I shrugged, “I’ve been better.”

“Where’s Elena?”

I looked up at her. I hadn’t told me siblings about her— not even Vanya. Pogo was the only one who knew. Then it dawned on me. “We separated about a month ago.”

“I’m so sorry, Sarah.” I stayed quiet, it was none of her business. “How was the wedding, at least?” Still none of her business. There was a reason none of my family was invited to the wedding, even my world famous sister. “Listen, I get it, we were never close growing up, but I’m always here for you.” I wondered when she would leave. “Have you talked to Klaus?”

“No.”

“You should.”

“He knows my rule—“

“But you could at least talk to him, Sarah. He did go to rehab, if you must know, but I figured he should have been the one to tell you.”

“Yeah? And is he still sober?” Allison fell silent. “That’s what I thought. I love him, but I can’t keep getting hurt because of his stupid mistakes.”

“We’re spreading dad’s ashes in an hour. Mom’s making breakfast, if you want anything.” Allison stood up and left without saying another word.

My head hit the pillows and I groaned. Allison and I never got along, even in the best of times. We were simply indifferent to one another. The problem was she and Luther always thought that they were better than me and Vanya. Granted, they never admitted to anything out loud, I knew the truth.

“Miss Sarah,” Pogo knocked, “I apologize for my eavesdropping. May I come in?”

I sat up straight and nodded, “Of course.” Pogo entered. “How much of that did you hear?”

Pogo sighed, “My dear, these walls are thin, these walls are old… there isn’t much I don’t know about what goes on under this roof.”

“So you heard all of it.”

“Might I suggest you give your siblings a chance? Miss Allison certainly seems to be trying with you.”

“She’s certainly trying my patience, as always.”

Pogo shook his head, “All those years you said just how much you hated your father and siblings, I must admit I never believed you. And when you came through those doors and cried, and your sisters ran to you… I realized you don’t really hate them. You just don’t want to be hurt.”

“You’ve been rehearsing that for a long time, haven’t you?” I chuckled to myself; Pogo didn’t laugh. “Fine, you might be right, but that doesn’t mean I have to suddenly sing kumbaya around the campfire with everyone, alright? I’m here for the funeral, and then I’m gone.”

“And what of Master Klaus?”

“I don’t have to explain that to you. Thin walls, remember.”

“I meant no offense, only thought it might make you feel better to talk about it out loud.”

“Well, it won’t help.” I didn’t mean to snap, but it had been a rough day, and the pestering visitors weren’t being helpful. But Pogo knew me too well, he knew my tone with him wasn’t personal. He knew better than Allison. I was in pain, and he was there to help.

“Will you help me down to the kitchen, Miss Sarah? Grace is cooking up a wonderful breakfast for all of us— just like old times.”

I forced a smile and a nod. Pogo linked his arm with mine and we made our way downstairs to the kitchen where everyone was eating breakfast silently. They weren’t quiet because that was the rule at the meal table, but because there was nothing to be said between one another. Despite years and years of not seeing each other, no one wanted to say anything.

“Good morning, Sarah,” Mom said, her faux smile bright.

“Hi, Mom.” I helped Pogo to his seat, and then sat next to Vanya. Dad’s seat remained empty. It went quiet again.

For that entire morning, my siblings were fairly quiet. Allison and Luther would occasionally whisper to each other, but that was it.

The funeral was quiet, just for family. It was pouring rain, the sky was grey with sorrow. Despite how horrible he was, the world lost a brilliant mind, one that wanted only to save it. Luther held the urn in his hands, waiting for someone to say something. Pogo gave a short eulogy about missing his friend, missing his family. I cringed at his words, he was so oblivious to our father’s torture. Diego snapped, and I couldn’t bear to hear it all.

“Just dump the damn ashes, Luther,” I said impatiently, my eyes glued to the ground. Klaus stood to my right, inching closer with his pink umbrella. I shivered in the cold. I hadn’t thought of bringing my own umbrella outside. “Go on.” Luther opened the urn and tuned it on its head. The ashes fell out and onto the ground.

“Very anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Klaus whispered to me with a quiet laugh.

I didn’t look at him, not when I could smell the weed on his clothes.

“It would have been better with some wind, or something,” Luther said.

Then Diego went off on another rant against 0.01. I shook my head and walked inside, Klaus following closely behind. “Leave me alone, Klaus,” I groaned.

“What? I can’t say hi to miss-goody-two-shoes-Sarah?”

“No.”

“But I’ve missed you!” he whined playfully.

“Go away, Klaus.”

“Come on, Sarah… what about the good old days before you got a stick stuck up your butt? Remember the parties—”

I turned and stopped in my tracks, “Enough, Klaus! Why won’t you just leave me alone?! If I wanted anything to do with you, I wouldn’t have left you here all those years ago.”

Everyone regrets something they’ve said or done in the past, it’s inevitable. Humans face error in every move they take. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t take back my words or actions against Klaus. I wish I could, but I can’t. Like I said, I have to fight my battles with words… and sometimes they aren’t the kindest words to fight with. Klaus, if you’re reading this: I’m sorry.

umbrella academy family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @marvelismylifffe