#how can someone be down so bad for someone but also be so awful to them

[merlions]

Can I also add that unfortunately, "being kind to those you are afraid of/feel are hurting you makes you vulnerable to harm so you better be angry at them instead" is EXACTLY why bullies bully people. It is the start and end of their thought process, and it's why thinking like that will never break any cycle, will not protect you from being bullied, may even turn you into a bully yourself.

Here's why it doesn't protect you: all bullies WANT is for you to have an emotional reaction to what they're saying. If they're mean to you for the purposes of bullying you, they want you to get angry and frustrated and sad. That's the power they're trying to get: the power over you to disturb you and have effects on your emotional state. When you react as if they've successfully hurt your feelings, they have succeeded in their task, and their system is affirmed to themself. "Wow I sure bothered that person. It's going great!"

Being kind instead is SUCH a powerful tool against bullies for exactly this reason. If you are capable of maintaining your own mind and emotional state no matter how awful someone is to you, you show them that they don't actually have power over you.

Sure, this does freak a lot of people out (having what feels like a certain, 100% hit rate weapon for gaining power over someone suddenly firing blanks can do that to an insecure person), and sometimes this does make people angrier - at first. But that's not because you've made yourself vulnerable, it's because they're perceiving everyone as "I have to put them down before they have a chance to hurt me" and you've just shown them you're actually invulnerable to anything they've got.

They see you as having equal power (or at least they don't have power over you), and because they're afraid everyone is going to hurt them all the time if given the chance, they may then perceive you as a threat. Like on a nervous system level, fight or flight. Do it anyways. When you then don't immediately kill them, their nervous system gets a chance to start unworking the fuckin knots it's twisted itself up into.

A weird side effect of this is that they may start immediately sharing the most personal, vulnerable things you can imagine. It's so wild. Take this with grace. I've had so many experiences where someone who's well known for being universally cruel and hostile says something awful to me, and then when I respond with kindness, then says shit to me absolutely unprompted. Like "I think I lash out at others because I'm scared they're gonna hurt me first. I don't like myself much. My parents were pretty terrible to me growing up, and I don't know how to make friends." Or whatever their thing is that slams the fear button all the time. And then if I respond with sympathy and relate to them, I notice them slowly begin to change over time, trying out kindness instead of proactive hostility. (Or like especially with high school friends I eventually notice them come out as trans on facebook and then they're normal non-hostile people after that. Many such cases. Turns out being in excruciating, mysterious-origin emotional pain all the time makes you feel afraid of everything bc like what's causing that..."oh shit it was the gender again" lol)

Anyways. I've never regretted kindness, never had a bad experience, never had an experience where using kindness instead of reactive hostility didn't gain me at least something. At the very least they get afraid of ME. I've worked with some people who like, other coworkers will come up to me and go "you're so sweet! Tbh it's like a flashing dinner bell for predators! Why is our asshole coworker always doing you favors and working hard on things you request and asking for your help on things? ONLY ever you?" And I'll be like well every time they try to tear me down and I just don't even emotionally react to it at all and stay cheerful, they get FREAKED out like palms sweaty arms spaghetti and go somewhere else for a while. They're my little bitch now. And when they're afraid of something they sometimes actually come to ME for help cause they know I'm strong enough to protect them!

This power is immense...padawan you can learn the potent ways of this mysterious force and save the galaxy...seek within yourself.. the power is already within you............

I'm so serious about being kind above all else. it has genuinely changed the way I interact with the world on a fundamental level and has made me so so much happier.

[girl-lostconnection]

✨Concept ✨1 part

Thinking about Helldiver!Reader again.

They way they would absolutely love Soap and his sharp mind and his out of box thinking and his resourcefulness.

As a Helldiver in the field you often don’t have resources — too little time, ship leaves the orbit and leaves you with no supplies, no reinforcements, no protection.

Just you, ammo you have left in your mag and whatever you can scavenge around the barren terrain quick enough to scramble something together.

And Soap that chats you up about the bombs and explosives, elated to have such attentive listener, shares the ways to demolish something the quickest way possible, talks you through the process and wires and “nah, it’s alright, C4 is fairly harmless, see? Can make lil’le snake out of it”.

You never say why you are so interested in it, you never share that oftentimes there are no more ammunition to shoot the enemy, that grenades are all you have.

Soap grins, offering to give you a hand with what you work with on daily basis and you let him in the armoury — showing what you already bought, showing what you are currently using.

You get a little carried away, so proud of collection you already established — it’s not much but it costed you almost half a year of everyday deployments and you feel like it’s somehow satisfactory.

Not like anyone really checks what Helldivers work with anyway so you are in the clear.

But there is a strange look in Soap’s face and your voice waivers, jaws snapping shut, awful uncomfortable heat climbing up your face when he asks if it’s really everything you have.

Was it…was it not enough? Are you supposed to have more? How much more is needed? Do SAS have more? Shit, it must cost them good chunk of their salaries.

Thoughts swarm your head, visor of your helmet clicking back in place, hiding your eyes and maybe there was something in them. Just a glimpse. Just before you slammed your walls back up.

Because Soap’s voice softens when he hums “no biggie, let’s see what we can do, aye? These ones are actually real blast—” and you have the petty desire to push him out of your armoury. Off your ship. Away from you.

You don’t need his pity. You don’t- you don’t know what the fuck SAS works with but you got your supplies yourself and you worked so hard to get them.

But your fingers just clench and unclench, creak of leather gloves louder than you would’ve wanted because Soap looks at you like he wants to smack himself, because it feels as if you almost shrink on yourself.

But you don’t say anything because…it’s really not his fault. It’s just the way it is, right? You are sure SAS have their fair share of issues with supplies, after all, command said that it’s better Helldivers cover the costs themselves.

Surely situation must be real bad if they can’t provide you with decent armoury. But it’s not in issue — you work hard, you buy your supplies yourself, you slowly upgrade yourself, it’s fine really.

So you just write down all of his recommendations and fist bump him on your way out. What’s a little sting to the pride if you got the information and advice of actual demolitions expert?

You don’t notice the way Soap looks over your armoury again, muscle in his jaw twitching. He can see the patience and care it took to build up a somehow decent armoury, he can see that you scramble to get whatever you can as soon as you get any funds.

But he can also see that it’s barely enough to cover what you two talked about. He can see that no one gave you a proper training, no one gave any manuals and no one provided you with actual fucking supplies.

Soap doesn’t know how to tell you that it’s unheard of for soldiers, especially someone of you rank, to cover their bloody supplies costs themselves.

Soap doesn’t know how to tell you that the shine of Helldiver branch becomes more and more nefarious the more he hears and sees.

Soap doesn’t know how to tell it so he goes back to his team. Maybe someone else will know what to do.

[silverj0]

I’ve already read like half of “The Reckoning of Roku” in like a day, and was making memes to send to my coworker so here they are

Does contain some mild spoilers as a warning

[sonknuxadow]

i genuinely dont get how so many people are uncritically excited for The Movie and have no issue with anything going on here i feel like im losing my mind a little bit . the trailers did not look good to me at all is everyone excited about it posting from an alternate dimension or something what are people seeing in this movie that im not .

[hammill-goes-fogwalking]

I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI. I HATE AI.

[rapidhighway]

gonna vent for a sec but im so tired of this "don't wanna be an inconvenience", people pleasing shit ngl.....do people who do this know that they just come off as really rude and like... it just feels insulting each time

[koka-mi]

vent under the cut you don't need to read if you don't want to!!!!!!!

I honestly hateee opening up or oversharing with ppl. it's kind of like eating for me where it feels okay in the moment but then afterwards I just feel awful. it feels like I'm attention seeking or saying someone else's experience isn't valid for some reason and it sucks. I don't do it at all with ppl I just met but with friends I tend to get carried away with it sometimes,,,

It hurts even more because I've been distancing myself from ppl bcz I'm scared of this exact thing happening. People have messaged me before, saying I seem cool and they want to be friends. And I get happy in the moment, but then I get really anxious about accidentally getting too comfortable and blurting out personal things, because then their opinion of me will wane and they'll think I'm annoying or ungrateful. So I subconsciously begin to distance myself and take a while when responding to messages, because I'm scared of getting too comfortable with them. But now I'm anxious that they think I'm cold or distant and that I secretly don't like them. It's just a lose lose situation mannn </3

I have so many DMs I've put off responding to, and I've stopped talking in servers as much bcz I'm scared of getting close with ppl in them. I really feel bad for it, though. I've drifted from friends bcz of that and it sucks because I genuinely love them a lot. I love everyone I talk to a lot and they always make my day better--I just wish I could be the same for them. I feel like it's a chore to talk to me. I honestly don't know what to do. It's even worse when I get close to someone bcz they like what I make/post because again, now that they've seen how I really am and I've opened up, they more than likely see me as annoying or a bad person. Like it hurts enough whenever we become friends naturally talking, but if it's with someone who's seen me at my "best" and has seen things I work on or stories I've created, they ofc associate me with those things, and their expectations of me are through the roof. So when I disappoint them it hurts a lot more. I hate getting attached to people it hurts so much

[halloweendeity]

.

[tasmanianstripes]

People need to practice minding their own damn business

Don't come into people's inboxes giving unsolicited advice or criticizing their personal stuff. Don't reblog somebody's posts saying how much you hate it and their opinions.

Don't like somebody's characterisation, AUs or the kind of art they post? It might even annoy you?

Okay, cool. Go make your own post. Block them. Be a little hater about it to your friends. It's good for your soul!

But don't be goddamn rude to people. Don't make it their problem.

"I don't like what this artist likes mah mah mah"

Here's a wild idea;

Artists...don't need to cater to you. You are not entitles to their work. Nobody on the internet should coddle you and post only stuff you like.

Shocker, I know.

[jackass-jones]

Girl like. The reason he said "this is how it should be" and faced death with a smile....is cuz he wanted to die. For 2 years he sat there thinking he was worthless and deserved to die. If he hadn’t be shot, his death would’ve been suicide, he was fully planning to die in a gutter somewhere undetected. When saying "this is how it should be" hes literally saying "don’t cry because I’m dying, my death is a good thing actually because I fucking suck and you are better off without me". I don’t think that’s badass even slightly, it’s actually really sad and really shitty. Shinjiro is so convinced that he deserves to die and hates the idea of anyone giving a shit about him because he literally can’t wrap his mind around the idea that he will be missed when he’s gone, that his death is a bad thing actually. And his last words were meant to be comforting because he fully did not intend for anyone to be there when he died, he intended to die alone, so he says them as a reminder that he’s not worth crying over

Personally, if it were me, if I was holding my dying best friend in my arms who was deeply depressed and suicidal and he said "this is how it should be" uh. I wouldn’t admire him for it??? Like am I losing my mind when I say the way this game handles Shinji is bad or is anyone else seeing this too 😰

[carrieway]

i just think ghosting someone should be illegal

[nagitoedit]

.

[jackalhadrurusluvr]

craaaaaaazy that my dad was apologizing for being angry in front of me earlier (hashtag number one trigger for yours truly) and his girlfriend was like "no you dont need to apologize" girl you just simply cannot be surprised your children dont like you very much if thats what your stance is

[nereidprinc3ss]

you know the killer doesn't understand

in which spencer is so terrified he's going to hurt you after he gets out of prison that he can barely touch you. an argument ensues.

angst (+ comfort) warnings/tags: established relationship, fem!reader, mentions of violent intrusive thoughts (non-specific), arguing, yelling, use of the word rape, nightmares, happyish ending, mention of showering together, it's a bad time but it's also a good time for us woo i love angsty angst a/n: i miss posting for real so bad i dug up this draft which was mostly finished and polished it up. i think i really like this one and it was based on a request but i lost it:( i hope u guys enjoy this, pls lmk<3

Spencer is by no means happy with his sudden fear of touching you—it makes everything in his life significantly harder and less convenient and he hates that he’s constantly afraid he’s going to break you. He hates watching you hold back from attacking him with a hug when he enters a room like you used to, and he feels terrible every time you ball up on the opposite side of the couch as he reads, waiting for an invitation into his lap but too scared to ask for one (he’ll always hold out his arm for you, though—he’s not cruel.)

You’re adorable in the way you stand at the foot of the bed in your pajamas, arms behind your back like it’s not your bed too, but it makes him feel terrible. This isn’t at all what he wanted for you, and in all honestly he’s thought about ending the relationship because he knows he’s being an absolutely awful partner—but he just can’t bring himself to. Instead, he gestures for you to get into bed, and you curl up under the covers close to him but not against him, and he’ll play with your hair and read for a while because he can’t sleep very well. Eventually he’ll assume the position of sleep, but some sick part of him doesn’t know what to do with the sounds of the city and the fan instead of the sounds of a hundred men rolling and sniffing and shuffling around their echoey cells. He doesn’t understand warmth anymore, or softness, or nice pajamas or fluffy pillows. He’s starting to think he doesn’t understand you. And that’s the worst thought of all. 

So he essentially dozes for the first week, on and off, always exhausted in the mornings but what’s new. When he can’t sleep, he turns his head to watch you breathe—some beautiful, sweet creature dreaming in his bed, unwaveringly loyal to him even though he can hardly stand to touch you for fuck’s sake. You’re beautiful, and it makes him feel better to watch you, even if he can’t touch you. Not now that he knows what he is capable of doing to another person. What if he has some sort of PTSD—PTSS, thank you, Luke Alvez—induced dream and does something terrible to you in his sleep? It’s not like you’re tiny, but he’s stronger, he knows he is, and lately every time you get too close he remembers exactly what it feels like to exert the full force of that strength, and what it feels like when someone else unleashes their own onto him. 

They’re just intrusive thoughts, and in them he doesn’t hurt you intentionally, but he always feels a little bit sick now. He is so, so sick. A bull in a China shop. Spencer knows exactly how breakable humans are—it’s his job to know. If he left so much as one red mark on you by accident, he’s quite sure he’d drill down to a previously unknown rock bottom. And if he reaches that point, he doesn’t know if he’d ever deserve to come back. 

Every day it seems to become clearer that the only humane thing to do is break up with you. But for now he’ll watch you sleep—the delicate rising and falling of your chest, the way you curl in on yourself because you can’t curl into him. In sleep you look so peaceful and content. You never look that way awake, anymore. Not when he’s around, which is pretty much always. At least he can’t disappoint you while you’re asleep. 

Or so he’d like to think. 

Until one night, about a week and a half after he gets home; you whimper in your sleep. It’s so quiet he could’ve missed it, but he doesn’t, and then he watches your smooth brow furrow with worry and he knows you’re having a nightmare immediately. 

Spencer panics—before, he would have woken you up and held you and comforted you until you fell back asleep and it would have been so simple. Now he’s frozen, afraid to touch you but not sure if he can just lie there watching you so afraid and not do a thing about it. 

In the end, you choose for him—and it only takes a few moments. You’re close enough to him that it’s easy for you to close the few inches even in sleep, and maybe you’re slightly conscious but not enough to remember you’re not supposed to touch him. 

He stops breathing as you fold yourself against him, muttering worried nonsense—he catches his name, once—nestling against his chest, one searching arm gently draping over his waist. Every muscle in his body is rigid, and his thoughts—his mind goes… completely fucking blank. 

Suddenly, all he’s known, all he’s ever known, is the smell of your hair, the warmth of you seeping through layers of clothing, and the weight of your arm over him. Everything he ever was ceases to exist, and he’s just this, right now. The person you’d turned to unconsciously for comfort, so sure, so trusting that he would keep you safe. He can feel your breath for the first time in months. Slowly every tense muscle unspools. For the first time in a long time he doesn’t feel dangerous. He doesn’t feel like his entire body is spring loaded and ready to attack at the slightest provocation. Spencer allows himself to hold you, and part of it feels like betrayal because he knows how badly you need this from him while you’re awake but mostly he feels like he could cry. His thumb rubs circles into the middle of your back and your head tucks so perfectly under his chin while he studies the rumpled sheets where you’d been lying a moment ago. He almost feels like sticking his tongue out to gloat at your half of the mattress—haha, look who gets to hold her now—but instead he sighs, shakily, and squeezes his eyes shut. 

You don’t make another sound for hours. 

He’s reluctant to let you go when you begin to stir around six AM, but forcibly holding onto you is so far from what he wants to do that he manages. You roll back over to your own side of the bed, and he continues admiring you from afar until he falls asleep. It’s the best three hours of sleep he’s had in a very long time. 

Of course, you don’t remember it. When you wake up your sadness resumes, and so does the pretending like you’re not sad, but you’re a very good sport—and it helps that he’s feeling much better this morning than he has since he got back. 

“Good morning,” you whisper faintly, still blinking as you watch him longingly from your spot. 

Spencer pushes himself up onto an elbow, and you watch with big eyes as he leans over you, stroking your cheek with his free hand. 

“Good morning. You sleep okay?”

Your brow flickers, and he realizes it’s not a question he asks every morning, and you’re probably distracted by this overt display of affection, but you answer it obediently anyway. 

“I think so. I had weird dreams.”

He hums. 

“About what?”

It’s quiet for a moment as he takes in the exact spattering of microscopically fractured pigment over your irises. Your voice is small when you finally speak. 

“Do I have to tell you?”

That hurts. 

“No. But it might help.”

Coming from him? Ironic doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

You acknowledge him with a small hum of your own, studying him with soft, mistrustful eyes. 

He can’t help it anymore—Spencer leans down and gently kisses you, so tenderly, so chastely, it makes his own head spin. He hasn’t kissed you like that since you picked him up from Milburn. It’s long overdue. 

Which is why he’s not expecting you to start crying. He pulls back immediately, not far, just enough to assess your expression. 

“What’s this? What’s wrong, angel?” He frowns. Your lip quivers in a way that feels like a blow to the chest. 

“That’s not… you’re…”

“What? What is it?”

A fat tear finally traces a path down your cheek and when you speak your voice breaks in the most fragile, devastating way. 

“You’re not being fair.”

He has no neat question to summarize all the bafflement your accusation inspires in his lately cloudy head, but the wildly confused look on his face must be prompt enough.

“I’m trying really hard to respect your space and boundaries and not upset you but my feelings are hurt, Spencer, I don’t know how they couldn’t be. I feel like you don’t even like me anymore. I’m embarrassed around you because I feel like I care about you so much more than you care about me. And then you—and then you wake up one morning and you think it’s okay to act like you love me again but I can’t—I c—” you stop, obviously frustrated—now crying in earnest and lacking the words. “You can’t be mean to me. I know you’ve been through a lot and I’m sorry but you can’t treat me like that. I’m a person, too.”

His chest aches and he swallows down barbed wire.

“I’m not acting like I love you. I do love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything in my life. That’s not an act.”

It’s not an adequate response, but your words are still spinning in his head until he can’t keep up with them. He’s not used to this, anymore. The language you two had developed is so foreign now. 

Maybe he just doesn’t know how to talk to you. 

Resignation—a too-calm recognition softens the stormy look that has brewed on your face. As soon as it’s gone, and you’re looking at him placidly, he realizes he’s afraid. 

“Well, that’s not enough,” you whisper. 

Spencer feels like he’s been shot as you push the covers aside and slip out of bed. And he knows what that feels like. 

“Where are you going?” And then louder, when you don’t hear him because you’ve already left the room, “Where are you going?”

He follows you through the apartment as you march purposefully for the door, slipping shoes on and grabbing your keys and coat. 

You barely look over your shoulder as you leave, slamming the front door behind you. Things shake from the impact. A mini earthquake. 

Spencer is too stunned to follow you. 

It’s not until a few minutes later when he goes to call you that he realizes your phone is still sitting on your bedside table. He stares at it, tasting metal, because he has absolutely no way to reach you or guarantee your safety. There’s no way for you to call him, or anyone, if you get in trouble—and he fears that you’ll retaliate against him by doing something stupid and dangerous. 

He only just manages to stop himself from calling the police and asking them to start looking for you. Only just recognizes it to be an overreaction. 

Besides, he’s not feeling particularly fond of the criminal justice institution these days. If it came down to it, he’d trust himself and his team over the cops any day.

The team. They’re always a resource. If worst comes to worst, he thinks, robotically making coffee as he tries to talk himself down, and she doesn’t come home before dark, I’ll call all of her closest friends. If she doesn’t come home before the morning—the thought makes him feel sick—I’ll deploy every fucking resource at my disposal. 

Maybe that’s an overreaction, too, but he has to find a way to self-soothe somehow. Planning makes him feel better. Being prepared for the things you never see coming makes him feel better. It’s impossible, of course—but the illusion of control is stubborn and so seductive. 

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. 

At around 2 PM, he receives a couple of texts from Garcia that are a massive relief. 

Penelope: She’s at my apartment

Penelope: BE NICER TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!

The series of emojis that follow (including an octopus?), he doesn’t even try to decipher. He simply drops his phone and sighs deeply into his hands, releasing an extreme amount of paranoid tension that had been tying him into knots. Lately, he’s had this sense that everything is fleeting—that the things he takes for granted are painfully, violently impermanent. It doesn’t take anyone with a degree to figure out why he’s been feeling that way, but it’s so all-consuming he’s not sure how to cope with it. Just a few days ago, he’d been wondering how to break up with you. Now he’s asking himself how the fuck he thought he’d be able to do that when he’s barely functioning after a few hours without you.

It’s a question he still hasn’t answered by the time the front door opens at 10 PM. It’s clear by the deer-in-headlights look on your face that you hadn’t been expecting him like this—leaning over the counter, half-empty mug by his hand, staring at nothing in particular and waiting for you to come home. Neither of you have changed clothing since this morning—not that you could—but you look apprehensive as you close it behind you, never facing away from him. The whole thing is like a teenager being caught sneaking back in by a weary parent. 

For a moment the silent confrontation stretches into the horizon, a non-specific point as neither of you seem inclined to be the first to talk. You just watch him watching you—leaning against the door rigidly as if you can’t get far enough away. But he’s too tired for this. Too worn out. 

“How’d you get home?”

You swallow. 

“Penelope.”

Spencer nods slowly, rolling his bottom lip between teeth and finally looking away. 

“You really should have brought your phone.”

You scoff, peeling yourself from the door. 

“Of course that’s what you’re worried about.”

It’s the same situation as this morning, but in reverse—him following after you down the hall as you storm toward the bedroom. 

“Wh—should I not have been? You scared me—” he says your name, barely catching the door before it can slam in his face. “I was worried about you.”

“Why?” you face him, laughing bewilderedly as if the situation were at all funny. A kind of manic energy crackles from the surface of your skin and in your eyes that renders him unable to think of a reply. “Because you thought I would get raped and murdered and then you’d be sad?”

“Yes!” Spencer yells, eyes widening as he fails to contain his frustration any longer. “That is fucking exactly why I was scared!”

You step forward, getting in his space. It jars him, momentarily—he wants to get away from you. Being angry and so close to you is terrifying. What if he lashes out? What if he hurts you? He’s seen crimes of passion. His blood is freezing in his veins. 

“Of course you didn’t give one single fuck that I left you. You didn’t think for one fucking second that I might be tired of this. That wasn’t what you were scared of at all.” For every inch you near, he backs away. Another scorned, bitter laugh from you that feels like poison coursing through his entire circulatory system. You notice everything, eyeing him up and down as he cowers from you. “What is this, Spencer? If you hate being near me that much, just fucking break up with me.”

You’re close enough that he can see the tears welling in your eyes, but he’d know they were there even if he couldn’t observe them. He would hear it in your voice. He would feel it. But he can’t do anything about it. Right now, he’s paralyzed. 

“If the only thing holding you back is wanting to spare my feelings, just fucking do it. This isn’t better. I don’t give a fuck if it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too, but I’m not just going to ignore it anymore.”

There’s no more room. The wall is at is back. 

“Honey, please back up,” Spencer breathes. Last time his back was to a wall, he’d been gagged and beaten. Don’t lash out. She never hurt you. It wasn’t her. 

“Don’t tell me what to do!” you shout, as tears begin to spill over your cheeks. “Either break up with me or stop telling me to go away!”

At that moment, as you break down and your words become muddled with sobs, you raise your fist. 

Spencer watches it approach his shoulder as if in slow-motion. 

On instinct, he catches your wrist.

There’s a lull as he waits for something to explode, for something to go terribly, deeply wrong—

But it doesn’t. 

He realizes his grip is gentle. He realizes you’d never actually hurt him like that. He realizes how little resistance he’d found when he stopped what was sure to be nothing more than a petulant, petty bump against his shoulder—a maneuver that wouldn’t have hurt in the slightest. It was nothing more than a desolate, childlike display of feelings bigger than you know what to do with. 

In the second that it takes him to realize all of this, to realize he is not endangering you in the slightest, nor you him, you’ve begun to truly sob. Standing just inches from him, head angled down as he holds your wrist carefully, you are the picture of a girl who has been running on empty for a very long time and has nothing left to give. Spencer twines his arms around you, tucking your head under his chin and slowly rubbing your back like he’d never forgotten how to hold you. It stuns you, and the tears pause for just a second—before you’re wrapping desperate, weakened arms around him and sobbing even harder, albeit silently, into his shirt. 

“I don’t want to break up,” he whispers, his own voice shaky with understated emotion. “I’m sorry. Please don’t say that. I don’t want that.”

“What’s wrong with you?” You cry, a desperate plead caught between sobs that wrack your body against his against the wall. And he knows it’s not an accusation. It’s not an insult. It’s a question borne of confusion and fear. It’s what a child might ask a sick dog while tears stream down feverish cheeks. And it’s completely appropriate, considering he never tells you anything anymore and he’s only just realizing how scary that must be. Spencer is back from prison but you may as well still be living alone for all that you know about him. He tangles a hand in your hair and holds you against his chest, breathing you like nitrous oxide. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers. The room beyond blurs as he stares at nothing, focused only on the tingly euphoria of feeling you under his hands clashing with the ever-present and crushing shame that he couldn't do it sooner. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you—to be sorry.” Shuddering breaths and gasps still cleave your sentences in half, and Spencer listens so intently he thinks there might be harmonics hidden in the layers of your voice. He clings to every syllable like you’re wielding the word of god in a five-foot-something body. “I just miss you so m—much. I want you to—to love me.”

“I do,” he promises immediately, lips pressing to your ear. “I do love you. So much. So much.”

When you don’t respond, he’s not exactly surprised. He almost asks what he can do, what you need—but is quite sure that’s not the right move. Instead he doesn’t say a thing. Only holds you.

Later, you’ll pull back and he’ll swim in your teary gaze, and then kiss you. He’ll trace silent apologies into every inch of your skin under the torrent of the shower, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make you understand. But for now, for the first time in months, you’re holding each other, and that’s all either of you need.  

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Danny Is A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

(not in a necessarily bad way and it's by Clockwork's design)

Bats, or Constantine, or the JL, or whoever you want to be close to Danny in this prompt, don't notice it right away. It takes them a while to figure out its not purely coincidence. And even after they do figure it out, they still have their doubts.

The thing is, it doesn't work all the time. It also doesn't seem to have a system or a schedule to it, nor is it any kind of a superpower, as far as they can understand. By God, does Danny have way too many superpowers, but most of them are consistent, and yet this one... is weird. Weirder than anything they've seen before, and they've seen a lot, okay.

It also only works if Danny does it without thinking.

"You know what'd be perfect right now? A cheese sandwich," Danny says over the comms, in the middle of the fight with Dr. Freeze, "A warm, grilled cheese sandwich just out of the toas- Owch, what?" There's a pause. And then, "Guys, you're not gonna believe it, a cheese sandwich just smacked me in the face! I think someone threw it out of the window or something!" Danny sounds bewildered, but excited, and there's a sound of chewing from his comm now. At least he is eating, so that's good.

"I fucking hate robots," he grumbles the other day, punching his way through the Brainiac invasion in Metropolis, with no comm and only for the Supes to overhear, "No, correction, I hate only evil robots. The ones that interrupt my astronomy class. The ones that shoot motherfucking lasers and walk like crabs, and ruin a perfect day, and- I wish- aw, fuck, no, that's bad wording. Don't wish for shit. But if all these robots would just suddenly, miraculously malfunction and stop attacking me and the whole city, that would be, like, real nice of them."

A few minutes later, something goes wrong with the Brainiac's control over the army of robots, and all of them just stop moving and fall down at once. It is deemed as a chance, a lucky shot, a coincidence. Supes keeps quiet over what he heard Danny say.

"Oh, you bitch-ass fruitloop, you know what I want?" Danny yells at Plasmius, as the ghost is laughing like a madman, "I want a fucking brick to fall down right on your head, like, right now! Maybe that can set your brains straight for at least five minutes!" And even before he is finished talking, there's something falling down from the sky and hitting Plasmius's head. It's not a brick, to be exact, it's Miss Martian's shoe, though. She has no idea how it even came undone and fell from her foot. But it did somehow knock Plasmius out cold, so there's that.

It doesn't happen all the time. Red Robin does the math - the improbable accidents only happen in about 26% of the situations, given that Danny says something. It's by no means a reliable power. It also doesn't happen only during the fights: there were numerous times when Danny just said something like 'I wonder if the cafeteria serves garlic bread today' and sure enough, there's garlic bread there. Even if it was not on the menu. Ever.

They try to question Danny himself, but he has no idea. He doesn't even notice the coincidences most of the times - which is not surprising, knowing that they only happen in one out of four situations and Danny is known to have a short attention span. So, after a few unsuccessful investigations and failed attempts at calculating how this even works, they all give up. It has never jinxed anything, as far as they know, so everyone just leaves it be.

Danny is just magically lucky like that.

Meanwhile, Clockwork is having a good laugh about it. Danny's suggestions amuse him, and it's funny to watch the other superheroes having a mental breakdown over it, so he rigs the timeline from time to time. Just a little.

[ihatethecrowdsyouknowthat]

pillow talk - spencer reid x fem!reader

a night well spent fizzles out into soft words exchanged in pink sheets.

genre: fluff wc: 1019 warnings: mentioned sex, their first time together, casual nudity, inexperienced reader, insecurities, reassurance

It was soft, comforting even. Of course intense because how else could your first time together be? It was him, after all. As you lay, heavy pants finally returning to normal, steady breaths, a hand comes up to smooth down your hair and a kiss is gently pressed to your head.

"How do you feel?" Spencer asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

It proves to be a difficult question. A response seems counterintuitive, like it would demean the moment into something that has to be assessed. An answer has to come, nonetheless.

"I don't know." And it's the truth.

He hums thoughtfully and nods, running a hand down your shoulder. "Good or bad?"

"Good... like my brain's empty. If that makes sense," you answer.

Your head, on Spencer's bare chest, does, in fact, feel foggy. Before today, you were both too scared of the intimacy. Something changed the moment you felt him move his grip from your hip to your waist, like he was worried that he might make you uncomfortable. You didn't want that. It happened only after convincing him that you wanted to go further than the usual groping and hand stuff. Now you're unsure how you feel. Having someone you've been seeing for a while suddenly inside you is bizarre and always will be. You also can't seem to shake that voice that sounds a lot like your friends, telling you that he'll leave after he gets what he wants. Your mind is simply a flurry of everything that anyone has ever told you about intimacy. With Spencer, it was different, though.

Your hand finds his and you mindlessly toy with his fingers as you murmur, "you've done this more than me, correct?"

"Correct."

"How do people usually feel?" you ask softly.

"Everybody's different. You don't need to feel good." He takes a breath and explains in a matter-of-fact tone, his hand lifting above your shoulder to gesture while he talks, "the rush of serotonin and dopamine into our system can leave some people feeling sad or tired once those neurotransmitters decrease."

You nod, finding yourself understanding. It has been a while since you've engaged in any form of intimacy.

"That makes sense."

He nods as his fingers drop to continue the irregular patterns on your arm. His chin rests on your head. "So? How do you feel?"

Again, there's no correct answer to his question. It's a complicated experience with complicated feelings attached. But one thing is for sure, "I'm happy."

"I'm glad. I am, too," he hums.

A smile floats over your lips before a thought occurs and you have an inkling as to how he'll choose to reply to it. Your head lifts and you turn so you're now partly on your side, giving you a perfect view of his face in the soft glow of the afternoon. With the curtains closed, his skin was basked in pale yellow light, the pink of your sheets contrasting the pink of his cheeks.

"Did I do good?" you grin.

He finds you gorgeous, your sickeningly sweet smile making him gaze down at you in pure awe. It's the complete and utter truth when he responds with, "very."

You can't help but tease, "best you've ever had?"

"Yes. I don't think you could've fumbled that badge of honour if you tried," he smiles, his hand gently cupping your cheek, a rough thumb wiping away invisible tears.

Something about the sentiment gets to you. After all, you're nothing but a hopeful romantic. But you're also just a girl.

"So, even if I was bad, you'd still lie and say I wasn't?" you raise your eyebrows and bat your eyelashes.

His eyes narrow but the smile on his face shows you that he's not really upset. "No... I meant that I think I like you too much to not enjoy everything you do."

"Oh," you flush. Why does he have to be so perfect?

The hand on your cheek moves up to brush some of your hair back. "Yeah, oh."

Spencer's different than the guys you've interacted with. He's everything that little girls everywhere dream of. He's Prince Charming. That's why when your lips meet his and the sheet falls back, his eyes never once glance down. Perhaps he's an agent and an individual with three PhDs but he's a gentleman above all else. He never once wants to make you feel like he's not here for you.

When your lips break apart with happy smiles on both of your faces, you take in just how silly he looks. His hair is messy from your fingers, his cheeks are flushed and—your favourite of all—he's covered up to his stomach in pink sheets. The giggle that leaves you is unnecessary and unasked for.

He can't help the smile that comes from hearing your laugh. "What?" he mutters, brows furrowed.

"You just look... so very silly in my bed," you explain, a lovesick grin on your face.

"Oh. Well, I can't help what you choose as interior design."

You sigh dramatically, shaking your head like a disappointed teacher, "I suppose you can't."

The smile on his lips only grows as you act your ass off to seem sad by his comment.

"Perhaps I should also purchase pink sheets?" he suggests jokingly, tucking yet another stray strand behind your ear.

"I really think you should. It would complement your room and it would make you think of me so that's a bonus," you nod. You're unable to stay serious, though, the corners of your mouth lifting despite your efforts.

Spencer nods back, his bottom lip pushing up as he hums decisively. "I'm sold, let's go to the store," he says with an impressively straight face.

You laugh hard, beaming up at him with nothing but pure joy. You find his commitment to the bit amusing and, honestly, endearing. He points his thumb towards the bedroom door with his eyebrows raised in a silent question. Playfully, your eyes roll and rest your face in the crook of his neck.

"I'll get pink sheets if you want me to," Spencer softly mutters.