#ill just have to deal with everything feeling like a conscious decision

[kutyaharapas]

[reading shoujo manga] sighs dreamily. i wish i knew what romantic love felt like

[urupotter]

So while I've said before that I don't like the HP subreddit, I still frequent it because occasionally I read something insightful. This is one such case, where I read a reading of Lupin that I'd never seen before in response to a comment of mine analyzing the shrieking shack confrontation between Snape, Remus, Sirius and the golden trio, where I mentioned that Lupin was a gaslighter so I wanted to share. It was created by reddit user u/UsuallySiSometimesNo and is posted here with his permission. We had a little conversation in the comments. Read it under the cut

UsuallySiSometimesNo: That struck a cord with me, too. I didn't think about that on a conscious level before, but when I read it, it felt instantly true.

Honestly, I think the strongest examples of Lupin gaslighting are actually done to himself. The biggest, character-defining example, I think, is that after finding friendship with James, Sirius, and Peter, he becomes so desperate not to be ostracized from them (due to his issues of self-worth and his personal brand of impostor syndrome) that he deliberately and routinely feeds himself false narratives about their behavior until he can no longer tell fact from fiction, even as he's experiencing it.

Their relentless bullying of Snape? A childhood rivalry.

Their casual bullying of other students? Kids being young and stupid.

Their clear disinterest verging on contempt for Peter, someone less fortunate and vulnerable with whom they're supposed to be good friends? Just mates being mates.

Even actions taken against Lupin, himself, are revised in his memory to be 'no big deal', because he desperately needs that to be true. Let's pretend for a moment that Snape indisputably deserved to be slaughtered by a werewolf the night Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow. Sirius did not send Snape to be killed by any old werewolf. What happened that night was that Sirius - one of Remus' best friends, if not his actual best friend - attempted to use Remus' curse/illness against someone (which is a big enough betrayal on it's own) without ever telling Remus that when he woke up in the morning (covered in blood and in the presence of a shredded corpse) it would be to find that he had committed the act he was most petrified he might one day commit. In setting Snape up to be killed by Lupin, Sirius, at the very least, risked Lupin's sanity, and, at the very most, risked Lupin being sentenced to death.

Now, I understand that Sirius wasn't thinking about all of that when he did what he did, and I, as a someone removed from the situation (and armed with the additional character/situational knowledge granted to a reader) can even understand why Sirius' own trauma led him to grant such a blind death sentence to Snape (which I think is related to a point you made elsewhere, u/Adventure_Time_Snail, about Sirius' "violence towards those who trigger his fundamental fear of wizard fascists" because of his abusive upbringing). But Lupin's perspective is not one of an unbiased observer. And once James found out what was happening and pulled Snape back before it was too late (which, I would think, was more to save Lupin than to save Snape) and once Remus awoke the next to day to discover everything that transpired the night before, I find it hard to believe there wasn't at least some conversation about the true gravity of the situation. And yet, even all these years later, Lupin doesn't bat an eye when Sirius not only doesn't display shame when the event is mentioned in POA, but offers something akin to regret, NOT at the fact that his actions could have gotten Lupin killed, but that that they DIDN'T get Snape killed: "It served him right...", he sneered. etc. etc.

I think the obvious question here, is 'Even disregarding what Sirius did to Snape - how can Lupin be okay with the knowledge that Sirius has no regret, at all, for what he did to him, even now that they're adults?' Well, we're not in Lupin's point of view in the books, which means we can't hear his internal monologue, but I think a satisfactory answer to the question is that he's done a substantial amount of internal gymnastics in order to get to a point where he doesn't see this as a big deal, or even as something that he has a right to be upset about.... just like a gaslighter does to their victim.

Again, because we're not in Lupin's POV, we can't point to the exact instances that such internal gaslighting took place, but, based on what we do observe from Harry's POV (and based on external knowledge of gaslighting as a true-to-life concept) I wouldn't be surprised if Lupin so desperately needs everything to be okay that he derides himself for feeling bad or betrayed, that he calls himself stupid for thinking terrible things that have happened to him are a big deal, that he wars with himself about how people who are his friends and who are so good to him and who are better friends than he thinks he deserves could possibly do something to harm him/others, and that he beats down whatever emotions and senses and gut feelings he has that tells him something his friends have done might be very wrong. What we see in the books is a man who makes excuses for his friends and harbors a warped perception of reality in much the same way victims of gaslighting do, and he seems to exploit his own insecurities in order to instill doubt in his own experiences in much the same way perpetrators of gaslighting do.

I can't help but think that, by the time Lupin tells Harry that Snape harbors a particularly strong hatred for James because James was a better Quidditch player, Lupin has become so adept at gaslighting himself that he actually believes it.

tl;dr: One of Lupin's defining characteristics is that he gaslights himself out of a desperate need to be liked by others, since he has a difficult time liking himself and seems to believe all of his relationships are incredibly fragile.

Urupotter:

This is a fascinating reading on Lupin that I've never seen. I don't read him the same way, in that I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience. (I view him as the anti Snape, great conscience, but abysmal moral courage, while Snape had unbelievable moral courage but a shitty conscience. Their arcs are about growing their moral courage and their conscience respectively) Realizing that his negligence almost got Harry killed is what triggers his arc, concluding when he goes back to Tonks and Teddy after running away, taking responsibility for his actions for the first time.

But this reading is so interesting that I'll have to reflect on it. Do you mind if I post it on my Harry Potter tumblr blog? I'll credit you of course, I would just like to discuss it with my followers. Of course if you don't want to I won't.

UsuallySiSometimesNo:

Honestly, I think the lack of in-depth conversation about Remus Lupin (at least compared to fan favorites Sirius Black and Severus Snape) is a missed opportunity and a shame. Don't get me wrong, I can discuss Sirius and Snape until blue in the face, but Lupin's arc is just as powerful in an understated (and often underestimated) way. The muddy, oversimplified truth is, without the fatal-flaw decision making of all four Marauders throughout their lives, the series of events proceeding the first chapter of the first book don't happen, and the story we all know and love never comes to be.

And speaking of sparking a discussion about Lupin...

I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience.

You know what? I agree. And that's what makes him so interesting, I think. He is constantly and dependably full to bursting with internal conflict. When his friends are wrong/do something wrong/say something wrong, he can and does immediately identify the situation as wrong. When he does something wrong, or when he does nothing in the face of something wrong, in that moment I believe he knows the full weight of the situation. Like you said, he has a strong conscience, as well as a deeper, perhaps more nuanced understanding of right and wrong than do, for example, James and Sirius. Now, Lupin needs his friends. They're not just people to hang out with, they're a lifeline for him. He's not going to engage in conflict with them if there is even the slightest chance that he might lose them (for a variety of reasons, he lacks, as you said, the moral courage to do so). But he's also a generally decent human being, and with a strong conscience comes the capacity for sincere guilt and remorse. So, not only will he not confront his friends, he needs it to be okay that he doesn't confront them. And it's at that point that I think the self gaslighting is triggered.

But Lupin is intelligent and nobody's fool, so the gaslighting creates only a thin layer of ice over the problem. Just enough of a cover that he can live with the things he would otherwise deeply regret. I do think he believes the alternative reality he makes for himself to be accurate as long as it isn't really challenged. Crack the ice, though, and we see him express remorse and reveal an underlying awareness of past and present truths. But then the moment is over, and the war between the uncomfortably and full weight of the truth and his need for the companionship of his friends returns, and then the gaslighting begins again, allowing him an easier return to his closest friends (and eventually his closest friend, singular, after the others have been taken from him as was his fear all along) without conflict and with minimal strain on his conscience.

Once Sirius, the last of his original chosen family is gone - truly gone, as opposed to 'located elsewhere' as he was when in prison - following OOtP, suddenly Lupin's arc takes off at a greater speed than at any point prior. He's now literally lost all of the people he'd been terrified of figuratively losing. Although there are still people and things he cares about, he isn't as dependent on any of them as he was on those foundational friendships, and the finality of their absence allows him to finally grow beyond his stifling cycle of reality shifting, confront the truths of his reality and his circumstances, and, as you said, finally take responsibility by returning to Tonks and Teddy - a decision that, ultimately, triggers his death (I don't mean to imply that it was a bad decision or that it's the sole cause of his death, but Rowling has said that being 'out of practice' contributed to his loss at the Battle of Hogwarts, which makes for a fantastic tragedy).

I don't mean to overstate the importance of this theory or imply that it's always present when he's on-stage, and, as with anyone, many other elements, of course, factor into his actions/words/motives. But I think it's a fascinating potential component of his character all the same. If you have more thoughts on this, I love to hear them - and I look forward to reading the discussion on your blog!

So what do you think? Is this a valid reading of Lupin? I'd say it is, but I'm interested in reading my followers thoughts!

[moomingitz]

It’s... interesting looking back at the Jak and Daxter series, because when the second and third games first came out during my edgy teen years my mindset for them was mostly, “OMG Jak is now a buff and rugged edgy boi, he’s saying curse words, and has a literal edgy dark side to him. And Daxter is a big playboi who doesn’t hide his love for bewbs. Jak and Daxter is no longer for babies but for mature big kids like me!”

But looking at the series now; Holy shit, Jak has had it rough. Where do I even begin? This is going to be long, so get comfortable:

First, Jak was ripped away from his father at a very young age due to an insurrection. Then he was kidnapped by one of the people who was responsible for it, with the intention of being used to awaken some ancient Precursor technology, but luckily he somehow escaped and then was taken in by a rebellion group.

Then he was sent back into the past to be raised by Samos, the Sage of Green Eco. While that was a good thing for Jak, since he was able to grow up in a loving and supportive environment, what happened to him before that is something that would still be traumatic to a little kid especially in the form of something like Separation Anxiety. While this goes into headcanon territory, I can’t help but wonder if that had a lot to do with why Jak was the mostly silent type before the events of the second game. But thankfully he was lucky to grow up with two best friends like Daxter and Keira.

Surely you think that would be the end of misfortune Jak would have to go through. Wrong!

Fast forward to where he’s now 15 years old and everything seems all good and exciting after he and Daxter saved the world from Dee Snider and his twisted sister. Sure they didn’t accomplish what they set out for by turning Daxter back into his old humanoid self, by Daxter is content staying as a furry anyway. At least they saved the world and found some ancient Precursor technology. But hold up! Turns out it was some kind of rift gate and the moment they activated it some giant bug monster pops out and they’re all separated and thrown into some new place they’ve never seen.

Literal seconds later, before Jak or Daxter have any time to react or process what exactly just happened and where they ended up, Jak is immediately arrested and knocked unconscious, despite doing nothing wrong. He’s then tortured and experimented on for the next two years, in hopes of turning him into a living weapon by pumping Dark Eco into him. Keep in mind Jak was only 15-16 years old during those nightmarish two years of his life. But his BFF Daxter never gave up looking for him and eventually rescued Jak.

Upon busting out Jak has no damn idea where exactly he is, and when he does it turns out him and Daxter are now in a totalitarian, police state of a hellhole where never ending propaganda is blared everywhere you go, and where Jak’s only crime is just existing. Oh, and there’s currently an ongoing war between this police state regime ruling the city and some species called Metal Heads, so the territory outside the city is near inhospitable. So just simply leaving Haven City isn’t really an option. It’s either deal with the Krimson Gaurd who will get on you for just sneezing in the wrong direction, or claw your way for survival outside the city walls.

Until finding Samos and Kiera much later, Daxter is the only familiar and welcoming face Jak still had until then(the only exception being Sig in the “welcoming face” department).

Oh, and it turns out those Dark Eco experiments gave JAk some dark Hulk like form that he has trouble controlling(at least that’s what the game tells us). Oh, and they eventually learn that this shithole place they found themselves in is actually their home 500 years into the future. Oh, and it turns that this little kid they’ve been having to protect from both the Krimson Guard and the Metal Head army is actually Jak’s younger self.

Despite all that, the rebellion group and many of the criminals they had to work with eventually warm up and even become their friends, the authoritarian regime eventually crumbles, and they kill the Metal Head leader. Even though Jak doesn’t go back to his childhood home in the past, Keira, Samos, and Daxter choose to stay with him in the future, so he’s definitely not alone in the end. Happy ending earned, and that should be the end of all the bad stuff to happen in Jak’s life, right?...

Of course that wouldn’t be the end of bad traumatic shit to happen to Jak!

Right after the events of the second game, Jak is not only blamed for the fallout of the Praxis regime falling and the Metal Head army’s demise, but he’s outright banished to the Wasteland, no thanks to some weasely council member, Veger.

But ya boi Daxter snuck out to join Jak in his exile, so at least Jak still has his best friend with him. Jak now has to survive in a Mad Max esque land after proving himself worthy to Damas, the leader of some refuge village. But it’s kind of good because he slowly gets on this guy’s good graces.

Oh, but later on it turns out this Damas guy is actually the very father Jak was forcibly separated from during his very early childhood. But, Jak only figured that out just as Damas was dying, and he didn’t have a chance to tell Damas that he was his son that’s he’s been wanting to find for years.

It also turns out this Veger douchebag was one of the people aside from Baron Praxis who was responsible for Jak being separated from Dadmas, and was the guy who kidnapped him in an attempt use him to obtain that ancient Precursor technology.

Of course everything works out in the end. But yeah... You see what I mean? Jak was put through the wringer during the events of this whole trilogy! He's done nothing wrong! Yet starting from a very young age he’s either been targeted or dragged into other’s messes for just existing, or for something he had no choice to do in order to survive. The only real thing he did wrong was dragging Daxter over to Misty Island, which led to him being accidentally transformed into an ottsel in the first place. But the events of the first games was all a lighthearted adventure anyway. Aside from that it’s been one unfortunate or traumatic event after another for Jak.

When letting everything Jak went through really sink in, there’s guaranteed trauma and the resulting PTSD this poor guy is going to have to address or else it will inevitably manifest itself in some way later on. Acting gruff and blase' will only work for so long. I know some people get tired with pieces of fiction being compared to Steven Universe, but Steven’s eventual mental breakdown seriously came to mind. And some people will say, “It’s just a vidya game, stop thinking too much into it.”, but there was a conscious decision to take this series into a more dark and mature direction after the first game. So, it’s a bit hard not to think about more possible unpleasant implications based on what happened in the sequels, especially when looking at the events of the games through the lenses of today.

Taking all of this into consideration is also why I think Daxter is seriously the “MVP” of the series.

Daxter grew up being Jak’s best friend, which I’m sure helped Jak a lot after being separated from his father and taken to a literal place in time completely different and unfamiliar to him. I’m very sure his time growing up in Sandover Village and hanging out with Daxter was the best period of Jak’s life. Even after Jak dragged him to Misty Island, accidentally causing him to be transformed into an ottsel, and sacrificing his chance to be turned back to normal in order to save the world, Daxter showed no hard feelings towards Jak and he even learns to like being an ottsel.

He spent two years trying to find out where Jak was being held prisoner in Haven City, and infiltrated the place once he did and helped Jak escape.

And despite not having any fingers pointed towards him for the fallout after the events of the second game, Daxter still chooses to join Jak in exile in the Wasteland.

Daxter has never shown any ill will towards Jak despite him being the one responsible for being turned into an ottsel, and he’s never really abandoned him even when he is given many chances to or a way to get himself out of really bad situations. Despite everything, Daxter is still the same quippy, upbeat dork of a friend Jak has grown up with.

I really believe Daxter helped a lot with keeping Jak’s sanity intact during all of the hell he was put through and beyond. If there was a guaranteed way for someone to sign their own death warrant with Jak, I think harming or outright killing Daxter would be it.

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

some scattered thoughts about what i’ve started calling the homecoming au, that au where maedhros and maglor come back to tirion after the war of wrath, end up prisoners-in-all-but-name in finarfin’s palace, and nothing is beautiful and everything hurts. credit for @sunflowersupremes for writing the au that for lack of a better word inspired me, credit to @outofangband for listening to me blather about this over dms, warning to everybody, this au is dark. it’s essentially about maedhros and maglor being abused for being mentally ill, talk of suicide, late stage fëanorians somehow getting worse, generally not a fun time. caveat lector

i feel like it’s worth emphasising that by the end of the war of wrath maedhros and maglor are in a bad, bad mental state

they’re so inured to violence death means nothing to them, and neither of them really remembers what it feels like to be happy. they’ve lost everything, whether to the fires of war or the maw of the oath. there are so many things maglor can’t let himself think about or he’ll tip off the precipice into madness, so many things maedhros has quietly put aside to deal with after the end of the world. they’ve got nothing left but ash and nowhere to go but their own destruction. they’re fully aware of the monsters they are, and they loathe those monsters as much as anyone else

finarfin’s offer of mercy feels like a miracle. it’s a way - it’s a way out, first and foremost, a way to somewhere else, because what could possibly be worse than this? maybe it’s even a way back to the dreamlike world of their childhood, when they were more than their sharp edges and they could look on the future without despair. i figure this is an au where maglor won that last argument, predicated entirely on the possibility of an existence without pain

maedhros is skeptical, but logics himself into going along. on one condition

‘please’ maglor tells their uncle, trying to let his guard down and show as much vulnerability as his pride will allow. ‘do not give us to the valar’

he’s more successful than he realises. the last remaining sons of fëanor have been growing visibly more and more unstable for decades now. even the elves who were once their closest lieutenants approach them with caution now

finarfin catches a glimpse of what his nephews have become. he makes a conscious decision to choose pity over fear

which - yeah, alright. maglor and maedhros need therapy, they need to process their emotions in healthy ways and build selves they can be comfortable in the skins of again. and the general mood in tirion is one of reconciliation. it was the younger generation that went to beleriand, so many people have children they feel like they’ve failed

but if they can un-fail these two, maybe there’s hope. maybe there’s a chance for them to heal

except, well. nobody who stayed in aman - nobody who’s seen cuiviénen, really, beleriand was nasty - can really process just how much healing needs to be done

like. i’ve said this before, but screeching furiously at each other at high volume for multiple hours is a regular thing maedhros and maglor do. they’re the last people in the world either of them is even slightly close to, their relationship is shot through with as much bitter hate as it is steady reliance, and really, who else can they yell at

it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism. their minders recognise this inside five minutes, i’ll give them that much

it’s just. their eventual method of stopping the fight, after trying and failing to talk the brothers down, is to jump them and gag them to stop them making so much noise

partially they were worried it might escalate into a physical fight, which to be fair, these screaming matches occasionally do. but partially they just wanted them to stop

(this is the first really big incident, but things have been subtly, uncomfortably wrong for a while now. there’s this vibe that everything would be so much easier if the brothers just behaved. acted like the nice normal princes they used to be)

(but they can’t. they’re trying (well, maglor is; maedhros is mostly going along out of resignation) but they can’t. and when all the little tensions of this supposed-to-be-happy-ending get too much, they take it out on each other, like they always do. what are they supposed to do, unleash their own corruption onto the innocent valinoreans?)

(as is usual with these shriekfests, it got vicious fast. it was maedhros saying that he should have just killed the both of them back in beleriand that makes their minders decide they have to stop this now)

the whole situation’s a mess. the way the non-exile noldor are thinking, if they can just put all the unpleasantness behind them, things can go back to normal and they can forget any of this ever happened

the valinoreans are trying to help, you understand. it’s just that their definition of ‘help’ involves sweeping everything under the rug so they can all be happy again

and everything the brothers do to remind people of all that makes them... uncomfortable

maedhros and maglor are never left alone. there’s always someone within at least hearing distance, keeping an eye on them. they initially say it’s for the brothers’ own benefit - so there’s always someone nearby in case they need help, like - but the first time maglor gets so frustrated he starts trashing his room he is immediately seized

the valinoreans get very good at stopping the brothers from doing the thing. they are less good at addressing the reasons why the brothers feel the need to do the thing

maglor is by far the angrier of the two. when he has a bad day, everyone around him knows it. he snarks, he glares at people from corners, he refuses to be at all cooperative. even on his good days, his mood never goes far above ‘melancholic’

maedhros, on the other hand, is quiet. he does what people tell him to, mostly. he sits in place and acts the perfect patient and only occasionally tries to kill himself. a poisonous plant picked here, a window’s lock subtly fiddled with there, he’s good at waiting for his minders to lower their guard enough he can take a chance

(neither of them are particularly violent towards the valinoreans to begin with, and their violent tendencies towards themselves, each other, and inanimate objects quickly recede. lashing out like that always, always makes things worse)

sometimes he’ll regress back into behaviours he learned in angband. the first time this happens and the valinoreans figure out what’s going on, he gets a very polite finarfin asking him to please stop equating them with the enemy, finarfin knows they aren’t settling in as well as they might but it’s very offensive to be compared to morgoth

still, they learn. there’s this one incident when maedhros is having a fit, and while all their minders are running about trying to make him stop, maglor, who happens to be in the room, is standing completely still, staring at nothing

one of the minders snaps ‘come on, help! don’t you care about your brother?’

... he does. they’re closer now than they were in beleriand, leaning against each others’ bodies, quietly holding hands. the palace is full of people all the time, but they’re still so isolated from the rest of the world

it’s just hard to protect someone else when you’re barely hanging on yourself

you ever write a perfect closing line, and also it’s 1:30 am? yep, yep, i’m going to bed. more tomorrow, i’d guesstimate three parts in total

[justaratswriting]

Batfam and Mental Health

orOkay so I love Batman and all the things surrounding it. Like the idea of a random rich man who happens to be an orphan just suddenly adopting a ton of children is ridiculous, and thoroughly entertaining.

But I am also a big fan of psychology, and learning about the mind. So mental illness and related things are fascinating to me. 

I notice that like strangely there is very little stuff about the batfam having mental illnesses or dealing with psychology or therapy. Don’t get me wrong there is still a lot addressing these things, but still with the things the family experiences you would think it would be a lot more prevalent in the writing about them, and especially fan fiction about them.

Like I think showing mental health through  beloved characters would be really cool and could be a tool to destigmatize them. Like showing hero's with them would make really great representation, people could see them and think Oh I can still be a good person and helpful even if my mental disorder makes it hard and for things like depression or ADHD showing which misconceptions are harmful and don’t work. 

I can also see this in the physical aspect, like I wish a hero would have something like chronic pain or one of the many invisible illnesses. To give representation and show how pushing through the pain can shut a person down for days. 

The specific disorders I think would be really interesting of the top of my head is, depression, Anxiety, POTS, Fibromyalgia, Chronic pain, eating disorders, nerve damage, ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Chronic fatigue, PTSD, c-PTSD, Autism, Elhers Danlos syndrome, And the one I really think would be interesting DID. 

Like fore depression, showing how hard it is to get out of bed. Not showing constantly being sad but showing how it can be numbing. Acknowledging that in a disorder like this logic doesn’t always win even if you are the most logical person to live. 

For anxiety showing how debilitating it can be. Looking into their minds to show the thought process, the mind fight itself and logic. Knowing their fears are unreasonable but not being able to shake the feeling. Show how for different people different things cause anxiety. 

POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, (super simply put it is a circulation disorder where upon standing up blood rushes to extremities and can cause all sorts of problems like fainting, pain in your feet, Dizziness, poor temperature regulation, etc. Also I am assuming people know what depression and anxiety is.) would be fascinating to me. Like having a hero that is constantly sitting down or biting down and pushing through the pain even a hero that has to slowly stand up. So in the middle of a battle being shoved down having to slowly stand up or risk fainting or vision completely blacking out for a while. Showing a hero who has learned to fight with no sight because of that very thing. 

Or Fibromyalgia (This one I am a little less educated about but from what I understand, it is a disorder characterized by muscle pain and tenderness usually with no known cause, so from what I understand it usually is diagnosed after a ton of other disorders are eliminated and the pain is still occurring, often also has affect on sleep and memory/mood.) Like showing a hero having a particularly hard patrol and having to take a couple days off and constantly going places or trying things to help with the pain. 

Or Chronic pain ( from what I understand the main difference between Fibromyalgia and Chronic pain is chronic pain has to do with the nerves and Fibromyalgia has to do with muscles, also Fibromyalgia has other thins to go with it like energy levels and mental functions so memory/mood.) Like a hero having constant pain even if they didn’t have a big fight, maybe showing them icing, heating, or taking pain meds and the rest of the family or team being super confused as to why. Before they know showing them freak out and worry that they went on a mission without telling anyone. Showing how it is a constant battle, that sometimes treatments will work and other times, for seemingly no reason they won’t. 

I would also like to see eating disorders portrayed by the bat family. Showing how it’s not always a conscious choice, sometimes it is more along the lines of choosing something else over eating. Showing how people can use it for control or to punish themselves. Letting there be a male example, reminding people that they can happen to anyone. Allowing people to have representation. Show a recovery, how it is not impossible for anyone but not down playing how hard it is. It is a true and hard fight, and show how it can sneak up on you and drag you back. Not just one easy recovery, that recovery is a choice. You have to want it but you also need help, it is a long hard process and accessibility is everything. Show a family member making them food, show them sometimes eating it and others not. Also don’t only show under eating show how people can’t stop themselves from eating. Having cabinets locked to keep people out, for their own safety. 

Or nerve damage, showing how years of their work and fighting can really mess someone up. Show someone suddenly losing all feeling or sensation in certain parts of their body or constant pain or even pinched nerves. Show how confusing it can be to not know what you are feeling. Show how weird it can be when you realize you are fine or that nothing is touching you or taking it in the opposite direction and not realizing you are hurt or someone is trying to be your attention. I would also love to see the batfam explain any of these injuries to the hero community or to the public. Maybe show the hero community really starting to look into mental and general health services. 

ADHD or also ADD, showing how people can use it but also showing how hard it can be to control and fight. How much it can impede focusing and show situations it can put people in. Show a hero forgetting a huge part of their plan and falling but because of some random information from a hyper focus they still save the day. 

Bipolar, showing the wild swings and how confusing it can be. Feeling like a different person, struggling with identity and their own decisions. Show them accidently pushing people away but also how hard they work to maintain family and friends that despite how unpredictable they can be their friends still stick around. Or if their friends can’t handle it show them peacefully and respectfully stepping out of their life. Show how hard that can be to except but that the future can end up better than you could ever hope. 

OCD is really one I wish we saw in the hero's. Show their routines and things they do. Show the thought process, like if I don’t properly put the dishes away in fourteen seconds the joker will escape arkham. Show how terrifying the thoughts can be, but show how detail oriented it can make people and the beautiful art and amazing work that they can do. Show a person putting them selves at risk to comply with their routine. Like ignoring injuries to write a report. Show them and family or friends working to change the routine. Show how hard it is the moments they want to turn back and continue and how much they want to stop but show them not giving up and making the differences they want. Show them accomplishing things, show their compulsions actually keeping them safe.

Or even chronic fatigue, Show the fight each morning. Them saving energy, the disconnect between how exhausted you are mentally vs. physically. Show a hero that 50% of the time physically is too exhausted to be in the field so they offer technical support. Show a hero crashing, suddenly just not having enough energy to finish patrol or even get home. So someone has to come pick them up. Show them getting stuck in a fight and how hard it can be to do anything much less a fight. 

Let the characters have PTSD or c-PTSD, show flashbacks and being stuck in your head. All of the bat family has lived through horrors please show it affecting them. Show how they get help how they work through it show what can happen and how bad it can get if it is unaddressed.  

Show them having autism and how it is just a different way of life that there is nothing inherently wrong with it and how the ignorance that surrounds it and similar disorders can hurt and affect people. Show how it can be simple things that can show it or affect it. Try and look at it from their perspective and what things happen that should not just because they way someone is. 

Elhers Danlos syndrome, show the pain, the misdiagnosis, the process, the fight. Show how disabilities like this and several others including ones I have mentioned can cause a person to need medical equipment such as wheelchairs and braces. Show how not everyone using a wheelchair can’t walk. Show how limiting it can be and the precautions you have to take but don’t make everything about how hard it can be. Show how using a Wheelchair while not ideal can open up so many opportunities. Show them actually being able to go on family vacations and amusement parks because they have a wheelchair. Show how important it is to have ramps and accommodations for similar things so people can participate and so people can actually go places they want. Always show how hard people with disabilities and such work. Show them trying to get treatment and trying new treatments show how it isn’t as simple as getting a knee brace or two. 

And finally coming to one that absolutely fascinates me, DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder formerly known as multiple personality disorder. But don’t do this one completely uneducated, it is already a very stigmatized disorder. Show how Alters communicate. Show how they all work together and that they were made so the body and mind could survive. Make full characters just put them in one body. Show the confusion once they find out, show them slowly realizing and learning signs and what happened to them. Show each of the Alters having different friends and maybe understanding and knowing the family different. Show the different reasons and setups systems can have. Show system responsibility and each Alter working on themselves and to make a life for the system. Show the roles Alters will take. Show the horrible process of fragmenting and what things can cause it but also show healing and people supporting and accepting systems. 

Overall showing good parts of all the struggles people can have but not ignoring how hard they can be or glorifying them to people who don’t understand. Showing misconceptions and how support can affect these disorders. And most important in my mind, giving hope and a future to look forward to for the people with these disorders.

[reginaldqueribundus]

Dealing with a certain segment of the Star Trek fandom these days feels like Russian Roulette (sorry, Chekov). When someone says they don’t like TOS/TNG/DS9 etc. it’s like oh whatever but if they say they don’t like one of the new shows I instinctively brace myself, because is it just gonna be a regular opinion or are they gonna follow up with an incomprehensible rant about “forced diversity”?

And to my followers / friends who don’t like ST Disco/Picard/whatever, this is not directed at you. I may love all Star Treks under the sun but that doesn’t mean everyone has to. I’m just mentally tired of dealing with grumpy Gen X-ers on Facebook who hate everything made after 9/11 because either a) their nostalgia goggles are strapped on too tight and are squeezing their brain or b) they’re a bigot and they aren’t very good at hiding it. I feel like the host of the worst game show in the world and it’s called Is This Racism Or Just White Straight Male Entitlement?

And this applies to all media, really. I wish people would appreciate a piece of fiction for what it is and not based on whether the characters are Black or gay or female or whatever. (And don’t forget, a piece of media having diverse rep doesn’t make it inherently good. It’s completely valid to enjoy a piece of fiction solely because of that, but it doesn’t make anyone who dislikes it categorically wrong.)

It’s interesting how guys who spent 20 years telling us it didn’t matter that most of the characters in popular media were mainly white, exclusively cisgender, heterosexual men, immediately shit themselves when a small fraction of pop culture starts focusing on women, or POC, or (gasp) daring to have a single LGBTQ character. It’s rampant political correctness gone mad, I tell you! Everything used to be about them, all the time, and now it’s only about them most of the time! And these people react with such outrage, as if the writers and producers broke into their home while they slept and held a knife to their throats.

The fact is, sometimes diversity has to be forced. When an iconic science fiction franchise has spent 50 years of its existence pretending gay people don’t exist, steps must be taken! When studios and writer’s rooms have spent decades, intentionally or otherwise, excluding female or POC voices from the creative process, a conscious effort must be made to balance the scales. And if we can counteract centuries of systemic racism, well, then maybe we can achieve this pie-in-the-sky social utopia these fanboys think we live in, where any person of any sexuality, race, gender, faith, or income level can just walk into a Hollywood studio and be hired as a writer / actor / whatever “based solely on talent”.

And also, let’s be real here. Two gay men and a pair of non-binary teenagers (one of whom is dead) hardly represents “pushing an agenda”. Two whole Black women in a ship of hundreds isn’t “forced diversity”. The only thing it represents is society, and it’s a poor representation at that. When you look at planet Earth as a whole, white people are the minority. If Starfleet purports to represent all of humanity, should it not reflect actual humanity? Anywhere between 5 and 10% of the population identifies as gay, bi, etcetera. Two gay characters out of the dozens and dozens we’ve seen over the years is barely even 1%. Now, if Lieutenant Stamets were to seize control of the U.S.S. Discovery and eject all straight crewmembers into space while his lover, Dr. Culber, concocted a virus to euthanize every filthy hetero in the Alpha Quadrant, and the show depicted this as being a good and correct decision, then you might be able to accuse the show of “pushing an agenda” (plus it would be hilarious). But having a crew of mostly white people in a future where Earth is one united world is not just culturally anachronistic, it’s downright inaccurate. Even if you’re one of those “diet racists” who claims not to actually wish ill on any of these groups in real life, you’re still contributing to the problem. Everybody just wants to be seen. And people who are different from you aren’t going anywhere, so why not let them in?

This post kind of got away from me, but I guess my main point is like what you like, but don’t ever tell me you dislike something because it’s got “too many” minorities in the cast or it’s “forcing a feminist/gay agenda down our throats”, or I will crack an egg on your forehead.

[scribble-blog]

Soulmate AU, part 26

masterpost     next

Long awaited, written gleefully and then put in a drawer and now half rotten like the poor raspberries in my fridge :( jk jk it’s still good! Maybe not on its own, but if you put it in a smoothie...? This analogy has gotten out of hand-

*****

Damian carefully etched the next line in, following the sweeping curve of the dress as best as he could remember. The page in front of him was a disaster of things half drawn, a hand stretching or an interesting branch of the tree nearest his window, but they’d all been lackluster, and he’d finally admitted to himself that he was still thinking about and worried about Marinette. About what she would say when she chose to speak to him again. And she’d appeared on the page, the way she looked after taking on that first enemy, the hem of her dress already torn and blood streaked, her hands stained but her expression fierce after the man had gone down, the way she’d looked over at him and almost seemed to expect him to be surprised.

He had just finished another swirling flower on the parts of her dress that hadn’t been tarnished when he heard Alfred’s knock.

“Master Damian,” the cool tone of the butler cut across his scattered thoughts. “You are needed in your father’s study. There is someone who would like to speak to you.”

His heart skipped a beat without his consent. Marinette hadn’t texted-

“It is a Mrs. Sabine Cheng.”

He froze. Marinette’s mother. Marinette’s mother who was utterly unknown to him beyond what Marinette had mentioned of her and what he’d found with cursory research on Marinette. “I’ll be there momentarily,” he called back, aware that it was rude of him to not actually open the door and say that to Alfred, but he needed a moment to prepare himself. He’d never had to worry about meeting anyone’s parents before except his own. Not that those instances hadn’t been ordeals- meeting Father was obviously a disaster at first, and anytime he was forced to meet with his mother about anything was unpleasant for just about anyone who knew either of them- but-

He just wasn’t sure what to expect. Especially as she had chosen to come here, to the metaphorical belly of the beast, to request to speak to him.

He stood, shaking out and stretching his hand. The sketch would remain unfinished like the rest, for now.

Alfred wasn’t waiting when he opened the door, but then, dinner was soon. And he certainly did not require an escort. He made his way there, ignoring the fact that Todd was following and interested, completely aware that his siblings would be desperate for any scrap of information they could gather on this meeting. If she was already in Father’s study, she’d spoken to him, but it was not Father who summoned him, it was her. Father had stepped out, then. But dinner would be soon, and Alfred would not allow tardiness, even if his soulmate’s mother had murdered him, so he supposed he might be safe. As long as his siblings kept their noses out once the door shut. And it was Father’s study, so they would, out of deference to him if nothing else.

Todd still might.

He stopped at the closed door. Did he- knock? Walk in? He-

Actually, he realized, he was being panicky and scatterbrained and utterly ridiculous. He rapped once, sharply across the door as a warning before opening it and stepping in, closing it immediately after himself.

Sabine Cheng was short. It was the first thing his brain chose to notice, shorter than Marinette, if only by an inch or so. The same dark hair and kind smile when they weren’t thinking about their expressions. And then she focused on him, her eyes growing slightly colder, the smile more fixed.

He had been scared of this?

He held out his hand, waiting for her to take it. “I’m- pleased to meet you, Mrs. Cheng.” That, at least, was not a total lie.

“And I you, Damian,” she smiled softly. Damian kept seeing the way her eyes caught on some of his scars- and the ensuing pity that crossed her face. “You have no idea how pleased I am, to be able to meet you.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Her voice was- concerned? Over Marinette, perhaps? She might be faking the softness-

“Of course,” she continued, “Marinette never said anything about her soulmate, but I knew that whoever was waiting for her must be special.”

“I-“ Damian floundered under her kind eyes. How did he deal with this? “Thank you? Your daughter is very special, too.”

“Of course,” Sabine nodded congenially. “Though to be frank, I was worried when she told me you followed her to Paris without her knowledge or consent. But a fine boy like you? I’m sure you had good reason.”

Ah. Her eyes had changed in a split second, from kind and motherly to kind and motherly and colder than a frozen sea. He found himself feeling very small in front of her. And as she said, for good reason.

He could buckle down or he could sit here and do his best not to antagonize Sabine Cheng. And as was quickly becoming easier since the last few days, he opened his mouth and found he actually did want to explain himself.

“I did not go about it as I should have,” he said, bowing his head towards her. A sign of deference. “I acknowledge that I was wrong in how I acted. And I assure you, I am honoring your daughter’s wishes and shall wait for her word.”

Her eyes were narrowed with ill disguised displeasure at him now, and he ran through the words in his head again. What could he have said?

“In the future,” he hurriedly continued, “I will prove myself to be worthy of your daughter-“

“Are you afraid of me, Damian?” Her voice was soft, and he held back the tender memories of Talia, who never spoke to him as such, but would definitely use this voice on those who had displeased her before showing them exactly how wrong they had been.

He smoothed his expression, meeting her eyes. Those, at least, did not seem angry, the way her voice did. “You’re my Soulmate’s mother.”

“So which part scares you?” She stared at him. “The Soulmate part? Or the mother part?”

He felt himself lean back a bit instinctively, less than any conscious choice. But the moment he did, Sabine’s face changed. Her eyes still seemed- conflicted, or concerned, but he realized it was not aimed at him as she nodded very decisively. Or perhaps it was aimed at him, but the conflict went past that. “Well, that’s settled, then. I will need to know, of course, what your favorite pastries are. We’ll be sure to make them when your family comes to Paris,” she smiled at him.

Damian, for all that he kept his face as flat as he could, felt very confused. “I enjoy-“ he blanked. “I’m not sure.”

She patted his face lovingly, a sweet gesture that she almost had to stretch to accomplish. He felt very confused. “We’ll just have to have you try them all, dear. We’ll make some fun out of it.”

He nodded along. “Why aren’t you angrier.” It was blunt, and definitely less of a question and more of a demand, but Damian did not want to be confused or emotional or anything anymore and Sabine was not helping in that quest and returning briefly to his usual persona of being tactlessly curt was practically a balm to the feelings that he had been doing a very good job at pretending he didn’t have for years.

Sabine just laughed. It sounded almost like Marinette’s. “Oh, honey. Marinette can deal with you on her own when you two inevitably get into arguments. No, my job is to make sure there’s nothing seriously wrong,” she shrugged casually, “and then to be a mother. To both of you, as I see fit.”

Oh.

Damian let that rock him back a bit, mentally. Marinette’s mother wanted- to mother him? Here? Now? That- well, it made the concern and the anger and the kindness make sense. He saw Talia’s face again, heard her voice in that deadly velvet tone that Sabine had just used- to judge if he was afraid of her?

Damian was not sure this was something he wanted or was open to at all but Sabine seemed content to let him grapple with it silently.

“Thank you,” he said shortly, “for the concern. It is… appreciated.”

Sabine beamed up at him. “You’re welcome. And now, I know it might be a tad early, but would you be a dear and show the dining room? I’m not sure I’d like to wait here until it’s time to eat.”

Damian forced everything back under control in his mind. Emotions, feelings, stray thoughts. “Will you be joining us, then?”

“And Marinette, of course, once your Father returns with her.” Sabine chuckled. “Though I’m sure it won’t take long.”

He opened the door for her, stepping out to the left and leading her down the hallway. Marinette would be there soon. Marinette was coming here. For dinner.

Locking things down in his head did not work.

[funkymbtifiction]

Is there ever a time where a Fi dom will hide, or at least “downplay” their true feelings/true self? Like if they know it will hurt another person and they don’t want to do that, or if they don’t want negative attention in a social situation so they’ll fade into the background? Or is that strictly Fe? Could a Fi user value teamwork, and get frustrated when people don’t contribute from a Te point of view and/or clash in values of “working together and helping each other?” I feel pretty confident I’m a Fi user now because I’m ALWAYS self referencing and even when I’m thinking of others, it’s from my own perspective of how I feel and what kind of person I wanna be (i am not naturally selfless, but i want to be a selfless person and make conscious decisions in group settings to put other people first so i could be a good friend/person according to my values—unless i REALLY feel a certain way then im the first to ditch the group literally or figuratively like “im fine on my own you do your thing ill do mine” lmao), and I’ve never felt so called out as I do when reading about inferior Te outbursts. But these behaviors throw me off. I guess it would have to do with the why, right?

And back to an old question: how would parenting impact a Fi user, like I was a very rebellious and overly emotional child and had a mom (and teachers) who did everything she could to make me “appropriate,” and so while I feel fine when I’m on my own, I clam up around my mom or “mom like” figures (i get very panicked around authority figures and get a little teachers pet-y with them out of fear) and try very hard to act Normal and the way im expected to. It’s really just about me avoiding criticism, but when I read posts on like, Alyssa Green from The Prom who struggles with hiding herself to please her mom I get a little confused. Is it different because my focus is “i am very afraid of being criticized or punished or hated for being who i am” rather than “i want this other person to be happy and to like me?” Or is my understanding totally wrong or just surface level?

FPs conceal their true selves a great deal of the time, because as feelers, relationships are important to them and they want to be liked. They also tend to take criticism harshly and feel easily offended, so around people they know will ‘disapprove’ of them (either through assuming such, because they know this person and their stance is different on things the FP cares about, or through previous experience of being judged and rejected), naturally they will clam up.

Fe/Fi are alike in their desire to be accepted for who they are, but Fi comes from a place of hiding oneself (or going the opposite way and flaunting how different oneself is) and Fe comes from a place of automatically thinking from someone else’s point of view.

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary (bird model) + lion secondary (bird model)

I’m feeling really lost when it comes to my secondary. I’m fairly sure I’m a Snake Primary with a strong Bird model. But My secondary is tripping me up and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve been severely depressed for about 6 years, dealing with PTSD for 12, and dealing with anxiety since middle school. I’m also getting evaluated for ADHD. I’m getting help so don’t worry. So, here we go.

You seem pretty okay. I’ll keep an eye out for possible burning though.

Bird: I do think I have a Bird model. I plan things, I research the heck out of things when I need to make a decision, I’m always asking for advice (like now…), etc. But a lot of that seems driven by anxiety and fear of messing up. I literally never asked for advice until middle school, which was when the anxiety started. 

We have us a Bird secondary model that you built as a coping mechanism.

I do love to learn languages and I like to watch videos on YouTube about historical fashion and stuff like that. I used to read constantly but I’m so burned out that lately I haven’t read much. If I have a new interest, I can never do things by halves. I also have a huge cookbook collection and a huge collection of quotes on Evernote. I love puzzles and figuring things out. But yeah sometimes I’ll just be like “let’s check every book about tea/socialism/the regency era out of the library.” Then I text my Double Badger friend who is super into tea about it and she responds, “Just enjoy drinking your tea, what are you doing??” Okay now I’ve confused myself and I’m wondering if I really am a Bird. Or maybe that’s all ADHD hyperfocusing. Probably? Ugh. Who am I??

So your Bird model is also something you use to play, that’s good. And you love being social too. People focused Bird? 

I don’t think I do the Bird Actor thing, though occasionally I’ll pretend to be a character for fun when I’m walking on the sidewalk or something. And I’m not a strategist? When I play chess or RPGs or write I just kind of try to go for it and figure it out along the way. 

You’ve got a bit of an improv-for-fun thing going on. Snake? Lion?

But that doesn’t always end up working so I do now plan out my longer pieces of writing to avoid plotholes and getting off track.

Coping mechanism Bird secondary model. 

I’m very conscious of how I frame things. Like if I sense incoming drama, I make sure to speak up first and frame things in my favor so that people will be on my side. It’s not automatic, though. Like as soon as I realize there’s going to be some sort of confrontation, I’m thinking to myself very quickly, “Okay. To get people on my side I need to talk to them before the other person does and frame things X way and make these facial expressions.” Usually this does not involve lying, just telling the truth in a way that favors me. 

This honestly sounds pretty Actor Bird. This sort of thing is a lot more… automatic, if you’re doing it though a Snake or a Badger secondary.

I was a terrible liar until high school when I made the effort to learn how to lie effectively

Here’s that Bird secondary again, picking up the slack. 

I do feel like I tend to reflect people a little, though? Like if people are talking about politics and make it clear they’re super conservative, I will just talk about the few things that I agree with. 

That could point to Courtier Badger…

I don’t like arguing with people anymore because I’m scared they won’t like me or will be offended. This goes double after the last two elections when multiple people dropped me for disagreeing with them and other people said I made them uncomfortable for…having what I see as generic normal opinions. I’m also just not good at thinking up arguments on the fly at all because everything gets all jumbled in my head and I forget details so arguing makes me feel stupid. I tried to do debate one year in school… Oh man what a disaster. If I’m arguing in writing though and I can look stuff up? They better watch out.

Wait, whoa. You like arguing for fun? And the only reason you don’t is because things got more intense after the last election + arguing in real time is annoying since sometimes your memory doesn’t cooperate? Oh that’s Lion. Lion secondary or Lion secondary model.

At the core of it though, I don’t really lie unless it has a purpose (getting something I can’t get otherwise, trolling friends for a laugh, avoiding punishment) and isn’t a big deal.

“trolling friends for a laugh” sounds pretty darn Lion secondary. As does the implied getting-into-trouble that “avoiding punishment” would require.

Will I answer on a form that I’m x religion that I was raised as to get into a Facebook group I really want to be in? Yes. If someone straight up asked me what religion I am currently practicing? I would NEVER lie about that. The thought makes me feel physically ill. I also lost those family members because the thought of pretending I liked the loser of our recent election was disgusting. And if I truly hate someone because they deeply hurt me or a loved one, nothing can make me pretend to like them. The most I can do is be coldly polite in that situation and usually I can’t even manage that.

That’s Lion. I could see that go back to either a Lion primary or secondary, but if you’re happy with your Snake primary, I’m going to put down another point for Lion.

But like…would I lie about my address to get a library card for the much better county library system next to my tiny independent city? (My state is weirdly structured). No guilt at the thought of that and I’ve seriously considered it but they require proof of address.

You’re a little bit of a rule-breaker, aren’t you? And that’s a side of yourself you really like. That’s Lion. 

Basically if it will help me get something I need, I’ll feel better about lying, but otherwise I feel uncomfortable and usually I try to be at least “technically” truthful. Which sounds sort of Lion? Oh wow I thought I was going to be asking about Snake vs Badger but instead it’s Bird vs Lion. 

…ADHD Lion with fun and helpful Bird model? IDK. 

I think so :) 

[duchessofostergotlands]

Hi Jess? How are you? I have an "I need someone with Tumblr experience" question. How do you deal with people who use your posts as a base to promote hateful or uninformed stuff ? Imag8ne like, you'll say something about the SRF and they'll reblog bashing Victoria. Honestly, I can't take it. On one side I know it's better to ignore them and let them deal with their own poison; but on the other hand I hate to see one of my posts used like that, and feel like answering every single bad reblog! I know the SRF is more neutral territory, and the nutcases are usually, with the Brits, but I would really value your advice!

Hello anon :) I'm good thank you, how are you? I am an old lady in fandom terms so happy to help if I can haha.

It's a tricky thing. There's this idea from some parts of this fandom that a blogger is personally responsible for content added in reblogs and I totally reject that. I think for me even if I wanted to respond to every single nasty or inaccurate reblog, I couldn't. Partly because I often don't get a notification about them - it's better now but still not consistent - and partly because I have a full time job and I just don't have the time or energy to monitor all my notes that much (that sounds incredibly wanky, like I'm some influencer or something but it's true lol). Even if you have a lot of time, disconnecting from your activity page can really help you to avoid seeing anything negative and allow you to just focus on what's coming up on your dashboard from people you chose to follow.

On the occasions when I do see something - perhaps I do get a notification or the reblog comes in when I am active on Tumblr anyway - I have made a conscious decision to not engage with absolutely everything. And that has actually helped a lot because the more you engage with a topic the more people are going to try and engage you on it further. If I answer every negative message I get about a royal it encourages more people to chime in and prolong the conversation whereas if I delete and block, it stops that in its tracks and I won't get any similar notifications from those people. I don't think it's necessarily wrong that people answer all the things they get or respond to all their reblogs, it's just not a sustainable way for me to do things. So if you want to answer them all, have at it! But if you need to protect yourself, that's absolutely fine. To quote Dorothy Parker, "I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to." I try to choose my battles. Sometimes I just answer things because I have time and I'm particularly annoyed lol. But usually I tend to only respond to things if they are promoting something I know to be false or if they are dangerous for other people beyond the royals. So for example when people reblog my post to talk about how Meghan has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, that is reckless and dangerous behaviour. That encourages diagnosing people you've never met with an illness you don't have any education in or personal experience of, and given how stigmatised PDs are that's not something that I appreciate. But if someone reblogs a Victoria post just to say "I hate her style" then I'm probably not going to bother with that. It's not necessarily something that's enjoyable to have on your post but they are within their rights to think that way and it's not going to be a good use of my time to get in to an argument about what is ultimately just me taking issue with the way they express a subjective opinion. So yeah, that's how I do it. Everyone will have their own kind of rules and boundaries which you need to work out on your own but I think it's helpful to think through them and start being quite deliberate about it.

So TLDR: If you find it really hard not to engage then don't regularly check your activity page and perhaps turn off notifications on your phone (even if just during certain hours). Block people who are outright hateful rather than giving them a platform by engaging with them. And establish your own boundaries so that you are only getting involved in something when you have really strong convictions and think that speaking up is the best course of action.

[theskyexists]

thingy DOESN’T believe that synths will kill their human creators?? thats pure bullshit. of COURSE synths will kill humans in teh future if they attain consciousness that is LIKE that of humans.

also there’s no fucking way this premise makes sense bc the military would have gotten their hands on synths the moment they became capable of holding a gun and hitting shit with accuracy and walking securely through multiple terrains. never fucking mind asimov blocks

the next episode immediately goes back into also blaming mum hahahahaa. i mean it makes sense for the kids but narratively it’s quite....interesting. though ofc matts is right and Laura should deal with whatever hurt Tom is. in fact, that explains the way she’s so....bruised

‘yeah we care about her - how can you not get that’

FINALLY. toby truly lays down the law for his father!

I LOVE old american guy giving Niska lessons in humanity! YAY for the elderly!!

I LOVE OLD AMERICAN GUY NOW!!! HE’S NISKA’S DAD NOW!!!!!!

jezus. david elster was a fucking creep (niska) and a total shithead (fred). turns out that their creator was a terrible dad. this explains much about leo also.

wow Matts you’re being a little insensitive to your mother who’s divulging a SHITLOAD of childhood trauma. but i guess that’s just relating this stuff to what she knows. ok she - oh that’s so - aw

does Matilda REALISE that Max is just like Mia???? anyway - i LOVE MAX SO MUCH AAAAGGHGHGHGHGH.

she does

I love it when Max speaks and Leo is quiet for once. just keep him knocked out!!

oh no toby now you’re going too far. i am deeply concerned that the two men in this show will radicalise into synth-killers

ALL THIS TIME I ALSO THOUGHT SHE WAS HIS GIRLFRIEND BUT SHE WAS HIS MUM : ‘’‘‘‘(((( oh Nooooooo. it was already sad and tragic but now it’s 50x times more

has this synth-policewoman fallen in love with Pete?

‘you look young generally’ OH PETE lol. that made me like you again

DOES HUSBAND ACTUALLY MAKE THE FATAL CALL??? they’re really making him a villain!!!

it IS a trap huh...

SHE REVEALS HERSELF RIGHT AFTER SEX AND A DECLARATION OF LOVE. SHE’S SO CUTE AAAAA

but this was so stupid aahadhladsflajsdf. he’s much less than you think of him!!!

oh no now leo and max think it was the family that betrayed them!

why would he jump over when he could have used himself as a hostage

(had to look up whether he really dies just to be sure)

did they just expel a sister????

oh god

laura is such a pushover! what about Mia’s feelings?? she just heard that Mia had been inside Anita all along! then bring in the man that....well...it’s not rape in the moral....sense....but in the emotional sense it kinda was

she didn’t practice trigger safety??? POLICE SYNTH WOMAN?? i guess she really is a cop

i knew american dad was dead the moment Niska and he bonded. i love this series! that sounded like sarcasm but i mean that i love the characters and the story.

NOT GEORGE!!! NOT GEORGE!!!! im actually crying

ah - Fred is leo’s BIG brother

‘I was there the whole time’ OH DAMMNNN MIA!!!! balaghglabalghghagh stop

Laura and Mia are becomign real friends!!!!!!!!!!!

Matty didn’t MAKE leo show her. lol.

FRED YOU’RE NOT CLEAN!!!!! he implanted something!!!! or....is fred aligned with him after all? has he been infected somehow?

at least Mia is trying to keep things together.

they are making Joe suffer for his stupidity. not very cathartic tho

Mia desperately tryin to stitch the whole human fam back together. LOL

oh that’s poor timing. Niska you damn zealot

why does Kate keep making the wrong decisions. stupid bastard

teh opening theme is great!

DID LAURA THE LAWYER JUST GIVE UP HER PHONE?? ARE THE COPS ALLOWED TO DO THAT

Joe up for redemption!

OH SO HOBB IS ACTUALLY WORSE THAN WHAT HE SEEMED. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!! MAKE THE SLAVES CONSCIOUS AND KEEP THEM SLAVES!!!!!!

kill this man now.

KILL HOB! KILL HIM!!!! NARRATIVE KILL HIM!!!! they really baited the audience with Hobb possibly being more sympathetic than it seemed. NO HE”S ACTUALLY MORE EVIL THAN YOU THINK!!!!!!!!!!

Kate’s so stupid. I hope she gets to be a hero

Pete’s up for redemption!

Come ON Kate!!!!!!!!! jezus was living the life of a simple cop and finally sleeping with the guy you love really SO BAD? they’ve had a worse life on the run than Kate

oh her name is KAREN??? lol i thought it was kate.

why would Hobb be concerned about it becoming clear that these synths have feelings and shit. wouldn’t that help with the marketing? i mean it is a risk what with Niska having killed a man

he’s letting them go entirely?? he knows he’s got Fred so he’s like - eh, ill just lean on this family first

does Karen understand the implications of Hobb having a failsafe?? will she TRULY do anything to stop suffering from proliferating - because this TRULY will cause suffering

I guess fred has been instructed not to kill himself - or reveal himself.

TOBY YOU GOTTA REALISE - Help Fred tell the rest. oh god i dont want to lose fred....wait where’s max. i didn’t see anybody carrying him around. also - wasn’t his brain falling apart?wasn’t that time-sensitive? aren’t they GRIEVING?

Lol - why would they not have made copies? They should have told him- if you bother us again we transmit to the internet immediately. they could do that easily!

Oh max can walk again

these fringes are so BRITISH AHAahaah

Karen is a total wildcard. only Pete being in danger will help though i think

Joe doing a very last Bastard Husband thing by being offended that his wife didn’t reveal her horrible childhood trauma to him as some kind of insult to HIM

AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH JOE WHY

‘you didn’t want to hurt us’? what

‘i can’t do anything’ - uh you can bring Mia and Max back to life but you can’t free Fred??? FRED!!!!!!!!???

FUCK! the next goal in this whole series is to free FRED!!!!!!!!!!

why the fuck would Niska walk in heels

couldn’t they restore fred the same way as they’re gonna try and restore max????

why doesn’t he tell Karen about how Hobb has enslaved Fred??? hello? and wants to use the code?? this last bit is a bit strange. what convinced her?

she’s an ideological character but she was moved by emotion?

oh they canjust share - no wires or anything

Karen realised she couldn’t rely on Hobb to kill them - so she went out alone to kill them. aha.

what. that was. out of nowhere

why the fuck did she go from ultimate KILL YOU ALL to - alright then let’s do this in one second. how extremely poorly written or directed or both

what?

she wanted to be part of the fam. then she left. the laura tells leo to let her go. whY?? this last bit is so STUPID

all they need is some coloured lenses and they can fit right in. just GET SOME COLOURED LENSES LOL

i know they trust laura now but like - the program is on a harddrive in her hands - but Hobb knows she’s associated with them. WHY would you put it in her hands. They know what hobb can do with it.

isn’t leo ever gonna say soryy for leaving his adult/9yearold sister in a brothel?

sophie woke up at an opportune moment

leave an android in the corner of a USED church....THEY SHOULD BURY HIM SOMEWHERE. THAT’S BETTER THAN BEING A GODDAMN SLAVE

PETE TOOK OFF HIS GLASSES TO LOOK YOUNGER FOR KAREN AHAHAHAHA

it’s funny - the synths can’t cry but their eyes sure can glisten.....

HOBB JUST LEFT THE FAMILY ALONE AFTER THAT???? WHAT LOL. he knows what Karen is and. ok this last episode was a mess. but everything that came before was great. and the theme is also great

the character stuff in this is great. well. not this episode bc like. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ?? THAT RECONCILIATION WITH JOE WAS SO FUCKING WEIRD. HE FOCUSED ON HIMSELF AND THEN -- she didn’t want to hurt the fam? what??? what the fuck are you on about ???

anway things did not at all come together.

[thepeacetea]

The Past that Made the Future

Hey guys! So, um, here’s a new story. This will probably stay a one-shot, but here you go. Hope ya’ll enjoy! Peace!!

He was suppose to protect her. He promised he would. He promised her, and now she was gone, all because he couldn’t keep his promise. He swore he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, to the only person that was able to bring light back into his life and now she was gone. All because he couldn’t protect her. Because he wasn’t strong enough, or fast enough. He should have taken the bullet. If he hadn’t frozen on seeing the gun that madman had, his firecracker would still be here. She would be safe. She would still be here. But he froze, and now she was gone.

It was almost a year now. Almost a year since she was killed. Since his life spiraled out of control. Since everything came crashing down around him. As the minutes ticked on, drawing closer to the time of her death, he remembered.

11:40

The first time they met was unforgettable. He quite literally fell for her. He was running late for one of his classes at Gotham University of Art, Science and Technology. Sprinting down the stairs, his nose buried in one of his textbooks, there was no way he could have seen the small girl running up the stairs. One second, he was running down the stairs and the next, he was free falling.

Bracing himself for the collision with the unforgiving floor, he was instead met with a softer landing, promptly followed by the sound of something snapping. Sealing himself, he waited the pain to come, but five seconds past and no pain came. And then the ground shifted, groaning in pain. His eyes few open, locking on the soft ‘floor’ beneath him. To his horror, a tiny girl lay under him, face twisted in pain. The shutter of a camera snapped him out of  his horrified trance. Scrabbling off the girl, his apology came out in a incoherent, jumbled mess.

“I - I am so - are you - please tell me your - I didn’t mean - I wasn’t looking and – do you need - I mean,” He tried to say, to many things pushing to the forefront of his mind and his mouth couldn’t decide what to say first. The students surrounding them could only snicker at they young Wayne’s mishap. Many of them relishing in the accident if only to have some dirt on the young heir.

“I – I think my arm’s broken.” Groaned the girl, who was gingerly trying to sit up, cradling her right arm.

Those words sent him in a bigger panic. He not only knocked a girl over, landing on her, but he also broke her arm.

“I- I’ll take you to a hospital. Do you think you can stand?” he asked, frantically searching for his keys.

“I- I think so. Do, do you have anything I could use as a sling, to support it? She asked, shift the weight of her arm slightly.

Tearing off his over shirt, he did his best to make a semi-comfortable sling for the girl. As he finished with the last knot, he glanced up, meeting her eyes for the first time, his breath catching. One of the most stunning pair of serine blue eyes stared back at him, studying him.

“Let- let’s get you to a hospital.” He managed to say, forcing the words out from the constriction in his throat.

They somehow managed to get to his Jaguar without aggravating the girls arm any farther. The ride to the hospital was tense. His mouth couldn’t seem to shut up, he couldn’t keep track of what he was saying as he tried to focus on the road and the condition of the girl beside him.

“Hey, listen. It’s ok. I don’t blame you, ok. It was an accident. It could’ve happened to anyone. But I need you to breath ok. Can’t have you passing out on me in the car.” She said, snapping him out of his panic state of mind.

“I- I fell on you, in front of the whole school! I broke your arm! How are you not mad at me?”

“One, it could have happened to anyone and if those people say otherwise, they’re jerks! Second, it’s not the first time I broke something, and knowing my track record, it will not be the last. Third, you already apologized, so you can stop, because like I said, it was an accident and I forgive you. And fourth, I think I may be able to get out of some assignments with a broken arm!” She said, laughing at the last reason.

The sound of her laughter caught him off guard. Not only was she not mad, but she was laughing it off. Just who was this girl?

“I’m Marinette by the way,” she said, almost as if she read his mind, extending her uninjured arm to shake his hand. Glancing at her for a second, he saw a friendly, welcoming smile adoring her round face as her eyes twinkled with a light that he couldn’t pinpoint.

“Bruce,” he said, reaching over to grasp her hand, slightly surprized at the strength of her grip.

“Well Bruce, I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

 She had been right about that. In the six weeks she was wearing the cast, Bruce insisted that he help her. He even went so far as to sit in on some of her classes just he could help her take notes. He had never been one to warm up to anyone quickly, even when his parents were alive. But this girl, Marinette, there was something about her that drew him in.

She had always known what to say to him, even if he didn’t want to hear it. She was always there for him, and in time, he learned to stand up for himself and for others.

11:45 p.m.

“ . . . and I wasn’t getting any inspiration, like nothing. So I decided to climb on my roof, you know, to get a look at the stars and skyline and get some fresh air. While I was up there, looking over the city, I saw something fly through the night. I couldn’t tell what they were, and then one of them flew through the light. They were bats! And I watched them glide through the night, I suddenly go hit with this . . . wave of inspiration.” Marinette told him as they walked through the halls. They planned on getting lunch between their classes, and she was using their time to fill Bruce in on what had inspired her latest work. While he wasn’t . . . fond of the night terrors, he was impressed by his friend’s designs.

As they passed on of the chemistry labs, raised voice floated through the air, causing the duo to pause.

“ . . . simple freak, just do our assignments and we’ll leave you alone. Deal?”

Bruce knew that voice, Graham Alexander Towers the III. A spoiled rich brat whose family came from old money.

“Look, I’m not g-going to do your assignments anymore. I- I don’t have enough time to do my assignments.” a nervous voice countered, but it was so soft and low that Bruce almost didn’t hear it. Harsh laughter cut off whatever the other person was saying as the others cawed.

“You hear that boys, the coward thinks he has a back bone. Listen freak, unless you want to scared of turning corners, then you do it. After all, being scared is all your good at.” Towers sneered.

“And I suggest you develop a health dose of fear, cause once Pr. Adam’s finds out that you’ve not only been bullying someone else to complete your assignments but also threatening his top student, well, let’s just say that it’s not gonna be pretty.” Bruce’s voice cut through the chemistry lab, startling the occupants.

Spinning around, Graham locked eyes with Bruce, and for a few long moments, no one moved. The two heirs held each other’s gaze, Graham with ill hidden anger and Bruce with smug satisfaction.

“Wayne.” Graham spat.

“Towers,” Bruce countered politely, like they were discussing the weather. “I highly suggest that if you don’t want Pr. Adam’s to find out, then you leave him alone. If you try anything like this again, lets just say that the Towers’ name will be a little more mared then before. After all, the press will jump at the chance to do a story about how the Graham Alexander Towers the III was bullying a top student at G. A. to do his homework. It’ll be pretty and I don’t think your father will be very happy about that. I mean, he barely kept your last scandal under wraps.”

Graham considerable paled at those word. Wisely, for once, he kept his mouth shut and just stormed out, muttering curses under his breath. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Bruce turned to the other man in the room, who was looking at him with ill concealed awe.

“You’re Crane, right?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, yes, I’m Jonathan Crane. It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Wayne. Thank you for that.” Jonathan said, shaking Bruce’s hand with enthusiasm.

“Bruce is fine, and don’t mention it. I’ve seen your work. You’re a top chem. student and I would hate for you to not reach as far because of Towers. Keep up what you’re doing, cause I have a feeling you’re going to do something big someday and blow Gotham out of the water.” He said, sending the young man a smile before leaving only to run into Marinette, who he had left outside the classroom. The last thing he wanted was for her to become a target of Towers. Heaven knows that family has it out for the Wayne’s. The look she gave him made him slightly self-conscious.

“What?”

“You’re a good guy, Bruce. A really good guy. I’m proud of you.” She said before turning on her heels leading them back down the hallway, leaving a stunned and flustered Wayne behind.

 When he defended Jonathan Crane, it had been an impulse decision, but that marked the beginning of a change in Bruce. He was no longer the quite boy who didn’t pay attention to others. He started standing up for others more after that. He became a force you didn’t want to cross, especially if you crossed someone he cared about. That became very evident at the first gala he took Marinette to.

11:55 p.m.

The night started out amazingly, though Marinette had been a nervous wreck on the way to the gala, but once she stepped through the doors, everything changed. She practically light up when she saw the interior of the building. High archways, pillars of black marble, gothic architecture, the place screamed beauty. Everyone was curious of the girl the Wayne heir had brought as his plus one. They all knew how closed of the boy could be, so the fact that he even had a date was a shock to the upper class. But when they saw they Asian beauty he had on his arm, they were blown away. Compared to Bruce’s 6’2” frame, the girl’s 5’6” with heels, looked so small and fragile.

The women, once they saw the girl’s dress, instantly started flocking to her, asking who designed it. The black, off the shoulder dress, had a fitted bodice with a high-low skirt, something that wasn’t common. The front ended a little above the knees, while the back spread out behind her. the inside of her skirt was a beautiful blood red, creating a stunning contrast. But what really caught everyone’s attention was the fact that if you looked at the dress, especially the skirt, it looked like a bat. Like one hanging upside down, ready to fly. The pure creativity and beauty of it was mind blowing. When they discovered that she was the designer, she had nearly half the gala coming with requests to commission her for the next gala.

It was around halfway through the party that Towers got drunk and forgot exactly who he was dealing with. He had been getting a little handsy with most of the single ladies there, and all of them rather enjoyed the attention they were receiving from the heir of one of the richest and oldest families in Gotham. But he made the mistake of putting his hands where they shouldn’t have been. On the Asian beauty Bruce brought. One second he was trying to sweet talk her into one of the side rooms to ‘get acquainted better’ and the next he was on the ground with a bloody nose.

“What the hell, Bruce!” Towers yelled, shooting the man in question a glare as he  desperately tried to stop the blood dripping from his nose

“Keep. Your. Hands. To. Yourself.” Bruce growled out, not so subtle putting himself between Marinette and Towers.

“Why should I? None of the other girls seemed to mind. Besides, she should be grateful someone of importance and influence showed any interest in her.” Towers shot back, not noticing the growing rage that radiated off the young Wayne. Nor did he take stock in the glare he received as he stood, meeting it with a mocking smile as he sent the girl behind Bruce a wink.

Suddenly, Bruce grabbed Towers coat laps in a crushing grip, hauling him uncomfortable close. It was only then that he felt a twinge of fear. He had never seen Bruce angry. Ever. And by the looks of the crowd, neither had anyone else.

“Let me make this clear to you, and I’ll use simple words so you can understand. Mari doesn’t need any ‘help’ from you. She never has and never will. And if I catch you trying anything like this with my girlfriend, well, we’ll find out who the real prince of Gotham is. So let me say this one more time. Keep. Your. Hands. Off. My. Girlfriend! Do I make myself clear?” Bruce growled out, his blue eyes, which had always been soft, guarded, and compliance, were blazing with such an intensity that startled everyone. He looked like an actual Wayne, and it made the other families nervous. They knew, all too well, how much power the Wayne name carried in Gotham alone, not mentions the rest of the America or the world. If they had to describe a Wayne in one word, it would be dangerous.

All Towers could muster was a shaky nod of understanding. Even drunk, he knew better than to disagree. Stumbling when he was suddenly released, Towers watched as Bruce shot him one last look that promised retaliation if he broke his word before gently grabbing the girl’s hand muttering ‘Let’s go’. The crowd parted as he lead the two of them out, everyone watched as Bruce tucked the girl against his side, leaving a certain level of chaos and shock in his wake.

“So . . . girlfriend?” Marinette asked as Bruce drove them back to the manor.

Bruce could only flinch at her word. He had hoped that she hadn’t caught that part, not that she couldn’t have considering that everyone in the vicinity had heard him, but he could always hope. Glancing over at the person who he could truly call his best friend, only to find her facing the window, chin propped on her hand as she watched the city past them by. He couldn’t read her, and that scared him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, let alone feeling. But as the city lights flickered over her features, he couldn’t deny what he was feeling. He loved her. He was so in love with her that it hurt. She was his friend, the first real friend he could remember. She made him feel safe and cared for. He didn’t have to attempt to portray an image for her. Heck, she didn’t even care about his name. To her, he was just Bruce, the awkward boy she had met on the first day of university who happened to break her arm. She had changed him, and he couldn’t thank her enough. But that friendship, that platonic love had turned into something more for him. He wanted more. He wanted to be more with her, but he didn’t want to risk what they had. He couldn’t lose his best friend. He couldn’t . . .

“Because if you mean it, and I mean, really mean it, well, I wouldn’t object to it. I. . . I like you, Bruce. More then a friend should, and I don’t know where to go from here.” She said, cutting through Bruce’s spiraling thought.

For a moment, his brain shut down. She liked him? Marinette? The girl with the most creativity Bruce had ever seen? The girl whose culinary skills were the only one’s that made Alfred’s pale in comparison? Who always smelled of sugar and spices? Who, no matter how much she had on her plate or what she was doing, would drop everything if her friends needed help? The girl who was the only real person Bruce had ever met?

“ W-well, in that case, would . . . would you like to go on a date with me?” Bruce asked, stuttering over his. The seconds that followed where the longest of his life, there was no going back now.

“I would love to.”

 The months that followed where the best of his life, and there was nothing he would have done differently. If he thought that he had been happy before, he had never been so wrong in his life.

11:56

It was six months after they started dating. Six month of pure bliss. Sure, they argued like any couple, but Bruce would change anything they had. Though their arguments were few and far between, every time he saw her angry, even when it was directed at him, he could help but notice how beautifully terrifying she was. She honestly reminded him of a firecracker. Beautiful when exploding but none the less deadly if not handled correctly.

They were walking around the manor grounds, simple enjoying one of the last summer day’s before classes started again. One of the things Bruce noticed since dating his firecracker was that she had an almost unusual love for nature. Every chance she could get, she would be out in the gardens or parks, simple enjoying the feeling of being outside. So they walked through the garden, with the late summer flowers in full bloom lending an enticing fragrance, Bruce couldn’t think of any other place he would rather be.

Glancing over at Marinette, Bruce couldn’t help but stare. Seeing her in the garden, surrounded by the flowers she helped plant, she never looked more beautiful. In the late afternoon sun, her hair, which had always been so dark, light up to a gorgeous midnight blue framed by the small flower crown of daisies. Her cut-off jean shorts paired with slightly oversized tee-shirt and bare feet gave her such an innocent look that Bruce couldn’t imagine living without her.

“Marry me.”

Bruce wasn’t even aware he had actually said that until Marinette turned around, her eyes blown wide in shock.

“What?”

“Marry me. Mari, I cant live without you. You brought light back into my life. I wasn’t living until I met you, I was merely surviving. You showed me life was meant to be so much more. With you, I feel like I can be somebody worthwhile. And I know that everyone will say we’re too young and that we don’t know what love is, but I know, Mari, I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have a family with you. So, will you allow me the honor of becoming your partner, your protector? Will you marry me?” He asked, gently taking her hands, laying his heart out for her to either take or turn away.

Tears sprung into the eyes, causing the serene blue to sparkle as diamonds. For a split second, he thought she was going to say no, but it was only a second before she launched herself into his arms, crying with the most beautiful smile etched on her face.

“YES!! YES!! A thousand times yes!”

She had moved into the manor a week later. Bruce loved waking up next to her. To smell of her hair and the warmth of her body. He loved the feeling of curled against him, how her head fit perfectly into his shoulder.

11:57

It had a week since he had been home and Bruce couldn’t wait to get back to his own bed and he fiancé. But instead of an excited fiancé greeting him, he was greeted with the unusual sight of empty boxes. And when he said boxes, he meant that the entire entrance was full of empty boxes. The sound of music could be heard coming from one of the upper floors. Following the sound of Summer of 69, Bruce found Marinette dancing while painting one of the many unused room. Leaning against the doorframe, Bruce just watched his firecracker for the duration of the song as she continued to dance and belt out the lyrics to her favorite song. Watching her being so carefree brought a sweet smile to his face.

“Painting?” he asked once the song finished. Whipping around, her hair smacking her in the eyes as red paint flew from her brush. She looked at him startled for a second before her face light up.

“Bruce, your home!” was his only warning before a paint covered Marinette plowed into him. Laughing, he caught her with ease while planting a sweet kiss on her disheveled hair.

“I missed you too, Mar. Though mind telling me what you’re doing and why the entrance is packed with empty boxes?” he asked, gently setting her down as he brushed hair out of her face.

“Right. I’m sorry I should have cleaned those up early, but I got distracted. I have something important to tell you. So, the night you left, I had a dream. And usually I don’t pay too much attention to my dreams but Bruce, this one was different. It, it was so real. We, well we had a family. Bruce the house was so full and it was, I mean, I -I cant really explain it. It was amazing. There was a lot of people but I could only make four out clearly. Bruce, they were our boys, and . . . I cant even find the words to effectively describe it. Bruce, they were amazing. One of them, I think he was the youngest, was incredibly artistic. Bruce, his drawing, his painting were breathtaking! And he was such an animal person. Another one, he was insanely smart, like almost mindboggling. His ability to see thing, little things that no one else was able to see was incredible! Oh, and the other one, I think he was the oldest, was an absolutely amazing gymnast. His acrobatics, Bruce, it was like watching a top circus performer! And the last one, he – his grasp of literature was heartwarming and beautiful. I mean, his knowledge of classical literature rivaled the professors at the university. He was also a little mechanical, a little enginery I suppose.” Marinette explained, her eyes lighting up as she described the boys.

“So that’s why there are a bunch of empty boxes and your painting rooms?” he asked, trying to understand why she was acting like she was prepping for these boys. Like they were real.

“Bruce,” she said, looking at him with one of the most serious faces he had ever seen. “I know it sounds crazy, but whenever I have dreams like this, with this much clarity and detail, they always come true. Bruce, we’re going to have a family. And I know it won’t happen for a while, but I – well I wanted to get a head start, you know. In preparing the rooms. I want them to have a place where they can indulge in their passions. A place where they can learn and grow and create. I want them to have a place of their own. A place where, when everything is too much and they feel like giving up, that they can come to, to just, be themselves. For when the pressure just gets too much and they feel like giving up. A place where they can just be who they are without anyone telling them otherwise.”

Looking down at her while she spoke, Bruce saw that she truly believe every word she was saying. And as she explained herself, he started to believe her too. While everything she was saying sounded so surreal, the certainty with which she spoke and the spark in her eyes quickly won him over.

“Mar, tell me more about them.”

That wasn’t the first or the last time Bruce was surprised with his firecracker. It seemed like every day, she would do something or say something that he had never thought of or considered. And some of them would make a larger impact then others.

11:58

“Bruce?”

“Hm?”

“What do you think of heroes?”

Looking up from his book, Bruce cast Marinette, who was sitting on the other end of the couch, a look.

“Don’t you mean vigilantes?” he asked, earning him a playful kick from his seatmate.

“Well, if you want to be technical about it,” she scoffed, sending him a mock glare. “But seriously, Bruce, what do you think of them?” she asked again as she continued to sketch.

“I never really gave it much thought. Why the sudden question?” Bruce said, watching his fiancé’s pencil stop momentarily before it resumed it’s task. It was a few seconds before she spoke again.

“France, Paris specifically, had a set of heroes when I was twelve. Coccinelle and Chat Noir, or Ladybug and Black Cat. They were tasked with fighting a madman who called himself Faucon Papillon, or Hawk Moth. He would prey on the emotionally compromised, granting them power to feed their need for revenge. And in return, he wanted them to retrieve what gave Coccinelle and Chat Noir their powers. He called it their miraculous, two pieces of jewelry: earring that belonged to Coccinelle and a ring from Chat Noir. If he had those two items, it would grant him the powers of a god. It would grant him a wish.”

“How could two pieces of jewelry do that?” He asked after a pause, searching her face.

“Well, they were magical. I know this sound crazy, but I assure you that I am not lying. The ladybug represents creation and the black cat, destruction. Two halves of a whole. A ying and yang if you will. With these two combined, one rewrite reality. These heroes were not only given the responsibly for not only defending Paris from that emotional terrorist, but also prevent him from obtain ultimate power. With every akuma, that’s what we ended up calling the controlled person, they had to fight and purify, every cure that was cast, they became symbols to us. When people saw them, they knew that we still had hope. It took nearly five years for them to track Faucon Papillon down. Before the final battle. When they defeated him, Paris breathed a sigh of relief, but we never got to thank our heroes. They just, disappeared after. So, for me, heroes are a symbol of hope. When things look the bleakest, and everything is crashing down, they are always there. Fighting for people who they will never really know. They are fighting a war they may not see the end of, but they fight on. Because they know that if they fall, hope is destroyed. So heroes, or vigilantes, have my highest respect.” She explained, occasionally glancing up from her drawing, but never stopping.

“You really think highly of them don’t you?” he asked, moving over to her side of the couch.

“I do.” She said, as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, glancing down on her sketch pad. There, laying in startling detail, was a hero design. The design, unsurprising, was incredible. The suit was designed for maximum protection and agility, as well as identity concealment. She even went so far as to start weapons designs. But what caught his attention was the symbol she chose.

“Why a bat? Don’t they symbolize death?” Bruce asked as he studied the sketch.

“Yes, but they also symbolize rebirth and protection, and in Chinese culture, they represent luck or good fortune. They are often referred to as guardians of the night, and I think that’s what Gotham needs. In a city so full of misfortune and death, they need a symbol that shows thing can be better. That the city can be rebirthed into something greater. And while that hope is there, they also will have a protector. Someone to watch over them when darkness falls. I . . . I think it’s the perfect symbol for Gotham.”

11:59

It was New Years Eve and the gala was in full swing. Bruce and Marinette, though they had been engaged since August, had both agreed to wait until New Years to announce the engagement. Everyone agreed that the news was an amazing way to end the decade. The news of their engagement would be made public tomorrow, but for now, they would enjoy themselves and bring in the new year together. And then, it happened.

It was five minutes until midnight when a gun fire went off. Everyone started to run, screams of fear filling the air. Then the laughter started, that crazed laugh that shot terror though everyone’s hearts. They all knew that laugh. All eyes turned towards the sound, towards the stage, landing on a familiar figure. There, standing in all his terrifying glory was the Joker.

“Is this thing on?” he asked, roughly tapping on the mic, sending a high pitch squeal though the speakers. “Well, sorry I couldn’t be here early folks, but at least I’m here before the ball drops.” He said, waving his gun hand over the crowd. “You know what I always wanted to do? What I always dreamed of doing. I always wanted to bring a new year in with a bang! And I always wanted to be the one to ring in a new century. I mean, just think about it. A new year, a new century, a new era, brought in by the Joker himself. And your little party here, is baring witness to that. I mean, you guys are going to go down in history. I mean, how crazy is that!”

“The only crazy I see in here is you.” Someone muttered, but unfortunately, they didn’t do it quiet enough.

“Oh, oh I’m not crazy. You see I only do crazy thing. People think I have this elaborate plan, this vindictive that I follow, but you see, I just like to rattle a cage, and then I sit back and watch what naturally progresses from there. I may start out with a basis of what I wanna do, I start it and then I take things as they come. That way, I’m never surprized and it’s a guarantee for me to have a laugh.”

Then, someone whispered a little too loudly, ‘Monster’, and that seemed to flip a switch, Joker went from the happy lunatic to an angry one.

“Monster? Oh, I’ll show you monster!” he shouted, swinging his gun towards the crowd, firing without glancing at the target. During his distraction, one of the security guards, one of the few who hadn’t been gassed by Joker, fired his gun, his bullet finding it mark in the madman’s shoulder. While the crowd began to breath a sigh of relief, a desperate cry tore through the building.

“Mar! No! Nonononononononono!! Please Mar, look at me. Firecracker, please.” Bruce begged, cradling his beloved’s face with one hand as he tried to apply pressure to the chest wound. Her dress, a beautiful baby blue floor length gown, was splattered with blood, the stain growing rapidly around her chest.

“B-B-Bruce?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. I’m here.” He whispered, tears falling freely down his face as the warmth of her blood seeped past his hand.

“I-its gonna be ok, Bruce. It’s not your fault, ok. It’s not your fault.” Marinette said, gasping for air.

“No! No, you cant say that! You can’t- I don- I can’t lose you too. Please.” Bruce said, tears blurring his vision, a lump forming in his throat.

She let go of the hand that was attempting to stop the bleed, gently cupping his face, forcing him to look at her. The feeling of her cold hand, sticky with warm, fresh blood sent a whole new wave of panic through him.

“I love you, Bruce.” His firecracker said, giving him the sweetest smile. Just as the clock struck midnight, her hand slipped from his face, leaving behind a bloody print.

It was exactly a year since that night. A year since she was gone, and nothing was the same. The manor was colder, the days bleaker. There was no light anymore. They should have been married. She should have been here with him. But she wasn’t. And here he was, alone, looking through one of her old sketch books. Trying to picture how she always stuck her tongue out when she was concentrating on a drawing. Remembering how she would light up was the image in her head began to take form on paper. Turning the page, Bruce stopped at one of the drawings, the one with the bat suit. The one of his firecracker’s ideal hero of Gotham.

~

“This is quiet something your asking Mr. Wayne. The details in this suit, well, they’re very specific.” Lucas Fox stated, looking up from the suit design the young Wayne brought in, requesting to be made, and he wasn’t joking. The instructions for the suit itself were incredibly specific. Just by looking at the diagrams and designs, they would need to be followed to the letter just to make it plausible.

“I know, and you’ll have full funding for it, but I want it exactly the same. I don’t want a thing changed. Especially the symbol.”

 @naclychilli

[dweetwise]

Headcannons about Ace interacting with other survivors in the realm? Thanks!!

[yess trash husband! these all got weirdly wholesome sksksk just let me have this ok]

there are too many survivors lmao this is so long

Ace & other survivors headcanons

In general Ace is a friendly guy, trying his best to stay on good terms with all the survivors and avoid drama. He’ll joke, tease and flirt to keep things lighthearted in camp. 

He’s a lot more perceptive than he seems, and what initially seems to be an ill-timed quip or a joke in poor taste is often well thought out to lighten the mood and shift the attention away from an argument or tension between the others.

Dwight

Dwight was the first survivor to make him feel part of the group when he initially arrived in the realm. Where the others saw a shady man twice their age lacking any sort of tact, Dwight saw a potential ally just trying to cope with a shitty situation.

Ever since, Ace has made it his mission to act as Dwight’s #1 cheerleader. When the other gets wrapped up in his own head, Ace will offer cheesy compliments until Dwight can’t help but laugh at his antics, forgetting his insecurities at least momentarily.

Ace likes Dwight well enough despite their completely different personalities, but mostly recognizes how important it is to keep their leader’s spirits high.

Meg

Meg is a bit of a loudmouth and Ace likes that she gives as good as she gets. He’ll often tease her and she’ll insult him in return, the others not understanding why the two are grinning like idiots while seemingly arguing.

When Meg has a bad day, she’ll sometimes just flop down next to Ace and sag against him without a word. He knows not to say anything and just lets her rest against him, maybe shows her a neat card trick if she looks like she needs a distraction.

Meg pointedly never talks about any father figure in her life, only her mother, so Ace is happy to fill in for any paternal affection she needs. He’s not sure he deserves the trust she's placed in him, but tries his best nonetheless.

Claudette

Ace thinks Claudette hates him at first, since the girl rarely laughs at his jokes, sometimes even interrupting to defend the person he’s bantering with. It takes him a while to realize that Claudette just has trouble reading his tone, tending to take his words at face value.

He makes a conscious effort to be more genuine with her, and actually ends up opening up more to her than any of the others because he can’t hide behind wit and sarcasm.

Even though he loves being the life of the party, when he needs a breather he seeks out one-on-one time with Claudette and listens for hours while she talks about plants or her family in her soothing voice.

Jake

Jake is an ongoing project for him. Ace has caught glimpses of Jake’s wonderfully dark sense of humor and is determined to see more of what’s behind the stoic exterior.

So Ace pushes more than any of the others, teasing and joking even when it’s clear Jake wants to be left alone. Usually he gets an annoyed grunt or an eye roll for his efforts. Sometimes, he gets punched. But every once in a while, particularly when nobody else is around, he’ll get a small smirk and an amazingly witty quip in return.

So he keeps pestering Jake, hoping that one day the other will be comfortable enough to let his guard down around him and the rest of the survivors.

Nea

Nea is a huge brat and is Ace’s favorite partner is trials, as she’s always up for doing dumb shit with him and doesn’t care if he gets distracted and loots a chest or five.

In camp, she’s like an annoying little sister, constantly getting up in his business, calling out his cheating in card games and booing at his less than stellar jokes.

Ace is her go-to confidant for her girl troubles. She always pretends to be annoyed at his shitty advice and the cringy pick-up lines he suggests she use, but she’s grateful to have someone to talk to who never judges.

Laurie

Laurie doesn’t approve of Ace’s previous lifestyle, not to mention some of the impulsive decisions he makes in trials, and she’s not afraid of letting him know. He doesn’t mind being lectured by her and will be the first to admit she’s leagues more mature than he is despite her young age.

She pretends to hate his jokes but still catches her smiling when she thinks he doesn’t see. Though he learned the hard way that she’s not receptive to flirty comments when she wrangled his arm back for calling her “sweetheart”.

She has cried on his shoulder multiple times, especially after trials against her brother. Ace thinks it’s because he’s open to a fault compared to her reserved nature, and she knows he won’t push her away or make a big deal out of it. Afterwards, she’ll be embarrassed and threaten violence if he tells the others, and he’ll go back to cracking jokes.

Bill

In many ways, Bill is Ace’s polar opposite; he’s serious, grumpy and sarcastic compared to Ace’s lighthearted and over-the-top demeanor.

They make a good comedy duo, with Bill being a reluctant participant most of the time. Still, the other has yet to actually ignore his goading, taking every chance to try to knock Ace down a peg.

Bill’s true colors shine through in bad trials, when he’ll ask Ace to help him save their younger friends, trusting his skill and moral code at least momentarily. After all, there’s a certain kind of solidarity that only comes from bleeding out next to each other on the ground after having successfully bullied the killer away from their teammates.

Feng

Some of the others dislike Feng and how selfish she is in trials, but Ace has a soft spot for her and her erratic behavior, quick to jump in and defuse situations where the others are ganging up on her.

Feng eventually recognizes Ace as her equal and not a “pleb” like she sees most of the others. She’ll even almost look happy to see him if they spawn together in a trial, before pestering him until he hands her his item.

Feng’s competitive nature sometimes makes her take out her frustration on the others in a gamer rage. Ace often intentionally makes himself an easy target by teasing her, not minding being her verbal punching bag as he knows it’s all bark and no bite and it helps her de-stress.

David

Ace finds David’s complete lack of filter and dirty humor amusing. The two have the most bizarre banter, egging each other on with gags that consist of 90 % of obscenities and that cause some of the others to cover their ears in second hand embarrassment.

Ace likes that David doesn’t take himself too seriously, and often uses the Brit as the butt of a joke, knowing the other won’t mind and will most likely be the one to laugh the hardest.

If David gets in one of his moods, pent up after a trial and looking for a brawl, Ace is one of the few who can snap him out of it with one of their tasteless jokes. Sometimes the joke falls flat and he gets punched or wrestled to the ground instead, but hey, at least David’s not sulking any more.

Quentin

Ace goes easy on Quentin at first, because the boy looks so tired and seems like he’s struggling with the realm. Quentin eventually notices the special treatment and starts giving him shit for it. Ace goes full force with the banter and Quentin is more than happy to dish it back, displaying a delightfully quick wit and dry sense of humor.

He still recognizes that Quentin might have an aversion to older men so he keeps a healthy distance between them, consciously resisting his natural inclination for playful shoves or flirty jokes.

Proud member of the Protect Quentin / Kick Freddy’s Ass squad. He wishes he could do more for Quentin, but hey, at least he can make the sleepy boy crack a few jokes at Ace’s expense.

Tapp

His relationship with Tapp is tense at first; as conman and cop, they have a lot of prejudices against each other.

Tapp eventually drops the antagonism, recognizing the real threat in the killers and realizing the benefits of teamwork. That includes accepting petty criminals like himself and Nea.

They’re not the best of friends by any means, but it’s kind of nice to play cards with the man and be able to chat with someone his own age. Ace doesn’t even cheat in their games, and in return gets to hear about some of Tapp’s more colorful cases as a detective.

Kate

Ace values Kate a lot in their group; she’s hearty, genuine and he’s never seen her angry. She radiates charisma in a way that’s completely different to his own, and Ace feels like he can relax and drop the “entertainer” act when she′s around.

He’s not actually close to her personally, as they don’t have much more in common than being the token happy person by the campfire. Still, they have a silent understanding of one another.

Ace will sometimes call her obnoxious pet names like honey, sweetheart and pumpkin, and she’ll just laugh in her melodious voice and shoot back a “yes, darlin’?”.

Adam

Adam is well-read and sophisticated to a point where Ace feels a little bit intimidated. Adam will frown at some of his jokes and correct him, and Ace will feel dumb.

Ace starts having his guard up around the other, until Adam seems to notice and makes a conscious effort to befriend him, confessing that he’s just a little awkward and never meant to be rude.

Ace is always quick to forgive and forget and goes back to joking full force, also making an effort to ask the other about some useless trivia every now and then because it makes Adam’s face light up.

Jeff

Jeff is just so chill even Ace feels himself mellow out in his company. They have pretty much nothing in common but Jeff always chuckles at his jokes and has some pretty good one-liners of his own.

He’ll sometimes just sit with Jeff and talk about anything and everything, appreciating the other’s interesting worldview that’s so different to his own. It always feels kind of like he’s just out having a beer with a bro.

Jeff is the one Ace is most comfortable with asking advice from, because the man never judges and his advice often offers a whole new perspective.

Jane

Jane and Ace butt heads a lot. She doesn’t like some of his more questionable jokes and won’t hesitate to call him out. In return, he’ll claim she just needs to lighten up.

Eventually this dynamic becomes a joke of its own, with the others commenting on how “mom and dad are arguing again”.

Ash

Hoo boy. These two are so much alike and it usually ends in disaster. Will bully killers together and get facecamped while the other is slugged next to the hook.

Ash is more of an adrenaline junkie than him, and Ace actually starts finding himself being the voice of reason that tries to talk Ash out of sucker punching the killer.

Ash is somehow also even more of an attention whore than Ace, so when the man is telling a crazy story to the rest of the camp, Ace is content to quietly slip away from the commotion and go chill with Claudette or Jeff.

Nancy

Nancy is one of the smartest people Ace has ever met and he loves how flustered she gets whenever he tells her as much.

He’s happy to let her take the lead in trials, as she, like Dwight, seems to be a natural leader. She’s always surprised by his acceptance of her as an equal or even superior, and he can tell she’s had trouble with being taken seriously in the past.

That being said, he can’t resist messing with her every now and then, cracking jokes and trying to get her to loosen up and realize that the fate of the world does not rest on her shoulders.

Steve

Ace sees a lot of himself in Steve; the goofiness, the troublemaking, and the cockiness that sometimes verges on arrogance.

He goes along with Steve’s dumb ideas in trials, feeling decades younger every time the teen eggs him on to have flashlight lightshows or make farting sounds with the gauze rolls instead of doing the objective.

When Steve inevitably gets caught trying to pull a dumb stunt, Ace will be the one to save his ass while giving him shit for it, all in good nature.

Yui

Yui is a badass if he’s ever seen one. They’ve pulled off so many end-game rescues together that should have been impossible, but with her determination and his luck they always seem to defeat the odds.

In camp, Yui is a wiseass and they give each other so much shit for the smallest of things. Yui is painfully blunt and thrives on good banter, and Ace is happy to indulge her.

Yui has a filthy mouth that will give David a run for his money and has even managed to make Ace blush and gape on a couple of occasions.

Zarina

Zarina is not amused by Ace’s flirting and flamboyance. Zarina values actions, not words, and somehow seems to sense all the empty promises Ace has made in his past.

Each time he’s about to engage her in conversation is predated by one of her eye rolls or exaggerated sighs. He starts greeting her with the same gestures to mess with her, annoying her further.

Nevertheless, when push comes to shove, she’s there to pick him up off the ground at the expense of her own health state and reluctantly compliments him for running the killer for three gens.

Cheryl

Cheryl keeps surprising Ace, her shy demeanor hiding a dry sense of humor and a rebellious streak.

She plays along with his banter without missing a beat, throwing in some jokes at his expense for good measure, causing Nea and Yui to basically insta-adopt her as one of their own and bond over his shitty sense of humor.

sorry there’s only 2 for jane and cheryl!  i’ve done a hc with ace&jane before and i still don’t have a good grasp on cheryl/heather’s character ;w;

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chapter Five

Ao3,   MasterPost,   C.1   C.2   C.3   C.4

Relationships: eventual queer-platonic intruality

again, there are not italicized words in here, so it might be a little clunky-sounding. tumblr copy/paste function sucks :/

Warnings: mild body horror, deep-sea setting, deep-sea creatures, non-fatal drowning (its complicated but theyre all okay in the end), mild vomiting, hurt/comfort, cursing, e m o t i o n s- lots of them. 

Word Count: 3,981

Remus didn’t need anybody. Not anyone but him, anyway. He was the one that gave himself everything he wanted, took care of himself, loved himself (in just about every way a person could). Of course he didn’t need other people! That was for weak-willed, insecure, clingy little prisses!

Roman was the one needing all the validation, marveling those little affections, loving his soft and kissy-touchy friendships. Hell, he was happy with that kind of life, that was just how it went for him.

And Remus- Remus was everything that his brother wasn’t, by definition, and no exceptions. He didn’t need coddling, because he got by on his own. He didn’t need to be loved, because he loved himself. He would be happy that way, too, because it was clear enough that there wasn’t another way to be. For him, at least. 

The first thing he did after leaving Patton in the dust, his door still shaking from how hard he’d slammed it, was summon more speakers. No, more than that. No, more than that, too, and bigger! 

There. That was more like it!

With a snap, deafening noise filled Remus’ room. It drowned out everything; the hurried footsteps up the stairs, the desperate knocking at his door, and most importantly, his thoughts.

Remus flopped onto his bed, landing flat on his back. Limbs spread, head lax, he felt the bass running through him like pure energy. And distantly, as the minutes passed, the knocking finally stopped altogether. As did his conscious, his worrying, his weakness. 

Everything was back to usual, just how it’d have been if he’d never held that stupid little catholic in his arms in the first place. Just like before, so it couldn’t be any worse than if he’d never let him be his friend at all. 

And it really was best that way. He could get all his alone time back, finally spend some time to focus on himself again! It would be good for him. It was the natural way of things.

Remus laid on the bed, and in his room he had three days of nothing but alone time.

This project was going to be big; big things needed a lot, a lot of a lot of room. Infinite, maybe- and Remus’ decision, as an all-powerful conduit of Creativity (in his side of the imagination, at least), was that there was nothing more infinite than the ocean. 

The seemingly endless void of yellow-white, papery landscape stretched onwards in all directions. Remus stood dead center in The Imagination, ink already seeping into the world from his presence.

It was the third day, as Remus kept himself holed in his room, that the incessant knocking was too much to deal with anymore. At first, he knew it was only Patton, but as time went on he could feel the presences change. Maybe it was Roman, Janus- probably even Virgil and Logan, at least once. But that day was the crescendo, when all the knocking and the voices calling for him had gotten so frantic and mixed up that even he needed away from the noise.

Whatever. He would talk to them whenever he wanted (if he ever wanted), and they could live without him for the week at least. They’d have to, anyways, because Remus adhered to one policy and one policy alone: fuck everybody else, they don’t matter!

He just needed an energy boost. He was pissed, sure, maybe even upset, but it was nothing he hadn’t dealt with before.

Remus was going to make something fucking putrid that day. As bad as he could ever conjure in that horrible canvas of imagination he had. Violent, unforgivable, stress-relieving, him. The thought waves would fuck with Thomas’ head the whole day, sure, but Remus really couldn’t care less. He’d been taking it easy on the guy ever since the acceptance, and Remus had earned a little fun! 

The artist dropped to his knees, clawed hands scratching over the floor of paper. Everywhere he touched, darkness and muck soaked through the whiteness like ink, darkening the world until the scene was forming. When Remus lifted his hands, the ground rose up with him, adding texture to the surface.

Everything he made came out in his style when he used Thomas’ imagination like this. The creations moved realistically, and all in three-dimension. They were even touchable and destructible and certain other words ending in the same suffix, but all of it was still art. His art, made real.

The lines were thick, dark, sketchy. Each one looked forced into the world without a care, but to their creator they were perfect. The colors would be vile and sickly, each one looking like pools of multicolor vomit. That, or they were vibrant eye-sores, things too garish for even Warhol or Matisse’s works, clashing in the eyes enough that it hurt. 

It depended on Remus’ mood, really, which one it’d be. Today he chose the former, relishing the illness that spilled out of his fingertips. It looked ugly. It felt free. It was him.

Here, Remus got to be everything. Remus was powerful.

Remus dragged his claws upwards, and the scene began to unfold. 

Patton clasped his hands out in front of him, squeezing and releasing them again and again. He’d already been knocking for what had to be more than twenty minutes, while the music inside Remus’ room only got louder. There was a swell of hope when finally it was shut off altogether, but no one had come to the door. In fact, there was a perfect, unnerving silence- there had been for five minutes, at that point. 

The first Remus-less day in the mindscape, Roman and Logan had stood beside Patton as he hovered by the door. The day after, it was Virgil and Janus taking turns trying to coax their way in or him out. But that day, the third day, Patton had long-since explained everything. After some convincing, he was left to deal with the situation on his own, finally. 

It was his responsibility, after all. 

Nobody was too angry with Patton, though in his own opinion he would have earned it and then some. Janus had been harsh with him at first, and Roman had jumped to his brother’s defense with a surprising willingness, but once he explained… 

Patton couldn’t tell which was worse; the disgust he’d been expecting, or the understanding and pity that he’d actually gotten.

Because it wasn’t okay. They all knew that, of course they did, but they didn’t want to push him any more than he had been. Patton could feel it, that they were letting him off easy just because of his remorse. Because much as they cared for Remus- and he could feel and see that, too- they cared even more about not letting him break. But it didn’t matter, because what he’d done… Just because Remus was Remus, it didn’t mean he…

Patton slammed the door with the side of his fist, hard enough to hurt. He did it again,  again, a third time, knowing he wouldn’t get any more response than he had every other time. Still, he couldn’t stop trying.

Then something happened that Patton really should’ve seen coming, but shocked him all the same.

There was a creak, then a groan. Something cracked and something buckled. There was a splintering, metallic crunch, and with one last whine of protest Remus’ door swung open on its hinges. 

Apparently decaying and ocean-worn was more than just an aesthetic. That, or Patton had no concept of his own strength.

Well, regardless. The door was open.

Patton folded his hands against his chest, eyes wide and lips pressed, as he peered anxiously through the entryway. It was hard to see. He leaned further inside, hesitating every other breath, then stepped over the threshold. 

The room was empty. 

The room was empty, but there was another door on the opposite wall.

Or, no- not a door, but a doorway. No handle or knob, just pitch blackness. As Patton approached, it seemed more like a portal than anything, swirling around and making the faintest little whooshes, chirps, and gurgles.

Patton stood feather-light on the carpet before it. He reached a hand out and grazed the surface with his fingers, and instantly jolted back with a yelp.

It was cold and wet, but his fingers came away dry. He wrapped his hand in the sleeve of his hoodie, gazing into the deep darkness. It even smelled, something distinctly briney and animal-like. 

It was… definitely not the most appealing door Patton had seen.

So it must have been where Remus was.

That settled it. With a deep breath, some posturance, and just a bit of false-confidence, Patton dove forwards through the portal.

Remus sat at the bottom of the ocean, inhaling swells of saltwater into his lungs. Every movement of his kicked up the sand like little gray clouds in the blue; physics kept mostly to realism, but maybe a bit more structured, a balance that any good piece of art should have.

Remus threw his head back and stared into the endless, dark water. Shadows of leviathans passed by overhead, black as night and humming a low drone, but never diving down enough to really be seen. Just smudged shapes in the implication of a horror. Their sounds were like distant, garbled radios that spreaded their old songs throughout the sea.

Still, they weren’t anything other than a backdrop. A well-crafted and time-consuming background, but a background nonetheless. Remus stood up with a huff, sending bubbles streaming from his nose and mouth. There was so much left to be done.

And he got caught up in just the plotting at once, angling this way and that to figure where he should drop the sunken submarine. So caught up, in face, that he very nearly didn’t notice the stab of someone else entering his domain.

But only nearly. It was sharp enough to hurt, that feeling like a pebble dropping into his stomach, and even distracted it made him lurch. Remus’ hands stilled their creation, his head craning back, and he saw the pitch dark portal swirling around just meters away. 

Oh, great. Just who he wanted to see.

Remus was still as stone when Patton stumbled through the vortex, almost tripping over his own feet when it disappeared after him. Remus might have laughed, if he was in the mood, but as it was he kept quiet, and watched. Watched Patton right himself, watched the side look up, watched as his gaze filled with recognition when it met Remus’.

Remus folded his arms over his chest, smiling wickedly back.

How long would it take for him to make Patton run screaming, he wondered?

The side was stumbling across the sand already, unaffected by the suffocating water around him, but that was hardly all Remus had to offer. With a dismissive flick of the wrist, he brought into existence a favorite of his underwater pets: the Japanese Spider Crabs.

In his style, they were stretched out even further than the twelve feet they’d be in nature, their long and horrid limbs slimmer to boot. They moved in short, jerky steps, jumping this way and that like each stride was meant to be a jumpscare. They of course wasted no time in scrambling towards one Very Out-of-Place Patton.

When he saw them skidding at him, a stream of bubbles burst from his mouth in a silent wail, and he wrapped his arms around himself. Remus did laugh at that, the way he stopped in his tracks and tried desperately to avoid the monsters; oh, Remus cackled. 

Patton did run, in the end, but not away from the beasts. No, the stubborn little thing kept trekking towards Remus, as though the trait hadn’t just sicked a pack of wicked arthropods on him. 

Well, it didn’t matter- the horrors of the deep were endless! Remus stamped his foot in the sand, triumphant, as a goblin shark sprouted up from nothing. The beast sent its creator something like a smile, before turning on its target.

Patton’s expression went ghost-white. His steps staggered, but the crabs he’d left in the dust were still crawling behind him, and he…

He walked towards the shark?

Remus went still again, incredulous as he watched Patton be almost unphased by a fucking shark. His eyes burned in determination, even as an enormous, hideous creature bared down on him.

Patton wasn’t running, even when it rammed into his chest at full force. He hardly stumbled, and that was the moment Remus knew his bluff had been called.

He could make the creations hurt Morality. Not in any way that lasted, not in any way that would destroy him, but they could hurt him. Remus could hurt him, and he had every reason to, and.

He wasn’t going to. They both knew that.

In a whine or a snarl, a whimper, basically a scream, Remus wiped away his monsters and crumbled. He buried his face in his arms, curled up in a ball and growling like an animal- or maybe more like a kid; a useless, annoying little kid throwing a tantrum for no good reason. 

He couldn’t do anything. Not really. Not anything that mattered.

When Patton reached him, he didn’t move. Patton crouched, placed a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t let up.

What even was the point to everything? There was no good ending for Remus, he should have known that from the very start. He could either live his life alone, any attention paid to him fleeting and begrudging, but still be the person- no matter what anyone thought otherwise- that he loved most in the world: himself.

Or he could be accepted, befriended, and let everyone quietly compartmentalize him as nothing worse that eccentric. It’d strip him of every integrity and sense of self, sure, but it’d be a version of him that was actually likeable.

It had been so easy to choose the first track all his life. Why did Patton have to go fucking everything up for him?

The grip on his shoulder tightened, like Patton knew what he was thinking. Well, that wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities- Patton must have known what he was feeling, with his stupid empathic power. Out of spite, Remus pushed himself to wallow even worse. Maybe he could get it to rub off on Morality, maybe then he’d see that pushing Remus’ buttons was a bad idea.

But he was so fucking stubborn. He was so fucking stubborn that he whined in sympathy, the sound garbled by the water, and pulled Remus up into a hug. 

Remus didn’t bite or scratch. He stayed tense until Patton was all wrapped up around him. He was crying, probably, but the water made it impossible to tell either way.

“I’m sorry,” barely intelligible, Patton’s whisper came in a spout of bubbles. “I’m really, really sorry. We need to talk.”

Remus clenched his fists, released them, tightened them again. His head was shoved to an angle, neck aching, from the way he was embraced. He pressed his hands- palms forward- on Patton’s shoulders, and let his jagged talons rest on the side’s skin. 

Then he splayed his fingers out, holding onto Patton with the least sharp parts of himself only, and the world began to sway.

The carpet was soaked-through as soon as they landed, splat, in a tangled heap on Remus’ floor. Patton pulled free as quickly as he could, scrambling away. Remus sat up, smirking despite the tears now visibly pouring down his face, and was tempted to tease the moral side: See, your stomach really is too weak to touch me! I tried to warn you!

And then Patton was vomiting.

Well, vomit  was a strong word- all he had in him was bile, water, and phlegm, but it still wasn’t… great. He was doubled over, knees planted on the ground with one hand braced on the floor, the other he used to hug himself tight. He gagged, retching loudly, and rocked forwards with a groan. Salt water poured from his mouth, streamed past his lips, dribbling in a sick-smelling puddle on the floor.

With a final few coughs, he was done. Shaking, still heaving, but done. 

“Uh, are you okay?”

Patton looked up with wide, watery eyes, like he’d forgotten Remus was even there.

“Sorry, again,” he croaked, “I’ve never been underwater that long.”

Fuck. Fuck.

“You- you can’t breath underwater?” Remus tried to ignore the stabs of worry he felt, but they stuck so sharply in his chest that it was infeasible. 

Patton sat back on his heels, weakly shrugging. 

“I think I could, if I had tried hard enough- we can kinda do anything,” his voice was hoarse and broken. “But either way, we can’t really die and I wasn’t sure where that portal would lead, so by the time I got to you I figured it’d just be easier to power through it.”

Remus pressed a hand to his own forehead, reeling.

“That whole time we were in there, you were drowning?”

Patton shrugged again, sheepish.

“More or less. I just wanted to talk to you, so I kinda forgot about it. Also those, uhm, creatures- they were pretty…” He flushed, pupils dilated in fear at just the thought, “Distracting.”

Remus started laughing, and he stopped just as quick. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them as wide as he could. He grinned, it felt wrong, he frowned, and that didn’t feel any better. He tasted copper in the back of his throat, but it wasn’t blood or salt or pennies. 

It was guilt.

“I threw fucked-up deep sea monsters at you while you were being asphyxiated, and you didn’t even blink?” Earlier, Remus had thought it was just a bruise to his ego, proving that he really couldn’t leave an impact. But it felt like the exact opposite now, as clearly he had affected Patton, worse than he ever should have. “You kept going?” His hands- and voice- were shaking. “To get to me?”

Patton met his eyes. He tipped his head to one side, and just smiled.

Remus’ breath hitched. Oh, he’d left an impact, one that unlike any other he’d ever tried to leave on Morality, and he didn’t know what to do with it. He’d made an impact on Patton, somehow, somewhere, to the point where Patton was so attached- attached, a positive one this time- that he would endure all that he just did for him. Patton would. For him.

“But why!?” 

The shout hit the room like a hammer smashing glass, and Remus realized just how softly he had to have been speaking before. Now, though, he leapt to his feet, his wrists twisting in involuntary jolts of frustration. He was pacing in stomps, his head thrown back while a stream of words poured out of his mouth.

“Why do you keep doing this? What do you want from me, Patton? Do you want me to be a misunderstood soft-hearted baby, all along just doing fucked-up stuff for attention? Because, yeah, I’d love a little attention- who doesn’t?- but this is more than that, this is who I am, I’m just like this! I can’t change that, I don’t want to change that, and we both know that you don’t like the kind of things that I am. You like- you like what I could maybe possibly be, if you fixed me, and you can’t just-!”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

Remus went quiet. Patton’s breaths were coming in short gasps, his hands shaking as he struggled to his feet. 

“You used to scare me so much,” he leaned on the bed frame to stay upright, and he looked green. Sickness or frogness, it was unclear which. “I didn’t understand then. Even the other night, when you gave me- gave me that gift, I didn’t get it. But when you ran, that’s what made me see, Remus.

“I always thought you were dangerous, that you didn’t have any compassion, maybe you just wanted to hurt us. The dead animal- taxidermy,” he corrected himself, “Kinda… fed into that. I was thinking so simple, though, I- I always do that-, and you just aren’t. Simple, I mean. But that’s good!” Patton’s eyes went wistful, a grin ghosting his lips. “You do these things because they’re you, because you like to do them and it’s just the way you know how to do things, not because you actually wanted to make me feel bad. You are just misunderstood- not because you don’t actually mean the stuff you do, but because I didn’t understand what or why it was you did it! That’s why, even when you were so mad, you didn’t make those-” he ticked, “Those spider-things, hurt me.

“That’s why I like you, Remus. You aren’t how you seem, but you are. You try for me. And I am so, so sorry I couldn’t see what that meant, until now.” 

Remus stared at him. He had half a mind to argue, tell Patton that yes, he did like to hurt things, but. But it was obvious what Patton meant. That Patton trusted him. That he trusted Remus not to hurt him. And, in that regard, he was absolutely right.

Remus slipped over the small distance between them, hesitating a second before grabbing the sickly side’s waist. Gently, carefully, he guided him to sit down on the bed, taking a place beside him. Much better to talk without the risk of Patton keeling over at any time, after everything he’d been through. 

The silence didn’t seem to bother Patton, his head falling back and his breathing labored. He didn’t seem to expect a response at all. 

“Don’t apologize to me,” Remus said.

Patton blinked at him, slow, looking confused. “I think I owe you more than one apology, after all that mess.”

“I was trying to freak you out, you know, when I gave you the rat,” Remus snapped, his hands balled up. The guilt was overwhelming now- if this was how Patton felt all the time, he couldn’t imagine surviving it. “Not like how I usually do, but- I wanted to see what would break you, so that you’d stop trying to be my friend. So you’d stop, you know…” He growled the next bit under his breath, “Getting me attached to you, and everything. I just- didn’t expect your reaction to actually, like, affect me.” 

Remus glared at the ceiling, hating more than anything the way that shame felt inside something like him. 

“Remus, it’s okay, I still shouldn’t have-”

“No, shut up, listen,” he could feel bad about being rude another time, maybe, but this was important. Patton listened. “It doesn’t matter that I didn’t let a shark disembowel you, or whatever, you still- you got hurt. I freaked you out, and sure, you overreacted- but then that’s exactly what I did. And so of course you felt bad, you’ve got the sympathy of a fucking saint, and you tried to fix things, and I got you more hurt. Scared you just like old times, right?” He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling rough at every edge. “I’m sick of it. You’re trying so hard to be good to me, and dammit if I’m not gonna do the same, okay? Obviously you can handle me at my worst, so, I owe you my best- whatever the hell that is.”

A hand settled over his own.

“I forgive you.”

“Patton, you don’t have to-”

“Remus,” he murmured, “I forgive you.” 

Remus huffed. He felt some of the tension melt from his shoulders, and decided, fuck, why not. “You’re sure?”

Patton didn’t even hesitate: “Yeah.”

“I forgive you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus exhaled, slow and steady. “Fuck, of course I do.”

Chapter Six

Taglist: @shrimp-crockpot @glitter-skeleton-uwu @donnieluvsthings @intruxiety @thefivecalls @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @gayformlessblob 

[jawritter]

The Arrangement

Part 13

Summery: You are a young girl that was raised in a small church in Dallas, TX. One of the only churches left in the state that still practices arranged marriages. When your betrothed ran off to California you thought you'd escape the fate you were trained for ever since a small child. Now upon the death your parents your fate seemed to be inescapable as he's returned, and is ready to take you as his bride.

Book Warnings: Arranged marriage, loss of virginity, smut, unprotected sex, angst, language, suicide attempt, battles with anxiety, struggles with mental illness, age gap (about 11 years), I think that’s it, chapters will have warnings of their own!

Chapter Warnings: Dealing with suicide attempt! heavy discripion of suicided attempt! angst, sick reader, this one is another heavy y’all, if things dealing with suicide or death bother you, you might want to skip this one, I’m sure there is some lanuage in there to.

Word Count: 1843

A/N: This book is a book about Christian and church based arranged marriages, I would like to take this moment to say that I DO NOT have ANYTHING against the Chirstian faith, and mean absolutely no harm to anyone! Especially Jensen’s family! This is a complete work of fiction, and should be treated as such!

Beta’d by the amazing @deanwanddamons who was awesome enough to do all this for me! It was a lot of work, and she deserves all the praise for it!!

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Want More? Check Out My Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***SERIES MASTERLIST***

Death was easier than you imagined it would be. Nothing was there to hurt you anymore. Just inescapable blackness. 

The last thing you remembered before your eyes closed, was Jensen's face shining on your phone. 

Then it was all quite, all black..

"Y/N!! Baby come back to me please!!" 

Jensen? Why can I hear Jensen, he's not dead.

"Please... My wife... I need help.. She wont wake up..  I think she's..."

No.. No.. This can't be happening.He sounded hurt, he was crying too much, he wasn't supposed to be upset that you were gone. 

You tried to open your eyes with every fiber of strength you had left in your body, but your body won't respond. Jensen’s voice seemed to get further and further away from you as everything faded back to that inescapable blackness.

The next time you sort of became conscious  there was an excessive amount of noise. Were you in a car? There was no way to know, because you still couldn't make your eyes open. You could feel someone holding on tight to your hand, Jensen?

"Sir, we need you to calm down. You're not going to help her by going to pieces. Everything is going to be fine."

Next flash back to yourself, nothing made sense. You could hear an annoying beeping coming from somewhere you couldn't pinpoint. Warmth wrapped around your body. Someone laying next to you in a very small space. Brushing your hair with their hand. Had you died? Was all this a hallucination?

Once everything fades to black again, it seems to stay that way for a long time. You couldn't make sense of the flashes of 'reality' that seemed to flash before you. Then just as quickly get taken away. 

Or were they just a dream?

The first thing you really know is that everything hurts. Your throat feels like it was ripped to shreds.Your muscle ache as if you'd been in a fight, and even though you have slept for God knows how long you feel exhausted. 

Oh and you're still alive... That much makes sense now...

"Baby? Baby, are you going to wake up for me?"

Jensen's voice sounded really close to you.You could feel his body heat wrapped around you in the uncomfortable hospital bed, and you wanted more than anything to just melt into it and stay there. 

He kept brushing at your hair and moving you around, attempting to wake you up, so you forced your eyes to open. At first, all you could see was a blur, then everything started to come into focus. 

Looking over next to you, you find Jensen's face. He looked horrible laying in the bed next to you. His eyes were red, very red and swollen. He looked pale, his hair was a mess. There were big black circles underneath his eyes.The freckles that dusted over his skin stood out more than they normally did in the crappy hospital light. He looked like he’d been through hell.

Putting his hands on the side of your face as your eyes meet his.Tears started to streak down his face before he pulled you tight to him.

"Oh my God sweetheart, I'm so, so, sorry!!!"

You couldn't make your voice work.Your throat was too sore, so you just laid there in his arms crying with him. You couldn't believe he'd come back for you.You couldn't understand what had happened, or how you got here.

One thing stuck out to you , more than anything else at that moment. Jensen cared. He cared or he wouldn't be here with you right now, and for now that's all that matters. For now that would be enough.

You don't know how long the two of you laid there just clinging to each other. Him apologizing over and over for not coming home to you sooner, telling you how big of an idiot he was for leaving in the first place, that he loves you and only you. 

You wanted more than anything just to make all this go away. You felt so foolish for doing what you did. You felt horrible for slapping him, you felt horrible for not believing him obviously, he cared enough to stay right now, when he had every reason to walk away, he came home.

----------------------------------------

Two days later, after many test, a 48 suicide watch, and a doctor requirement to go through therapy, you where finally in the car with Jensen on the way home.

You still hadn't said much to him, just sat quietly, going through the motions. Jensen's eyes would often divert from the road to the passenger side of the car to look at you. He'd tried to start small conversations with you, you just didn't feel like talking,you were too trapped in your own thoughts.   

You were ashamed of what you had done. In hindsight you felt foolish for being so weak. You didn't understand why your mind seemed to be at war against you. You didn't understand why Jensen had left, just like you didn't understand why he even came back.

You had slapped him, he had every right to abandon you, yet here he was; constantly worrying and checking on you.

You feel his hand slip over and grab yours, pulling it tightly into his grip and bringing the back of your hand to his lips like he'd done a thousand times since you'd woken up in the hospital. 

You'd never known Jensen to be so clingy, or affectionate. Not saying you didn't like it, you just didn't know how to receive it.

Then it hit you.Your real problem sitting right there in the passenger seat of your husband's car was you didn’t know how to accept love and affection from someone. That's what your problem was, that's what was wrong. 

No matter how much you loved your mom and dad you didn't have it. 

They groomed you to be a wife and mother, but showed you very little love, just trained you. Training that in the end did you no good, because you weren't prepared for a relationship like this one. Jensen didn't hold to the rules of the church, and what they expected a marriage to be like.

Taking a deep breath, you try to hold back the dam that threatened to spill over at any given moment. 

Poor Jensen had been trying to show you he loved you for months, and you just pushed him away. You didn't trust him and you had hurt him deeply. That's why he left you that day.The problem was you didn't know how to fix it.

Jensen turned down the driveway to the house, and your heart immediately  seized up in your chest, pounding  a steady rhythm in your ears. Your breathing came as shallow breaths, anxiety thick in your chest. Like a thousand pound weight pushing down on you.

"Y/N? Baby? You okay?

You didn't realize that you were holding your breath until you heard him speak directly at you.

"I don't know.” you said in earnest, not sure how you felt about being back here.

Jensen leaned over, and pulled you close to him, wrapping his arms around you the best he could in the confined space of the car.

"If you don't want to stay here I can back the car down the driveway right now, and we can go stay in a hotel until we can find us a new place." he said gently, letting you bury your face into his neck. 

Clearly he already thought this might be a problem, and had already thought about getting a motel.

Pulling away from him you look back at the house. You didn't know what you wanted. You didn't know if you wanted to run away. You weren't really sure what you even wanted to run away from. In the meantime, you didn't know if you wanted to face the demon that is yourself you were sure would be standing on the other side of the door, waiting for you. 

Licking your lips, and pulling your lower lip into your teeth, a nervous habit you'd picked up from Jensen over the last three months, you sat there staring at the front door like at any moment a monster would come out and drag you to hell where you really felt like you deserved to be.

Jensen's grip tightened on your hand again, drawing your attention to him. He was staring at you, trying to read what was going on inside your head, wanting more than anything to make the best decision for you.

Shaking your head, you push your fears down in your gut. This was foolish, and you couldn't let fear of the mental illness you just learned that you evidently had, according to doctors anyway, rule you. You had to get past this, for Jensen's sake. You hated the way he looked at you right now, like you were so fragile. 

"No... There's no need to go and buy a whole new house. I'm sure I'll be just fine."

Jensen leaned over, and placed a soft kiss on your forehead before leaning his own against yours. 

"If you change your mind at any moment, even if it's in the middle of the night, we're out of here okay? I'm not going to make you stay here. I'd never do that. We can always find somewhere else to live." 

You nodded your head, but said nothing, thankful for the out if you needed it. Once again, Jensen provides the security blanket you needed.

Getting out of the car before your emotions can get the best of you, you start walking up the driveway. Jensen was quick to catch up with you, putting his hand in yours as he unlocks the door. 

You stood there in silence, and stilled your nerves as he opened the door, walking in behind him. He stopped and watched every move you made, ready to rip you away from here if you couldn't handle it. 

Everything that you had left had been properly cleaned and put away. There were no dishes.Everything seemed to be in order. 

"I hired someone to come and clean up everything while you were in the hospital. I didn't want you to come back to all that." he said, as if reading your mind. You just nod and half try to smile at him. 

He wrapped his arms around you, and pulled you tightly to him. You didn't know how all this was going to work. Your trust was broken, not in Jensen anymore. You felt really stupid for ever believing he would cheat on you in the first place. It was yourself you didn't trust anymore. You felt like you were at war with your own mind and insecurities. 

This wasn't going to be easy, and you hoped more than anything you could come back from this, and be stronger for it.

I mean, they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...Right?

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Tag List: @deanwanddamons​ @imabitch4jensen​ @rvgrsbrns​ @bi-danvers0​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @i-love-superhero​ @akshi8278​ @lyss-dw79​ @magssteenkamp​ @lemondropirwin​ @squirrelnotsam​ @hobby27​ @spnbaby-67​ @mrsjenniferwinchester​ @defenderrosetyler​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @thecreatiivecorner​  @aflamboyanceofgays @vicmc624​ @busy-bee-angel-misska​ @justanotherwinchester​ @brilovesdeanwinchester​ @idksupernatural​ @lyarr24​ @amandamdiehl​

[iridescent-hallucinations]

When the Night Comes Chapter 2

Mild Angst, Mental Health TW.

Summary: JJ shares a piece of her own darkness with Emily.

Pairing: Jennifer “JJ” Jareau x Emily Prentiss 

Read it on AO3

“Pull it together Prentiss, this was not part of the plan” she muttered to herself, she grabbed the glasses and made her a way back into the other room.

Once they were settled, sitting on opposite sides of the room, a conscious choice that Emily had made, the women sat in a comfortable yet obviously loaded silence, drinking their drinks.

“How was the bar?” Emily asked, trying to figure out whether or not JJ wanted to talk, they could just sit in silence, she wouldn’t mind that at all.

“Yeah, it was alright, I beat a couple guys at darts, watched Morgan get 3 numbers, and left after Penelope found a dancing partner. I missed you there,” it was an innocent enough statement. Emily had missed them all too, it was the way JJ had kicked her shoes off and tucked her legs up under herself to get more comfortable that was taking Emily’s attention.

It scared her, how easy it was to lose herself in JJ, everything seemed so natural when she was around, familiar, like home. But then again, what would Emily Prentiss know about home? She’d never had a real one. The closest frame of reference she had was fake. Was him. The thought was enough for her to shut the blinds again, no light could enter or he would be seen too.

Emily cleared her throat before she spoke again, worried she would reveal too much if she didn’t think carefully before words came out, desperate to stop her thoughts from eating her whole.

“Sounds like a good night.”

The small talk seemed to appease JJ. Humming in confirmation, she looked around the room for the first time since she’d entered the apartment, really looked, and noticed that there was no music on, no television on, the room was really dimly lit. She couldn’t stop the confusion spreading across her face quickly enough for Emily to not notice it.

“Were you just sat here in silence?” JJ sounded more perplexed than she had intended and regretted asking the question.

The brunette recoiled slightly, a conversation about what she had been doing before JJ had shown up was not high on her list of things she wanted to do right now.

Emily laughed nervously, fidgeting in her seat.

“I was just about to find something to read before you got here, I promise I’m not some weirdo who just sits in their apartment in the dark on their own drinking at night,” she knew she was lying through her teeth, and that over explaining did nothing but throw suspicion on the situation, but JJ didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did, she was too polite to challenge the older woman.

They returned to a comfortable silence for a few minutes after that, basking in the dim orange glow of the singular lampshade in the corner of the room.

Clinging to the safety that the dull room offered, Emily found herself once again drifting into thoughts of Jennifer, ones that usually made her blush. Thankfully her cheeks were already flushed from the alcohol she’d consumed. If they weren’t she’d risk giving a little piece of herself away. Illicit thoughts of smooth skin and hot breath, of todays and tomorrows and forevers were only made more tangible by the brightness glowing around the blonde sat opposite her.

Her brain was getting ahead of itself, it was running away from her, being tempted by the warmth of Jennifer’s presence. Emily was beginning to spiral, starting to lose her footing in the dark. She knew that she was in dangerous territory, she risked exposure.

All the while JJ knew Emily was still unsure as to why she had come. If she were to be totally honest, she wasn’t sure she had known why either.

JJ had been silently observing the brunette for a few minutes, seeing the shadows that framed her body dance, almost taunting the blonde. Despite her fear of the dark, JJ felt no fear while watching Emily. It was surprising, ordinarily she would run from the dark. The darkness encapsulated memories JJ had spent years storing away, of bathtubs filled with tears and regret, of futures stolen and childhoods ended.

But with Emily; the darkness doesn’t seem so dark.

After years of avoiding the night at all costs, JJ felt herself drawn in, why else would she have shown up unannounced with no motive other than to be close to Emily? Reaching for her metaphorical flashlight, JJ had made her decision, time to reach out and see what mysteries lay within the shadows around Emily’s soul.

“Have I ever told you about my sister?” JJ asked, staring Emily down with determination, afraid that she’d retreat if she didn’t clutch to the reality of Emily’s honey brown eyes.

Waiting for a reply, JJ untucked her legs, reached forwards to place her now empty glass down, and returned her hands to her lap.

“No, I didn’t want to pry,” Emily replied, unable to ignore the sadness swimming in her friend’s gaze.

“It’s a long story, she was unhappy, no one could pull her out from the darkness that had consumed the vibrant girl she once was. I was only young, of course, I didn’t really understand mental illness back then, it was just a monster that came in the middle of the night and stole her from me,” JJ had lowered her gaze, now choosing to stare at her knuckles, which were beginning to turn white from the way her hands were wringing each other.

Emily considered her carefully, watching the conflict play across her features but not wanting to interrupt. She felt the weight of the younger woman’s words stab at her own chest and she wanted nothing more than to go back in time to try and pull both little girls out from the grip of blackness that had overwhelmed them.

The knowledge that JJ had too flirted with darkness also saddened the older women. Her own demons were lurking so close to the surface, always ready to latch on and throw her into the abyss, it hadn’t really occurred to her that such iridescence as JJ would know how it felt.

JJ continued her monologue, still staring into her own lap, hoping that by sharing this part of her life, Emily would begin to understand what she was really trying to say.

“That’s the thing about losing someone you love so young, they take a piece of you with them. You’re forever changed by their presence in your world, one moment they’re shaping the way you think, the next they’re suddenly gone, before you’ve been built into the person you’re supposed to be. Nothing can replace them and no one can finish the work they started. There was so much I didn’t know back then, my mom tried, she really did, but she had her own darkness to fight off.”

JJ finally lifted her eyes, wondering when the room had gotten so small, and why the air was suddenly so thick. Emily felt so close and yet still so much separated them.

When Emily finally had the chance to once again look at JJ, she was overwhelmed by a tugging in her chest. A sad smile appeared on the blonde’s face.

“I don’t really know where that came from, sorry,” JJ said, seeing the hurt written in Emily’s face, almost a reflection of her own.

“No, don’t apologise, I’m grateful that you feel safe enough to share this with me,” Emily replied, moving her glass to the coffee table so that she could smooth the fabric of her trousers with her hands.

“I suppose what I’m really trying to say is that it takes one to know one, and I can see you’ve been visited by the same darkness as me, I just need you to know that we care. That I care. Don’t ever think you have to be in that dark place alone,” JJ finished, as she unclasp her hands and felt the tension in her muscles begin to relax.  

Emily was beginning to panic internally, but was determined to not let it show. There is far too much baggage in her past, like an old attic packed with years of trauma, while she lives in the house underneath, wondering when the ceiling would cave in from the weight of it all.

“I appreciate that Jayje, I really do, I’m so sorry you had to deal with all of that so young, it’s a lot for anyone, let alone a child,” her face softened as she imagined a little blonde girl with pig tails running around laughing one day and curled up in a ball crying the next.

Something about the way JJ was able to shelf her own trauma to offer a hand to Emily was so profound to her. How can one person carry so much weight and still offer to carry more without crumbling?

Jennifer Jareau was the strongest person Emily had ever met, and she deserved the best. And while she may not know everything like Spencer, Emily knew she was far from the best. She was compromised, she was broken, she was damaged beyond repair, but most of all, she was aching.

Emily ached from carrying her secrets, her muscles sore from withholding a sky full of night time. Her heart ached to reach out into the brightness of JJ’s soul, to allow the warmth to consume her instead of wandering eternally in a sunless cold.

A sudden jolt of electricity caused Emily to be resuscitated from her thoughts. Coming back to the present, she identified the source, JJ had walked over to her and was squatting in front of her, with her hand resting gently over Emily’s own.

“Hey, look at me, you went somewhere and left me behind,” JJ spoke softly, unsure as to when she’d become so bold but not questioning it.

As she was brought back to the room, Emily lifted her eyes from where JJ’s hand was covering over own up to the other woman’s face, seeing the way the blonde’s eyes flickered slightly, unable to decide where to look.

Emily’s other hand began to move without her consent, and before she could protest, it was cupping JJ’s cheek, stroking the soft skin there with its thumb. The warmth it found was so inviting and the fact that JJ hadn’t retreated at her touch caused her stomach to flip.

JJ’s eyelids softly shut at the contact as she inhaled, leaning in to the older woman’s touch. This time JJ felt the electricity between them too.

For when the light met the darkness a thousand fires burned. But when the darkness met the light, earthquakes erupted and tsunamis raged, the whole world stood still before spinning off its axis. The energy shared between them challenged a hundred supernovas and threatened to cause mass extinction. It could wreak havoc on ecosystems and tear apart the very fabric of time itself. However, in that moment, as they sat connected in mind and body, something else peaked through.

All these years of lurking in the supposed safety of shadows, Emily had forgotten, without light nothing grows. After all, it wasn’t until the Big Bang that life itself began.